This week on Arrow: Ollie goes on trial for his vigilante actions while more flashbacks to the island! Spoilers!
1.) I don’t think that’s how the justice system works.
After last week’s cliffhanger, where Ollie was arrested by Quentin Lance, the only detective in Starling City, for being Arrow, Queen is put under house arrest at his awesome mansion until he can await trial. I’m no lawyer, but I really don’t think that alleged murderers are just allowed to be under house arrested, even if they are awaiting trial. Especially when the murderer lives the nicest mansion in the city. Anyway, Lance tries to build a case against Ollie while his daughter, Laurel, acts as Ollie’s lawyer because he has dreamy eyes. I’d like to point out that Quentin has no right being the lead officer against Ollie, the man who he blames for his daughter’s death, because no officers are allowed to be personally invested in a case but since Lance is seemingly the only detective in Starling City, the one judge in the city lets it slide. Anyway, Ollie’s master plan is to pass a polygraph test because, on the Island (the flashbacks of which we’ll get to later) he managed to resist some intense torture. Everyone agrees with these polygraphs results, because everyone ever on TV is unaware that polygraphs almost never work. Not every show, especially a superhero one, needs to be necessarily realistic with the legal system. But when a show is so focused on being “gritty” and “realistic” like Arrow is, it shouldn’t feel so awkward. There is. however, one strategy Ollie uses to beat the legal system that I can fully agree with:
2.) Diggle!
This week was an amazing week for Diggle. While Diggle is confronting Ollie about how inappropriate it is to throw a “prison-themed” party during his house arrest (another thing I’m sure someone can’t do under house arrest), Ollie responds by namedropping a gun-runner in town, giving the gunrunner’s location, and pointing at the Arrow gear while moving his eyebrows a lot and winking. Diggle responds less awesomely than last time; that is, he doesn’t throw a punch. He does however, after some moping around off-screen, take the bow and bust up the gun-dealers. He was only Arrow for a little bit, but I sincerely hope that Diggle becomes Speedy instead of Ollie’s annoying sister. There was a moment where I thought Diggle was going to look at the gunstash he busted and say the word “Arsenal” in some sentence but I’m very glad he didn’t.
3.) Walter Steele is a Weeping Angel.
Walter Steele is Ollie’s step-dad and current CEO of Queen Consolidated. He’s also been tracking down clues about his wife’s involvement with several other businessmen, including John Barrowman, in the crashing of her late husband’s yacht. That’s not important. What is important is that Colin Salmon, the actor who plays Steele, keeps the same face throughout the entire episode, and probably series.
There’s a part where he finds out that the man he sent to investigate the recent rediscovery of the Queen’s Gambit wreckage was murdered. When Steel hears this on the phone, literally the only difference in his body is that he moves the phone handle about an inch away from his face. I don’t think that’s bad acting or anything, I genuinely think that works great for the character.
4.) Laurel on the other hand…
Look, I love Black Canary. I really do. She’s one of my favorite DC characters and Gail Simone’s Birds of Prey is one of my favorite titles. But this is not Black Canary. Black Canary kicks ass and does whatever it takes to do the right thing. Laurel on the other hand, just complains or does something that she wouldn’t have been able to do without Ollie’s intervention. Right now she’s just, as Rob Bricken at Topless Robot described, “Single Female Lawyer”. Except instead of “single”, everything she does comes across as a reaction to Ollie, she’s not even a character in of herself. She’s just there for Ollie, a guy who is indirectly responsible for her sister’s death because he was sleeping with her. Dinah Lance should be really likable, but every time Laurel comes onscreen I just groan. Also, there’s a scene where Ollie and Laurel talk about the last time they were in a bedroom together during a Halloween party and how Laurel wore “those fishnets she hated” and that made me throw things across my room.
Continued below5.) Everything that happens on the Island is wonderful.
Alright, now that all of the “present day” stuff is out of the way we can get back to the really good part of this show that isn’t Diggle. Ollie and Arrow Classic are hunting on the island for game. Or, Arrow Classic is hunting. Ollie’s just standing around complaining about having to touch dead rabbit. Ollie takes his first shot (heh) at using a bow and arrow and, when looking for the arrow he misfired into the woods, gets tackled by some Black Ops mercenaries. He wakes up to Not Hans Gruber who is looking for Arrow Classic. When Ollie refuses to give his mentor away, Not Hans Gruber calls in his enforcer to torture it out of Ollie. This lead’s to both the most anticlimactic introduction, but also one of the creepiest.
Jesus, Deathstroke is scary in this. Just the disoriented surprise that comes when you’re watching a mostly “street-level” series and THAT just casually walks through the tent flap. Also, I think it may have something to do with the fact that his mask now has eyeholes which are just… yuck… Deathstroke proceeds to take out his sword and cut up Ollie, revealing where he got those scars from the island. Just before Not Hans Gruber tells Deathstroke to deliver the death stroke to Ollie (heh heh), Arrow Classic comes in to have the best fight this show will ever have with Deathstroke. In a neat nod to the comics, Arrow Classic fires an arrow at Deathstroke’s eye but he catches it right before he becomes more accurate to the source material. Before anyone can explain what’s going on, Arrow Classic grabs Ollie and drags him back to the cave where he tells Ollie to never go outside ever again before a landslide traps him in the cave alone without Arrow Classic.
Review Score 7/10 – If it wasn’t for the “rich white people drama” segments, this show would be so much more enjoyable. Thankfully there’s Deathstroke and Diggle.
