This week’s Arrow was one that established a few new status quos, while also resetting certain pieces of the show’s mythos. As always, some spoilers are to be expected
1. Someone at Berlanti Productions is a huge R.E.M. fan
Last night’s episode of The Flash was called “Out of Time,” and then tonight’s Arrow features a villain named Murmur. Next week, Lance is going to cock his gun at someone and say, “Automatic for the people” before blowing them away. Ollie’s going to say to Ra’s, “Are you serious?,” to which Ra’s will reply, “Supernatural superserious.” Ollie will add “Green” to the Arrow. Bill Berry will guest star as some eyebrow-prominent villain. Starling City will be revealed as being across the river from Athens. Verdant will be renamed the 41 Watt Club. Something something “Man on the Moon.”
2. Surprising returns
There were a number of people and situations coming back that were unexpected tonight. Ollie sees Shado in Hong Kong; Nyssa returns to fight alongside Team Arrow; Thea and Roy reconnect in his hovel of an apartment. While all of these come somewhat out of left field, most of them work, in context, Nyssa and Laurel’s girls night out notwithstanding. The show is realizing that it only has a certain number of pieces on the board, and that to keep things interesting, every now and then you need to go back to the well – the trick is to do it differently enough each time that it doesn’t feel like you’re constantly repeating yourself.
The Roy and Thea thing felt the most natural of all three, but that’s because we’ve seen seeds of this planted for the past few episodes. Roy has always been a stand-up guy with her (aside from, you know, lying to her about his vigilantism), and Thea is in need of something that feels authentically hers, and since Roy’s a hood rat that has no real allegiances except to the Queen family, she can claim him as her own. Mark my words, her “ownership” of him will cause her and Ollie to butt heads soon.
Shado’s return worked because of the genuine shock value that was generated from it – here is a character that we saw shot and buried on the island, suddenly alive. She is the reason that Slade Wilson went batshit, and can therefore be quasi-responsible for things like Moira Queen’s death, the sinking of the Amazo, hell, the entire Arrow situation is sort of contingent on Shado’s death. Is it coincidence that we see her return the same week we see a Lazarus pit?
3. Felicity is the Anti-Iris
If you’re a regular Flash watcher/reader of my recaps, you’ll know that I think that Iris West has the magnetism of a wet piece of spaghetti, and that the show suffers because we don’t buy its major romantic plot. Well, Felicity is the converse of that – everyone she’s on screen with she has insane chemistry with, and it creates a weird situation in this week’s episode. After being adorable with Ray (and then Ollie commits flirtus interuptus in a major way), she has a heart to heart with Ollie about her happiness being dependent on having Ollie in her life.
While I know that Ollie is the protagonist, and we need to see things from his perspective many times, the producers need to cool this a little bit. Having some lingering romantic tension is fine, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if they just ravished each other after that scene. Part of Felicity’s charm is that she seems like a genuinely good person – having the audience rooting for her to cheat on her new boyfriend goes against the very things that make the character work so well.
Unless, of course, yours truly is brought on to play Jack Knight or Kyle Rayner, and she falls madly in love with him and they run away to their own spinoff someplace. That I could get behind.
P.S. I love my wife.
Continued below4. The Lances
For characters that are, arguably, the 2nd and 4th most important on the show, Laurel and Quentin are pretty insufferable to be around right now. And, wait for it, that’s a good thing. Quentin has been through the ringer since the show started, and this is the first time his grief has felt tangible; you can see it creep into all corners of his life, and the good person/good cop inside him peaks its head out, but all of it is engulfed by grief. Do I miss the Quentin/Arrow bromance? Absolutely – but the show has enough people that Ollie uses indiscriminately to do his bidding, so it is nice to see a different, but not totally adversarial, relationship.
On the other hand, the question must be asked time and time again: what is the plan with Laurel? They start to train her, and then kill her trainer. They start to re-establish her as a potential romantic match for Ollie, and then drop that like a hot potato. And now, she’s eating Chunky Monkey in her PJs with Nyssa, talking about their crushes and making mash books?
Look, I have to give Arrow some credit – I am certain that the plan for season 3, if sketched out during initial pitch meetings for the show looked a lot more like “Ollie and Laurel find it hard to balance their romantic and crime fighting lives” than the current plan. The producers have allowed the show to organically grow and change and certain characters have benefited from that (Felicity, Merlyn), while others have suffered (Diggle and Laurel, especially). But give Laurel something to do – please, I beg of you. Her and Diggle need plans ASAP, but Diggle has things like the Suicide Squad and next week’s nuptials to look forward to – what does Laurel have coming up? More poorly thrown punches?
5. Role reversals
So, Ollie doesn’t want to be Ra’s al Ghul, but Ra’s wants to be the Arrow? Now, that’s a fun way to play this.
I found it interesting, if a bit mopey, for Ollie to be so focused on what he hasn’t been able to do in his time under the hood, but his point was an interesting one: could I do more as Ra’s than as the Arrow?
Obviously, Ra’s doesn’t think so. Of course, I could be totally misreading that final scene, and this could all be Ra’s trying to poison the well for the Arrow in Starling, and attempting to push his hand, but look what he does – he takes out some criminals. If he wanted to really turn people on the Arrow, he’d shoot up a children’s hospital or burn down a Chipotle or something.
No, perhaps Ra’s sees Ollie’s path as a more noble/successful one. I didn’t see that coming, and it interests me quite a bit.
Next Week: I’MMA CATCHING THAT BOUQUET!
Tell me how wrong I am about Ra’s in the comments!
