Arrow continues to surprise by blowing through what could be whole seasons of drawn out storylines in its first five episodes. A secret identity is something, in our high tech surveillance culture, that would be impossible to maintain, and it looks like the jig is already up for Oliver. Detective Lance caught him right on video pulling his gear out last week. BAM! Oliver's under arrest on a litany of charges under suspicion of being the hooded vigilante, including MURDER.
MURDER is the theme of the episode. Arrow kills. Diggle doesn't like that about him. After teasing with a Lois Lane-like fascination with the local Star City superhero, Laurel realized she doesn't like his killing ways either. All the Lances agree: Arrow = bad man.
Flashbacks on the Island show how Oliver learned to kill, mainly because he was hungry and for survival, lessons taught to him by Chinese Green Arrow. Killing a bird is different from all the humans Oliver kills. Oliver's a likable enough guy unless he's trying not to be, but the more he vocalizes his holy war mission, the more insane he actually sounds.
Meanwhile, Walter Steele doesn't seem like he's one of the villains of Starling City, but he's starting to realize his wife might be. The last thing he (or I) was expecting when he opened that secret warehouse Moira Queen embezzled $2.6 million to set up was the salvaged remains of Robert Queen's yacht, the Queen's Gambit. As for Moira, she and John Barrowman figured out the Arrow is taking out people who are on The List.
The weird thing in the episode was the Oliver and Thea stuff. No mention of her alcoholism or drug use, or even how she outed Laurel and Tommy as hump buddies when she was drunk. It was like the last episode never happened.
DC Comics shout out this week: "The 10:30 train to Bludhaven. (dc.wikia.com)
Finally, John Diggle is by far my favorite character on this show. I love this guy. First thing he does when he finds out Oliver is the Arrow is take a swing at him. Oliver gives him two hard sells about his mission and Diggle reacts like a sane, rational person and says no. Then he spends a couple of days eating at Big Belly Burger contemplating it before signing on, but specifically noting he doesn't want to be a sidekick. Plus he had the line of the night when New Bodyguard Rob watched Oliver slip off to the rest room. "That guy's long gone, man."
(edited by John Orquiola on 1.11.12 0855) @CMPunk “@ZackRyder: @CMPunk She played me bro” I got your back.
Yeah, Ollie's not coming off in a positive light with all this killing. But then again, neither is anybody else. Laurel coming out of the prison going "Oh, he's a murderer," is a little annoying, considering he SAVED HER LIFE! That's gratitude for you. But I do agree that Diggle comes off looking the best, as his reaction was realistic and did shed Ollie's actions in a realistic light.
Ollie getting arrested under suspicion of being Green Arrow is something that should be saved for a season cliffhanger or a second season, not something they're burning through in only the fourth episode. Why the rush?
Holy Shit, Captain Jack! Ok now that is out of the way, once again Arrow is the cure for my daughter's sleep. I loved how everything felt like an issue of Green Arrow with the freeing an innocent man to the giant secret identity as a swerve. Diggle who I thought would be a giant waste of time turns out to be the best character on the show. He has natural reactions to everything, its a good thing minus the actress playing Laurel, the rest of the cast seems to be pretty damn at their job or he would blowing everyone away.
The Island stuff was great explaining how different Ollie is to everyone else. Killing to him is not a pleasure or unhappy accident, its survival. Survival to do what he has to do. Its a far grimmer tone than we are used to with our DC heroes.
I think they are just a 13 episode series. So, if they are just in it for one season might as well make it a memorable one.
The Wee Baby Sheamus.Twitter: @realjoecarfley its a bit more toned down there. A bit.
Finally caught up on the episodes and the threads. I'm definitely hooked on this show now, after an initial struggle to get into it. The last two episodes were fantastic.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the writer name shout-outs. When I first saw that the bodyguard was named John Diggle, I said, "Oh, cute, a reference to Andy Diggle." Then they went a full step further and had his dead brother be named Andy (complete with "Andrew Diggle" tattooed on Deadshot). Usually shows aren't that obvious with shout-outs. The second episode also had characters with the last name Nocenti, presumably as a reference to Ann.