Arrow returns with “Due Process,” a title that can’t help but feel just a bit ironic for a show that is built on violating the very concept.
1. My Cousin Laurel
“Due Process” wasn’t quite the Laurel My Cousin Vinny episode I’d hoped for, overall the show has a solid track record of court themed episodes. But it was a Laurel-centric episode and that is still nice. Laurel, the original, was a character the series always had a tough time fully integrating. Katie Cassidy gave a solid performance, but the character ran into the limits of being a supporting character in another person’s show worse than Thea. The character increasingly played a role that wasn’t looking to be in the show long term, Cassidy and Stephen Amell didn’t have the natural chemistry that he and Emily Bett Rickards have. Some of the characters best moments were actually when she pushed back and challenged her supporting status.
On the surface, the Laurel’s of Earth 1 and 2 aren’t much alike. Which made for déjà vu as the show treated current Laurel like she was old Laurel and kicked her out of the Team Arrow planning meeting. While Cassidy plays this version of Laurel with a bit more scene chew, she still plays them both with the same fiery quality you’d expect from a Black Canary.
That fiery quality comes through in this episode as she is sick of being doubted or second guessed by those around her for past or perceived transgressions. This is a character on a show and season built around redemption, and for her that means sticking it out and fighting the good fight even when everyone else expects her to run. It’s funny how a little bit of shading and some consistent screen work between characters can quickly make for relationships you don’t quite expect to work. Case and point the two Canaries, Laurel and Dinah, as stated in this episode Dinah has every reason to not like or give any shred of redemption to Laurel. Yet the pairing and that chance at redemption is proving to be both fun to watch and dramatically interesting.
2. They Caught Diaz
Well, this is interesting. When they did a similar move with Prometheus it was still much later in the season. Both episodes also involved stopping the big destroy the city plot (a plot point that feels increasingly if not irrelevant less effective.) The technical side of me knows that they upped Kirk Acevedo as a regular, so it seems unlikely that he’ll be gone after the mid-season finale.
Judging by reactions from last season, my views of Acevedo and Diaz tend to be on the less negative side. The Dragon has been around more this season and seems less dramatically effective. He’s playing a phantasmic role in the minds of Ollie and Felicity, an outsized presence that isn’t matched by Acevedo’s performance. The time we have gotten with the character has similarly been no descript, it hasn’t given us new insight into the character. For all the moaning and lust for revenge against Oliver Queen, he seems to have landed on his feet well enough.
Maybe imprisonment will push him more into that mirrored antagonist role, it clearly isn’t the end of the Dragon.
3. Flash Forwards Strike Again
It seems the flashforwards will be on an every other episode pattern, which is perhaps a bit too strict but they haven’t really been bad yet either. This batch, where the remnants of Team Arrow and their progeny hunt for Felicity’s last hiding place, still haven’t developed a core link to the operational theme of redemption (that I could make without it feeling like a stretch.) Their presence feels more like the opposite as it shows a dark future where Team Arrow didn’t save Star City. Which is why I don’t completely buy Beth Schwartz assertion that this future the future of the show and not a possible one. Some of what was shown, Felicity becoming a bomber intent on destroying the city seems like obvious misdirection, but her becoming the Calculator sounds about right.
This round of flashes did give the show a chance to play with itself as the key to unlocking Felicity’s office was Ollie’s old bouncy ball training routine.
Continued belowRoy also mentioned something about a mark in the message hidden in Ollie’s old boy. I didn’t catch it, sounded like he said something about the Four and subtitles weren’t that helpful. With a leader of the Shield Clan in the present timeline, the Longbow Hunters being a squad Diaz put together, maybe things are point towards a riff on “Outsiders War.”
4. There’s Something Wrong with Stanley
Arrow isn’t a “nice” show like Supergirl, where the default setting is just and so the core conflict of that series are the attempts to modify that core setting. Arrow is about struggle and how friendship and emotional vulnerability are the keys to healing and progress when dealing with trauma.(See Laurel stopping Felicity from making a very poor decision at the end of the episode.) So it is no surprise that there appears to be something wrong with Stanley. The only DC analog that springs to mind is maybe he’s a riff on the Star City Slayer because of his name and circumstance. That does not bode well for Ollie’s relationships in Slabside, or his faith in people. If they are riffing on the Star City Slayer, that would be another “Quiver” connection.
5. Why Must I Be Denied Sweet, Campy, Robot Appendages?
Look, I get that doing cyborg body parts are likely time consuming and a pain to do. So Roy managing to keep both his arms in his dark future makes sense, even if they could be hidden by sleeves. But c’mon when is Arrow going to cut off o’ll Anatoly Knyazev’s hand? Did they do that with Malcom already? Yes, but this time they could pop Wolverine claws out. He even called himself the “KGBeast,” which is like the second time that’s happened.
