Duck Fox

If you were to travel back in time to the year 2011 and ask a random Joe Blow off the street if he thought The CW’s Green Arrow TV series would be a huge success, you’d probably get one response: “Green Who?” The most remarkable thing about the fast paced, neo-noir, dark, thriller superhero epic tv series Arrow may just be the fact that it’s turned a relatively unknown character into a breakout star who embodies justice, with a willingness to embrace the dark if it leads to the light. And who has a killer crossfit routine. The first two seasons of Arrow are a mishmash of genre shows. We’ve got the standard teen soap styling one should expect from the CW, the high concept action set pieces that wouldn’t be out of place on a Batman TV series, the procedural investigations of a cops and robbers procedural and even some good ol’ campy superhero fun every now and again. The show even embraced the legal procedural in last year’s first half! Each aspect of the series was heightened throughout the first season, and refined in the second as Oliver Queen, the playboy son of a billionaire, was molded from a douchey rich snob into a scarred (emotionally and physically), battle hardened badass willing to do whatever it took to protect his city. 

The show throws plot twist after plot twist at you, all while coordinating a fantastic cast of characters. Though Stephen Amell is the breakout star (and not just because of his fantastic body. I am a straight guy but… Well, I’m not sure if I’m a straight guy after seeing him on that salmon ladder) the rest of the cast are equally talented. There’s Oliver’s younger sister Thea (Willa Holland), the super efficient bodyguard turned confidante and best friend John Diggle (David Ramsey), the obligatory love interest that is also a very successful lawyer, Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy), the hilariously awkward geek girl with surprising chemistry with Oliver, Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) and Colton Haynes as Roy Harper, the street kid trained by Oliver in the ways of Arrowing. 

Last season saw our titular hero, now officially called “The Arrow” instead of just “the vigilante” or “the Hood”, face off against Slade “Deathstroke” Wilson (Manu Benett), who was once marooned on the island Oliver was found on after his father’s cruise ship seemingly sunk to the bottom of the ocean five years before the series begins. Slade naturally started as a mentor for Oliver, but was exposed to a drug called “Miracle” (Mirakuru, if you want to keep the Japanese slant to make it sound more fancy…) which gave him super strength, but also shattered his sanity. In a fateful flashback showdown, Oliver thought he had killed him, but the beginning half the season sees Oliver confront the fact that he didn’t, and then confront the man himself after Slade spends time targeting his friends and family and building a very Bane-from-The-Dark-Knight-Rises army of ne’er do wells.

Takeaway? Last year was intense. This year is poised to be much more so if the premiere is any indication. “The Calm” starts off just as it suggests, with Diggle apprehensive about the impending birth of his child, but otherwise the most action the show sees is the cut and dry takedown of average crooks. Things begin to pick up when a new Count Vertigo arrives, but he’s unfortunately rather lackluster, though this is mostly due to the lack of time to fully expand upon his character. 

Honestly, this show is probably great at everything but actually getting too in depth with the one-off/two-off villains. It’s a setback that’s surprising since many people think DC’s villains are perhaps the most interesting characters in their multiverse. Nonetheless, the episode’s strengths hinge on its ability to refocus Oliver’s character yet again. While he starts on top of the world, despite the loss of his company and his mother, he’s got a lot to look forward to in the future. Like a date with Felicity.

The awkwardness of Oliver’s asking Felicity out is a nice reversal, noted by the Arrow writers themselves through Felicity, and a lot of shippers who have been hoping for “Olicity” to happen were likely dancing during this bit. Personally, while I’ve never hated this “ship”, I’ve never thought it was particularly intriguing. Though if this episode is any indication, a future relationship between these characters could be promising if only for relieving some of Oliver’s doom and gloom. Amell and Rickards do have a fantastic chemistry, and it’s hard to not want a little happiness for Oliver after losing his best friend, mother, and now—Oh, wait, we didn’t cover this already? Well, I guess I might as well drop the bombshell now: Sara Lance, AKA Black Canary, has died. The one thing I hated about the premiere was how rushed it felt, and the death of Sara Lance is the cherry on top of this complaint, as she returned only a few scenes before she was killed, giving Laurel a final pep talk and showing off in a kickass tandem fight scene with Oliver and Roy. After this, it’s straight to the rooftop where she takes a trio of arrows and falls to the ground. Ouch.

The episode is clearly set up for a more painful season of Arrow than we’ve seen before—while Tommy and Moira were killed in past seasons, Oliver was able to immediately confront their killers and bring them down, and they also died as “innocents”, not allies fighting Oliver’s war on darkness. Not to mention the rest of the cast weren’t as close. Everyone in the main cast has a strong connection to Sara, and it’s this connection which is going to make her death more meaningful. Here’s hoping they build from Sara’s death in a more meaningful way aside from the obvious motivation for Laurel to take up the mantle of Black Canary. 

Arrow opens its 3^rd season by lulling its viewers into a false sense of security, giving the main cast a break from death defying action for only forty minutes before yanking the rug out from under viewers and characters alike by killing one of its most beloved cast members. In other words, the show is about as awesome as it’s ever been. Between Oliver confronting his fears over being too complacent as a person preventing him from being the vigilante he could be, Diggle’s heartwarming reaction to fatherhood and Brandon Routh joining the cast as Ray Palmer, the smarmy billionaire looking to run Queen Consolidated, it’s shaping up to be a fantastic year!