1.) Invasion of Privacy
Alright so we’re back to Arrow after a two-week long hiatus! Last we left off, Arrow and Diggle both vowed to finally take down Deadshot after all! So this week we finally focus on… Ollie protecting a kid whose parents were murdered by another hitman… yeah ok. There is a good amount of screentime given to Deadshot and Diggle’s solo pursuit of him, but the majority of this episode focuses on Ollie taking down a different assassin who is after one of Laurel’s clients. That story is fine and probably one of the better plots this show has had, but man all the lead-up to this being a huge Deadshot shoot out made this a little disappointing. At least the tension is building so that Deadshot-out will be even more exciting. Speaking of Deadshot,
2.) Deadshot is incredible.
Deadshot does not screw around. Diggle, in cooperation with ARGUS (who it seems DC could try and mold as their own version of SHIELD), sets up a trap for him at a… mall? Restaurant? Place? Anyway, Ollie’s off not fighting the awesome guy, so Deadshot escapes the trap by shooting a bunch of ARGUS agents with his poison bullets (poison bullets!) and beating the ever loving crap out of Diggle. He even has this incredible sequence where he actually talks for what I believe to be the first time. Aiming both guns at Diggle he says “I’d kill you but I’m not getting paid” and smoothly walks away without looking back at the sass explosion he left behind. Deadshot is incredible.
3.) That one assassin is also incredible.
There’s another hired killer in this episode who’s not named Deadshot. He’s not really named anything but he is just insane. The Doorman (he’s not really given a name) shoots his target, walks into his home, smashes some off his stuff to make it look like a break-in, and then out-loud states “I’m making this look like a break-in”. Like he was going to flush the victim’s terrified family members out of hiding and say “Oh yeah that makes a lot of sense”. He also seems to inspire craziness in others, as later on when he’s breaking into Laurel’s apartment, she comes out of nowhere with a Shotgun and fires exactly one round of shotgun ammunition at him. He escapes, but then breaks into Ollie’s house where he talks about how great the architecture is. Unfortunately, The Doorman dies by the episode’s end which is a shame because I would absolutely watch a spin-off of Arrow about a man who broke into people’s homes, murdered them, and then screamed aloud home decorating tips.
4.) Quentin Lance is the greatest dad.
Roy Harper, after having Ollie save his life the other week, has now become obsessed with meeting The Vigilante, Arrow not Greg Saunders. He listens to a police radio he stole off Quentin in order to go to police incidents but just gets called in to one of Quentin’s traps. At the police station, Quentin scares Roy straight by showing off The Hood’s latest victim and then just sort of mutilates the body while Thea and Roy watch. I’m not sure if there’s, uh, any policies about this in real life but I think that there should at least be a footnote in some manual or other that says “Never take teenagers to the morgue so they can watch you stab a dead body with an arrow”. But, as Quentin is the only cop in Starling City, Mr. Lance can probably just make his own rules. In fact, the whole body mutilation doesn’t even deter Roy, he just starts some monologue about how he feels destined to be with The Hood in a way that would get a lot of notes on Tumblr.
5.) Merlyn’s horrible advice.
There’s a part in “Home Invasion” where Tommy, having semi-adopted the orphan of The Doorman’s victims with Laurel, tries to give the little youngster some pep talk.
“When my mom was murdered the police said I’d never see her again. They were wrong.”
“You saw your mom again?!”
“No.”
Granted, after crushing the orphan’s hopes about being able to see his parents again, he goes into a heartfelt speech about how even though they’re dead, the little kid’s parents will be with them in their heart. You can tell this speech is heartfelt because Laurel looks into the camera and says it is. Still, there’s a good two seconds where this four year-old kid is given this hope that he’ll see his parents again before he’s given some crappy Dumbledore speech about heart. You can even see a little bit of dissapointment in the child’s eyes. As good as the intentions in this scene were, it just came off as a little too much what with Merlyn’s hope speech and Laurel’s plastic stare into the camera about how great Tommy is when he’s probably the worst character.
Review Score: 7.4/10 – Some really good action scenes and villains marred by some other boring segments i.e. Tommy.
