Arrow S02E23 – Review

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

The Story: Mercenaries versus assassins versus special ops versus superheroes. Go!

The Review: So I just took my last law school final ever yesterday! Aren’t you all proud of me? No? Get on with the review, already? Okay. The last season has seen Arrow fully embracing its comic book origins with pride, drawing in established characters from the DC canon from all levels, the great and the obscure alike, all in an impressively organic way. The finale is thus a culmination of the work and spirit of the season as a whole, which is what a season finale should be.

Not only does every cast member get a big part in the proceedings (except, perhaps, for Dinah), nearly every major character introduced in the last two seasons shows up, with appearances from Malcolm Merlyn, Deadshot, Amanda Waller, Nyssa Al Ghul, and even Lyla, flying in on a helicopter and firing a rocket launcher to ward off some of Slade’s army. The conflicts range from the epic (a city-wide war between an army of superhuman convicts against Team Arrow and a battalion of assassins, all with the threat of an A.R.G.U.S. drone strike looming overhead) to the personal (Ollie’s fight to the death with Slade, twice over). That’s what I call a season finale worthy of superheroes.

Arrow S02E21 – Review

By: Holly Harold (story)

The Story: Beware the men in masks.

The Review: I actually watched this episode of Arrow the night it came out, and had an outline of a review ready to go yesterday, but due to circumstances beyond my control (i.e., desperately trying to finish a multitude of assignments at the last minute after putting them off for a week or two), I didn’t get around to writing the thing until evening. By then, it was time for my showing of Amazing Spider-Man 2 and of course, movies have priority over TV episodes. You know how it is.

Watching and reviewing ASM2 did have an interesting effect on my evaluation of “City of Blood,” though. Specifically, I suddenly became a lot more sensitive about the sketchier bits of plotting in this episode. Dinah’s illicit investigation into Blood’s records seems more questionable now than it did the first time around. I’m just saying it’s a good thing that tech specialist she and her dad persuade into assisting didn’t have too rigid a moral compass (at first hesitant about hacking the newly elected mayor, he gives in: “Hell, this is a dead end job, anyway.”). And thank goodness Blood for some reason keeps a timestamp at the bottom of his press release drafts, just so you know that he was forewarned of Moira’s death. Dinah and Quentin might have had to do some actual research, otherwise.

Arrow S02E19 – Review

By: Greg Berlanti, Geoff Johns, Andrew Kreisberg, Keto Shimizu (story)

The Story: Isabel may have had a point when she said Ollie would drag his company into ruin.

The Review: Not unlike the most recent episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Arrow had some fairly momentous developments last time around, but left almost no time for anyone to really process them. That task is left up to this episode, the entirety of which is less about taking action and more about responding to actions already taken. It’s a quieter episode than we’re used to, but perhaps a necessary one to allow the characters to inspect the damage that’s been dealt to each of them.

For Thea, this means a thorough examination of herself, to see how much of her identity has been eroded by the dual whammies of Roy leaving and discovering her true parentage. When you consider that around this time last year, Thea had nothing going for her character other than a cliché of a teen romance with Roy, it’s quite remarkable to see her running one of the strongest character arcs of the season. Her entire outburst to Ollie as to how devastating Slade’s revelation has been to her is genuine and effective throughout, starting from her correction that he isn’t her brother, but her half-brother.

Arrow S02E17 – Review

By: Mark Bemesderfer & A.C. Bradley (story)

The Story: Ollie encounters the wrath of girlfriends past.

The Review: While any intimate relationship between human beings leaves its mark even after it’s over, romances tend to have the most profound effects on people—not surprising, as you’re often baring more of yourself to your partner than anyone else, even your friends and family. Looking at a person’s ex, how they met, how they got along, and how they broke up, you get a fairly complete portrait of who that person is for however long the relationship lasts.

After last week’s episode put Diggle front and center, you’d think the focus would shift right back to Ollie this time around. Instead, the spotlight trains elsewhere, only partially illuminating Ollie on the fringes. Since all three of the main players—Helena, Sara, and Dinah—have been romantically entangled with Ollie at one point (some twice!), the episode isn’t entirely divorced from its star, but his role is felt rather than seen. He’s an influence, but not the focus.

Arrow S02E14 – Review

By: Wendy Mericle & Beth Schwartz (story)

The Story: Nothing like a tirade against your long-lost sister to ruin a family dinner.

The Review: Apologies for the lateness, but midterm duties called and I had to answer.  You know how it is.  But let’s not waste any more time than we have already.  This week’s episode finally puts a pin in the most troubled part of the show this season: Dinah, burgeoning alcoholic, pill-popper, drama queen, and all-around mess.  It’s not hard to see her trajectory towards rock bottom, but the ETA has been repeatedly delayed by new personal crises.

But then, Arrow has always struggled to find a place for Dinah, established early on as one of its major figures, but quickly overshadowed by the rest of the cast, even, lately, Roy.  At this point, Dinah is in a very risky position for a character in a fictional series: she doesn’t have a clear or secure position in relation to Ollie except as a romantic interest, nor does she have a purpose of her own to pursue.  The closest she came to either of these things was her untimely investigation into Sebastian Blood, which only led her further along her downward spiral.  Frankly, this was all starting to seem dangerously Mandy-esque.*

Arrow S02E13 – Review

By: Jake Coburn (story)

The Story: It should be common sense that you should never cross an assassin in love.

The Review: Arrow constantly surprises me with its obviously deep, committed knowledge of DC continuity.  There have been a lot of times on this show when I thought it was introducing a completely original character or concept, only to discover, a quick Wiki later, that it had instead found some obscure part of the DCU to repurpose for its own uses.  More power to them, I say.  Why not make use of that colorful universe and simultaneously update it for a modern audience?

Interestingly enough, while most of the New 52 comics have been recycling familiar, bankable material, it’s Arrow that’s exposed me to the more obscure corners of DC continuity.  Case in point: I had no idea that Ra’s al Ghul ever had any other children than Talia. I was sure that Nyssa Raatko was just a stand-in for her more famous sister, probably because of highly complicated legal and proprietary reasons.  That she is a character in her own right, one in many ways more nuanced and intriguing than Talia, is the pleasantest of surprises.

Arrow S02E11 – Review

By: Wendy Mericle & Beth Schwartz (story)

The Story: Dinah’s lousy, no-good, very bad day.

The Review: The moment Dinah took on this mission to discredit and expose a man with as much goodwill as Sebastian Blood, she should have known there was always a possibility that it would backfire on her.  Perhaps she can be excused for hoping that her father and closest friend might put more weight on her word than their own besotted view of Blood, but to do so without even a scrap of proof?  That’s expecting a bit much, especially for an assistant D.A.

Therein lies the structural weakness of Dinah’s storyline, or at least the show’s treatment of it.  It’s clear that the end goal was always to drive her into a corner then pull the rug out from under her.  Each episode has been systematically doing that from the season premiere, eroding away what little competence and confidence she had left after losing Tommy.  But even though the writers have accomplished their goal and finally left her reeling at rock-bottom, they had to take some major leaps to get there.

Arrow S02E10 – Review

By: Jake Coburn & Keto Shimizu (story)

The Story: Sebastian Blood’s rally is going to blow through the roof.

The Review: After pointing out Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s reliance on the monster-of-the-week episode format, it’s only fair to discuss how the format works in Arrow.  In season one, Arrow acted much like any other CW drama, each week introducing a new villain for Ollie to tackle and learn something from.  Since then, however, the show has mostly outgrown that formula, sustaining itself almost entirely on material from ongoing storylines.

Transitions like this usually happen across a long period of time, so I can’t point out exactly which episode marked the start of Arrow’s evolution.  Somewhere along the way, however, the showrunners must have realized the short-term benefits of developing corporate scumbags and various other criminals, only to put them away after a single episode.  From that point, Arrow invested fully in building continuity to last, drawing in new characters only in service to the long-term plot.  The show has done this very well for quite a while now, so when this episode falls back on old tricks, it’s noticeable and disappointing.

Arrow S02E09 – Review

By: Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg, Geoff Johns, Ben Sokolowski (story)

The Story: This will teach Oliver to distrust the life-saving powers of rat poison.

The Review: I still get a little mental jolt every time I encounter a decidedly non-comic-booky person who says he or she loves Arrow.  As delighted as I am, it’s all I can do to stop myself from asking suspiciously, “Why?”  The popularity of superhero movies, each one a massive dose of generally undemanding escapism, I can understand.  A TV show requires a certain amount of commitment, so how does Arrow earn it without playing on pure fanship?

For this episode, I tried looking at it through the lens of someone who had little to no connection with the DCU or its mythology at all, which was perhaps bad timing on my part.  Arrow has long outgrown throwing in the obligatory Easter Eggs; DC mainstays now make up a significant demographic of the show’s population, and it’s not just second or third-tier figures, either.  Here, the show is clearly confident enough to take on the big leagues, from the return of Deathstroke (with eye-patch, most importantly), the birth of Solomon Grundy, and Barry Allen’s transformation into the Flash—and you don’t get any bigger than that.

Arrow S02E05 – Review

By: Jake Coburn & Drew Z. Greenberg (story)

The Story: When assassins come calling, calm yourself with Chinese food.

The Review: As much as I happen to love WCBR’s letter-grading system, it does lead me into some tricky quandaries, not the least of which is the separation between an X-, X, or X+.  It’s easy enough to get a sense of what letter-grade something deserves, but justifying those tweaks, slight as they are, is a more difficult task.  I didn’t start out this review with the intention of making insights into my grading rubric, but I think this episode is a good sample for just that.

Last week, I gave “Crucible” a B.  Today, I’m giving “League of Assassins” a B+.  But why?  What did last night’s episode do just ever so much better than its predecessor that gives it that edge?  What did it not do to creep over into A territory?  Does Minhquan really have any objective criteria for this kind of distinction or is he just an arbitrary critic who also apparently likes to refer to himself in the third person?

Arrow S02E04 – Review

By: Andrew Kreisberg & Wendy Mericle (story)

Spoilers ahead.  From the moment it was announced a Canary would be appearing on the show, speculation ran rampant as to her identity.  Quite a lot of people immediately insisted that it had to be Sarah, the younger Lance sister who ran away with Ollie, only to meet her watery death.  I, always hoping that a story won’t be tempted to take such an obvious route, thought there was at least a possibility not-Canary would turn out to someone no one expected.

Once again, however, I find my hopes ruthlessly dashed.  From the moment that Felicity and Ollie hypothesize that not-Canary has been following Dinah, not Ollie, all along, it pretty much clinches the Sarah theory.  I’ll say this for Arrow, though: it doesn’t tend to dance around the obvious.  Rather than spend an entire episode delaying the inevitable reveal, the show gets it all over with in the cold open, leaving us free to enjoy the fallout.

Arrow S02E03 – Review

By: Marc Guggenheim & Keto Shimizu (story)

The Story: Yet another reason to be suspicious of men who collect dolls.

The Review: I never thought I’d see the day when a TV series from DC featuring Green Arrow—and on the CW, for crying out loud—would inspire greater enthusiasm than a Marvel series.  But when I found myself suddenly very much looking forward to the next showing of Arrow as a palette cleanser from the disappointment that was Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s fifth episode, it made me realize how much confidence Arrow has earned since its debut.*

Obviously, it’s unfair to compare a show that has already won a second season to one that hasn’t even reached the halfway point of its first just yet.  Arrow comes now with the benefit of nearly a year’s worth of character work and interrelationships, so your emotional investment will naturally be greater.  This episode in particularly puts all that development on full display, and you may be surprised by how potent some of the character combinations turn out to be.

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 S02E01 – Review

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

The Story: Nothing like a good island getaway to relieve the stress of a devastated hometown.

The Review: Even though the first season of Arrow came with all the growing pains every new show experiences as it settles on its voice, it built a lot of confidence with viewers like me because it not only knew exactly what kind of story and tone it wanted, but it also had the humility to make changes as needed.  That makes Arrow’s second season job much easier, when the goal is to capitalize on early strengths while rejiggering the things that didn’t quite work.

The cold open does both tasks at once and thus sets a good for the rest of the episode.  No matter how poignant Ollie’s interactions with his family or intriguing his romance with Dinah, the relationship that truly drives the show is the dynamic between Ollie, Diggle, and Felicity.  Kicking off the season with Diggle and Felicity (now promoted to series regular), skydiving towards Lian Yu and barely escaping death by land mine thanks to a grappling-line rescue by Ollie, makes for a very good start indeed.

Arrow S01E23 – Review

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

The Story: Sometimes it feels like your whole world is tumbling down around you.

The Review: Phew.  Let me tell you: covering a TV series from start to finish requires quite a bit of commitment, and the task is made even more difficult by a show like Arrow, which is still, even here in its first season finale, trying to find itself.  It’s a show that’s got so many genres and elements mixed together that finding the right balance among them all could take another season or so yet.  But here, it proves itself worthy of investing in its evolution, however long it takes.

This episode works because while it has the same over-the-top energy that defeated the show’s credibility in other instances, it channels that energy in all the right places.  Malcolm’s speech to a trussed up Ollie starts as a drag of a villain’s monologue, crowing and condescending at the same time: “You can’t beat me, Oliver.  Yes, you’re younger, and you’re faster, and yet you always seem to come up short against me.”  But after all that’s out of the way, he reveals his choicest lines: “You want to know why?  Because you don’t know in your heart what you’re fighting for—what you’re willing to sacrifice.  And I do.”

Arrow S01E22 – Review

By: Drew Z. Greenberg & Wendy Mericle (story)

The Story: Every good mother-son relationship is built on honesty—even if you have to threaten it out of them.

The Review: Last night I was talking to a friend online and when I mentioned that I watched Arrow, he asked, “Oh, yeah—how is that?”  I told him what I felt was the truth.  “It’s a truly mixed bag.”  And it really, truly is.  There have been some standout episodes this season, and ones that I could very easily forget, but overall, the average showing of Arrow is usually an uneven combination of high points and low points.

For example, can we be spared the pointless and awkward exposition already?  Dinah meets with Ollie at his club, then proceeds to give him a recap of what happened between them last week, starting, unbelievably enough, by saying, “Last week, I told you that I wanted to get back with Tommy—that I needed you to go to him and explain to him that you didn’t still have feelings for me.  But instead, you told me that you did.”  She might as well have preceded the line with, “Previously, on Arrow…”

Arrow S01E21 – Review

By: Jake Coburn & Lana Cho (story)

The Story: Felicity and Ollie take a bet on their teamwork as a duo act.

The Review: With the season winding down, it’s just about the time for the show’s writers to start tying all their various plot threads together into something suitable for the finale, a big task for a series as active as Arrow.  Over the last twenty episodes, we’ve seen a number of characters introduced, killed off or shooed away, then returned; a handful of romances sparked, some of which have already petered out; and the addition of several major cast members.

Through it all there was always the looming threat of Malcolm Merlyn’s Undertaking, ostensibly a final attempt to clean up the Glades for good, but really just an extreme strike back against the place which took his wife.  With all the other craziness happening in the show (e.g. Tommy discovering Ollie’s secret, Diggle going after Deadshot), the Undertaking has taken a bit of a backseat, and we really don’t know too many details as to what it’ll entail just yet.

Arrow S01E20 – Review

By: Ben Sokolowski & Beth Schwartz (story)

The Story: I suppose we can’t flip a coin to decide which assassin to take down first.

The Review: A few years ago, I took a course on opinion writing for my journalism major.  As a beginner’s exercise, we all had to write a short piece expressing our point of view on pretty much anything that came to mind.  One of my classmates delivered an impassioned tirade about Twilight, mostly about how Edward Cullen “sparkled,” which drove her insane because “Vampires don’t SPARKLE.”  She had strong opinions about supernatural figures, you see.

I can’t say I have too many pet peeves when it comes to fiction—and none that gets me riled up like sparkling vampires did for my classmate.  But there are little things that pop up in stories that sometimes bother me.  The one that gets to me the most is when writers subjugate characters to their story, turning them into means to an end, rather than figures who have personalities and lives of their own, separate from whatever story the writer has in mind.  This episode reminds me how Arrow often reduces the characters to mere objects, all orbiting around the show’s star.

Arrow S01E19 – Review

By: Bryan Q. Miller & Lindsey Allen (story)

The Story: Clearly, Starling City needs to institute a better D.A.R.E. program.

The Review: I have to say, sometimes it’s a blessing to have a short-term memory.  I had known both Geoff Johns and Miller would write episodes on this show at some point and looked forward to them—but then forgot all about it.  When “Dead to Rights” aired, I enjoyed it quite thoroughly, far more than I’d enjoyed any prior episode, and was delighted to discover that Johns had penned it.  It’s nice to know that my own biases had no chance to affect my judgment.

Well, the same thing happened here.  About halfway through the show, I found myself more genuinely engaged with it than usual and by the end credits, I was not only curious, but really kind of excited for next week’s offering.  Only then did I learn Miller had his hand in it.  Again, the belated discovery made a lot of sense, as this episode had a number of things going for it that previous episodes did not.

Arrow S01E18 – Review

By: Drew Z. Greenburg & Wendy Mericle (story)

The Story: Proof that neglect of public transit will just come back to haunt a city someday.

The Review: Not that this show has shied away from violence, but it’s always been the kind of unalarming,* almost campy kind of violence where people tend to die suddenly or bloodlessly (unless, of course, one is being stabbed, in which case the actual piercing takes place off screen and only afterward do you see the bloody blade next to the crazed grin of the stabber).  In Arrow, as in comics, death has been taken for granted; it usually doesn’t have the force it should.

Greenburg-Mericle try to change that in this episode’s villain-of-the-day, another would-be vigilante who picks up various folk he believes deserve punishment, strings them up, then asks them for last words before shooting them point-blank.  What makes this otherwise melodramatic scene convincing is the fact that he actually broadcasts these executions to Starling City at large.

Arrow S01E17 – Review

By: Jake Coburn & Lana Cho (story)

The Story: Everyone duck and cover—Ollie’s crazy ex is back in town!

The Review: Because I’m nothing if not an optimist, I like to think that every time a piece of fiction reintroduces a character, it has the opportunity to strip away the problematic parts in favor of someone more nuanced, complex, and accessible to the audience.  What Arrow has frequently done instead is reduce major DC figures to the simplest incarnation possible.  In the show’s attempt to make these characters more grounded or edgy, it’s also made them rather monotonous.

It doesn’t help if other characters tend to view each other in taglines and bywords.  When both Diggle and Felicity refer repeatedly to Helena Bertinelli as Ollie’s “psycho ex-girlfriend,” they’re reinforcing the one-dimensional nature of Helena’s personality.  Vengefulness is already a somewhat inert character trait, and vengefulness towards one’s own father—to the point where one doesn’t even want to risk letting him have a “second chance”—is even less impressive.

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 S01E13 – Review

By: Lana Cho & Beth Schwartz (story)

The Story: The awkward moment when a father and daughter realize they’re after the same man.

The Review: In all my television-viewing years, I don’t remember a time when the WB (now CW) had a real, big hit on its hands.  It never had a beloved sitcom like Friends or an anchor drama like Law and Order.  If the network ever won an Emmy, it was rare and far in-between.  Seeing as how I’m in the business of guessing at things I have no direct experience in, my theory is that WB/CW shows never really manage to take risks that break them free of old formulas.

Arrow provides an interesting case in point.  A mix of different genres, it doesn’t really excel in any one, nor does it manage to balance its various stories well.  The characters generally feel like second-grade, cookie-cutter carbons of other, more famous figures.  The show often seems to take plotlines from a recycle pile of stories, gives them a good buffing, then integrates them into an episode.  It all comes across as vaguely knockoff, like clothes from Gorgio Armooni.

Arrow S01E12 – Review

By: Wendy Mericle & Ben Sokolowski (story)

The Story: No one tries to put Green Arrow’s little sister in the slammer—nobody!

The Review: Although it’s taken some creative fudging and narrative necessity, the show has finally established a somewhat enduring familial relationship between Ollie, Thea, and Moira.  Time will tell if the Queen family dynamics can carry the show over the long term.  For now, it’s enough that you get a sense of sincere affection among the trio, though tested by frequent, sudden switches in their personality or temperament.

Ollie’s vacillations between caring and coldness have become second-nature by now, but Thea’s unpredictable attitudes seem patented for the sake of injecting conflict and drama as needed.  She begins the episode pale and nervous about her court hearing, is visibly shaken when the judge rejects her plea agreement,* but all of sudden displays a rather condescending, jerky side to Dinah when the older gal offers her an alternative to prison time.  All this to get back at her mom, which only makes Thea seem a bit petty and lame.

Arrow S01E11 – Review

By: Gabrielle Stanton (story)

The Story: Diggle attempts to get someone off of Ollie’s naughty list.

The Review: For the last couple episodes, the show has started drifting away from its usual pattern of crossing off names in Ollie’s list in favor of some more spontaneous heroics, drawing us a little closer to the Green Arrow we know and love each time.  I heartily approve of this transition, because the list has long become an extremely gimmicky plot device, fitfully generating a passable conflict for Ollie to tackle when all else fails.

Basically, stories drawn from the list have resulted in safe but bland episodes for the show.  Even last episode starring Firefly, which I largely panned, at least had some risk you could enjoy.  Here, ex-military and present military nut Ted Gaynor breaks somewhat out of the corporate mold of previous list names, but even he proves to be fairly pedestrian as an opponent.  He’s just mercenary, which makes no villain stand out unless he’s Deathstroke.