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 S02E18 – Review

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

The Story: Have you seen this girl? If so, call the Arrow on his encrypted phone line.

The Review: When Slade swore revenge against Ollie, you assumed he was seeking retribution equal to the suffering he believed Ollie caused him—an eye for an eye, appropriately enough. By that calculation, and factoring in Shado’s death, you expected this meant the death of all of Ollie’s loved ones. But we’ve seen since that Slade’s vengeance is nothing so simple. He’s had ample opportunity to kill everyone in Ollie’s orbit since he came to Starling City, yet he’s held back every time.

Of course, Slade has changed objectives since the island. In “Three Ghosts”, he promised anew, “I am going to tear everything [Ollie] cares about away from him. Destroy those who choose to follow him. Corrupt those he loves.” Ollie dies only after “he has lost everyone and everything he values[.]” It’s a psychological breakdown Slade wants for Ollie, not unlike the one he’s experienced since the dual trauma of being injected with the Mirakuru and losing Shado.*

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 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?