My name isn’t Oliver or Emiko Queen, it’s Mike, and here are my thoughts on Arrow‘s “Past Sins.” This week, David Ramsey makes his directorial debut. Oliver and Laurel deal with angry constituents. Curtis appears to do something very dumb. And Diggle is losing sight of the bigger picture.
1. Ethically #Lapsed
In the words of the co-chairmen of the Lapsed Fan Solar System, Arrow is #Lapsed.
Now vigilante and superhero shows have an inherent lapse in ethics, otherwise they wouldn’t really exist. Recent episodes, however, had made that tension feel nearly unbearable as Ollie became a deputized member of the SCPD – yes Batman was technically deputized at points too, but that still didn’t make it right. Meanwhile good friend John Diggle willingly sheds his in pursuit of the mysterious Dante. To the shows credit, that is a tension they are recognizing as “Past Sins” is built around surfacing and dealing with lapses in ethical judgement for Oliver, Laurel, and Diggle. “Past Sins” isn’t the flashiest of Arrow episodes, but it is among the better ones this season.
Oliver beating himself up and trying to act the sin eater isn’t new. What is new is the perspective and self-reflection the character has gained as the seasons have warn on. That is a perspective he is in need of as he continues to try and work as a member of the SCPD, his membership is putting a strain on the already strained trust with the residents of Star City. All of that goes on hold, however, when one of his own past sins comes back to haunt him.
“People without the last name ‘Queen’ are people too,’ the masked kidnapper taunts the Green Arrow with as he escapes. The latest violent criminal was spurred into action not for greed, but due to the short sided actions of Oliver. That man his Father shot in the pilot was a Dad himself, and now his son wants to know why no one ever told him how he died. As far as non-DC villains of the week go, Samuel Hackett is a highly effective one. His backstory gives him that emotional in on Oliver that is at the heart of good storytelling. It was also a nice thread in a series that is built on mythologizing, demythologizing, and otherwise grappling with familial legacy to see a problem that was born from the Father but exasperated by the son. By the end of the episode Ollie owns up to his mistakes and is a better person for it.
Someone who has yet to see the light is John Diggle, who continues to push forward with the Ghost Initiative despite specious justifications.
2. Suicide Squad 2.0 Status Report
Despite a good bit of technical skill and trickery by Curtis, the Ghost Initiative is still on. Curtis may have given ARGUS an even more effective tool at keeping these inmates inline as well. The new squad of Ghosts took shape this week with the addition of: Kane Wolfman, China White, and Cupid. The latter who should really know better than to say “yes” to this sort of thing.
Diggle endorsing Curtis use of VR to trick Diaz and thinking of new ways to use to control these people is scary. Diggle is normally the moral and ethical heart of Team Arrow, and he has traded it away in his time at ARGUS with his fire with fire justification for keeping the new task force operational. That justification also doesn’t hold much water considering ARGUS has their own army to do things with, those are the boots on the ground. The, theortically, legal-er boots. Diggles slow seduction is an interesting mirror with Oliver and his time at the SCPD. Where Oliver is trying to be as transparent as possible, Diggle’s maneuvering is to keep secrets – which he probably learned from Ollie all those time he didn’t bother to read him into a situation.
By the end of it, Curtis has had enough and rightly walks out.
“Past Sins” is also the directorial debut of David Ramsey and overall I think he did fine. Learning how to do this stuff on an established TV show is probably the best place considering half the battle is just getting a good crew in place and Arrow had an established visual language to use. In particular the use of pseudo-POV shots for Curtis as he administers the drugs to Diaz was particularly well done. They weren’t quite POV shots, but mimicked them just enough that you didn’t notice how slightly off they were and on second watch you notice that unnatural composition as a tell that something is off.
Continued below3. A Different Use of Flashbacks
With the previous episode featuring the Flashback plot, this episode didn’t continue those threads. That doesn’t mean the episode isn’t without one of its trademark narrative tools. You can’t have the past in an episode titled “Past Sins.” Instead of turning the flashbacks into episode long plot threads, they were used to emphasize and give a quick snapshot of the emotional baggage a given character is carrying at the moment. For Oliver, as he is be interviewed at the top of the episode, all the talk about how his father was a good guy is contrasted with his conversation with Emiko and how that didn’t go well. Her current state, most of Star City, is a reminder of the badness Robert Queen did. For Laurel we get a brief look back at her first kill, the Brett Collins of Earth-2. That visceral knowledge it gives the audience helps to color the read of the scene as Laurel opens up about it to Felicity.
Overall these two brief flashes to the past were effective. For Oliver it meant we didn’t have to pick up where the previous episode cut off and had a bit of tension as to how the talk went. With Laurel it showed a character who is fiercely defensive, vulnerable and angry for a change. Her experience with Earth-2 Papa Lance also colors her interactions with our version in previous seasons.
Normally when Katie Cassidy is asked to do tears it never really works (she’s more a scream queen) but this one was more effective.
4. Stalker Much
Throughout the episode Laurel keeps finding creepy, threatening, notes directed at her. Originally this is assumed to be a part of her Brett Collins problem, but when Dinah finds her own mystery note proclaiming that “one by one I’ll kill you all” it looks like Team Arrow has themselves an angry stalker. Now who could that be? The in the past hasn’t shied away from discovering new points of view on their heroes actions, such as this episode, but this seems to herald the return of Stanley “The Star City Slayer” Dover. The show has tended towards deemphasizing magic, making it doubtful Stan will try and summon a demon to bond with, so a more typical stalker-killer approach makes sense.
5. Who is Dante
In the comics Dante was the mysterious leader of the Ninth Circle from Ben Percy’s excellent run on “Green Arrow.” The series seems to be building him up for a reveal and there is too much talk of Robert Queen and Daddy issues for that to be a coincidence. Now to their credit Arrow has done a very good job of following the rules for proving a character is dead and not Mostly Dead™ in relation to Robert and Moira Queen. Yet, some part of me has a feeling we’re going to find a burned over – possibly amnesiac – Robert Queen at the center of this. That or we’ll get the magnificent return of Colin Salmon as Walter Steele.
If Dante was going to be revealed as a character from Arrow past, who do you want it to be? Who would you like to play the role?
