Arrow S3E1 Review: A New Season and a Sudden Death

Arrow, Season 3, Episode 1: The Calm

 

So I’ve been putting off catching up with season three of Arrow until recently. To be honest my original reason for watching Arrow was solely because I was a big, big fan of Deathstroke and since he’s out of the picture for the time being that sort of dimmed by interest for Arrow somewhat. But the third season’s first episode does rekindle that fire, and how. 

A good chunk of the episode is taken up by Oliver and Felicity just flirting, before a bomb fired by the new Count Vertigo nearly kills them. And I do like how they try to set up a relationship between the two of them as season two's finale seemed to imply, except that, you know, vigilante stuff and danger gets in the way and Oliver makes the hard decision to break off with Felicity because the crusade is more important and all that. I'm not too bothered by this -- I thought the two were pretty sweet together, but I'm not all hands on deck on shipping them either. But who knows how this will affect them? Maybe another man will come in for Felicity, maybe there'll be a 'I can't live without you' moment somewhere down the road... I just hope Oliver doesn't pull a 'I'll give up being Arrow to be with you but I won't, really, because the show is called Arrow and I'll end up donning the mask at the end of the episode' thing.

We get to see the aftermath of Slade's campaign to destroy Oliver Queen... we get some lines of dialogue showing that Oliver can't really afford anything, which is why he made that little arrowhead necklace, we see Felicity working menial grunt work as an IT salesgirl, and we keep getting shown the extremely dilapidated bar as a reminder of how much it's hurt Oliver financially.

He seems to be able to get a spanking-new fresh suit for his date with Felicity no problem, though... even if it's extremely impractical to wear a buttoned-up suit under the Arrow one.

The big scare at the end of season two with Quentin Lance keeling over and coughing up blood ends up not claiming his life as I thought, nor did it make him bedridden... if anything, the city's given him a promotion. But the injury seems to make him be relatively vulnerable, and while we see Quentin going around apprehending one of the dudes Arrow was after (they have an iPad-style list instead of a book now) during the critical moment against the new Count Vertigo, Quentin's disease conveniently springs up and brings him to his knees. It seems that Quentin's going to not play as large a role as before, at least action-wise.

But consequently, that suits me fine. Quentin seems to have shot up in the ranks, seemingly replacing the asshole dude that used to be his superior, and he's shown actually actively receiving calls from Arrow. Who needs a bat-signal if you've got damned cell phones? Anyway, it's cool. Quentin can be the Gordon to Arrow's Batman. I am fine with that.

Quentin isn't the only one with an action downgrade, though. Lyla the Harbinger (still need to get used to that) is revealed to be pregnant in season two's finale, and thankfully, the show takes it in its natural direction -- Diggle and Lyla are just, y'know, happy! We get a nice little scene with Diggle with the obs-gyn doctor basically losing his mind at his wife being so close to giving birth, and while they still insist on the terminology being 'ex-husband', it's pretty nice that the two of them are getting on very well with each other, making it a slight slap in the face to Olicity shippers when they break up at the end of this one.

I do like how Diggle is all angry about Oliver leaving him apart from the front lines, and I thought we were going to go through this stupid song and dance again, but as soon as Diggle's daughter is born I absolutely like how he just, you know, admits that Oliver is right. It's a nice little touch that actually makes it pretty realistic. I'm sure Diggle will get into the field once or twice before this is all over, though. I mean, there's still the whole Deadshot thing. Lyla and her daughter kind of have sniper marks over their heads now, though, which is worrisome because I like them.

The other big thing from before is Thea, and Thea is apparently still keeping in contact with either Oliver or Felicity. We aren't shown whose phone she texted, though I'm pretty sure it's Oliver. Poor kid. Roy's justifiably pretty miffed about that. Pretty interested to see where Thea goes from here, her performance in season two has certainly caused her to grow out of the 'bratty little bitch' role and into a far more interesting character.

Roy Harper, on the other hand... man, that red costume looks so boss! I certainly prefer it to Arrow's costume, and it's just sleek and cool-looking all around. He's Arsenal or Speedy or Red Arrow in all but name, and Roy's one of those dudes where I'm equally fine with any of his alter egos. Red Arrow is certainly what would make the most sense, though. He's pretty cool, and he shows that even without Mirakuru he can still kick some ass and pulls off some awesome spinning thing on a thug. Also do like how his relationship with Oliver seems to have been pretty good, with the nice little 'partner' thing.

The main plot of this episode is, of course, someone trying to fill the power vacuum left after Slade and Brother Blood are taken out of the picture, and as Felicity establishes, there's practically only a bunch of mafia heads left. 

Quentin even publicly thanks the Arrow for rallying against the far worse terrorists that are Slade and his men, and that's awesome. I do like the fighting-against-the-police angle that's always cool, but I do absolutely love how that part is now buried and we aren't going on with them distrusting each other and fucking each other up. It's just like how we've grown more and more optimistic and less grim'n'gritty ever since season one, and how the show has been more and more accepting of actual comic book stuff, the city's starting to accept Arrow more and more.

Anyway, the dude that's coming in to fill in the power vacuum is Werner Zyte, a dude with a funny accent I can't place. He shows up and basically claims the Count Vertigo mantle for himself, and I do like his little tirade about how the mantle will always be passed on. It's got a bit of a Batman feel to it, what with the new Vertigo basically being Scarecrow's fear gas (with the initial demonstration being way too close with the Nolan version of Scarecrow to not be a homage) and the whole 'you are the one who caused this freaks to show up' vibe that Vertigo did when he spoke to the Arrow.

I personally like the new Vertigo. I mean, the original Count Vertigo was a lot more insane and crazy and all sorts of loony, but this new Vertigo is ruthless and competent and can actually fight, pulling off some nice moves on the final battle against the Arrow. I also do like how Zyte's Vertigo distinguishes himself from the original Count Vertigo by referring to the original almost consistently as 'the Count' and himself as 'Vertigo'. Being a comic book fan I'm probably going to refer to both as Count Vertigo interchangeably unless if I want to be specific, but still, it's a nice gesture.

Also, we get some cool-looking new stuff! Oliver's got these arrows that expand into wire net things, all comic-book style. I'm not sure if we've actually seen those in season two or not, but they are cool nonetheless. Certainly do hope to see more awesome trick arrows!

Also the telescopic bow that collapses into a fist-sized mass. Holy shit that was awesome. I had to rewind that scene to rewatch the transforming bow just to appreciate it. Pretty badass.

Oh, and of course there's Sara randomly showing up in the middle of the episode, and at first I was like, 'oh cool, Black Canary's back', but then after a nice little scene at the end with Laurel she gets killed off pretty suddenly. That was an extremely sudden and definite death, with her being shot three times in the stomach with arrows, then falling down and whacking her head on the street, and she looks pretty dead when Laurel is cradling her.

Man, poor Canary.

On one hand, I don't like killing off characters for no good reason other than drama, and I do really like Sara, but on the other hand I am nonetheless highly interested to see where this goes. It seems extremely likely now that Laurel's going to take over the mantle as the second Black Canary (actually calling herself Black Canary instead of the Canary), which is fine by me... Laurel's been increasingly turning back into tolerable ever since Oliver gave her that dressing-down in season two. Sometimes you do have to call someone a bitch to get them to be, y'know, good.

Other than that whole Vertigo/Oliver's mask thing, the B-plot here that runs alongside those two is the introduction of a new villain for the Oliver side of the story, namely
the entirely unexpected addition of Ray Palmer, played by Brandon Routh of Cyclops/Superman fame. Ray Palmer's a freaking antagonist! For those not well-versed in DC lore, Ray Palmer is the Atom, a pretty major superhero. I mean, Ray Palmer's wife, Jean Loring, has already shown up in season two as Moira's attorney so it's only a matter of time until Ray Palmer himself shows up, but I thought he was going to show up like Barry did instead of, you know, like this!

It didn't click with me during Ray Palmer's first appearance that that was supposed to be him, and it is nice to have that refreshing 'ooooh right that's that guy' when Ray Palmer waltzes in like a likeable douchebag into the board room and does that whole presentation.

Also, since I'm a big comic fan, I'm perfectly fine with Ray Palmer changing Starling City's name into its proper name of Star City, although I'm not sure if that can be done elegantly in-universe. How the hell do you even change the name of a city anyway?

I do like how Ray Palmer is both likable and a douche at the same time, making him a pretty fun addition to the roster and being one of the few antagonists that I can actually like, even without the knowledge that he's a good guy from the comics. Certainly interested to see how the Ray Palmer plot will go on, and I'm surprised by the amount of swagger and charisma that Brandon Routh exudes, a stark contrast from his performance as Superman.

Oh, and Barry. On the surface, I do like the tie-in, making it so that the first episodes of Flash and Arrow's third season happen at the same time and setting up a chronology... but at the same time, where the Flash episode has him showing up in Starling City without explanation beyond 'hey he probably got here with super-speed', this one basically has Barry calling Oliver saying 'we need to talk' and then never getting to it, making it a completely confusing thing for anyone who's not watching the Flash... and it's something that I absolutely hate about modern comic books, how they are each so self-referential to other titles. Is there any reason why the Flash conversation can't take place here? Or at least be mentioned in passing? It's a minor niggle, but an annoying one nonetheless.

And, of course, like all Arrow episodes there's a flashback plot. As we see from Arrow season two, Hong Kong is the new venue for season three's flashback, which is great since I think we've stretched the Island thing beyond belief. I mean, it's absolutely fucking confident that Oliver only flashes back to the Island in sequence, like here where he remembers Hong Kong and not, oh, Yao Fei or Shado or Slade or whatever happens in the fourth and fifth years, but I digress.

We get a nice little scene of Oliver running around in Hong Kong which is pretty well-choreographed even if it drags on a little too long for my tastes. Nice to see that Oliver is trying to contact his mother (although we know he'll fail at all attempts) before getting beaten up and returned to Amanda Waller and her shady government organisation. Apparently they need someone of Oliver Queen's particular skill set... and presumably she knows this from Edward Fyers or someone, setting her up as the Big Bad of the Island plots before being revealed that she's a necessary evil or actually doing something good in a ruthless way or whatever. Definitely interested in the whole Amanda Waller angle and how ARGUS plays into all this.

We get to see Oliver Queen's next mentors, first this pretty Japanese lady who gets introduced to us, the audience, on a bed tending to Oliver while wearing a pretty loose and skin-revealing outfit. She's Japanese, and I do like the soul-crushing disappointment that exudates from Oliver when she informs him that she is, in fact, married. Damn, Oliver... You do realize you're supposed to be in mourning for both Shado and Sara right around this point, yeah?

Her husband introduces himself as Maseo Yamashiro, and she's named Tatsu. Tatsu Yamashiro is the identity of minor DC superheroine Katana, and I do like her! And apparently Waller is holding Maseo's family custody and it seems that either one of the Yamashiros are going to train Oliver in whatever the hell Waller wants him to do.

Overall? A pretty interesting first episode to a new season, and with everything that's going on it's certainly piqued my attention. Hong Kong, Vertigo, everything... Then there's the whole mystery about who killed Sara -- Sara recognizes the killer, who's using a voice changer. I don't think it's Oliver or Roy, though Roy is suspiciously patrolling during Sara's death, so maybe...? Other options would be Merlyn or Thea, though the former seems to obvious and the latter seems a bit too dark. Maybe someone else from the League of Assassins? Nyssa? Also I'm curious how this will affect Laurel and Quentin's relationships with Arrow, and I sincerely hope they're still working together after all is said and done... we've had enough of them fighting in past seasons.

With all that said, well, I guess that ran a bit longer than I thought it would, but hey, I do have a fair bit I wanted to talk about.