Arrow S02E02 – Review

By: Ben Sokolowski & Beth Schwartz (story)

The Story: For once, you can’t blame incompetence for FEMA’s problems.

The Review: Turning over a new leaf is never an easy process.  Aside from the difficulty of changing old habits, you’ve now got to learn how to apply your new ones to your life.  When Ollie indicated last week that he’s ready to take a different tack to his vigilantism, that murder is no longer his first option, you have to wonder if he took into account the changes in Starling City since his Return from the Island, Part II.

With the Glades in total disarray, the city now seems legitimately in desperate need of a hero.  The villains have only stepped up their game since season one, carrying out more dastardly crimes than ever.  As she preys upon the medication lifeline from FEMA that the Glades’ hospitals depend on to survive, China White proves that she’s only grown fiercer and less scrupulous since she was hired to take down Malcolm Merlyn—and now she’s bringing friends.  Taking on a no-kill rule under those circumstances seems to signal a lot of future uphill battles.

Arrow S01E16 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story)

The Story: For once, it’d be nice to get decked out for a party and not get shot at.

The Review: While I can’t claim to be the kind of critic who can, just from writing style alone, tell who the writer is, I can usually notice when there’s been a change in the storytelling duties.  So though I couldn’t quite pin it while watching this episode, I knew something was very, very different.  Later, I went online to check for the writing credits, as per habit, and when I saw that it was Johns who wrote the screenplay, suddenly the whole thing made sense.

I’ve often observed (read: complained) that while the show has introduced a lot of interesting elements and characters, it’s never done a terrific job melding them all together into a cohesive whole.  Figures that it’d take Johns, the master of continuity massage, to do what nearly every previous writer could not figure out.  Instead of every plotline and its players keeping their distance from each other, they finally feel like they exist in a close, interactive world.

Arrow S01E02 – Review

By: Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, Andrew Kreisberg (story)

The Story: In which you get one more reason why Legal Aid is the most thankless job ever.

The Review: The most important lesson I took from the massively disappointing Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is nothing is less funny than someone that tries to be funny—and actually succeeds in convincing himself he’s funny.  The second most important lesson I learned from the show is a strong pilot can easily give way to a mediocre or downright terrible show.  From then on, I’ve always kept my expectations in control until after the mid-season.

This strategy seems especially appropriate when dealing with a CW adaptation of a comic book character.  Despite a pretty solid debut last week, it wouldn’t be difficult for me to imagine a scenario where the quality of Arrow episodes just plummets afterward.  That doesn’t quite happen here, but you do feel that whatever momentum the pilot generated, it gets a little lost in the follow-up.