Arrow S3E11 Review: Laurel Continues to Lie

Arrow, Season 3, Episode 11: Midnight City

Bit of a slower episode as we kind of inch onwards on the plot points built up last episode. In Starling City, the sidekicks, now including a new Black Canary, continue to try to thwart Brick without Oliver's help... and has some modicum of success even if Brick still wins in the grand scheme of things. In the mountains, Oliver recovers and kind of tries to elude the League of Assassins with Maseo and Tatsu's help. In Hong Kong, five years ago, Oliver and Maseo successfully rescue Tatsu from China White. Some smaller plot threads aside, it's brought everything from the previous episode into a reasonably satisfying conclusion.

On the downside, it's kind of a slow episode where there's just a fair amount of moments just spent... talking, or angsting, or taking too long to set up scenes. Other than the fight scenes, I think this is the weakest of the superhero TV shows this week. Still a reasonably solid episode, but one that could stand with better pacing.

Laurel, acting as the new Canary, ends up getting beat up by this random street punk in her first outing, and everyone lampshades that she doesn't have the crazy five-year assassin training that Sara (and Oliver) has. Which is absolutely true. All Laurel has is a bit of police training and a couple months of boxing with Ted Grant (who they could really recruit to bolster their forces) which ain't going to mean jack shit if she's going to go around swinging that bo-staff like a baseball bat instead of a staff. Also, Laurel also forgot she has the sonic scream things which she used last episode, which would've worked excellently in the couple of times that she fought Brick and was taken out.

But other than the emo emo stuff, this is the best I've liked Laurel in a long, long time. And while I didn't like to watch Laurel's selfish emo-ness, kind of makes her shaky transition into the Canary a lot more believable. She gets to be a bitch several times in this episode, like telling Roy and Diggle to piss off early on (though it's nowhere as bitchy as last episode) and actually impersonating Sara with one of Oliver's voice changers to fool Quentin, which is kind of going over the line. Again, out of everyone in the cast, Laurel needs an appointment with a therapist the most since not only has she absolutely failed to deal with Sara's death and is basically a ticking time bomb for a disaster, she's also now making it worse by lying to her father in a degree so much more magnified than before. Quentin's going to have a hell of a conversation with Laurel when he finds out about everything, though. All those moments where he's just all "why hasn't Sara contacted us?" and all that is just heartbreaking, not only for him but for Laurel as well who's putting the charade up.

She also stabs one of Brick's thugs while fighting in her civilian guise with a heel, which I thought was pretty awesome.

Overall, I do sort of like what they did with Laurel, and since I have loathed Laurel since... well, since season two began, it's definitely a welcome change.

Meanwhile, Arsenal (or 'Red Arrow', as a news report calls him -- a nod to his other codename in the comics) is taking point for most of the operations, and while he does give a supremely better showing than Laurel, it's still evident the lack of skill he possesses, especially when dealing with a larger amount of people. Plus the whole 'no killing' thing might be a smite harder, again, when all Roy has is a couple of months of training with Oliver instead of five years. Plus Roy is used to, y'know, working with Oliver so this transition period is kind of shaky. I do like how both Laurel and Roy aren't shown to be anywhere near Sara or Oliver level of awesomeness yet.

And I do like how in their combined assault in the middle of the episode, Laurel basically stumbled when she hopped onto the top of the truck, gets beaten up and only survives because Brick doesn't like to hit women, and Roy's petty shot gets Brick to execute an alderman. I do like how they're just fucking things up without Oliver and Felicity (who's off throwing a tantrum too) but the alternative, that they stop trying, isn't an option. In their second fight they kind of fare better, even if Laurel still gets pummeled a fair bit, but at least Laurel manages to trick Brick long enough to escape.

Diggle gets to run homebase even though a trained soldier with no qualms of killing (Roy and Laurel notably don't try to kill anyone) he would've been a hell lot more useful than Laurel in the field. He does get to be this mature, more seasoned soldier and I do like the moment where they remember Oliver with a little nod to Oliver and Antoni's "Prochnost", and it's a nice acknowledgment that despite him having been in this game for a longer time, Oliver's still got time to just drink away his sorrows on tougher nights.

Felicity has, through the course of the episode and seeing Ray Palmer throw himself into danger to save her, gotten out of her flunk and bonds with Laurel, noting that despite Sara and Oliver's deaths, they still need to continue on the fight since they're the only ones who can do so. Instead of, y'know, calling over the Flash or the national guard or ARGUS. Because emotions.

But whatever the case, Felicity's back, which is great because her going off to cry, as much sense as it makes for her characterization, has also hurt Team Arrow's functioning. And with their only options at the moment being relatively minimal, they need Felicity. We also get a slight advancing over the whole Ray/Felicity sub-plot. There is a couple of shippy moments going on, and Ray is still being his usual swaggering stuff though at times it felt rather... cold. Especially in that scene where Ray cracks jokes about exosuits after Brick's men just killed half of the people in the room. Also, the exosuit (which apparently can fire lasers beams of hard light) is still a no-go until Felicity resolves to help out at the end of the episode. There's the helicopter scenes... which kind of fall flat on me. Eh.

Brick is a fun villain, and I do like how while not having a big 'main villain' vibe like Ra's or Merlyn, he still exudes enough power and charisma to be more than just a villain-of-the-week. He's suitably threatening and has basically shrugged off everything Laurel and Roy threw at him, being absolutely confident and just blackmailing everyone and having backup plans. For all the good Laurel and Roy did in rescuing the two remaining aldermen, Brick manages to get the policemen to withdraw from the Glades anyway because Brick has the addresses of important people he can just go up to and kill. He apparently doesn't like to hit women... unless if they piss him off a lot of times, in which case he's perfectly happy with crushing Laurel's throat. He's a pretty effective villain. It also helps that he's a big, hammy villain and those are the best kind.

We also get a side-plot of Merlyn trying to get Thea to move out of the city, which Thea predictably refuses. It's kind of drawn out a fair bit, with Merlyn eventually telling Thea that they have to run from Ra's al Ghul... and since Merlyn isn't telling her everything Thea just counters with how Merlyn taught her not to fear, and they should stand and fight... which is what they seem to be doing. Roy confronts Merlyn and tries to tell him to back off, but let's be honest here -- Roy ain't going to last a round against Merlyn and he backs off. I do like how Merlyn seems to have actually regretted the actions he did which caused Tommy's death, and is genuinely trying to protect Thea in his own sick, twisted way.

Thea is another one who will have a long, long conversation with Oliver and/or Merlyn and/or Roy once she finds out what's going on.

Also, Face-Rape DJ McDouchebag shows up a couple of times just to remind us that he exists, before he's revealed to be a mole for the League of Assassins that's monitoring Merlyn. Yay, I guess? I hope Merlyn guts McDouchebag like a fish.

That's all for Starling City, I believe. In the mountains that Oliver is, he recovers from his injuries though Tatsu does not elaborate exactly how beyond 'oh the cold help preserve your body' and 'drink this penicillin tea for your infection'. The scenes are relatively shorter than the Starling stuff, though a fair amount of the conversation is just... setup dialogue. Maseo and Tatsu are basically estranged, and are divorced or whatever. Maseo has apparently abandoned his old name and life for his new identity of Saraab, though Tatsu wants him to stay. Maseo cares enough to try and fool the assassin mooks sent to look for Oliver's remains, and with the help of Oliver and Tatsu, kills them, then wounds himself as the excuse that Oliver is still alive. Maseo also picks up the call from DJ McCreep, and it remains to be seen if he'll deliver that message to Ra's al Ghul... which I think he will, since, y'know, Maseo has no love for Merlyn or Thea.

Whatever the case, I guess the big mystery in Hong Kong is just how they got estranged, how Maseo ended up being part of the League of Assassins... and how that child of theirs is undoubtedly going to die.

The flashbacks are shorter this time around, with Maseo and Oliver going up to China White's casino or whatever and arrange a trade for the Alpha Virus for the captured Tatsu. Despite Maseo being fully prepared to give the real deal to China White, Waller has switched it out with a dud because she's fucking Amanda Waller... but they manage to get Tatsu out safely. It's nothing particularly exciting and I felt that they could've done a bit more with it since the flashbacks are short and just move from one point to the next dryly.

I do like the Laurel/Quentin and Merlyn/Thea conversations, and the subtle comparison between the two father-daughter conversations and just how covered with lies and love the two pairs are. We get some advancement in the League of Assassins plot, and the Brick plot, and the Hong Kong plot. It's just that, well... most of this is just characterization and that could really have been paced out a lot better. The present-day Oliver stuff really could stand to be cut out more to incorporate more of the Hong Kong or the Starling stuff.

Overall, while I'm not overtly excited by the rather painful way that the remnants of Team Arrow just try so hard to deal with the fallout of Oliver's not-death, it's still interesting to see how they're managing to do so on their own. It's a slower and more depressing episode with how despite all the motivations and all the pain the good guys must force themselves to muster everything they can without Oliver Queen, and while they manage to score small victories like protecting the two kidnapped aldermen and managing to escape from Brick mostly unscathed, the failures they did -- the alderman that Brick shot, and the fact that Brick still manages to outwit them -- leaves permanent scars.