Arrow S07E18 Review: Birds of Prey

Arrow, Season 7, Episode 18: Lost Canary

Man, what a... what a bland episode, huh? Again, while I really, really love the cast of Arrow, sometimes it's episodes like this that make me shrug and note just how much better the seasons would've been if they had been shorter. Honestly, it took me... quite a long while to get through this episode after one of my brief sabbaticals from watching superhero shows.

Honestly, after this batch of superhero shows have ended, I probably really need to rethink the way I do superhero show reviews, particularly with the immense batch of new shit coming out from Disney/Marvel's new streaming service and things like Stargirl, Pennyworth and whatnot coming from the DC end of things. Shit, I haven't even watched the second episode of Doom Patrol, or touched the second Punisher season! We'll see, honestly, because I am kind of at a superhero TV fatigue, and might just take a huge break from most shows altogether and just review them in bulk.

This episode, though... it doesn't really add a whole ton to the show. Basically we just follow up on the Laurel-II/Dinah drama that we've been building up in the background of the past couple of episodes, as Laurel-II finally takes Emiko's machinations (Emiko herself sits out on the entire episode) to heart and re-embraces her old villain persona as Black Siren. And we get Dinah on one hand who's convinced that Laurel is back to being evil and there's no redemption, while Felicity is hanging on to the hope that Laurel's just fallen in to desperation and that they weren't being the best support system to her thanks to constantly second-guessing her moves. Both of them have great points (and Black Siren is admittedly a pretty nasty person pre-redemption) but ultimately, the episode is sort of muddled in the not-particularly-interesting question of "did she/didn't she".

Sara Lance shows up in a fun cameo, and I love Sara so it's definitely welcome. But while we do get a couple of badass action scenes as three Black Canaries show up together in the episode's fight scenes, and Sara and Laurel get a couple of decent scenes... ultimately the episode sort of fell flat. I'm not sure if it's just the lack of buildup, the genuinely bland villain-of-the-week Shadow Thief, the mis-handlement of Laurel's fake heel-face-turn, or what, but throughout the episode it just feels very bland and just going through the motions, before the eventual and predictable return to good... and then subsequently seemingly written out of the show as she goes home to Earth 2, albeit as Black Canary and not as Black Siren.

Like, honestly, if the concept of this episode was shown to me, I'm pretty sure I'd be super excited. The culmination of Laurel-II's redemption? A Sara Lance cameo? Felicity sticking to her guns and being a good friend? But the way the episode handles its writing is so mechanical and lifeless that when the episode is over all I had was a shrug.

Neither of the side-plots really end up being interesting or memorable either. Oliver and John go and get some information from the shield guy from the Longbow Hunters (hilariously Oliver has no idea who Longbow man is), which isn't that interesting, and we maybe are building up to some sort of Emiko redemption? The future side-quests show that, coincidentally enough, Mia ends up getting an argument with future-Dinah about how her organization, the Canaries (did we even know about this beforehand?), and she goes off to fight like a future Robo-cop or something (is this the Archer program?) before she gets saved by Laurel-II as Black Canary, returning to help out Earth-1.

Ultimately, it's an episode that really should've been this huge triumph for the show, but ends up being an episode that I honestly am utterly indifferent about.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Shadow Thief, a.k.a. Aviva Metula, is based on the New 52 version of the character as opposed to the more iconic pre-52 nemesis of Hawkman. While New 52 Shadow Thief still has the same shadow-melding powers that her predecessor has, albeit explained to be thanks to a highly sophisticated suit of armour, this Shadow Thief is just sort of a thief. 
• Felicity jokes that they should make a superhero team called "Birds of Justice" or something-like-that, which is, of course, a reference to the Birds of Prey team, a superhero team in the DC comics that is founded primarily by Black Canary and Oracle, a character Felicity heavily borrows from.