(Note: for best experience, have this playing in the background as you read this)
1. Funky Cold Thea
One of the bits that Arrow tends to forget is that Thea is Malcolm Merlyn’s daughter, and every now and then, she shows the ruthless self preservation that Merlyn has shown over and over again. Her systematic destruction of Susan Williams is some supervillain shit but, what I dig about this show, is that everyone gets it. Ollie is all “this sucks, but you thought it was necessary.” Superhero properties are often knocked for having no grey area (a criticism that is clearly rooted in comics from 30 years ago), and this show punches that in the mouth. Everyone on Arrow is guilty to a different degree, and they all deal with it differently.
But Thea is different – evil is, somewhat, in her blood. Plus, she was Lazarus Pitted, and she’s also the most business savvy of the characters. She is the Queen who could have carried on her parents’ company, she’s the Merlyn who could have really thrived as part of the League of Assassins, she’s the Queen who probably would be the politician.
But she’d be the worst hero, and so she’s stopped all that.
And yet, in many ways – and as Quentin points out – she’s the wisest of the bunch. She identifies Quentin’s guilt and calls him out on it, she reads the tea leaves, and does what no one else will have the balls to do. She’s ruthless, but she’s our ruthless.
2. Tara from True Blood sucks
Rutina Wesley, who plays Liza Warner here and who was Tara on True Blood was the weakest part of every single scene she was in on either show. I really don’t like trashing people’s performances, but she’s just not up to the acting on this show, and it’s a fucking CW show. She seems like she’s distracted by something just off camera all the time, and she’s only half paying attention to what’s going on in the scene.
Look, part of that is that her character is so one dimensional that I had to look up her name three times in five minutes, and part of that is that she was paired with China White and Cupid, two of the show’s weakest villains. But there’s just nothing about her character that is interesting. They didn’t go full on Lady Cop with her, they didn’t have her really try to be rehabilitated, they just left her exactly the same as she was two years ago, and no one cared then, and no one cares now. Ick.
3. The ACU needs to get its priorities straight
I get that taking down the Green Arrow, especially if he killed one of your own, is important. No one is saying it isn’t. But when you have three escaped convicts, who just killed some prison guards, and who are potentially going to kill and steal their way to a multi-million dollar payday, you don’t just let them go.
I like that the show is presenting the Green Arrow as a polarizing figure among law enforcement, because he absolutely would be – no one likes the new guy, especially when the new guy is doing your job way better than you are. After losing a compatriot, I could see most ACU members wanting to gut him. But to let three deadly criminals go? That’s just dumb.
4. WHO CARES ABOUT RUSSIA?
These flashbacks are more decompressed than a Bendis comic, with added shitty transitions. I would much rather them take all of these flashbacks, cut them from the show, and have one, hour-long Russia episode somewhere in the season. That episode would be a slog to get through, but it would be way better than what we are left with here. In this entire episode, we saw Ollie and Gregor travel something like 50 yards. It is insulting to the audience to make us watch this, especially in an episode where so much actual stuff of interest was happening back in Star City.
5. The shit hits the fan
The end of this episode was the other shoe dropping – it was Ollie’s administration being tied with the Green Arrow, with Adrian Chase, and with the death of Felicity’s boyfriend. Look, it is absurd that more people haven’t Susan Williams’d this and put two and two together, and it is thrice as dumb that Adrian/Vigilante hasn’t, but I am excited for the show to go down this road.
What did you think of this episode? Let me know in the comments.
