Arrow S07E01 Review: Two-Four-Six-Oh-One

Arrow, Season 7, Episode 1: Inmate 4587

Huh. I suppose as to be expected from a show that tries so hard to define itself with a flashback sub-plot similar to media juggernaut Lost, that Arrow's seventh season would then pull on another plot twist Lost did, which is the replacing of flashbacks with flash-forwards. And it's... it's honestly kind of a shrug moment for me. I honestly wouldn't have minded too much if they dropped the flash-whatevers entirely, considering how they've really struggled to do anything meaningful with it after the second season. And we kind of did have a flash-forward of sorts back during season four with "whose grave is it?" bit, and that didn't end up all that well.

But the season premiere ends up not just doing a flash-forward, it also has what is apparently just a dream sequence of Ricardo Diaz gunning Felicity down on Lian Yu. Which is just utterly bizarre and unnecessary other than for some weak attempt at a psych-out. The actual flash-forward is... okay? Teenage!William travels all the way to Lian Yu at some undetermined point in the future, and meets Roy Harper, who's living in the island. It's a neat little concept,  but without any real tell of what it's going to lead to, all I have to say about the flash-forward is a noncommittal shrug.

This season premiere ends up kind of re-establishing the new status quo. It's apparently been around five months in-universe as well for the Arrow Team, and after how utterly inconsistent everything in the sixth season has been, the restructuring is certainly needed. Oliver Queen is now a prisoner in the prison, working out and showing off his muscles and trying to keep to himself. Some random new Green Arrow impersonator -- complete with his own list and Oliver's old catchphrase -- is going around taking down criminals, much to the frustration of Dinah, the new head of Star City's police. Rene, on the other hand, is taking the voice of the little people and is actively supporting the Arrow-impersonator. Felicity and William are in witness protection, with Felicity acting as Erin the barista. Diggle and Curtis are in ARGUS, and we barely see either of them this episode. Not-Laurel cameos in a TV news, basically taking over Laurel's old role and hammering down this new hard stance on vigilantes.

And let's talk about Oliver's storyline first, because he's quite literally secluded from the rest of the cast in the prison. He gets attacked by a bunch of old enemies -- Bronze Tiger, Brick and Derek Sampson -- neat little nods to the show's old history. And it's a pretty simple storyline. Oliver gets into a fight, and refuses to fight back because he just doesn't want to make any trouble that'll get his release postponed. Meanwhile, some sad dude who's framed for his crime, Stanley, ends up begging him for help and beaten the fuck up by Brick and Sampson for it... causing Stanley to condemn Oliver Queen as one hell of a coward.

And then we get a near-naked Oliver (with some shots to prevent naughty bits from showing) fighting a bunch of thugs in the prison bath, with a message delivered to Oliver about how "Diaz found Felicity", the other big plotline in this episode. Of course, Felicity is fine -- thanks to some half-assed offscreen ARGUS  rescue -- but this ends up kind of breaking Oliver's restraint, and he resolves to end up beating up Sampson and Brick with weighlifting equipment before surrendering himself. Definitely slow and not the best-paced episode, but one that the show desperately needs considering how characterization basically translated to "shout my motivations really loudly" last season.

The rest of the characters... Felicity with her pink hair and her new barista job is okay, I guess, and that "thank god you monologue" line was hilarious, but the attack on her house by Diaz is just sort of out of nowhere, and what promises to be a tense situation -- even if Felicity isn't killed -- ends up quite literally handwaved offscreen. A particularly silly bit since Ricardo Diaz is just a man without even any sort of fancy trick arrows or whatever. ARGUS is an organization that is supposed to take down metahumans every other weekend. The show is trying to hype up Diaz as a superhuman threat, and honestly? As awesome as Kirk Acevedo's performance is, I'm chalking that offscreen escape as a contrivance.

The Dinah/Rene/NewArrow storyline is... neat. It's obviously the same sort of argument that Oliver himself faced when he first debuted back in the first season, with Quentin and Laurel and whoever arguing as to whether this new vigilante is dangerous or actually a modern-day Robin Hood. A pretty awesome segment of action scenes, too, when New Arrow shows up and beats up Jason Stent's minions -- that was well-choreographed, even if, again, the arguments are kind of recycled.

It's not the most exciting opening episode, I suppose, but it's not a bad one. At seven seasons and counting I'm genuinely not expecting anything too revolutionary, but at least the season sort of promises something that's different but familiar.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Brick was an arc villain in the third season, and briefly showed up in the climax of the fourth. He taunts Oliver with allowing Merlyn to spare him, an event that happened in the third season. Derek Sampson was last seen as a recurring enemy in season five. Bronze Tiger has not been seen since season two when he joined the Suicide Squad, presumably due to the whole embargo on Suicide Squad characters -- he's actually been killed off in a tie-in comic, which I guess they're ignoring now. Neat!