Well that was quick (no Flash pun intended) – I start reviewing the show two weeks ago, an off week last week, and now we’re just one away from the mid-season finale, the Hansel of 2013 television (it’s so hot right now). Let’s get right into it.
1. Barry Allen is here
Tonight we met Barry Allen, played by Grant Gustin, and more or less, I dug what they did with Barry. Sure, he’s young (and no longer blonde), but I think the broad strokes were there: brilliant, perpetually late, driven by his mother’s murder. He has a bit of an Andrew Garfield to him, which I mean in the best possible way, and he is charming and likable from the instant he appears on screen.
2. Deathstroke isn’t anymore
Of course, Slade Wilson isn’t really dead, but for the time being, he’s “dead.” In fact, I bet that he’s back as soon as next week, but more on that a little later. One thing that is impressive about Arrow is the extent to which they are taking crazy comic premises, characters, and settings, and making them, more or less, palatable for a non-comics audience. My buddy Chad Bowers talks a lot about how Marvel no longer makes comics for the “average” comics reader anymore – everything is for the fanatic, except for the movies, which are now the gateways to the comics. I think that Arrow is one of the best ways to introduce new readers to DC in a very, very long time, and that is done, in part, by giving guys like Slade interesting storylines while putting their lives in danger. This is Suspense 101, but it is working.
3. Sometimes, you remember this a CW show
Tonight’s reminder of this being a CW show was the incredibly cheap looking submarine that Ollie and co, while on the island, spy down in a bay. The clearly CGI/green screen shot looked about 10 years outdated, and served almost no purpose. No one needs to see them approaching the sub – a simple shot of Ollie’s face, glowing in surprise, saying “we found the sub” – cut to black. When you come back, they’re n board. Done. NEXT.
But that isn’t how CW shows work. They show and tell, and needed to give you that perspective. Ditto for some of the more soap opera-y moments of the show, like Merlin’s reappearance in the Queen home; there’s nothing inherently wrong with this stuff, it just brings you out of the comic show reality a tad too frequently for soapy moments.
4. The reverse foreshadowing is a really weird technique
This show has been using the island to do something I’m dubbing “reverse foreshadowing.” Instead of showing stuff on the island, and hinting at what will happen 5 years later, we are frequently getting action in the modern world, only to flash back (again, no Barry Allen pun intended) and have that same idea reinforced. This week, it was the super serum…er…Mirakuru that was used by the large, masked baddie (who is probably Slade, because why not), and then we see it being used on Slade in a flashback. On Lost, the most flashback heavy show of all time, the flashbacks were used to inform you about what the people on the island used to be like, and what made them what they are. Arrow tries to do that, but mainly just uses the island as reinforcement, instead of illumination.
5. Ultimately, this episode did its job
Its job was to get viewers excited about the idea of a Flash show, to tie up some loose ends from the half season, and to give a cliff-hanger to assure tuning it next week. It did all of those things, while also allowing my crush on Felicity to grow even more intense, to give Roy a more substantial role, to give Moira some humble pie to eat, brought Ra’s al Ghul up again, and featured a healthy dose of Barry, to boot. In fact, I think Barry was the most well written and represented character on the show this week, which is not a knock to the usual cast of Starling City denizens, but rather a cause for celebration. If the Flash show is half as entertaining as Arrow, it’ll still be better than Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and represents just about the only area DC has an advantage over Marvel today.
