Arrow S08E09 Review: Actually A Prequel

Arrow, Season 8, Episode 9: Green Arrow and the Canaries

So, yeah, it's been a while since I reviewed Crisis on Infinite Earths, and even longer since it actually aired. And after Crisis, there are two extra episodes of Arrow that aired to close out the season. And... and let's just put it mildly -- the huge conclusion that Arrow's eighth season was building up to? A huge climactic death for their flagship character, Oliver Queen? It's... it's not very satisfying, narratively speaking, and while Crisis is a triumph as far as being a huge epic crossover goes, as an actual cohesive story -- and, more importantly, as a conclusion to Oliver Queen's story, it's not that great. We do have two more episodes to properly send off good ol' Oliver Queen, and it's just as well that the rest of season eight has been basically a huge "bye-bye" to Ollie, because this episode is... well, it's basically a backdoor pilot for the upcoming "Green Arrow and the Canaries" TV show, a.k.a. Star City 2040, a.k.a. the least interesting part of the Arrowverse. I do think that they do have a bunch of great actors on their hands, but I just really don't care about the characters or the setting at all.

I do find that the episode at least tries to answer a bunch of questions -- like the first post-Crisis episodes of Supergirl and Flash, we get some answers about just how life after Oliver Queen remade the universe ended up being. And it basically meant that Oliver retconned all of the bad stuff that happened across Arrow seasons one through seven, but it doesn't make things too different, or something. Apparently being the Spectre doesn't give Oliver omnipotent power, though, because in 2040, the Deathstroke gang is still there, and at this point I have kind of given up really caring? They're quite literally a bunch of fakers trying to ride the wave of a cool villain with absolutely nothing that made Deathstroke cool in the first place.

The plotline is basically what you expect from a backdoor pilot, bringing in a bunch of characters -- Laurel II is here (I think she time-traveled?) and recruits Dinah and Mia into the cause of preventing a bad future, and restores Mia's memory and she angsts and grapples with the oh-so-eyeroll-inducing angst of "oh no, my fiance in this current life is actually a psychotic murderer in the old Earth-1", because in Earth-Prime, J.J. is shacking up with Mia and Connor is a relapsing criminal or something. But... I just have so little attachment to any of these characters except for Mia, so all you get from me is a shrug for all of the huge TRUST!!! drama that this episode asks me to invest in.

Oh, and there's someone going around kidnapping Bianca Bertinelli, and that's the plot of the week. Turns out it's some random dude, who pretends to be yet another Deathstroke poser, and it's not J.J., but then some other random dude kidnaps William and also restores J.J.'s Earth-Prime memories. And... I dunno, the concept is decent on paper I guess, and the execution is decently done with all the action scenes and acting and all, but it's all just so dry. That said, though, it has been one of my biggest complaints throughout season 7 and 8 that none of the Star City 2040 characters feel interesting or fleshed out, and to ask me to be interested about this new alternate-earth-rebooted version of them without me even caring for much of their original-earth version doesn't really work. Still, at least the trio of Mia, Laurel-II and Dinah are decent leads?


Anyway, I don't doubt I'll probably watch the Arrow-and-the-Canaries sequel at some point down the line, but it's certainly waaaay down the list of shows I'm interested to watch, and this backdoor pilot certainly doesn't really sell the show to me. It's not terrible, and I'm sure people are going to like it, but I dunno. All this episode earned from me is kind of a shrug. I'm sorry.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The Bertinellis are, of course, the family of the superheroine Huntress, a.k.a. Helena Bertinelli. Huntress hasn't really been seen since the first season of Arrow, but apparently her family survives all the way to 2040.  
• Dinah working in a bar and being a singer is a well-known part of the comic book's Black Canary.