Plot
The conflict between Original Team Arrow and Black Canary, Wild Dog and Mister Terrific finally comes to blows when the two teams disagree about how to handle the murderous Black Siren.
Influences
The Green Arrow comics of Judd Winick. (Superheroes fighting each other while the villains give them the run around.)
Goofs
The entire episode is built around a faulty premise. Original Team Arrow is desperate to find Black Siren because of the footage that shows her withdrawing Cayden James' ransom from a bank in Corto Maltese. Black Siren couldn't have gone to get the money on a day's notice because there was no way out of the city thanks to Cayden James sealing every way out of the city, including the airport. Even if she did manage this to escape the city, why on Earth One would she have come back to Star City, even if she could have made it back in a day or two? And how did she accomplish this in the first place when she's been in Quentin's cabin since the end of the last episode?
Somehow, Rene is written as the smart one on "New Team Arrow", spotting tire-tracks that can be analyzed and being the one to come up with a plan to spy on Team Arrow. While the character is less of an idiot and more of a hothead depending on the writer, it's just out of character for him to be a strategist. Then again, since Dinah has been derailed into the team hot-head, someone had to be the strategist and it can't be Curtis because he's too busy being the comic relief.
Why does Dinah stomp on the listening device after they find it in the street once John ditched it? They can reuse it again!
Oliver and John stopping Curtis and Dinah from chasing after Black Siren - who just proved she's fit enough to use her powers and run - doesn't make a damn bit of sense. They should have been close enough to hear Black Siren use her sonic scream.
How the frell does Black Siren - wounded and hobbled and tired - escape from Green Arrow, apart from Ollie being more concerned about taking down Curtis and Dinah than dealing with the escaping murderer who is holding the city funds hostage? It's not like all of them were needed to get Rene to the hospital and it's not like Curtis and Dinah would have taken his help with an evac anyway.
Performances
The only reason Dinah's transformation is at all credible is because Juliana Harkavy treats the script with far more respect than it deserves.
Trivia
The alias "Siu Jerk Jai" is a reference to Gail Simone's run on Birds of Prey. It was the pet name given to Dinah Lance by one of her martial arts instructors. It means "little bird" in Japanese.
Technobabble
Cayden James died from a severed subclavian artery.
Mr. Terrific's Supersonic Spectrograph is a new function Curtis built into his T-Spheres. It uses Earth-2 sonic frequencies emitted by Black Siren's sonic scream and combines them with light imaging to create a holographic replication of her position during her fight with Dinah. This is able to determine that someone dragged her from the crime scene while she was unconscious.
Team Arrow uses a luminol to follow Black Siren's blood trail.
Felicity performs a triple-worm blue-cobalt IP hack on Curtis' system.
Curtis hack's John's implant to use it as a tracking device.
John identifies one of Ollie's trick arrows as the Sonic Dampener Arrow.
Rene suffered a traumatic hemothorax.
Dialogue Triumphs
Dinah: I'm guessing Felicity had something to do with this?
Oliver: Yes. She did. Thank you for inserting yourself into this, by the way.
Dinah: Oh, yeah. Sure. Well, you never would have shared the information otherwise.
Oliver: No, I wouldn't have. Because I don't trust you to do the right thing.
Dinah: And what is that? Politely ask Laurel to give the money back?
Oliver: Not kill her.
Oliver: Dinah, I understand that you're hurting. I also know that I don't have the most credibility when it comes to telling people not to commit murder. But the city is on the verge of economic collapse, and we just found the key to fixing that!
Dinah: Laurel is never giving you that money.
Oliver: You don't know that.
Dinah: Yeah. I actually do. Because I know that when you look at her, you see the Laurel that you lost. And that's why you'll never be able to do what is necessary to get that money back.
Oliver: And you will?
(Dinah just glares at him.)
Oliver: Understand something. I will never let you cross that line.
Dinah: If you're going to threaten me, Oliver, you'd better be damn sure that you can deliver.
Oliver: Having second thoughts?
John: Best case scenario, man - Laurel avoids punishment for what she's done. And we put a hurting on the people who used to be our friends.
Oliver: But we keep the city from dying!
John: But at what cost?
Oliver: (pauses) If the people going after her didn't look like Curtis, Dinah and Rene, would you even be asking this question?
John: No. No. (bites lip) But I can't help but wonder - would we be doing this is the person they were after didn't look like Laurel?
(Black Canary is in the middle of strangling Black Siren.)
Mister Terrific: Dinah! We lose her, we lose the money. But even if we had the money, you can't do this.
Black Canary: Oh God... I have to, Curtis! You know I have to! I have to get justice for Vince!
Mister Terrific: Dinah, look around! Look at what we're doing to each other! Does this look like justice?
Black Canary: It's nobody's fault but theirs.
(There is a long pause as Mister Terrific just stares at her.)
Mister Terrific: Then you sound just like Oliver. We formed this team so we wouldn't be like that! Like him! (quietly) Dinah, I don't want to start today.
(Black Canary hesitates before releasing her grip on Black Siren.)
Dialogue Disasters
The entire exchange when Team Arrow storms the other team's bunker.
Continuity
Black Siren cleaned out Cayden James' account and withdrew all the money as bearer bonds.
Dinah and Sara Lance both loved noodle cups.
Black Siren also likes hot and sour noodle soup.
Thea immediately senses something is up with Quentin and follows him to the cabin, making her the first to see him with Black Siren.
Rene's wound from five months earlier reopens during the fight between the two teams and he has to be hospitalized.
The new D.A. of Star City is a man named Sam Armand. He is also in the employ of Ricardo Diaz.
The wedge between the two teams is officially confirmed with no more communication or cooperation between them.
The episode ends with Black Siren, still wounded, going to a trucker playing that she's confused and claiming that she has been a captive somewhere for two years.
The Fridge Factor
It is incredibly glib and disrespectful to Black Siren as a villain (such as she is) to suggest that all of her villainous tendencies are due to her daddy issues and need to have a man tell her what to do.
Dinah becomes an unthinking, overly emotional nightmare until Curtis gives her a pep-talk about how she needs to be better than that.
The Winick Factor
The entire plot is based around heroes fighting heroes while being totally oblivious to the villain's scheming until it is too late. Classic Winickian plotting.
The Bottom Line
Somehow manages to be even worse than the previous episode. Everyone is written as an idiot and completely out of character so that Black Siren can suddenly turn into some criminal mastermind despite never having been portrayed as that smart. More than likely she's in Diaz's employ and this is all part of is scheme but we''ll have another three episode of our heroes fighting each other in filler episodes before they reveal that.
No comments:
Post a Comment