My name isn’t Oliver or Emiko Queen, it’s Mike, and Arrow has returned from winter break! Emiko Queen and her crusade take center stage in “My Name is Emiko Queen,” an episode that shifts around who gets to carry the dramatic burden.
1. Her name is Emiko Queen
Season 7 has been something of an Arrow remix. Look no further than the opening tease and subsequent montage as Emiko Queen crosses names off her own list as the New Green Arrow. That whole sequence was editing in the cadence of the opening monologue, which was absent. Until the very end and we get Sea Shimooka’s monologue on vengeance. Another remix aspect the character allows is a return to early season one or two types of criminals as she scratches names off.
So far Shimooka is giving a good performance that is reminiscent of early Oliver without being a direct copy. She is reserved without the purposeful wooden affect Amell was going for early on. Her mode is more a straight 80s action hero who speaks with their fists, not words. Emiko’s arc with René, doesn’t quite soften her up but at least give insight into her operation. Their arc together is also a condensed version of what Ollie and Diggle went with over the span of episodes back in season 1. René doesn’t quite have her seeing the bigger picture beyond personal vengeance yet, but that’s the goal.
While her quest may have hit a snag, her presence dose allow for the show to go back to some tried and true villain types: corporate baddies. Glen Morgan may have been a bit vanilla, but he did fight with a bat’leth like axe.
With how Beth Schwartz has talked up the character, I’m very curious to see how this character interacts with Ollie and the rest of the gang. She isn’t a new Thea, and she isn’t supposed to be just something for Ollie to save. Hopefully things work out for this character.
2. Somehow this is Worse
Oliver Queen has been through a lot. “A lot” in the past several weeks even with the whole body swapping business. Yet, the news about his half sister Emiko is the hardest to process and understand. Not only was his father unfaithful, he had a child that he than failed to take care of. A care that was further sabotaged by Moira after she discovered it post-death. Stephen Amell had been through a physical ringer in the past several episodes, but the series lead gets more pained emotion out of more familial terribleness than any stunt sequence. Putting Amell in the c-thread is a rare thing to do for a series lead (but not unheard of this season), but it was the right call. It let the weight of knowledge slowly fester and inform the scenes as the episode cut back Ollie and Felicity continually investigating and finding more bad news.
After working through not just making peace with the idea that his father wasn’t the best guy, and trying to find away past his cycle of violence, to have this dropped on his feat is devastating. Emiko Queen is one more thing he needs to fix in order to redeem the family name, but this isn’t a building or a bench. She’s a person. Ending the episode with the tease of their first meeting was a very effective cliffhanger.
3. Green Arrow and the SCPD
The return from the winter finale means dealing with Ollie working for the SCPD as a deputy. That was a position that made me deeply uncomfortable, the entire existence of Team Arrow fundamentally undermines the rule of law and overall justice system. It isn’t just that Ollie is a mass murderer. Even if he wasn’t, making him an official law officer is a fundamental strain on the overall contract with the public. This made the testy exchange with the CSI scolding Ollie somewhat entertaining. At least the show isn’t trying to fully whitewash the tension. Although, considering Ollie’s skills he likely knows all of their procedures in the first place.
Him taking the blood sample to Felicity, is another example of how this arrangement cannot last. It’s the SCPD using the extra-legal techniques of Team Arrow as a means to speed things up and not actually follow the rules. I get the functional “why” of removing the blood, but this whole thing is a mess.
Continued belowI guess giving Stephen Amell a green coat to wear would be a bit too on the nose.
4. Suicide Squad 2.0, The Ghost Initiative
As the Dragon gets a bomb implanted in his head, inducted to a revitalized Suicide Squad Ghost initiative, he promises to bring his wrath down upon Layla and Diggle if he ever gets out. Audrey Marie Anderson makes a nice, little, acting decision in her final scene with Kirk Acevedo this episode. The Waller protégé tries to channel her former bosses persona and put the fear into him, but she can’t quite do it. She pauses for a split second, her eyes looking to the side to try and find the right resolve and words to finish the sentence. That little moment echoes back to an exchange she had with Ollie back in season 3 “The Brave and the Bold,” as the pair tag team one of Waller’s favorite aphorisms about people who deal in extremes “it would be naive to think that anything less than extreme measures will stop them.” What Anderson did with her eyes is a nice reminder of how monstrous this whole thing is.
Diggle, and his growing mission at all costs attitude, seems far to cavalier about the whole thing.
They likely aren’t allowed to say “Suicide Squad,” hopefully they get to call them Task Force XI or XL (see “Damage”) down the road. Hopefully we get another Squad centric episode, what could go wrong?
5. Flash Forwards
Beth Schwartz hasn’t given us the full, glorious, return of Salmon Ladder yet, but “My Name is Emiko Queen” dose feature the return of another dear friend: the flashback/forward Good-Bad Wig! This week the flashfowards take us to the affluent Glades and its architect, René Ramirez. René with a new head of good-bad hair. The makeup department actually did work to age Juliana Harkavy up, they did not do this for Rick Gonzalez. Instead atop Mr. Gonzalez head is just the weirdest, and clearest sign they are living in a dystopia, hairdo. John Cena’s 9 year old mid-life crisis haircut looks better than this. They didn’t even bother to give him an equally good-bad beard, he still has the same stubble.
Making Future René the mayor is probably a lot better and cheaper than showing him as some sorta warlord sitting like Bane atop a pile of skulls.
When the first flashforward happened, it almost looked like we were getting a peak at Emiko’s past with how bright and colorful everything is compared to the nighttime blue run down look of past sequences. It is a nice quick bit of visual storytelling to show how much the haves got it and the have nots don’t. The reveal that the Archer Protocol is really the ultimate surveillance stack stuff isn’t surprising, the design of future Glades made it look like a Silicon Valley utopian nightmare. There was a part of me that hoped the Archer Protocol would mean awesome Team Arrow mecha, but that’d be expensive.
The character of René Ramirez and actor Rick Gonzalez are asked to carry a lot of dramatic weight this episode. Which isn’t what the character has generally been asked to do. Sure he got his traumatic origin episodes, and the early Zoe episodes, but in general René is the Solo of the group. Now working with Emiko he is transitioning into a very Diggle like role as a moral compass. This transition makes the reveal that he is a callus new money type down the line more effective. As an actor Gonzalez doesn’t do that much actually, the dramatic weight is generated through match cuts between past and present juxtaposing his populist vigilantism on one side and his callous disregard on the other.
Future René’s Glade First position also appears to be getting him in deep water in regards to the murder of Felicity Smoak. There’s still plenty of time for the character to be redeemed, but having him turn into the fallen Big Bad of the flash forward has potential considering his present position on Team Arrow.
