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.