Arrow, Season 3, Episode 3: Corto Maltese
This episode's a bit slower-paced and has a larger room to breathe. It's got a distinct focus on Thea, with Laurel and Diggle B-plots running alongside. The main plot involves Oliver and Roy going off to Corto Maltese to try and convince Thea to come back, but between seasons, Malcolm has trained Thea to fight and at the very least imparted hot water resistance to her. For possibly the first time the flashback parts of this episode doesn't feature Oliver at all but rather Thea's first training session with Malcolm, which was pretty brutal but at least we know Malcolm didn't hurt Thea... too bad. We get a couple of awesome swordfighting scenes between Thea and Malcolm (though Thea recognizes that Malcolm let her win) and I'm definitely looking forward to see how Thea progresses from here. Thea's been increasingly getting more and more interesting as she goes from this spoiled rich kid to someone who's gotten her life truly torn down around her and now she's finally going to get answers from Oliver. Thea's going back to Starling City and I'm highly anticipating the time when she picks up the Speedy mantle and just which side she'll choose. We get some nice Oliver/Thea and Roy/Thea moments, and overall it's a nice episode for Thea and I do like how she's not being a gigantic bitch about everything like how she would be before.
In the same vein, Malcolm doesn't really do much but train Thea, but I'm also quite invested in him and quite interested to see just how much he's going to factor into future plays... especially with the League of Assassins on the reason, which I think will be the factor that brings the Queen and Merlyn teams together. And unless if I'm missing something, I think no one from Team Arrow realizes Thea is actually hanging out with Malcolm, so that's a secret that Thea's keeping from Oliver in a nice little reversal. Of course it remains to be seen just how much Oliver will reveal to Thea, though I'm banking that Oliver isn't really that big of a douchebag to promise to tell everything and not.
I do like how there's a distinct parallel between Oliver's training and Thea's, how Oliver's training started off with him slapping water and learning how to control his strength, whereas Thea's involved hot water poured on her hand and learning how to accept pain.
We've got a B-plot of John Diggle beings sent to check up on this dude Mark Shaw, who borrows his name from the comics' Manhunter. Mark Shaw ends up betraying ARGUS because he wants out since Amanda Waller is a massive bitch which ties in well with the theme of season three and probably a lot of things we'll learn through Oliver's flashback. I do like how in season two Diggle, who doesn't know much about Waller, was the one that interacted the most with her whereas Waller and Oliver didn't really interact much beyond some gritted-teeth cooperation. Anyway Mark Shaw ends up betraying them and trying to sell the data (which includes data on Diggle's family) to Milo Armitage's man, Armitage getting a new mention after a brief cameo in season two as the dude who hired the Bronze Tiger. We get a couple of awesome fight scenes of Oliver, Roy and Diggle taking out Mark Shaw's hired soldiers, including a couple of hilarious scenes where Oliver told Roy he made all the arrows and bows from their hotel room (literally) and Roy's baffled look when Oliver kills a bunch of dudes with a gun and Oliver's "what? I never said I couldn't use a gun."
That scene of Lyla putting little Sara to sleep near the end? I was so worried someone was going to come in and shoot her and the baby, either villains or ARGUS people. Which is pretty impressive just how much Sara's death in the first episode is a game changer. Also shows just how much introducing an adorable baby can change how you feel about a certain character.
We also get a little side-story thing with Felicity, finally working under Ray Palmer, and Palmer's finally being portrayed in a less-douchey light as he's extremely accommodating towards Felicity. I do like how the show keeps Ray Palmer's swagger constant but the levels of douchebaggery is distinct when he's an antagonist and he's a helper. We've got a hilarious scene of Palmer, Diggle and Laurel all asking Felicity to do something all at the same time. At the end Felicity randomly decides to go to Central City for a crossover episode, setting up her guest starring role in the Flash, so it really is just her visiting Barry instead of some big fallout like I had feared.
Oh, and of course she decrypts the hard drive destroyed by... Oliver, I think? In that episode where he blew up the Queen laboratory in that episode where Caitlin Snow and Cisco Ramos did their early-bird cameo. Anyway, Ray Palmer discovers that the hard drive has a shit-ton of weapon blueprints, and he's shocked... since he's supposed to be one of the good guys, hopefully he doesn't use it to make a giant army for himself? I'm highly curious and interested in the direction they're taking Ray Palmer in. It's certainly not what I'm expected.
The other B-plot is Laurel, who sadly reverts to being unlikable. First, we discover that she apparently didn't break the news to Quentin -- though the show doesn't explicitly say that she didn't. Quentin did make some references to Sara, but he might just be really good at keeping it together. Meanwhile Laurel's basically gone thrill-seeking and does some 'I need to satisfy these urges' thing to justify putting on a mask and beating up criminals... although thankfully reality ensues and Laurel gets completely beaten up by this douchebag boyfriend of someone from her Alcoholics Anonymous group. She should count herself lucky she didn't get any permanent injuries. I do like how Quentin did an 'anonymous tip' to arrest damn asshole, and I'm frankly surprised Quentin didn't do more. But Laurel, man, why do you have to make yourself so unlikable again? Laurel's scene with Oliver just begging him to teach her how to fight, not to avenge Sara, not to clean up the streets, but to satisfy her freaking urges sounds so fucking selfish and frankly just pisses me off.
But on the other hand, we get the cameo of Ted Grant, better known as Wildcat from the comics, who's going to train Laurel presumably to take up the mantle of Black Canary as the show seems to imply will happen. I do like Ted Grant, and so far the small role he had in this episode being this boxer dude who takes in kids lost in rage and teaches them how to let the rage out positively... yeah, I really do like Wildcat and I definitely want to see more of him. Who knows, maybe Laurel can get some of that positive energy off of him and not be such a massive bitch.
We get a couple of other comic nods, with Ted Grant's gym being 'Wildcat's gym', and Thea using the alias Mia while she's in Colto Martese. Mia Dearden (a.k.a. Speedy) is also the character that Thea Dearden Queen is based on, and that brought a small smile to my face.
Also there's the stinger where Nyssa al Ghul shows up and demands to know where Sara is, which promises more on that front. I do like how the Sara plot isn't completely abandoned, we get around five minutes or so of Oliver looking for clues about Sara, as well as some references when Felicity is all fizzed out -- I do like how Felicity, in retrospect, is kind of broken by Sara's death but the Flash's guest-star episode thankfully didn't spoil it for me.
Overall it's a slow episode, but a very focused one and possibly my favourite episode so far in Arrow's season three which may be influenced by me liking Thea's character a lot now. With the next episodes shaping up to set up the League of Assassins and conflicts on the Merlyn front and the Sara front, I'm highly anticipating that as well.
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