Arrow, Season 5, Episode 17: Kapiushon
So one of my biggest problems with Arrow is how... different the character has became. He appeared in his first season as an adaptation of Green Arrow in name only, being more akin to an adaptation of the Vigilante or Punisher, just dressed in Green Arrow's costume. He was a cold-blooded murderer that shoots first and investigates later, working on his own personal hit list. As the seasons go on, he became softer and softer and more akin to the DC Comics superhero that he's based on. But from a storytelling viewpoint, we are beholden to have the five-year flashback arc end at a point when Oliver Queen returned to Star City as the murdering vigilante that he is in season one... and it needs to make sense. It needs to be explained.
Hence, this episode. It's an episode that I watched a couple of days after it aired, but one that took me close to two weeks to really sit down and review. It's... it's going to be a polarizing episode, that's for sure, that reaches back into the long, five-season-long lore behind CW's incarnation of the Green Arrow. What started off as seemingly a pretty run-of-the-mill "villain wants to force the hero to admit that he's as damaged as he is" Killing Joke photocopy plot turns out to be more thought-out than it first appears to be, by the simple vein that we actually do have the previous events from seasons one through five that show how Oliver Queen is.
Plus, this is one of those flashbacks whose plotline really worked well alongside the themes of the present day without being too preachy about it. I don't think the Russian flashbacks ever got as bad as the Baron Reiter or Hong Kong era flashbacks, which were both pretty dire as pacing, but the past three or four episodes have been dragging their heels through the mud and I'm surprised, very pleasantly so, that this episode served as a very thrilling climax to the Russian plot. Yes, it's obvious that both Oliver and Anatoly are protected by canon, and Kovar's going to lose, but that doesn't mean that the fight to reach Kovar isn't entertaining or tense. We get some cool action scenes, of course, like the brutal mano-a-mano between Oliver and Kovar at the end, or the huge firefight at the docks when both the Bratva and Kovar's men try to steal the Sarin gas. We learn that Kovar's trying to assassinate the entire Russian government and take over -- a respectable plan that's not too convoluted, but still makes sense for what little we know of Kovar. We get a short plotline with Oliver confronting Taiana's mother, who ends up getting killed by Kovar shortly after. Trying to gain her allegiance seems to be something that the show would love to drag on and on, knowing Arrow, but thankfully it's cut short into a single episode. Ditto for the Victor/Anatoly friction, where Victor of course betrays the Bratva to Kovar because none of these people other than Anatoly and the armies of nameless, disposable goons care for loyalty, apparently.
Hell, we even get an unexpected Malcolm Merlyn appearance in the flashbacks, where he's still doing the Undertaking all the way back in season one, and apparently he not only is allies with Konstantin Kovar, but he also recovered Kovar's body from being killed by Oliver and turned him into... uh... a Frankenstein's Monster? Also his brief meeting with Anatoly is hilarious. "Malcolm Merlyn. CEO of the Merlyn Global Group." "Anatoly Knyazev. Gangster." The fact that Dolph Lundgren's character isn't going to be written out so quickly is also a very nice proposition -- though I'm not sure if Kovar will continue to be the menace for the remainder of this season's flashbacks, or if he's being saved for when Malcolm returns to Star City next season.
The main appeal still comes from the conversations between Anatoly and Oliver. Anatoly keeps telling Oliver that he should only be killing when it's necessary, that a flimsy hood that allows Oliver to become "Something else" isn't going to work forever. Yes, he's directing his rage only in his Hood (or Kapiushon) persona, but that's still a lot of rage and bloodlust. Killing Gregor is one thing. Murdering Kovar is another that may or may not be justified -- it's definitely something that Kovar has coming, but at the same time the dude's surrendering and trying to kill the entire Russian ruling government isn't something he can weasel his way out of, so it's Oliver wanting to kill more than anything.
And most damningly is Oliver's skinning of Kovar's henchman, something we mercifully saw off-screen. Anatoly's horrified look when he arrives into the room, before noting that the man struggled for quite some time before he gave up the information... only for Oliver to reveal that the man submitted to torture pretty quickly but he needed the practice... that's cold, dark, and really deserving of the term "monster". Oliver even describes himself as such when referring to the killer of Taiana and Vlad when questioned by their mother.
All of this translates very, very well to the present-day storyline. Adrian is torturing Oliver, forcing him to 'confess', and Oliver isn't quite sure what he's being forced to confess to. It's actually not the Joker-esque "everyone only needs one bad day to become as crazy and damaged as I am" plot that... that works fine for the Joker but is absolutely irritating when everyone else apes it. It's actually Adrian forcing Oliver to admit that, well, they're both the same. They both kill and kill and enjoy it, and hide behind things like a cause to justify it. It's not entirely black and white, of course -- Oliver is a being that clearly respects the ideals he's fighting for -- in honour of his father, to clean up his city, and later in honour of his fallen comrades... but at the same time, his shoot-first-ask-questions-later rampage during the first season, as well as how he dealt with some characters in the flashback like General Schierve or Konstantin Kovar, really does support the fact that, yeah, sometimes Oliver kills for necessity.
Adrian himself acts like he's got the high ground, but the show makes it apparent how insanely unhinged he is, going on wild screaming rants, punching the wall and being frustrated that Oliver hasn't embraced his true nature. He's still evil, of course, but there's just something inherently interesting and unique about this creature who wants nothing more than to just fuck Oliver over by proving that they're the same. First by threatening to kill Oliver's son, showing that he has the ability to sneak into little Connor's house, and later by pushing an obviously-mentally-tortured Evelyn Sharp into the same cage as Oliver, promising to kill Evelyn if Oliver doesn't kill her first.
At first I thought it was another bad writing decision, especially when Evelyn ends up being reduced to a crying wreck... after spending a good chunk of this season being sidelined and actually being missing for the past half-dozen episodes, seeing her brought back broken and later killed off-handedly by Adrian felt like a huge disservice to her character (we still don't know so much about her)... and I don't even especially like Evelyn! Evelyn's actress so rarely gets a chance to shine, being reduced to a minor supporting character or being given hammy 'mwa ha ha I'm evil' lines that doesn't really give her to work with, but Madison McLaughlin plays the damaged victim so, so well that I actually bought what she's telling me.
And then as Oliver screams with rage that he enjoys killing, Adrian reveals that it's all an act, and Evelyn's still on his side. The episode is more or less a bottle episode -- out of the present-day cast, we don't see Diggle, Felicity and Curtis until the end of the episode -- but it's absolutely effective in showing how Oliver gets broken down emotionally as he's forced to see the faces of his victims, the constant threats to the people he loves, and seeing what seemed to be an ally that made a bad decision once get brutally murdered by Adrian.
So yeah, a very emotionally-charged episode that might not agree well with everyone considering the revelation that Oliver actually enjoys killing and is just keeping himself in check. But honestly? It works. It's the writers acknowledging the inconsistencies of their writing for Oliver, while simultaneously crafting an excellent character arc that has him confront his past.
So... really like this episode. We'll see if the rest of the season holds up.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Konstantin Kovar is actually the name of the superhero Red Star's father in the comics. Red Star's a member of the Teen Titans, with the real name Leonid Konstantinovich Kovar and I cannot believe I didn't catch on this until seventeen episodes into this season.
- The Count (a.k.a. Count Vertigo to comic-book fans) from season one finally has his real name revealed when Adrian brings out a picture of him. It's Cecil Adams, which... isn't the name of any DC character we know. In addition to the Count, Anatoly also mentions the flashback sequences of the second season, including his first meeting with Oliver, as well as their fight against Anthony Ivo and Slade Wilson.
- Malcolm Merlyn appears in the flashback, doing his huge Undertaking plan for season one. Kovar mentions that he's going to get information about Unidac Industries for Malcolm as part of a deal, and Unidac was the Queen Industries subsidiary that Malcolm used to develop the earthquake device, and subsequently single-handedly massacre as the Dark Archer during the penultimate episode of season one.
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