Arrow Episode Guide: Season 8, Episode 2 - Welcome To Hong Kong

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

Returned to Earth-1, Oliver finds himself back in Hong Kong with Diggle and Black Siren, who refuses to believe that Earth-2 is gone. As she runs off to try and find another way home, Oliver and Diggle focus on finding an abducted Doctor who is important to The Monitor's plans and cross paths with their old ally, Tatsu. Unfortunately, their old enemy China White is also back in Hong Kong and once again after the Alpha-Omega virus.


Influences

The flashback sequences of Arrow Season 3 and Crisis on Infinite Earths.


Goofs

Despite saying he doesn't really know anything about breach devices and only knowing the technology by reputation, David Chen has software on his computer that enables him to determine that Earth-2 is gone.

China White claims that she was released from custody because the American government feared a scandal if word got out that a federal agency was planting explosive bombs in the necks of convicts and forcing them to runs special ops missions for them. Wouldn't they have just killed all the Suicide Squad agents to cover their tracks rather than release them and hope they keep their mouths shut?

The Monitor chides Oliver for not blindly following orders, yet Oliver passed the Monitor's test in Elseworlds precisely because he challenged the Monitor's moral authority.

On the flip side, what makes Ollie think disobeying the Monitor by sneaking off to learn more about him is going to help matters?


Artistry

The fight scenes between the Triad and Ollie and Diggle are well-handled.



Trivia

This episode is the first to include a new opening introduction for Season 8.



Technobabble

Dr. Robert Wong is a renowned biophysicist and Nobel Prize winner, in the field of complex proteins and antibodies.



Dialogue Triumphs

Oliver: (V/O) My name is Oliver Queen. For 7 years, I have fought with only one goal - to save my city. But now a new threat has emerged - a danger so severe it has forced me to leave my family in order to face it. And it won't be enough for me to just be the Green Arrow. To prevent the crisis that's coming, I am going to have to become someone else, I am going to have to become something else.

(Oliver awakens with a start from a nightmare of all his loved ones dying. He is in a strange bed in a strange room. The Monitor is in one corner.)
The Monitor: I warned you not to interfere.
Oliver: You didn't bring us here?
The Monitor: No. I discovered what had transpired on Earth-2, that you intervened to save Laurel Lance. I redirected you.
Oliver: What the hell happened back there?
The Monitor: A herald of what is to come. An entire world erased from existence.
Oliver: (confiused) Where's my mother? Where's... where's Tommy? Where's... where's Rene, where's Dinah?
The Monitor: They are no more.
Oliver: Did you hurt John and Laurel?
The Monitor: They are alive and nearby, but now you know that if we fail to stop the coming crisis, what you witnessed will occur on infinite Earths across the expanse of time.
Oliver: How did I fail? Your Dwarf Star particles are right there. (gesturing to a bag) 
The Monitor: You disobeyed my instructions to avoid entanglements on a parallel Earth. You confronted Tommy Merlyn. You altered the fate of Laurel Lance.
Oliver: I watched her die once. Okay? I wasn't prepared to do it again.
The Monitor: You are not a man accustomed to following orders. But the survival of the multiverse requires that you obey mine.

Oliver: I ignored the orders of a cosmic being, and as a result, I watched an entire world just disappear, so I'm just trying not to make the same mistake twice.
Diggle: Well, if this cosmic being wanted someone willing to watch the mass murder of innocent people, then he picked the wrong hero. Shouldn't blame yourself, man.
Oliver: (dryly) Well, what about my behavior over the past 7 years has given you the impression that I would?


Continuity

The Monitor says the he redirected Oliver, Diggle and Black Siren to Earth-1 after they entered a breach trying to escape Earth-2 without thinking of the destination.

The Monitor confirms that Earth-2 has been destroyed and blames it directly on Oliver's interfering with the affairs of that Earth instead of staying focused on the mission.

The Monitor instructs Oliver to find a man named Dr. Robert Wong. Again, he refuses to explain why he requires this.

Black Siren refuses to believe Earth-2 is gone. She takes the breach device and leaves to find someone local who can fix it.

The Internet cafe where Oliver tried to contact his family in 301 is revealed to be an ARGUS front. Diggle gets access to the backroom and a high-tech computer connected to the ARGUS intranet by telling the employee that Harbinger sends her regards.

Diggle calls Lyla into Hong Kong to keep an eye on Black Siren.

Dr. Wong has been missing for over a week. He was last seen at Wan Chai University, where he is a professor.

Tatsu Yamashiro (aka Katana) appears for the first time since 412.

Tatsu reveals that she left the Crescent Order after they demanded her death for giving the Lotus Cure to Nyssa Al Ghul. Since then, she has been a vigilante in Hong Kong.

The Cresent Order has knowledge of The Monitor and his true name, Mar Novu.

Tatsu recognizes the pins worn by the men in the last photo of Dr. Wong as the emblem of Hong Kong's secret police.

Black Siren met a hacker named David Chin through Cayden James several years earlier, who claimed to be able to get her back to Earth-2.

It is determined that Dr. Wong wasn't abducted but placed in protective custody, due to his working for the Chinese government to recreate the Alpha-Omega virus.

China White leads the Triad group that tries to kidnap Dr. Wong.  Both Oliver and Diggle thought she was in ARGUS custody. John says that as far as he knew, Lyla thought she was in their custody as well.

Black Siren learns that Earth-2 truly has been destroyed.

China White was last seen in 714, as part of John Diggle's new Suicide Squad.

Olive plans to use the virus as bait to draw China White and Dr. Wong out of hiding. Tatsu points out this was the same plan her husband attempted and it failed.

China White says the American government released her from custody because they feared a scandal if word got out about what ARGUS had been doing to force criminals to work for them.

Black Siren saves Katana from being killed by China White.

Dr. Wong is saved and the virus is secured.

Oliver gives Tatsu some of the same healing herbs she gave him after she saved his life in 310.

Oliver says he is going to Nanda Parbat in search of information on The Monitor.

Lyla is revealed to know the Monitor and to have been in communication with him for some time.

Connor says The Deathstrokes already took everything of value from Alberto Vasquez's private vaults, except for one flash drive that is completely fried.

William starts trying to fix the drive, as Zoe, Mia and Connor prepare to confront John Diggle Jr. by staking out the one black market where he can fence what he stole from Vasquez.

John Jr. agrees to have a friendly talk with Connor. This turns out to be a distraction and his plan was to leave the drive behind so William could fix it, so his people could then get the drive and the information on it.



Location

Hong Kong - Earth-1


The Fridge Factor

Tatsu is made out to be much less competent than she has been in the past as a sword fighter to give Black Siren a chance to save her and play the hero.


The Bottom Line

A lackluster episode that revives one of the weaker portions of Arrow's history and drags out the flash-forwards to ill-effect. There's nothing really bad about it, but there's a lot of characters it would have been better to see again than Tatsu, if only because her appearance in Hong Kong makes me wonder why a Japanese woman has made herself the protector of Hong Kong. Still, it could be worse.

Injustice: Ground Zero #8 - A Review

Bored out of her crazy little skull, Harley Quinn and her new gang of resistance fighters were reduced to asking the GCPD if there was anything they could do to help them. This led to the sewers and their accidental uncovering of a Regime plot to draft the few free heroes and villains still free in Gotham. Can Harley and company overcome an enraged Bane and Killer Croc?!


Pop Mhan's artwork proves a perfect vehicle for this erratic tale. Mhan shifts his style expertly to fit the needs of the scene. His action sequences make use of a more traditional style that well-suits the kinetic nature of the conflict. By contrast, the flashbacks in which Harley remembers better days (well, relatively speaking) with The Joker are rendered with a softer, more exaggerated appearance that would look cartoonish even without the inclusion of singing birds circling a romanced Harley's head. Mark Roberts does an equally fantastic job finishing the art with his colors.


The story is the equal of the art. It is worth noting that Chris Sabela does not romanticize The Joker and Harley's relationship at all. The plot by Brian Buccellato makes no bones about the fact that Harley is being abused. This is not the least bit preachy, however, but serves to drive home the central conflict of Harley's character. Intellectually, she knows The Joker is bad but that doesn't matter when the bad feels good. The rest of the issue outside the flashbacks, however, confirm Harley's status as a capable anti-hero and a true icon of the DC Universe.

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 4, Episode 12 - Unchained

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

Team Arrow is stunned to find that the new cat burglar who is running them ragged is a familiar face - Roy Harper! But Roy hasn't returned to his criminal ways but has instead been found out and blackmailed by a dangerous mastermind called The Calculator. Meanwhile, as Thea languishes in her sick bed  (her refusal to kill now causing the curse of the Lazarus Pit to drain her own life force), Nyssa Al Ghul escapes from the dungeons of Nanda Parbat and Felicity prepares the presentation that will save or doom Palmer Technologies.


Influences

Green Arrow: Year One (the flashback sequences on Lian Yu), Green Arrow #75 (Roy Harper being forced to act against Oliver Queen), Gail Simone's Birds of Prey (The Calculator vs. Oracle fights mirror Felicity's fight with Calculator) and the Geoff Johns' run on Teen Titans (Calculator had a heroic daughter - Wendy Harris - who was a master hacker and paralyzed in the same fashion as Felicity.)


Goofs

It's a minor point and will probably be explained in later episodes but Calculator doesn't seem to have any motivation for his actions in this episode. More than likely he'll turn out to be a hired gun brought in by Damien Darhk but it's odd he didn't make some reference to it being nothing personal - he's just in it for the money.

Malcolm says that Sara Lance was completely cured of the blood lust brought on by the Lazarus Pit thanks to John Constantine's magical ritual. Yet it's a major plot point of Legends of Tomorrow that Sara is suffering the same problems as Thea.  (Maybe Malcolm is wrong or John Constantine cocked up the ritual?)


Performances

Katrina Law, as usual, steals the show in her brief scenes in this episode.

Colton Haynes often didn't get enough to do on Arrow when he was a series regular. This episode ot only allows him more of a chance to play the smartass Roy from the comics - it gives him a chance to show some true character development. And it's always a treat to watch him and Willa Holland play off of each other.

On the same note, Willa Holland absolutely nails her scenes here playing a slowly dying Thea.

Tom Amandes nails the manic detachment of The Calculator from the comics. He just loves proving his intelligence and revels in the harm he can cause in an intellectual way.


Artistry

All of the action sequences and stunts in this episode are great, even by the standards of this show. This should be the episode submitted for consideration for the technical Emmys this year.


Trivia

The assassin who helps Nyssa escape from her cell and later travels with her to Japan is named Talibah, which means "seeker of knowledge" or "student". She first appeared as a supporting character in the Suicide Squad storyline in the Arrow 2.5 comic book series, where she was a school girl abducted as a child bride by the followers of the terrorist leader Khem-Adam. She was rescued by Sara Lance and Nyssa Al Ghul, and recruited into the League by Nyssa's father after being offered a chance to kill Khem-Adam.  This may be the first instance of a character appearing in the Arrow tie-in comic before being introduced into the TV series.

The first company that Roy Harper robs is Amertek.  In the comics, Amertek is a military industrial firm that employed John Henry Irons - the engineer who became the technological hero Steel.

The second company that Roy Harper robs is Cadmus Tech. In the comics, The Cadmus Project is a government-sponsored group - originally formed as The DNA Project - who engage in genetic research, including cloning and genetic engineering.

Roy Harper says that he build a new life for himself in Hub City.  In the comics, Hub City is the home town of the superhero The Question.

Noah Kuttler, a.k.a. The Calculator first appeared in Detective Comics #463.

In the comics, The Calculator started out as a petty criminal armed with a power suit that allowed him to create hard-light constructs. He fought several members of the Justice League, using his suit's computer and his own genius intelligence to devise ways of overcoming every hero after fighting them once.

Later, The Calculator was revamped into an evil parallel of Oracle. Whereas Oracle offered technical support and information to the superhero community for free, Noah offered advice to super-villains at $1000 per question. He later become part of the inner circle of The Secret Society of Super-Villains during Infinite Crisis and took over leadership of the group afterward.  He was revealed to suffer from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - a condition he normally controlled with medication.

Katana is seen in this episode as the guardian of The Lotus and Nyssa remarks that being a member of The Crescent Order suits her. This is probably not related to The Order Of The Crescent, which - in the comics - is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a foreign citizen by the nation of Kahndaq.  This may have been inspired by a real-world honor created by Sultan Selim III of the Ottoman Empire, exclusively for honoring his non-Muslim allies. The first man so honored was Lord Horatio Nelson.

It's worth noting that it was revealed in the Geoff Johns run of Teen Titans that The Calculator was the father of Wendy Harris - a girl who acted as tech support for the team in a capacity similar to what Felicity does for Team Arrow. Wendy was later paralyzed and sought out by the master hacker Oracle, who decided to mentor the young woman.


Technobabble

The item stolen from Amertek is a network mapper - a piece of tech designed to scan all nearby digital infrastructure for potential vulnerabilities.

Malcolm explains that unless someone restored to life by The Lazarus Pit continues to take lives, their own life force will eventually fade away. This is what is happening to Thea, since she refused to keep killing people.

When asked why Sara Lance has not had the same problems Thea is having now, Malcolm explains that the ritual John Constantine used to restore Sara's soul also restored the balance.

The item stolen from Cadmus Tech is a triode capacitor bomb. Felicity describes it as a tiny device which makes a really huge boom.

Felicity determines that the network mapper and the triode capacitor bomb can be combined to create a web nuke - a device capable of destroying the entire internet. It would need a substantial power source to run it , however - one like the new power cell being developed by Palmer Technologies.

The new Arrowcave contains a Faraday cage - a grounded enclosure used to block electrical fields.

The Calculator equipped Roy with a contact lens in his right eye that acted as a camera/microphone. According to Felicity, it contains more computing power than the average high-end laptop.

Felicity borrows a "battering ram" from Palmer Technologies - a program Ray Palmer developed that can be used to crash through cyber-security.

Palmer Technologies new revolutionary item isThe Power Cell. It is an advanced battery that is 100% recyclable, capable of powering an electric car for thousands of miles as well as an entire high-tech skyscraper like the Palmer Technologies building.

When Thea falls into a coma, her doctor says that she's barely a 3 on The Glasgow Scale, which is used to measure the intensity of comas. A Level-3 coma is marked by opening the eyes in response to verbal stimuli and uttering random words.

The Lotus is an elixir created by the enemies of The League of Assassins to counteract the effects of The Lazarus Pit.


Dialogue Triumphs

Ollie: She told me the blood lust came back two months ago and I didn't even know. I've been focused on the campaign. And I've been running back and forth to Central City....
Felicity: How is it that you always manage to blame yourself for everything?
John: It's his super power. Guilt Arrow.

Roy: I don't want to hurt you.
Curtis: I don't want you to hurt me either!
Roy: Well, I'm going to need to take that. (gestures to the power cell)
Curtis: Oh. I think you might need to hurt me, then.

Roy: Maybe next time we can do something that doesn't involve me getting stabbed or shot at?  Just an idea.
Ollie; I'm sorry that I put you in this position.
Roy: Pretty sure I put myself in this position. I remember you not being all that happy that I faked my death to protect your secret.
Ollie: I never should have let you.
Roy: Do you ever get tired? You know, carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders all the time?
Ollie: (laughing) You sound like Feliicty. And Diggle.
Roy: Well, great minds...

Felicity: I found a tiny flaw in the OS Code, I'm pretty sure I can exploit it to open a backdoor into his main computer system.
Ollie: Right, but wouldn't that risk exposing us?
Felicity: (pause) My pride that you understood what I was saying is slightly undercut by your lack of faith in me.
Ollie: I have nothing but faith!  Just do it.
Felicity: (smiling) I already did.

Calculator: Why would I want to take down The Net? Not only is it where I work, I'm addicted to funny cat videos.

Calculator: If you want to make a statement, you don't take down a system - you take down a city.

(As Ollie describes his plan to offer Darhk a favor in exchange for his help saving Thea.)
Thea: Ollie, that's insane!  Not to mention stupid and... I can't let you owe Darhk a favor!
Oliver: And I can't let you die!  I won't.
Thea: That's not up to you. I know how you take everything on... everyone's problems. It's one of the things I love the most about you. But you can't fix this one, Ollie.
Oliver: I have to try.
Thea: No you don't. It's my choice. It's my life.

Malcolm: Oliver, sometimes the greatest act of love is no action at all.

Felicity: I did get a look at his protocols though and if the web nuke goes on-line, he could kill 8,000 people.
Calculator: I'd say that's a conservative estimate. Blowing the gas mains alone would kill 3,000. Just wait until you see what I've got planned for the subway cars!

Arsenal: I'm the one who brought this maniac into your lives. I need to do this! This is my choice! It's my life.

Roy: You know, I thought about staying anyway? For you.
Thea: You know what you could do for me? Go live an amazing life. Get married. Have a couple of kids. Get a minivan. Just go be normal. There's nothing in this world that would make me happier than that.
Roy: You know, if I could do all of this over again, I would do every single one of those things with you.
Thea: Me too.
Roy:  I love you, Thea Queen.
Thea: I love you, Roy Harper.


Continuity

Nyssa Al Ghul appears for the first time since 403.

Malcolm refers to the events of 405 and John Constantine's restoring Sara Lance's soul.

Thea tells Oliver about how Damien Darhk's death-touch in 407 temporarily stopped her blood lust.

Ruve Adams - the new candidate for mayor - is Damien Darhk's wife, last seen in 410.

Roy heard about Felicity's paralysis on the news.

In the flashbacks, Oliver mistakes the Shado in his vision for Mei - the twin sister he met in 318.  The vision Shado tells Oliver that he must learn to forgive himself and fight through his darkness.

Katana appears for the first time since 322.

Roy Harper also appears for the first time since 322.

As the episode ends, Roy goes back into hiding.  Felicity erases all the data Calculator had on Roy's new identity.

In the flashback, Oliver tells Taiana the truth about how he was the one who killed her brother.

It is revealed that The Calculator is Felicity's father.

Thea is hospitalized with a coma.

Nyssa offers to give Oliver the Lotus Elixir that might cure Thea... if he will kill Malcolm Merlyn.


Location

Nanda Parbat and Kyushu, Japan.


Untelevised Adventures

We don't get to see precisely how Nyssa talks down Katana.


The Winick Factor

Ollie's going to go chasing after a burglar in his street clothes seems mindbogglingly stupid, given that he's in the middle of running for mayor.


The Bottom Line

One of the best episodes of the season so far. Everything is firing on all eight cylinders here and the only real weakness to the episode is that you wish they'd had more time to explore certain aspects of the script, like nearly all of Nyssa's subplot. We could have done with more of her and Tatsu and less of Felicity feeling unconfident because of her wheelchair but those scenes aren't bad - just a subplot that could have been scrapped without depriving us of anything.

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 3, Episode 22 - This Is Your Sword

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

As Oliver Queen's friends struggle with their vision of who The Arrow was and what he has become, Al Sah-Him prepares for marriage and for his final mission before becoming Ra's Al Ghul. Malcolm Merlyn has some idea of what is coming and is ready to make what remains of Team Arrow an offer to save their city... but will they accept his help, even in this darkest hour? And what of Thea Queen, who has gone off in search of Roy Harper?

Five years ago, as tensions mount in Hong Kong and the Alpha/Omega plague spreads rapidly, Oliver and the Yamashiro's search desperately for anything that might cure Akio, eventually planning to attack General Shrieve himself.


Influences

The Batman comics of Dennis O'Neil (Ra's wanting to marry his daughter to a hero he hopes to win into his service), Batman: Son of the Demon (plot involving hero becoming Ra's Al Ghul's heir and Ra's addresses Ollie by this title), various comics featuring The Outsiders ,The Black Arrow Saga by Mike Grell (Oliver being thought a criminal by the world at large and most of his allies as well as the scene where Tatsu tells Felicity about what a wounded Oliver said) and Batman: Contagion (Ra's Al Ghul seeks to destroy a whole city with a plague).


Goofs

Roy seems to cut out of work pretty easily for a guy who just started working for another mechanic a few weeks earlier. Then again, maybe he has an understanding boss who is all too eager to help an employee out when a woman like Thea comes along?

Not so much a goof with the episode itself as it is with the advertising on The CW, but any tension that might come from the cliffhanger ending of this episode is negated by them showing ads for The Flash which depict Oliver in his League of Assassins garb and The Atom fighting alongside The Flash against The Reverse Flash.


Performances

David Ramsey gets to play John Diggle with an uncharacteristic degree of anger throughout this episode. And it's a damn fine performance.

While her role in the episode is a relatively minor one, Rila Fukushuma makes the most of every scene she has as Tatsu Yamashiro. The duel between Maseo and Tatsu is heartbreaking as is the flashback scene where we see the exact moment her family fell apart.


Artistry

The whole of the fight sequence between all of Team Arrow and The League of Assassins over the airplane is very well handled, from the duel between Tatsu and Maseo to Ray's sudden appearance in The Atom suit.


Trivia

As is the trend for the penultimate episode of every season of Arrow, this episode takes its name from a Bruce Springsteen song. Given that the song is about fighting for what you love despite all the darkness in the world, it seem a fitting title given that idea is a reoccurring theme for most of the core cast in this episode all ready to fight over their respective loves.

Roy's new name in his assumed identity is Jason. This could be a reference to Jason Todd, a.k.a. The Red Hood, whom Roy partnered with in the New 52 comic Red Hood And The Outlaws.

In the comics, Roy Harper is a good mechanic.

Once again, Merlyn uses Ferris Air - the employer of Hal Jordan in the comics - to book his charter plane.

Ra's names Nyssa's mother as a woman named Ameena Raatko. In the comics, Nyssa went by the name Nyssa Raatko before she tracked down her birth father and impressed him into acknowledging her as his child, thus earning the name Nyssa Al Ghul.  The comics never gave a name to Nyssa's borth mother.

The scene in which Tatsu tells Felicity of how a wounded Oliver spoke of Felicity while he was recovering mirrors a similar scene from Mike Grell's Black Arrow Saga.  In that story, the assassin Shado - who cared for Oliver Queen after accidentally wounding him mortally - reported to Dinah Lance that Oliver spoke only her name while he was recovering in her care.

It is worth noting once again that, in the comics, Tatsu Yamashiro is the name of the superheroine Katana.

Meryln admires Tatsu's sword and asks if it is a Masasumne blade.  Masasumne is a legendary Japanese swordsmith whose swords and daggers would - in terms of quality - be comparable to Stradivarius violins. One popular legend claims that Masasumne once made a sword so pure that it could not be used to harm the innocent and that it could only draw blood from the wicked.

Tatsu's sword in the comics is not so noble. In fact, her sword in the comic is a soul-drinking weapon that contains the souls of her son and husband.

The costume that Tatsu wears in this episode is based on the costume worn by Katana in the New 52 DC Comics Universe.

Ra's bequeaths another name to Oliver - Ibn Al Ghul. Son of The Demon.  This is similar to the name of the head of the League of Assassins in the book Kingdom Come, Ibn al Xu'ffasch or Son of The Bat.  This character was, it turns out, the son of Batman and Talia Al Ghul.


Technobabble

Vastatio is a Latin word referring to the Roman practice of systematically destroying a land in order to subjugate it and its people.


Dialogue Triumphs

Felicity: You were completely unhinged out there tonight, Digg. You're in denial about how angry you are.
Diggle: (half-growled) No, Felicity. I'm not in denial. But I am angry! 
(Diggle hits his chair arms and slowly stands, eventually speaking cooly and deliberately)
Diggle: Oliver... was my best friend. He kidnapped... my wife.
Felicity: And you think that justifies hospitalizing people?
Diggle: No, Felicity. It doesn't.  You're right. It won't happen again.
Felicity: I not saying that life doesn't suck right now, but you can't go around the city taking it out on every criminal you see.
Laurel: How can you, out of all people, be so sanguine after what happened last week?
Felicity: Because I know that that wasn't Oliver!
Diggle: Now who's in denial?
Felicity: It wasn't! Our Oliver - my Oliver - died the day he joined The League! This is someone else!
Laurel: You truly believe that?
Felicity: ... I have to.

Nyssa: I would rather die than wed this pretender!
Ra's Al Ghul: You speak as though they are the only two options before you, my daughter.

(After throwing a masked assailant to the ground while walking outside of Nanda Parbat)
Oliver: You're late.
Merlyn: (removing his mask) Sorry. Nanda Parbat's not exactly the easiest place to infiltrate.
Oliver: Don't joke. (offering Merlyn a hand up) Things are worse than we thought.

Merlyn: This plan was born the moment Oliver realized he had to capitulate to Ra's to save Thea.
Diggle: And instead of sharing this plan with us, he trusted you?
Laurel: The man who had my sister murdered?
Merlyn: Well, I am better practiced in the art of deception and, no offense, none of you are particularly good actors.

Tatsu: I did not come here to convince you of the threat to your home. There is nothing I can say that you will believe more than what you have seen.
Felicity: Then why are you here?
Tatsu: To speak with you about Oliver. During his recuperation, Oliver spoke of you. Of how his last thought before the fall was of you. You love him... still.
Felicity: Oliver belongs to Ra's now.
Tatsu:  If you believe that, you must fight for him!
Felicity: There is no him left.
Tatsu: I thought as you do once. My husband, Maseo, was consumed by The League's darkness. I was so convinced that he was lost to me that I didn't even try to reach him. Don't make my mistake, Felicity.

(As Laurel is being strangled, her assailant is shot in the back with two arrows at once. She looks up to see Merlyn grinning at her.)
Laurel: (glaring at Merlyn) You know I wouldn't have done the same thing for you.
Merlyn: I know.

(Maseo draws his sword and stares down Tatsu)
Maseo: Your husband is long dead. If Sarab must die as well, then so be it.

(As the plane carrying the virus begins to take off as she's trying to hack its controls)
Felicity: Oh frack!
(Suddenly, an arrow whizzes past Felicity, only to break her tablet screen)
Felicity: More frack!
(In desperation, Felicity pulls the arrow from the tablet, and throws the tablet at the archer who is shooting at her.  The tablet hits him in the chest as he begins to choke in pain and fall forward. Felicity smiles, until she sees the arrow in his back and Merlyn standing off to one side.)
Felicity: Oh. That makes more sense.

(Maseo has Tatsu down and disarmed)
Maseo: Tell Akio I love him.
(Suddenly, Tatsu, spins around, grabs her sword and thrusts it up as Maseo walks into the blade)
Tatsu: You tell him for both of us.
(Maseo falls forward and Tatsu takes him into her arms)
Maseo: Thank you... for releasing me... from my prison.

Oliver; Is everyone okay?
Diggle: Like you give a damn.
Oliver: Didn't Maclolm speak to you?
Diggle: He did. So was it part of your plan to leave my daughter alone when you kidnapped my wife?
Oliver: I had to do something to prove my loyalty to Ra's.
Diggle: So taking Lyla?! That was your idea, Oliver?! In front of our daughter?!
Oliver: (long pause) Yes. You met Tatsu.
Diggle: What does that have to do with anything?
Oliver: Tatsu told me... that in order to beat Ra's I would have to sacrifice all the things in my life that I hold most precious. And your friendship is on that list.
Diggle: Oliver, you didn't just lose my friendship. You lost my trust. And you lost my respect.

Roy: Dear Thea. I wasn't supposed to make it this far. I was supposed to end up in jail or dead by now. But then I met you. And you made me want to be the man I saw through your eyes. And now all I want to do is give that back and help you be the person you can be without Oliver. Without your father. And without me. Living on the run from the police isn't the life you deserve, Thea. It's not what Oliver gave up his life for you to have. Whatever happens with me, I will always love you.
P.S. Thanks for the suit, but I always thought red was more your color anyway.


Continuity

It is revealed that Maseo gave Ra's a sample of the Alpha/Omega bio-weapon in order to secure his place in The League of Assassins. He later says that he stole it before his son died, intending to use it to avenge himself directly upon General Shrieve.

Roy is now working as an auto mechanic named Jason.

Tatsu has spent most of the last five years in isolation, apart from the time spent looking after Oliver.

Thea has Merlyn steal the Arsenal suit from Starling City's lock-up to return to Roy as a gift.

Ra's names Nyssa's mother as a woman named Ameena Raatko.

Ray has now made The ATOM suit strong enough to survive the impact of a ballistic missile. He can also fly through a plane, causing it to explode, and emerge relatively intact.

Tatsu kills Maseo.

League of Assassins tradition dictates that Ra's Al Ghul may consider granting mercy to any enemies of the League he deems worthy of it upon the eve of a wedding.

Roy leaves Thea a Dear John letter along with the Arsenal suit.

General Shrieve is diabetic.

There is no cure for the Alpha/Omega virus - only a vaccine.  The vaccine is ineffective on children.


Location

Nanda Parbat


The Fridge Factor

Roy denies Thea the choice of spending her life with him and seems to push her into taking up his role as Oliver's partner.


The Bottom Line

A marked improvement from last week, with a lot of great dialogue and a hell of a great action sequence in the fourth segment. It remains to be seen just how much treachery is a foot and if Merlyn's attempt to sell out Ollie was another gambit meant to insure Ra's does not see Ollie's plan coming to fruition. Next week can't come fast enough.

Green Arrow #40 - A Review

Green Arrow #40 is one of the most contrived, over-the-top and outright ludicrous comics I have ever read. And I loved every page of it! This issue is a fitting capstone for a run that has tried to do as much as possible to resurrect elements of the Green Arrow mythos long dead while simultaneously turning the New 52 reality into something recognizable to fans of the Arrow television series.

It remains to be seen just how successful Andrew Kreisberg and Ben Soklowski will be in that regard in the long-term. With a new creative team set to come on post-Convergence we could well see yet another shift of the status quo on a book that has been continually unstable since the first issue!

For the moment, at least, I am content.  Whatever faults this run had - and there are many - it managed to at least be amusing and avoided being dull.  How can it be dull when you have the likes of Lex Luthor, Batman, Katana, Arsenal and an army of Green Arrow's other allies, enemies and acquaintances uniting to bring down the tyrannical billionaire John King and his Subjects.


This issue is packed with a lot of action and very few explanations. For instance, the panel above is all we get to see of the villain Cupid in this issue. Except for a quick cameo on the final page of last month's issue, Cupid has not been seen in The New 52 Green Arrow book.  No background has been given for her and there is no explanation of who she is. So if you didn't read the Green Arrow/Black Canary book almost a decade ago or see her recent appearance on Arrow... well, too bad. Perhaps it is unreasonable in the Internet age to expect these things to be included as part of the narrative when we are given enough information to look up Cupid's page on ComicVine. Call me old fashioned but I like to see these things in the book itself. That just seems like Storytelling 101.

A similar problem comes up in the final battle, where - in defiance of all logic - King elects to go after Green Arrow with a sword. He hasn't been shown to be a swordsman before now. Nothing has been said about him using a sword to kill people. And it adds nothing to the final battle (other than looking cool) as this is merely a set-up for an obvious trap.

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE... billionaire playboy with a royalty-based surname in this town!
The artwork of Daniel Sampere and Jonathan Glapion lends an epic scope to this material that it doesn't truly deserve. With a lesser art team, this series might have looked as ridiculous as it seems.  As it is, it looks amazing and the fight scenes that make up the majority of this issue are all well depicted.

In the end, I'd say this run on Green Arrow was a success.  It lacked the depth of Jeff Lemire's run but it did set out what it was meant to do. And an Arrow Cave with Felicity Smoak and Mia Dearden in the house should prove to be a welcome starting point for the series to begin with in two months time.

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 3, Episode 11 - Midnight City

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

Oliver Queen is alive but the League of Assassins is closing in on him and his allies.  Malcolm Merlyn is in similarly dire straits and is ready to flee Starling City with Thea in tow. As Ray Palmer continues the work on his ATOM suit, Felicity struggles with what she can and will do to help the city in its time of need. And Laurel Lance has taken to the streets in costume to take on Brick's followers. John Diggle and Arsenal are quick to try and get her to stop risking her life but when Brick takes several city aldermen hostage, they may be forced to accept her help.


Influences

The Green Arrow/Black Canary comics of Judd Winick and Andrew Kreisberg.


Goofs

Brick says he hates hitting women. He also seems to be reluctant to shoot them, as he doesn't take two perfectly good opportunities to shoot Laurel while he has the chance.  Also, he seems to have abandoned his tick of offering those who oppose him a chance to shoot him from last episode.

Despite training as a boxer, Laurel seems committed to fighting with a melee weapon (quarterstaff) we don't have any evidence she's trained with.

How did Felicity have access to numerous recordings of Sara Lance's voice?

One wonders why Captain Lance doesn't arrest the mayor when she starts talking about literally giving a part of the city to a crime lord.  It has to be a violation of eminent domain, if nothing else and it's not like he could plunge The Glades into further chaos.


Performances

Colton Haynes really steps to the forefront in this episode. He hasn't always been given a lot to do as Roy Harper but he nails ever single scene he has in this episode, from his warning off Laurel after saving her life to his bonding with Diggle after their mission goes south.  Even when he confronts Malcolm Merlyn, Haynes proves capable of holding his own against John Barrowman - no mean feat!


Artistry

The opening nightmare sequence with Ollie and Felicity is an effective bit of horror, made all the more effective by us not being aware at first that it is a dream instead of a flashback and not knowing who the dreamer is.

The best fight scene of the night?  The fight in the Hong Kong nightclub during the flashback. Very well choreographed and well-shot.


Trivia

When Laurel is threatening one of Brick's henchmen, she drops the name of Belle Reeve prison and suggests it is a much nicer place than Iron Heights. In the comics, Belle Reeve  is a notable penitentiary devoted to the incarceration of metahumans. Located in Louisiana, it first appeared in Suicide Squad #1 and probably is a nicer prison than Iron Heights if only because the warden of Iron Heights in the comics was a sadist who performed illegal experiments on the metahumans in his charge.

The press refers to Arsenal as "The Red Arrow".  This was indeed Roy Harper's codename when he joined The Justice League.

Brick claims to quote from Shakespeare's Julius Cesar - Act V, Scene 2. "They stand and would have parley." - when he calls the mayor making demands.  Brick quotes the line perfectly, but the line is actually from Act V, Scene 1.


Technobabble

The ATOM armor does not fire lasers. It fires compressed hard-light beams.

Felicity is able to fake Sara Lance's voice using a symbolic algorithm and recordings of Sara's voice.

The nanite chip for the ATOM armor won't function without a quantum processor.


Dialogue Triumphs

Oliver: If Ra's finds out that you saved me... betrayed him.. he's going to kill you.
Maseo:  Don't waste your breath on worries for me. Your concern should be for your home and what has become of it in your absence.

Roy: (To Laurel) I've had training from Oliver and years on the streets. You have a law degree. (sighs) Look, I get it.  This isn't how you deal with grief, Laurel.  This is how yourself get killed.

Felicity: And by help you mean money and counsel - not a suit powered by dwarf-star alloy that fires lasers at people?
Ray: Well, they aren't lasers. That would be ridiculous! They're compressed hard-light beams.

Tatsu: The line between grief and guilt is a thin one.  Sometimes death is preferable to the agony of life.

Roy: You need to stay away from her. I don't know why you want her to leave Starling City but I'm not letting her go anywhere with you.
Merlyn: Well, thank you for that. I was in need of some humor.
Roy: I wasn't joking. You're a poison. You put her in Ra's Al Ghul's gun-sites. You had her kill Sara.
Merlyn: Thea knows nothing about Sara. And she never will.
Roy: That's where your wrong. I know her. She'll get to the truth, no matter how well you think you're hiding it. And when she does find out that you've been lying to her, you're going to lose her forever. Trust me - I know from experience.
Merlyn: This is a family matter, Mr. Harper. And you are not family.

Ray: When I started The ATOM Project it was all about avenging Anna. But what it's become about is protecting the people I care for.
Felicity: You mean the city?
Ray: No. I mean you.

Laurel: I'm not going to be putting on that mask again. I'm not strong enough to fight for Sara.
Felicity: Maybe you're not supposed to. Maybe it's not about Sara. Or Oliver. Or anyone else that we care about that we've lost. Maybe what we've been doing, we've been doing because there are people we still care about who are... alive. Maybe we're doing it for them.

Felicity: I need the keys to your helicopter.
Ray: How would you even fly it?
Felicity: I've got that covered. Can you please just give me the keys now? I promise, promise I will not crash it.
Ray: I've got to be honest. I''d feel a little more confident in your aeronautic abilities if you knew, for instance, that helicopters don't actually have keys.

Thea: So why run? Why not stay and fight? Seven months ago, I asked you to teach me. To teach me how to not be afraid and how to not get hurt.  So why are you asking me to be afraid now?
Merlyn: I'm not asking you. I'm telling you. You should be very afraid-
Thea: But I'm not! And my father taught me how not to be. He taught me how to stand my ground and how not to give an inch in a battle. I'm not afraid of this man and you shouldn't be either.  He should be afraid of us.
Merlyn: Then we'll stay.


Continuity

The opening nightmare scene opens just like Oliver's goodbye to Felicity in A309.

Oliver never actually died.

Maseo and Tatsu are no longer in regular contact with one another.

Diggle taught everyone on Team Arrow how to suture a wound. Felicity was a faster study than Roy.

The current mayor of Starling City is a woman named Celia Castle.

Roy refers to the events of A220 and how he was responsible for a death then as well as now.

Diggle and Roy make a toast with vodka, as Diggle repeats Ollie's toast from A206 - Prochnost. He admits he has no idea what it means ("Strength" in Russian).

Amanda Waller apparently suspected Maseo and Oliver would attempt to bargain for Tatsu's life with the Alpha, so she replaced it with a fake elixir.

At the episode's end, we learn that Chase - the DJ Thea hired in A307 - is an assassin reporting to Maseo.


Location

A cabin in an unidentified location, within several hours walking distance of the League Of Assassins' dueling grounds.


Untelevised Adventures

We know that something happened to end Tatsu and Maseo's marriage, but we still do not know the details... yet.


The Fridge Factor

Granting that she is new to the whole vigilante thing, very little of what we see of Laurel in action in this episode inspires confidence that she will ever live up to her sister's legacy.  She survives her first action scene in the episode only because Arsenal saved her.  The only reason the Brick doesn't kill her several times over the course of the episode is because he says he doesn't hit women and/or forgets that he's holding a gun.  And yet the largest concern is that Laurel lacks the moral fortitude to be a hero, only just now realizing that her actions are causing other people to come to harm.

Much is made about Felicity being the one to encourage Laurel and eventually drag the rest of Team Arrow out of their doldrums.  A shame her inspiration to do this comes from Ray Palmer's speech about why he's really making The ATOM Suit - to protect her.


The Winick Factor

The entirety of Team Arrow is downgraded for much of the episode. Granting that everyone is shaken up by the possibility of Oliver's death, it still seems to be contrived to make Brick appear to be more awesome than he truly is as a criminal mastermind.  Local politicians and police being made to look incompetent or corrupt is another staple of Winick's Green Arrow run.


The Bottom Line

It isn't as bad as it could have been but it isn't that good, either.  The script is one contrivance after another that serve no purpose other than to pump up the villain at the expense of our heroes. Paradoxically, the best bits of the episode are the ones where we see our heroes bonding together, though the scenes with Laurel interacting with the rest of Team Arrow still feel hollow as there's a presumption of relationships we haven't seen all season. The cast give it their all but there's still a feeling that we're treading water until the big finale next week.

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 3, Episode 10 - Left Behind

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

With Oliver Queen still missing some three days after he left to duel Ra's Al Ghul, it falls to the rest of Team Arrow to protect Starling City. But demoralized and disorganized as they are, can they hold-up as an aspiring crime-boss makes a bold move to release hundreds of criminals from prison and form an unstoppable gang?  And if they can't, could a new vigilante take flight in the city's time of need?

In the Hong Kong flashbacks, Ollie and Maseo must work quickly to recover the other half of the compound needed to make Chien Na Wei's bio-weapon if they are to have any hope of saving Tatsu.


Influences

The Green Arrow comics of Judd Winick.


Performances

David Ramsey, Colton Haynes and Emily Bett Rickards are each given a good amount of screen-time to showcase how their characters are coping with the apparent reality of Ollie's death.  Felicity takes it the hardest, of course, and has the most dramatic reaction.  Diggle is the most understated, ironically only losing his cool in the fact of an increasingly unsure Roy, who copes with things by looking inward and questioning his actions... just like Ollie in a crisis.  This episode is written as an ensemble piece for the rest of Team Arrow and the actors all nail their parts.


Artistry

The opening chase scene is of cinematic quality and a feather in the cap of the show's stunt team.


Trivia

Danny "Brick" Brickwell is based on a crime-boss from the Judd Winick run on Green Arrow.

Like his comic-book counterpart, the Arrow version of Brick seems to possess some form of  super-durability that makes him resistant (if not immune) to the effects of ballistic weaponry and bludgeoning damage. He does, however, seem to be less resistant to arrows.

Thus far,the Arrow version of Brick does not seem to possess the super-strength that Brick in the comics had. He also lack's the comic Brick's red skin and increased size. He does, however, possess his comic-book counterpart's talent for hand-to-hand combat.


Technobabble

The Omega element has to be mixed with another compound called Alpha in order to create a viable bio-weapon.

Ray Palmer tries to generate a two second electrical burst at 800 volts through a gauntlet..

When Felicity enters his office, he admits to having trouble  modulating the stress energy tensor.

Ray tried over-clocking the magnetic coils but that didn't work.

Ray then asks Felicity to see if she can get a nanite chip to function.

He later asks if the problem is the transplex interface.


Dialogue Triumphs

(On seeing Arsenal chasing them)
Thug One: It's him!
Thug Two: I thought he was green!

Diggle: (defensively) I'm more a Glock kind of guy.
Arsenal: I didn't say anything.

Ray Palmer: Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Start small!

The scene in which Oliver fails to easily break a window even after Maseo shoots it is rather funny given how easy breaking in through a window is usually made to look on TV and in the movies.

Merlyn: Could you put the gun away? They don't scare so much as annoy me.

Roy: Thea just asked me to talk to The Arrow about finding Oliver.
Diggle: And what did you tell her?
Roy: What else? I lied.
Diggle: Oliver didn't want Thea to know.
Roy: That was then. But now, what's the point?
Diggle: I keep asking myself the same question, Roy.
Roy: Then why do you keep going over the case evidence?
Diggle: Because it helps me keep my mind off of Oliver.
Roy: Doing this without him while we're waiting for him to come back is one thing. But doing this without him WITHOUT him? That's a whole other situation.
Diggle: And what do you want me to tell you, Roy?! I can only see one inch in front of me and this is the only thing in front of me right now.

(After Diggle tries shooting him in the head and nothing happens)
Brick: Smart man. Nobody thinks about going for a head shot.

(After shooting Brick in the back while he was strangling Diggle, causing a grunt of pain)
Arsenal: I guess arrows work a little better on this guy than bullets.

Diggle: He's not coming back. Oliver. I know you don't want to believe it, Laurel. God knows I don't. But he's not coming back.
Laurel: Are you?  Are you coming back?
Diggle: I don't know. For the first time since I've met Oliver Queen, I don't know what happens next. I know it's silly but... I still like to think of myself as Oliver's bodyguard. I just couldn't protect him.
(Laurel hugs him) 
Diggle: It's funny. He was worried something would happen to me.


Continuity

As this episode opens, it has been three days since the events of A309 and eight months since Slade Wilson's attack on the city.

Diggle wears the Arrow suit for the first time since A105.

Ray Palmer has hated clowns since childhood.

Roy Harper knows Brick by sight.

The blueprint Diggle and Roy find is of the police evidence storage facility. The list they find is case numbers of all the violent offenders convicted in Starling City in the past eight months.

League of Assassins custom demands that any weapon used to kill someone in a duel be left on the dueling site as a memorial to the fallen.

Merlyn brings the sword Ra's impaled Oliver on to Felicity as proof of Oliver's death.

Roy does not usually drink alone.

Thea figured out on her own that Roy was The Arrow's new partner - the man in red.

Felicity is 25 years old.

Felicity quits Team Arrow and returns the chip Ray asked her to fix.

Laurel takes Sara's wig, mask, gloves and Canary Cry greanades from the Arrow Cave.

Merlyn asks Thea to flee the city with him, never to return.

Oliver plants a tracker on one of Chien Na Wei's men and lets him go so they can follow them back to her base and rescue Tatsu. Maseo swears to repay Oliver for this someday.

In the present, we find Maseo is the one who took Oliver's body from where it fell after the duel.  We find out he took it to Tatsu, whom he did not want to see.  Somehow, she brought Oliver back to life.


The Bottom Line

A solid episode that gives the supporting cast a shot at the spotlight.  As usual, the weak point is Laurel but this is due more to the script than any failing on Katie Cassidy's part. The sad fact of the matter is that Laurel has been isolated from the rest of the cast for so long that she no longer has more than a passing acquaintance to most of the show's important characters.  So there's no chance at the same wonderful interplay we get between Diggle and Felicity or Diggle and Roy because Laurel is absent for most of the episode.  Even when we do see her, she doesn't show any reaction to Oliver's death once she hears about it and does little in the scene where she does find out apart from hug Diggle. Still, we do get to see her in costume for the second time and she doesn't get beaten up this time, so that's something.

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 3, Episode 7 - Draw Back Your Bow

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.





Plot

When Issac Stanzler is abducted during his transfer to Iron Heights and turns up dead with an unusual arrow in his chest, it becomes clear that it isn't the work of just another Arrow copycat. Enter Cupid - an ex-cop turned killer, who became obsessed with The Arrow after he saved her during Slade Wilson's night of terror six months earlier. She's convinced that Starling City's favorite hero is her one true love and she'll do anything to get his attention.

Too bad for her that Oliver Queen only has eyes for one woman.  Unfortunately, she's also being romanced by Ray Palmer, whose interest in Ms. Smoak is far from platonic as much as he may insist otherwise. Love is also in the air at Verdant, where a hot-shot new DJ seems to have designs on club-owner Thea Queen... much to Roy Harper's annoyance.

In the flashbacks, Tatsu must put aside her dislike of Oliver Queen when Maseo goes missing during an operation.  The two will work together to investigate the Triad Maseo was staking-out, hoping it is not too late to save him.


Influences

Andrew Kreisberg's run on Green Arrow/Black Canary (introduction of Cupid), Outsiders (elements of Katana's backstory) and Suicide Squad (mentions of Amanda Waller and the squad, as well as the introduction of Captain Boomerang).

Performances

Supernatural alum Amy Gumenick cuts quite the impressive figure as Cupid.  Reportedly, Gumenick auditioned for the part of Laurel Lance when Arrow first started.  Given the way she carries herself in her fight scenes and her chemistry with Stephen Amell, one wonders if perhaps the casting agents for this show made the wrong choice.

Again, it must be said that Ray Palmer would be the creepiest boss this side of Christian Grey were it not for the charisma Brandon Routh brings to the character.  On paper, without inflection, most of Palmer's dialogue to Felicity and actions towards her would come off as unsettling.  But somehow Routh makes it work, playing Palmer as a geek who can't hold back his passion rather than a true creep.

Artistry

The script for this episode - written by Wendy Mericle and Beth Schwartz - does a great job of establishing Cupid as a character and as a credible threat. Indeed, the show's version of Cupid improves upon the comics version, who was something of a villainous Mary Sue figure.

The best shot of the episode?  When Oliver returns to the Arrow Cave after seeing Ray and Felicity kissing in what was his old office, and how his gaze falls on the fern that she put in the cave ... just before he clears the table in frustration.


Trivia

The arrowhead in the show's logo for this episode is changed from the usual green pointed arrowhead to the red, heart-shaped arrowhead used by Cupid.

The episode title - Draw Back Your Bow - comes from the first line of a song by Sam Cooke titled Cupid.  The song is sung by a boy begging Cupid to shoot an arrow into the heart of a girl who doesn't know he exists but who he's sure he can love better than anyone else.

In the comics, Cupid was originally a woman in an abusive marriage who became obsessed with Green Arrow after he saved her from her husband. Determined to prove herself to the man she now saw as her one-true-love, she donned a costume that was basically a sexy ladies Halloween costume based on Green Arrow's costume and set about killing off the super-villains Green Arrow fought most frequently while pushing Oliver Queen into using more lethal force.  She also tried to kill Black Canary, whom she saw as a rival for Green Arrow's affections.

A later ret-con revealed that Cupid was Carrie Cutter - a special-ops soldier who was part of a mysterious government project called COBALT.  It was in while in COBALT that Carrie received a treatment that enhanced her body and made her fearless but also gave her partial amnesia and caused her to experience all other emotions except fear at an extreme level.  It was also revealed that her abusive husband was not really her husband and that what Green Arrow saw as a man beating a woman was actually Carrie's most recent victim struggling with her after being poisoned.

Cupid was co-created by Arrow Executive Producer Andrew Kreisberg during his run on the Green Arrow/Black Canary comic.

Cupid's full name on the show is Carrie Hartnell Cutter.  In the comics, she used Carrie Hartnell as an alias.

Cupid's background on the show is quite different from the comics. Here, she's an ex-cop and SWAT team member who quit the SCPD after undergoing psychological evaluation after stalking her partner. She becomes fixated on The Arrow after he saves her from a Mirakuru soldier during Slade Wilson's attack on Starling City.

Cupid is handy enough as a fletcher to construct her own arrows and had some basic training with explosives.  Cupid may be skilled enough with computers to encrypt a SIM card or she may have seduced hacker Kirby Bates into doing the work for her.

The address Cupid puts in the arrowhead for The Arrow to find is 15 Baron Street.  This may be a reference to both Mike Baron (the color artist on Green Arrow/Black Canary when Cupid first appeared) and the comic in which Cupid first appeared -  Green Arrow/Black Canary #15.

Carrie Cutter is part of a gardening group and she holds local mob boss Joe Gravado hostage in the greenhouse of a business called Sherwood Florist.  Classic Green Arrow fans will recognize Sherwood Florist as the name of the shop that Dinah Lance ran in Seattle during the Mike Grell run on Green Arrow.

The hacker Cupid seduces into helping her locate The Arrow's hideout is named Kirby Bates.  This may be a nod to Hannibal Bates - a criminal from DC Comics whom also teamed up with Cupid against Green Arrow in the comics.  The only common link between the two characters - apart from the last names and criminal pasts - is the fact that both were killed by Cupid once they outlived their usefulness.

Another reference is made to Saint Walker's hospital.  Saint Walker is the name of the leader of The Blue Lantern Corps.

Tatsu Yamashio proves to be an excellent sword fighter, capable of fighting several men at once. This is no surprise to fans of the comics, who will recognize Tatsu Yamashio as the superheroine Katana.

Cupid's drink of choice is a Cupid's Kiss.  This is the name of several real-world cocktails but it is unclear which version Cupid ordered.

The deathtrap that Cupid arranges for The Arrow, handcuffing him to a train-track is a direct nod to a trap that Cupid set for Green Arrow in the comics.  Here, Ollie escapes by dislocating his thumb to break free of the handcuffs.  In the original comics, Black Canary rescued him.

Diggle says that Cutter is "even nuttier than the last woman they had in the Suicide Squad".  This is definitely a reference to Harley Quinn, who shares Cupid's penchant for obsessive love.

Mr. Gardner - the man whose mine Ray Palmer is trying to purchase - is named in tribute to Gardner Fox. Gardner Fox was the DC Comics writer who created the Ray Palmer version of The Atom.

It probably isn't a coincidence that the dress that Ray Palmer buys for Felicity is blue - his favorite color

Ray Palmer officially changes Queen Consolidated's name to Palmer Technologies.  The logo for the company is a blue P, circled by a single electron.

It's revealed near the end of the episode that Ray Palmer's main interest in Mr. Gardner's mine was in acquiring the dwarf-star material inside it.  This ties into a project he is working on called The A.T.O.M. ExoSuit, which resembles The Atom's costume in the comics.  Dwarf-Star Material was also the power source for The Atom's shrinking technology in the comics.

The assassin we see in the final scene of the episode is Captain Boomerang, who we will discuss in more detail next time.


Technobabble

Oliver determines that Cupid's arrowheads are hand-soldered out of high carbon steel.

NPP is an abbreviation for Nitrogen Phosphate Potash. It's the technical term for a variety of fertilizer.

Carrie Cutter suffers from an attachment disorder - an inability to form real, lasting relationships which causes the patient to become fixated on one person.


Dialogue Triumphs

Felicity: This dress? Costs more than my apartment.
Ray: Yeah. Couture, which I'm pretty sure is French for expensive. So, dinner? Purely platonic.
Felicity: There is nothing platonic about couture.

Cupid: If I’m out of my mind then that’s only because that’s what love is - our own little slice of insanity.

John: You and Ray. Doesn't seem that platonic. Actually, it has Oliver twisted up in knots.
Felicity: Oliver made his choice.
John: And we both know that was the wrong choice.
Felicity: And did Oliver say that?
John: Oh yeah.  Because Oliver's just great at expressing his emotions.

Arrow: (to Cupid, with Felicity listening) I understand that you're hurting and I what it's like to want someone but not be able be with them. How you wish things could be different, but they can't. I can't be with you; I can't be with anyone. I have to be alone.

Captain Boomerang: That's the thing about our work.
(Captain Boomerang throws a boomerang which spins around to stab the thug in the back)
Captain Boomerang: It always comes back to haunt you.


Continuity

Issac Stanzler, from the last episode, is discovered dead, dressed like The Arrow, with an arrow in his chest.

Ollie deduces that Cupid was not Sara Lance's killer very quickly.

Tatsu and Maseo left Japan because it was no longer safe after they angered someone very powerful.

Roy is seen researching the police officer he killed on the computers in the Arrow Cave.

Oliver calls Roy by the codename Arsenal in the field for the first time.

The new DJ at Verdant - who Thea hires despite his braggadocios nature - is named Chase.

Ollie is fast enough to dodge arrows at close range.

Oliver hands Cupid over to Amanda Waller rather than the police, saying that at least as part of The Suicide Squad she might do some good.


The Bottom Line

Arrow needed a great episode to rebound after last week and it got it. Really, the only problem with the episode is that the subplot with Thea and the DJ feels tacked on and not enough is done to explore how Roy is coping with the collapse of his relationship.  Apart from that, one can easily say this is the best episode of Season 3 so far.

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 3, Episode 1 - The Calm

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

Five months have passed since Oliver Queen saved his city from Deathstroke and things have only gotten better since that night. Crime is down across the board. The public at large love their city's superhero. Roy Harper is now a full partner in Ollie's nightly activities as The Arrow. John Diggle has a baby on the way with his ex-wife Lyla. And a newly promoted Captain Lance has disbanded the SCPD's Anti-Vigilante Task Force. Throw in the fact that Oliver and Laurel have come up with a plan to bring Queen Consolidated under Oliver's control and everything's coming up roses... until a new scientist/businessman comes to town with his own designs on Ollie's old company.

Still, things have calmed down to the point where Oliver feels that he can balance a relationship with the other aspects of his life. And that leads to him asking Felicity out on a date. But the past few months have just been the calm before the storm. A new Count Vertigo is in town and he has designs on bringing down The Arrow. And another tragic death will soon shake the lives of everyone in Team Arrow.


Influences

The New 52 Justice League of America (The Ollie Queen/Amanda Waller relationship) and the Mike Grell run on Green Arrow (the theme of Oliver Queen being his own worst enemy)


Goofs

Felicity seems to recover quickly from her injuries after the restaurant explosion given how much blood she seemed to have lost. (She had a scalp wound, which always look worse than they truly are)


Performances

As always, the show's ensemble cast is so good that it is difficult to single any one actor out for the quality of their performance.  But it must be noted that I think Stephen Amell smiles more in the first half hour of this episode than he did in all 46 hours of the first two seasons of Arrow.  That as much as anything else shows how much Oliver Queen has changed in five months.

Brandon Routh does a marvelous job of establishing Ray Palmer's character.  In contrast to Grant Gustin's Barry Allen, who is more of a shy, awkward geek, Ray Palmer seems to be the other extreme - a brilliant man who doesn't know when to shut up.  Despite this, Routh manages to play Palmer with just enough charm that his admission of tracking Felicity down by hacking her phone's GPS doesn't come off as creepy.  The chemistry between Routh and Emily Bett Rickards is immediately apparent and promises to be fun to watch in coming episodes.


Artistry

It's been said that the theme for this season will be Identity and that certainly is the dominant theme of this episode's script.  Oliver's worries about having a life outside his role as The Arrow, John's discomfort with being pushed out of the role of a soldier now that he's becoming a father and Quentin struggling with not being a beat cop anymore take up much of the episode but these are far from the only examples. Roy seems to have thrown himself into the role of Oliver's partner and has shown visible improvement in his combat skills since the last time we saw him.  Felicity's discomfort throughout the episode seems to be born, in part, because her identity has become so tied up in serving Oliver's mission that being forced out of that role is painful.  And then there's the ending, which will apparently be kicking off Laurel's transformation into someone else.... or something else.

The fight between Ollie and himself is handled incredibly well and the editing does a lot to mask that The Hood 's back is to the camera whenever wee see Ollie's face.


Trivia

In the comics, Roy Harper adopted the identity of Red Arrow and wore a color-swapped version of Oliver Queen's classic Green Arrow costume.

The new Count Vertigo - Werner Zytle - shares a name with The New 52 version of Count Vertigo from the comics but that is all they have in common apart from apparently both being from Eastern Europe.  The new Count Vertigo on the show maintains the same MO as the first Arrow version of The Count, being a drug dealer who uses a heightened version of the Vertigo drug to cause his enemies to visualize their worst fears.

In the comics, Ray Palmer is the secret identity of the size-shifting superhero The Atom.  While Ray Palmer in the comics was an academic with little interest in business, the basic personality of a talkative, wise-cracking geek presented here is true to the original character.

Ollie orders a Scotch-neat while he's at dinner with Felicity.  This was his preferred drink in the comics, as well.

The tune Count Vertigo whistles while launching a rocket and wiring a bomb is In The Hall Of The Mountain King by Edvard Grieg.  This may, in itself, be a reference to the 1931 film M, which involved a gang of criminals working to stop a killer after the police turn a blind eye to the activities of said killer since it gives them an excuse to go after lesser criminals with greater force, not unlike what the SCPD seems to be doing in regard to The Arrow.

The joke Ray Palmer makes about validating his parking when he rode in a helicopter is similar to an exchange between Oliver Queen and Bruce Wayne in Green Arrow #35 - the first Green Arrow comic written by Arrow Executive Producer Andrew Kreisberg and Producer Ben Sokolowski.  This comic came out one week before this episode originally aired.

The idea that Oliver Queen is his own worst enemy was a recurring theme in the Green Arrow books written by Mike Grell.

Ray Palmer's proposal is named Star City - a reference to the original name of Oliver Queen's home town in the comics.

According to the jackets worn by one of the ring teams at the boxing match, one of the fighters is Ted "The Wildcat" Grant.  In the comics, Wildcat was a boxer turned superhero who had a hand in training Dinah Lance to become The Black Canary.

There is a Ferris Air banner visible at ringside.  Ferris Air is the employer of Hal Jordan aka The Green Lantern in the comics.

The agent in Amanda Waller's employ who informs Oliver that his family will be killed if Oliver successfully escapes is named Masseo Yamashiro.  His wife, Tatsu, is well known to comic fans as the super heroine Katana.


Technobabble

Oliver has a new toy - a collapsible bow that expands outward from the grip.

We see Oliver make use of an explosive arrow, a zip-line arrow and an arrow that creates a trip wire.


Dialogue Triumphs

Oliver: Last girlfriend? She's in the League of Assassins. My girlfriend before that? She shot my girlfriend before that. It's - I'm not exactly a catch at the moment
John: Maybe Felicity will change it  all around?
Oliver: It's not the right time.
John: Things are as good now as they're they ever will be, Oliver.  I mean, you love her.  You even told her so.
Oliver: I was trying to fool Slade.
John: Yes.  Except now the only person you're fooling is yourself.

(In the office of Lyla's OB-GYN)
Lyla: I feel like an M1A1.
(Her Doctor looks confused)
John: It's a tank!  Think a big, big tank!

Oliver: The entire time that I was gone I could never... completely trust someone. And when that goes on for so long you stop ...seeing people for people. You see.. threats. Or targets. And when I decided to come home, I... I just didn't know how to turn that part of me off. Then I walked into your office. You were the first person I could see as a... person.  There was just something about you.
Felicity: I was chewing on a pen.
Oliver: It was red.

Ollie: People need to realize I don't speak Chinese.
Tatsu: Japanese.
Ollie: You speak English!
Tatsu: Better than you speak Chinese.

Ray: Science. Numbers. I like numbers. These numbers show QC's performance under Mister Queen's management. I'm using that term extremely loosely, BTW....

John: Oliver, I gave the last three years of my life to your crusade,  Now, I don't know what that's supposed to earn me but it earns me at least the right to make my own choices.
Oliver: No, it doesn't.
John: Dammit, Oliver you would be dead ten-times-over if it wasn't for me!
Oliver: You're right. But this is my crusade. Which makes this my decision.

And the whole exchange between Felicity and Ray in the hospital.  But especially...

Ray: Seems somebody hacked my cel phone. And my laptop. And my desktop.
Felicity: (sarcastically) Gee.  That's too bad.
Ray: All my data's been replaced by audio files of porcupine flatulence. So I was hoping that maybe whoever did it might be willing to undo it if I apologized for misleading them in any way.
Felicity: That would probably work. Oh! Unless you, of course, you did all that to steal that person's friend's company, in which case, I would suggest getting used to the sound of spiky rodents farting!

Masseo: One man cannot live by two names.
Oliver: What does that mean?
Masseo: In your case, I believe it means not having any choice.

Continuity

The show's opening "Previously on Arrow" montage shows Roy being recruited into Team Arrow and being given a mask, Sara Lance rejoining the League of Assassins, Quentin Lance having collapsing, Moira Queen's death, Oliver's fake-out of Slade where he claimed Felicity was the woman he loved instead of Laurel and Oliver telling John Diggle that he didn't spend all five of his years in exile on The Island.

Roy's archery has improved visibly since that last time we saw him use a bow in A223.  He now wears a costume like Ollie's, but in dark red rather than green.

Oliver is still living in the Arrow Cave.

Thea is apparently texting Oliver.  Little is made of this beyond it upsetting Roy, who announces his intent to go on patrol and clear his head.

Oliver makes John's daughter an arrowhead necklace.

Oliver makes reference to the events of A217 and The Huntress shooting Laurel.

Quentin Lance is promoted to Captain. As a result of his injuries in A223, he now walks with a cane.

Felicity is now working in sales/tech support at Tech Villa - a big box-style electronic shop that seems to be partly inspired by Best Buy.

Ray Palmer's company apparently makes smart watches and he's rich enough to own his own helicopter.

Oliver is able to overcome the effects of Vertigo through sheer force of will.

Felicity says "Mazel Tov" upon the birth of John's daughter - a reminder of Felicity's Jewish heritage, which was first revealed back in A209.

Oliver receives a phone call from Barry Allen, which sets up his appearance in The Flash pilot.

Sara Lance returns to Starling City for reasons she doesn't want her father to be made aware of.  She meets with Laurel on a rooftop before being shot three times in the stomach with arrows by someone she recognized who was using a voice modulator and knew her secret identity.

According to Amanda Waller, Ollie tried to escape from custody nine times over five months. During the ninth attempt, he pick-pocketed a cellular phone and attempted to use a computer in an Internet cafe to e-mail his mother.

As of the third year of his exile, Oliver could not speak Chinese or Japanese.


Location

Hong Kong, where Oliver was apparently taken by Amanda Waller during the third year of his exile.


The Fridge Factor

Sara Lance is shot multiple times by an unseen archer.  The show creators have already confessed this is intended to drive much of the plot of the third season and to cause more grief for Oliver and Laurel, as the later is pushed to become the new Black Canary.


The Bottom Line

A powerful start for the third season and a wonderful episode... right up until the last minute, which will leave you wailing and gnashing your teeth.  Only my confidence in the creative team - and the fact that Lazarus Pits might exist in this reality - are keeping me from rage quitting this series in spite of everything else being so good.  It will take a hell of a lot for them to start turning Laurel Lance into any kind of character worth of the legacy of Black Canary but I am willing to give them that chance.

Green Arrow #31 - A Review

Lemire's Outsider's War has been an interesting ride but, now that we are at the end, my own feelings mirror those of Ollie Queen, who notes that he is sick to death of The Outsiders and wants nothing more to do with them.  This is not to say that this has not been an enjoyable story.  It has.  But mystic brotherhoods and elitist nobility have no place in Oliver Queen's life as a hero.  And the choice that Ollie makes near the issue's end - while likely causing trouble further down the line - will ensure that The Outsiders stay out of his life for now.


I may stand alone in this, but my favorite moment of Green Arrow #31 was the ending.  It is here that we get our first glimpse of the story to come in the next few issues.  It's also here that Jeff Lemire provides something that Green Arrow - as a character and as a title - has needed for a long time.  A unified gallery of rogues.  True, all of them are based on characters whom Green Arrow has fought at one time or another but given what Jeff Lemire was able to do with just the name of The Outsiders, I can't wait to see what he does with characters that have a somewhat firmer footing in the Green Arrow mythology.


As per usual, Andreas Sorrentino's artwork is amazing.  With clearly defined character designs that never leave the reader wondering who certain characters are and an amazing grasp of inking that finds the perfect balance between shading and highlighting, Sorrentino is one of the most underrated artists out there.  Colorist Marcelo Maiolo also makes this book a beauty, as enjoyable to look at as it is to read.

Green Arrow #30 - A Review

Writing reviews of Green Arrow is becoming increasingly difficult for me.  I am running out of unique ways to say "This is a great book and you should be reading it!" every month.  There is so much to praise and yet I feel as if I am repeating myself, when I point out little touches like how Jeff Lemire recaps the story so far at the start of each issue, on the off-chance there might be some new reader jumping into the series with this particular story.


This is a nice touch yet an odd one for what is the penultimate chapter of the current storyline.  There's a lot of things going on in this issue and most of them are dependent on some knowledge about things that aren't covered in the summary, like how Green Arrow's fellow JLA member Katana is also a part of one of the new clans of Outsiders (The Sword Clan, obviously) and who the cavalry who show up to aid Ollie in his battle are.  Lemire's secondary subplot - involving the on-going gang war in Seattle while Ollie is occupied - feels like an unwelcome distraction from the action of the issue.


The action is heavy in this issue and Andrea Sorrentino captures it all perfectly.  For what my money is worth, Sorrentino is a highly underrated artist and his kinetic style is a good fit for Lemire's scripts.  Colorist Marcelo Maiolo further enhances the artwork with muted palettes contrasted by single panels rendered in monochrome, save for a single dominant color.

Green Arrow #27 - A Review

With Green Arrow #27, Jeff Lemire continues to expand the mythos of the New 52 in unexpected and enjoyable directions.  Perhaps the biggest surprise in this issue is a brief interlude where the mysterious Magus who has been manipulating things around Oliver Queen pays a visit to the hero Katana.  It spoils little to guess that she too has connections to Lemire's Outsiders - a mysterious cabal of warriors with connections to Oliver's family - but what this has to do with the ongoing story is still a mystery.


Fans of the show Arrow will find themselves on familiar territory, as this issue makes use of a number of flashbacks to depict Oliver's time shipwrecked on the island.  And yet things are completely different, for it seems that the accident that left Oliver Queen stranded in this reality was no accident.  Everyone - be they long-time Arrowhead or Green-horn - will be kept guessing by the issue's ending.


As uusal, Andrea Sorrentino's artwork astounds.  This issue features a number of two-page spreads reminiscent of Osamu Tesuka's early action manga in how the action is depicted through a number of framed close-ups.  The effect is rather like looking at still shots on a roll of movie film, yet much more dynamic.

Justice League of America #1 - A Review

Expectations were high going into this book, written as it was by veteran writer Geoff Johns with art by popular artist David Finch.  Thankfully, those expectations were met.  And then they were exceeded. 

Johns' script does a grand job of explaining the status quo of the DCU at the moment and giving the reader a rundown of all the players, for those of you who might not have been reading Justice League or any of the other titles whose characters this issue involves.  No previous experience with Stormfront, Hawkman, Catwoman, Green Arrow or Birds of Prey is needed.  It may help you appreciate some of the past events that are referred to but you don't have to have been reading six or seven different books to understand this one.


Here's the story so far.  Iit's been five years since the Justice League was formed.  In the wake of several disasters, The United States government has grown nervous about the League's independence and what might happen should they begin to actively work against the USA's interests.  To that end, they've fired Steve Trevor from his position as the government's liaison to the Justice League, having decided that maybe having Wonder Woman's ex-boyfriend acting as their go-between might be diplomatically questionable. 

In his place is Suicide Squad director Amanda Waller, who is tasked with putting together a team that can match the Justice League 1 to 1 should it be necessary.  Her first recruit?  Steve Trevor, who has proven himself a capable field commander and the one man who knows the Justice League better than anyone.    The rest of her picks are selected based purely on their potential to match the other team in terms of power - a motley assortment of mysterious vigilantes, wanted criminals and promising newcomers.


It is the newcomers - Vibe and Stargirl - who Johns spends the most time developing. There's no surprise there as, being new characters, they require the most development.  There's also the little matter of Johns being the writer on Vibe's new solo-title and Stargirl being Johns' original creation, dating back to the classic Stars and STRIPE series.  Yet this version of Courtey Whitmore is greatly changed from Johns' original concept, apparently suffering from night terrors regarding the death of the hero who wielded her Cosmic Staff before.  And Johns' take on Vibe, in just two pages, receives far more respect and development than the original character ever did. 


I've found that you either hate David Finch's art or you love it.  Personally?  I love it.  His famous eye for detail is as strong as ever but I think he's lightened up his usual shadowy inks somewhat.  There's still a hint of darkness in every corner, fitting considering the conspiracy-minded tone of the book so far.  Yet all of the high-action superhero moments are big and bright, with the inks enhancing the pencils rather than obscuring them.

Rejoice, comics fans!  This is the Justice League book we've been waiting for.

Beware The Batman... And His Gun-Totting Butler

SOURCE: "Beware The Batman" CGI Animated Series Coming For 2013, "DC Nation" Updates

Right. So there's going to be a new CGI Batman cartoon. The style looks... well, like they tried to convert Bruce Timm's Batman designs into 3-D. It's not fair to judge until we see the cartoon in motion but... this just looks odd.

Odder still is the news of the cast, with Batman being assisted in his war on crime by a woman named Katana (no word on if she'll be the same one of Outsiders fame of if she'll have a soul-sucking sword, but I doubt it on both counts) and a gun-totting Alfred Pennyworth.

You heard me. A gun-totting Alfred Pennyworth.

...

A GUN-TOTTING ALFRED PENNYWORTH?!

I can deal with Alfred carrying a hunting rifle around Wayne Manor on the lookout for prowlers. I can even cope with him loading the bloody thing and not just using it to scare off intruders. But actually going out on the streets - WITH Batman - shooting at the bad guys?

*face palms*

On the bright side, the news is not all dark. The same block of new cartoons will apparently see a cartoon based on the Doom Patrol, which I expect will be aimed at young boys who love freaks, monsters and robots. Why do I make that guess? Because the third cartoon they announced is definitely aimed at young ladies and it definitely sounds the most promising on every front. The creator behind the new My Little Pony cartoon is working on a series of animated shorts teaming Wonder Girl, Batgirl & Supergirl called Super Best Friends Forever.

Why couldn't we have gotten THAT as a comic book instead of Catwoman?