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 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 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 S02E08 – Review

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

The Story: No time for nerd love when there be superhumans romping about.

The Review: Not that Arrow has ever been ashamed of its superhero roots, but for a long time, the show shied away from anything that would classify as “super.”  Obviously, this was part of an attempt to present Arrow as a semi-realistic and grounded superhero adaptation in the mold of the recent Batman movies, but there’s also always the risk that bringing in characters flashier and more powerful than our hero himself would marginalize him in his own show.

That doesn’t quite happen in this episode, but you can see the potential threat the moment we’re introduced to a bona fide superhuman as well as the mere promise of one.  The former, gifted with most basic gifts of prodigious strength and durability, gives Ollie so good a thrashing that his allies are forced to resort to the most drastic measures to save his life.  The latter, even with no special powers to speak of at present, receives such prominence—which is due just from his iconography—that he at times overshadows even Ollie’s presence in the episode.

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 S01E14 – Review

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

The Story: Past-Ollie steps on a mine; Present-Ollie gets shot by his mom.  Rough day.

The Review: I’ve been pretty tough on the most recent episodes of Arrow, occasionally to the consternation of the WCBR readers, but believe me when I say I’m not tearing down the show out of pure malice.  Mostly, my frustration has been with the show’s refusal to capitalize on its own potential.  It really can be so many things, yet it shirks on nearly all fronts, and nearly every time it tries a game-changer move, it winds up sticking with the same game in the end.

Nowhere does that appear more obvious than in Ollie’s fretful position on how to deal with his mom.  His adamant refusal to even consider Moira a threat last episode already reflected poorly on his integrity.  He had a huge opportunity to redeem himself here when he crashes through her office and convincingly scares the bejeezus out of her.  And then, in a moment that begs you to throw your popcorn at the television, he lets her go.

Arrow S01E09 – Review

By: Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, Andrew Kreisberg

The Story: The Arrow that saved Christmas.

The Review: You should know that I’m a total sap for Christmas, which makes me and people like me something of an oddity in a world where people mostly see the cynical, materialistic, socially conditioned side of the holiday—but I don’t care.  Even if you don’t celebrate it, you have to appreciate that Christmas, in its purest form, is about finding ways to give and care for the ones you love, and that’s always a good thing in my book.

In the gritty confines of Arrow, it seems unusual, then, for the spirit of Christmas to rear its head, particularly from no other than the driven and hardened Oliver Queen.  Who’d expect him to get so sappy about his dad’s old Christmas parties when he’s so focused on crushing corporate moguls?  At any rate, Ollie’s eagerness to revive his family’s holiday tradition brings out a sweet, lovable side to him that’s in short supply these days, although when things don’t go the way he plans, his eagerness quickly turns into resentment.

Arrow S01E03 – Review

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

The Story: If arrows work so well against bullets, how do you explain the Spanish empire?

The Review: As a show grows, it usually does one of two things: keep on doing what it does best or constantly trying new things in an attempt to reinvent itself—or perish.  Following my usual pattern of analogizing things to NBC sitcoms, I give you two examples: 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation.  At some point, 30 Rock embraced its weirdness and never looked back, perhaps to its detriment.  Parks and Rec, meanwhile, continues to evolve week by week.

In the end, Parks and Rec remains nearly as solid as it began, while 30 Rock has waxed and waned as it struggles to find new variables to fit into its comedic formula.  Arrow will do well to emulate the P&R strategy.  It simply cannot sustain itself with a weekly pattern of Ollie taking down yet another scummy CEO in an urbanized “Monster of the Week” format.  Thankfully, we see the show continuing to take steps to break up the rut before it digs itself too deep.

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.

Arrow S01E01 – Review

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

The Story: Sure bullets pack more punch, but when was the last time you zip-lined with one?

The Review: Much as anyone loves the idea of getting to watch their favorite superheroes on live-action TV every week, some pretty big obstacles get in the way of that particular dream.  As a modern audience, we expect greater realism (read: money) from the stories and special effects than the people who watched Lynda Carter spin into costume on Wonder Woman.  And the more extensive a superhero’s powers, the more opportunity there is for a show to disappoint.

If you take all that into consideration, Smallville was a pretty impressive series, balancing both the fulfillment of comic book dreams and budgetary restraints for ten seasons—kind of the Holy Grail of television longevity.  I imagine, however, that the folks at the CW weren’t keen on going through that that kind of expense again.  While the aborted Aquaman project presented all kinds of watery CGI that made producers’ heads spin, Arrow seems more manageable.