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 S02E22 – Review

By: Jake Coburn & Ben Sokolowski (story)

The Story: It’s Opposite Day in Starling City as assassins go out of their way to save lives.

The Review: Late again! No big movie premiere got in the way this time, just studying for a big final. I always feel bad doing this to Arrow, especially since it’s been in its prime this season, but such is the way of this harsh, unforgiving world. I think the characters of Arrow would understand. Right now, they’re struggling to survive in a Starling City on the brink of oblivion, facing threats within and without, from above and below, despite the best of intentions.

It’s kind of amazing how many of the most twisted characters in the show are the ones most convinced that they’re doing the right thing. Slade, of course, has the excuse of being legitimately off his rocker, but Blood seems blind to his own crimes even as he acknowledges the mistake he made in partnering with Slade. With his entire office slain,* the city in near ruins, and even after Isabel gives him the run-through on the end of his mayorship, his last words are a clenched, defiant, “I loved this city.” It’s an interesting moment in that he expresses no regret for what he’s actually done, yet there’s still a note of triumph, even manic heroism in his voice.

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 S02E07 – Review

By: Marc Guggenheim & Drew Z. Greenberg (story)

The Story: Vertigo’s out of order, Moira’s out of order, this whole city’s out of order!

The Review: Moira Queen is an interesting figure within the Arrow universe.  Central as she is to some of the show’s most important storylines, she’s never been much of an active player in any of them.  This is partially the fault of her character makeup; as an upper-class socialite with few discernible skills, she has little choice but to fall back on classic feminine wiles to exert her power.  She deceives, schemes, bargains, but rarely do you see her actually do anything.

Yet even in this limited capacity, Moira does far more than other characters in her position, which is mother to our hero.  Usually, these women are relegated to little more than sounding boards for their children’s exploits and had Moira been trapped in this role, she’d have a much smaller presence in the show.  As she is now, her sole purpose seems to be generating drama for the other principals to grapple with, a function which she serves very well.

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 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 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.