My name isn’t Oliver or Emiko Queen, it’s Mike, and here are my thoughts on Arrow‘s “Star City Slayer.” The Arrow family says goodbye to a couple of characters and welcome in some more, as Team Arrow hunts down a mysterious serial killer who is targeting them. As Curtis opines, it sounds like a Monday on Arrow
1. Serial Killers
As a television show, Arrow doesn’t appear to have the production capabilities of pivoting into something like Zodiac long term. Though with Team Arrow now fully deputized, them leaning into a more police procedural element could be an interesting change of pace. Director Gregory Smith, who’s directed several episodes DCWverse series, and the cinematographer do a good job of aping Zodiac and the general aesthetic of Se7en for “Star City Slayer.” The reveal that it was Stanley behind the mask wasn’t that surprising given the name, but how the show teased the character worked.
Man dose Brendan Fletcher do some capital ‘A’ acting in Ollie and Felicit’s dining room. He was really playing to the back as he and the camera operator appear to try and get as close as possible without messing up the focus of a given shot. Fletcher’s arch qualities are certainly magnified by the paralyzed acting of the Queen family. It was interesting seeing Amell have to forcibly restrain emoting in this way compared to his overall stiff affect in earlier seasons.
That final confrontation rightly felt like something out of the Arkham games. Fletcher chews the scenery like the Mad Hatter as our heroes slowly work through their bonds before quickly ending things.
Sadly Stanley’s murder plot didn’t involve trying to bond with demon per the source material from “Quiver.” Which puts him in class with Ishmael Gregor aka Sabbac (season 5) as demonically inspired characters who don’t go full demon on Arrow
2. Parents
Parenthood has been a recurring motif in the show long before we found out about William. From Ollie’s sin eating for his Father, to his Mother, Thea and Merlyn, Diggle and Lyla, so on and so forth. It did, however, take new prominence with the revelation of William and gave Arrow a new wrinkle for the character to work through as he tries to narcissistically save “his” city. The bit about Stanley’s parents was a nice thematic capper that tied everything together, as Ollie and Felicity way their sons want to go be normal away from them and with his Grandparents. Grandpa Clayton stares at Ollie with all the derision of Kurtwood Smith.
Arrow also being a show that isn’t one to overlook its own shortcomings gives William some real solid rhetorical punches to land on his parents. Ollie isn’t really one to ask how someone is doing or feels. He’s good at small talk and most definitely cares about people, but being emotionally available in that manner doesn’t come first for him. He isn’t perfect, but also shows how he is a much better father than his dad ever was to him or Emiko.
With William shipping off to Central City maybe we could get a meet up with Nora West-Allen, since progeny are all the rage it seems.
If Ollie and Felicity letting William go live with his Grandparents sounds like to clashes with what future William has talked about with his parents, that’s because it does. Only add further proof that the flash forwards are really …
3. Star City 2040
The twist that MayaMia, is a Smoak was given away by that phone call at the end. I’m not sure where in the episode you could’ve moved that final stinger up, but it took some of the sting out of things. This latest wrinkle adds some soapy juice to the otherwise sterile proceedings of the flash forwards – which are still among the better the show has done but still limited by time that attachment is hard to generate. Mia needs the Archer Protocol to find their Mom. This places her an half-brother Will on similar tracks, as the latter sarcastically talks about maybe getting some form of closure out of this spooky scavenger hunt. Finally these things are starting to come together thematically for itself and the season as a whole.
These flash forwards definitely take place in some variant future inspired by the “Star City 2046” episode of Legends. The upcoming flashforward heavy episode, episode 16, is called “Star City 2040.” I think we can finally take the whole Beth Schwartz said these are “the” Arrow future as the purposeful misdirection it was. With the news that Felicity is alive, seeing Emily Bett Rickards in good-bad older age makeup appears to be a given for the inevitable family reunion. Where Ollie is in all this is still unknown, the Legends episode is technically 6 years ahead of this so maybe he still has his arm. Hopefully not since we’ve already been cheated out of Roy getting a sweet robot arm, and getting to see in good-bad makeup plus hair augmentation is flash forward or past Arrow staple.
Crazy Theory: The finale of this Star City 2040 storyline will see the Arrow family reunited and victorious only for the Anti-Monitor, likely unseen, to wipe that world from existence.
4. Mr. Terrific, Exit Stage Left
“Star City Slayer” marked the exit of Echo Kellum from Arrow as a series regular. In an exit interview with EW, Kellum stated this isn’t the end of Curtis on Arrow, that he’d be back for guest spots as often as they had him. He wanted off the show to spend more time with his family and pursue other creative ventures.
Echo Kellum first joined the series in season 3 as Curtis Holt, the shows version of Michael Holt aka Mr. Terrific, and slowly became a member of Team Arrow as part of New Team Arrow proper in season 5. I liked Curtis a lot, he wasn’t a one to one translation of Michael Holt from the comics but had the characters core sense of optimism and know-how about him. Arrow is at its best when it puts their own spin on a character for their own purpose. On the show he made for a nice, if slightly redundant, foil for Felicity as well.
Curtis was also a gay person of color and proper superhero on the show, which other than Constantine, made him one of the most prominent queer male characters in these sorts of shows. While this genre space across media is getting more diverse, it is still infinitely more likely to see queer women characters as opposed to men.
The show handled his exit well, sticking to his ethical and moral guns by rejecting an ARGUS promotion.
5. Ollie’s Chili
We don’t get to see the recipe for the famous Green Arrow chili. Ollie could probably use some leftovers now to hide the pain of seeing his son go off to the Grandparents house.
