1.) This episode had the best plot so far.
The main problem with Arrow at this point had been how of the two episodes shown; both involved Arrow hunting down corrupt businessmen while a D-List villain took two seconds out of Ollie’s day to be defeated. This week it’s all different, the villain is now a C-Lister! Deadshot, unfortunately missing his mustache or any of his personality from Secret Six, arrives in Starling City to assassinate some businessmen so his employer won’t have any trouble buying a company. Despite murdering some of the people on Ollie’s list for him, Arrow is totally against the idea of someone else murdering bourgeois in his town. Has Punisher ever had to deal with a situation like that? I really wish that Garth Ennis would forget that he ended Hitman so he could write a crossover with Punisher where Frank calls Tommy a sell-out for 22 pages. Anyway, Arrow defeats Deadshot by doing some detective work, screaming “I’m nothing like you!” and firing an arrow through Deadshot’s ridiculously large gentlemen’s monocle/cross-sight outside the auction house where the company is being sold. Then, Dig, Ollie’s bumbling but completely awesome bodyguard, gets hit during the firefight and is evacuated to the Arrow-Cave where an unmasked Arrow nonchalantly says “Hey.” Knowing his lifestyle, I’m sure that’s not the worst way Ollie’s had to greet someone who just woke up. Speaking of which…
2.) Ollie is straight up baller.
This week opened with Ollie doing push-ups shirtless while saying an inner monologue that would make Frank Miller blush. Then Ollie showed how he plans to create an alias to explain why he’s gone for hours at a time every night: by building a night-club right on top of his secret base. Also, he infiltrates the Russian Mob just to kill one of their assassins and the Russian Mob just goes “Yeah, alright”. Finally, he allows Dig into his headquarters and greets him the same way he greets one-night stands.
I have nothing to say, my mind still hasn’t recovered from how wonderful Oliver Queen is.
3.) Deadshot is straight up baller.
In Arrow, Deadshot must have played Arkham Asylum and saw Zsasz’s M.O. of carving tally marks into his skin for everyone he kills, because he took that idea a thousand steps too far into the realm of ridiculous. Instead of carving tally marks, keeping a diary, or bragging on his Tumblr, Deadshot tattoos the names of everyone he kills onto his body. Imagine being the lifeguard who had to call in the guy whose chest was an obituary to the cops. You can’t imagine that because the lifeguard would be dead in seconds from the inferiority complex he or she would develop from not being as great as Deadshot. He’s also no slouch at fashion. Instead of using a rifle with a scope like a normal assassin he just wears a big-ass monocle that functions as a cross-hair. Finally, his bullets are poison. Do not lie, poison bullets are the greatest thing you’ve never heard of until just now. Sure, you’ve heard of other poisoned weapons, but never poison bullets! You know who hasn’t use poison bullets? The Punisher. Deadshot out Punishered The Punisher. Borderlands 2 has literally all of the guns but none of them are poison. If Arrow’s poison bullets don’t win an award for best idea ever then The Emmys, Golden Globes, and Nobel Peace Prize Committees will have failed at their jobs.
4.) The Island is straight up baller.
As gloriously ridiculous as the mainland story is, Arrow truly shines when it flashes back to Ollie’s time on The Island for two minutes a week. This time, the mysterious Arrow 2 who shot Queen last week is revealed to be just some guy with a beard and not Deathstroke. As boring as that may seem, it amps up when Beard Man turns out to have been trying to save Ollie’s life from a government black-ops team that’s been searching the island, maybe for Ollie. The other plots in Arrow are pretty interesting, but The Island plot is truly compelling and the reason I look forward to watching this show each week.
5.) The rest of the supporting cast is not very baller.
Dig aside (we can all agree we DIG him), all of Arrow’s supporting cast members seem to serve no purpose. There’s some fake tension when Speedy reveals to Ollie that Laurel and Tommy were sleeping together while they thought he was dead; but Ollie doesn’t care, as he should. He was presumed dead for five years after he banged his girlfriend’s sister to death. He is never allowed to say anything. Also Speedy had a whole subplot that took up roughly ten percent of the show where she got arrested for breaking into a store to try on dresses. Glad to see the Deadshot episode priotized its time wisely.
Next week on Arrow! “An Innocent Man”!
