Arrow, Season 4, Episode 2: The Candidate
First up, can we say how awesome the opening fight scene was? Yeah. It doesn't go on for too long, and we've seen more impressive ones across Arrow's life as a series, but that scene, just a group of costumed non-powered superheroes beating up mooks just filled me with happiness. The crazy staff-swinging Anarky battle against the Green Arrow and his subsequent burning-man melee against Speedy are both pretty cool, too. Arrow may not do a lot of things right, but fight scenes? That's its forte. Now moving on...
This episode is pretty great! My inevitable complaints about the show getting Anarky absolutely wrong aside for an adaptation of the character (which I'll talk about later on), it's an extremely well done episode. Where to begin?
Oliver Queen, the newly-minted Green Arrow, struggles with several problems here. There's, obviously, the main plot of Anarky going around and menacing the city. There's the episode-long problem of Thea's anger issues. And there's Quentin's damning question of just how he will be different. Well, apparently, it involves Oliver Queen smiling more. That's a start. Also, at the end, he got an epiphany that he can run for mayor because he can defend himself -- something that actually makes the excuse plot of having Darhk and Anarky menace a prospective mayor actually tie in to the plot.
The Thea side of the plot is also relatively well done, and while initially it seemed like just another excuse to insert friction between Oliver and Thea, delving into yet another exhaustive 'two good guy characters fight' plot that Arrow is so well-known for... this one actually has a pretty good reason. The Lazarus Pit potentially changing Thea. And we actually see Thea's temper get worse when triggered, like the little sparring session gone awry with Oliver in the base, and her, well, fucking setting poor Anarky on fire during the climax. It's a great tie-in to the Lazarus Pit, and certainly far more interesting as a story than just temporarily causing someone to go into a berserker rage as in the comics -- a change from the source material that I really like now that I think about it.
It's a small thing, too, but I really like how Oliver and Thea has developed into a really effective brother-sister team both in costume and outside of it, with the two of them getting paired up plenty of times in this episode. And seeing something normal like the two of them meeting a family friend, or just Oliver being a proper big brother instead of being overbearing like he would in the first two seasons... it's nice.
Also, Laurel's big plan for Thea's anger issues? A spa treatment! Which is absolutely hilarious until you realize that Thea's explanation of the Lazarus Pit and Laurel going all 'yeah he would do anything to protect his sister...' earlier on is hinting at Laurel doing something absolutely insane. And despite doing very little in this episode other than bouncing dialogue off Thea and Diggle, her role at the end, telling Thea that she's taking her to Nanda Parbat for the twofold reasons of curing Thea's madness and reviving Sara. They actually show us Sara's corpse at the end, which is a lot prettier than what a year-old corpse should really look. Quite interesting, even if the end result of this particular arc is blatantly obvious to anyone who's watched Legends of Tomorrow's trailer, released around two months-ish before this episode aired.
Felicity's arc sort of mirrored Oliver's, in trying to find out how she can do things differently. And I really like how Oliver and Felicity's romance is dialed down. It's still there, they're still sweet around each other, but making it not be the central focus or the big drama moment of an episode really works well for the story. Here we see Felicity settling into her role as the big boss of Palmer Tech and having to deal with downsizing and being forced to fire people. We get her trying to figure things out and end up faking out the business directors with something big and revolutionarizing that... she hasn't planned out yet.
Also introduced this episode is likable geeky dude, Michael Holt, who to comic-book readers is the awesome if poorly-named superhero Mister Terrific. Man, Mr. Terrific is a shit name even by comic book standards, but he's a pretty impressive character in the comics that went through a pretty awesome character arc throughout the JSA stories I've read him in. I was quite surprised because I didn't know he was going to be in the show. And, yeah, this is a far more inexperienced and decidedly civilian Michael Holt, but he's pretty cool.
(The big revolutionary technology is going to be the T-Sphere, isn't it?)
Granted the show could've done without the obvious obligatory evil businessman dude that apparently told Holt to make a firing algorithm or whatever, because that felt cheap, but he still comes off well. Oh, and he's gay in this continuity and is married. Comics!Mr. Terrific has a wife, though I don't think changing his sexuality really is going to matter because, well, Comics!Mr. Terrific's wife is post-humous. So, uh, if Michael Holt in this series is going to be Mr. Terrific I don't see things going well with his husband. That could be a fair way off, though who knows?
Diggle, as Felicity points out, needs a codename. (And to think I joked about his helmet looking like Mr. Terrific in my previous review!) And Felicity actually has a point, since if the characters are saying stuff like 'Felicity do this' out loud it's going to tip villains off. I'm surprised it hasn't already. Maybe we can call her Oracle or Calculator or something? Diggle can be... uh, didn't they already call him 'Freelancer' during the Suicide Squad episodes, which I miss dearly?
Diggle continues to be elusive to the rest of the team with the whole HIVE thing, and he's basically reduced to 'those two guys' with Laurel, bonding briefly over the death of a sibling. But he's still getting the least screentime out of the main cast and it's a shame, honestly.
Quentin Lance's still being a dick, though from his point of view, well, the criminals are still being delivered set on fire and shit. Though notably he still keeps Oliver's secret safe... so far. He confronts Damien Darhk, which is cool, though we've yet to see exactly how Quentin got in with Darhk and their specific arrangements.
Darhk himself takes a backseat and is basically just the dude that hires Anarky in this episode. And he's a bit of a hypocrite, isn't he? Anarky kidnaps the daughter of their target and Darhk immediately thinks it's crossing a line and he's a psychopath that doesn't fit Darhk's designs for order, but in the same breath he threatens to use Quentin's daughter against him if he should disobey him. What? Darhk and HIVE (I'm not calling them Ghosts when I can use their real name) doesn't really have a definite goal as of yet, just seemingly trying to assassinate anyone who tries to become mayor.
And said mayor, Jessica Danforth... is kind of an idiot, isn't she? I mean, balls for attempting to run for mayor and being generally likable, but still, sending her daughter to library for a modicum of normalcy when someone just tried to assassinate her? That's just stupidity.
Anarky! Anarky is... well, he's a great villain here. He just has relatively little in common with comic book Anarky. Here, Lonnie Machin (while the term 'anarchy' is used a couple of times he's not yet known by that name) is a loose cannon, an embodiment of chaos, and a well-known crime enforcer. Comic book Anarky, on the other hand, is a child prodigy who has an extremely nuanced political and philosophical point of view that's more about tearing down governments to empower the people, a stark contrast from, well, chaos. Comics!Anarky would absolutely hate the Anarky here... who in all his desire for chaos actually resembles Comics!Anarky's possible father, the Joker. Huh. Maybe that's why I like this version of Anarky quite a bit?
He's definitely a villain with a presence, though. No golden mask or big hat, but he definitely has his comic-book counterpart's penchant with gimmick staves, and him fighting Oliver with two electrified staves is absolutely brilliant. And while as much as I dislike the deviation from his comic book persona, I can't say that I'm not entertained by this variant of the character.
We get some nice little continuity nods, too, with him making his classic symbol, the A with a circle, out of the paramedics' blood. And apparently he used to work for the Bertinellis, the crime family that Huntress was born in. Man, poor Huntress. Is she ever going to return? Anarky also apparently worked for a certain Rick Pinzolo, a name mentioned twice in the episode, but googling it doesn't seem to yield any DC-related results. So I dunno.
In the flashbacks, Oliver gets a haircut. He infiltrates some big secret militant operation forcing people to become slaves led by Baron Reiter, otherwise known as the obscure World War era Wonder Woman villain Baron Blitzkrieg. Who is a Nazi in the source material, but here, obviously, he's not. He's even played a black dude! Doubtful that Reiter's going to become like his comic book counterpart and they're just plucking a name from DC lore (like Shrieve last season) just for the hell of it, but hey. Also it's nice that despite this season's lighter tone, they're not just flushing continuity down the drain and Oliver Queen is still in full Assassin's Creed expert killer mode since all the flashbacks will lead to Grimdark-Season-One Oliver. Depressing to watch, yes, but it makes sense.
Overall, a very solid episode all around. I quite like it. Not something I expected from Arrow, honestly, after the gigantic mess that is the third season, so this fourth season might just rise from the ashes just like Sara Lance no doubt will do in a future episode.
This episode is pretty great! My inevitable complaints about the show getting Anarky absolutely wrong aside for an adaptation of the character (which I'll talk about later on), it's an extremely well done episode. Where to begin?
Oliver Queen, the newly-minted Green Arrow, struggles with several problems here. There's, obviously, the main plot of Anarky going around and menacing the city. There's the episode-long problem of Thea's anger issues. And there's Quentin's damning question of just how he will be different. Well, apparently, it involves Oliver Queen smiling more. That's a start. Also, at the end, he got an epiphany that he can run for mayor because he can defend himself -- something that actually makes the excuse plot of having Darhk and Anarky menace a prospective mayor actually tie in to the plot.
The Thea side of the plot is also relatively well done, and while initially it seemed like just another excuse to insert friction between Oliver and Thea, delving into yet another exhaustive 'two good guy characters fight' plot that Arrow is so well-known for... this one actually has a pretty good reason. The Lazarus Pit potentially changing Thea. And we actually see Thea's temper get worse when triggered, like the little sparring session gone awry with Oliver in the base, and her, well, fucking setting poor Anarky on fire during the climax. It's a great tie-in to the Lazarus Pit, and certainly far more interesting as a story than just temporarily causing someone to go into a berserker rage as in the comics -- a change from the source material that I really like now that I think about it.
It's a small thing, too, but I really like how Oliver and Thea has developed into a really effective brother-sister team both in costume and outside of it, with the two of them getting paired up plenty of times in this episode. And seeing something normal like the two of them meeting a family friend, or just Oliver being a proper big brother instead of being overbearing like he would in the first two seasons... it's nice.
Also, Laurel's big plan for Thea's anger issues? A spa treatment! Which is absolutely hilarious until you realize that Thea's explanation of the Lazarus Pit and Laurel going all 'yeah he would do anything to protect his sister...' earlier on is hinting at Laurel doing something absolutely insane. And despite doing very little in this episode other than bouncing dialogue off Thea and Diggle, her role at the end, telling Thea that she's taking her to Nanda Parbat for the twofold reasons of curing Thea's madness and reviving Sara. They actually show us Sara's corpse at the end, which is a lot prettier than what a year-old corpse should really look. Quite interesting, even if the end result of this particular arc is blatantly obvious to anyone who's watched Legends of Tomorrow's trailer, released around two months-ish before this episode aired.
Felicity's arc sort of mirrored Oliver's, in trying to find out how she can do things differently. And I really like how Oliver and Felicity's romance is dialed down. It's still there, they're still sweet around each other, but making it not be the central focus or the big drama moment of an episode really works well for the story. Here we see Felicity settling into her role as the big boss of Palmer Tech and having to deal with downsizing and being forced to fire people. We get her trying to figure things out and end up faking out the business directors with something big and revolutionarizing that... she hasn't planned out yet.
Also introduced this episode is likable geeky dude, Michael Holt, who to comic-book readers is the awesome if poorly-named superhero Mister Terrific. Man, Mr. Terrific is a shit name even by comic book standards, but he's a pretty impressive character in the comics that went through a pretty awesome character arc throughout the JSA stories I've read him in. I was quite surprised because I didn't know he was going to be in the show. And, yeah, this is a far more inexperienced and decidedly civilian Michael Holt, but he's pretty cool.
(The big revolutionary technology is going to be the T-Sphere, isn't it?)
Granted the show could've done without the obvious obligatory evil businessman dude that apparently told Holt to make a firing algorithm or whatever, because that felt cheap, but he still comes off well. Oh, and he's gay in this continuity and is married. Comics!Mr. Terrific has a wife, though I don't think changing his sexuality really is going to matter because, well, Comics!Mr. Terrific's wife is post-humous. So, uh, if Michael Holt in this series is going to be Mr. Terrific I don't see things going well with his husband. That could be a fair way off, though who knows?
Diggle, as Felicity points out, needs a codename. (And to think I joked about his helmet looking like Mr. Terrific in my previous review!) And Felicity actually has a point, since if the characters are saying stuff like 'Felicity do this' out loud it's going to tip villains off. I'm surprised it hasn't already. Maybe we can call her Oracle or Calculator or something? Diggle can be... uh, didn't they already call him 'Freelancer' during the Suicide Squad episodes, which I miss dearly?
Diggle continues to be elusive to the rest of the team with the whole HIVE thing, and he's basically reduced to 'those two guys' with Laurel, bonding briefly over the death of a sibling. But he's still getting the least screentime out of the main cast and it's a shame, honestly.
Quentin Lance's still being a dick, though from his point of view, well, the criminals are still being delivered set on fire and shit. Though notably he still keeps Oliver's secret safe... so far. He confronts Damien Darhk, which is cool, though we've yet to see exactly how Quentin got in with Darhk and their specific arrangements.
Darhk himself takes a backseat and is basically just the dude that hires Anarky in this episode. And he's a bit of a hypocrite, isn't he? Anarky kidnaps the daughter of their target and Darhk immediately thinks it's crossing a line and he's a psychopath that doesn't fit Darhk's designs for order, but in the same breath he threatens to use Quentin's daughter against him if he should disobey him. What? Darhk and HIVE (I'm not calling them Ghosts when I can use their real name) doesn't really have a definite goal as of yet, just seemingly trying to assassinate anyone who tries to become mayor.
And said mayor, Jessica Danforth... is kind of an idiot, isn't she? I mean, balls for attempting to run for mayor and being generally likable, but still, sending her daughter to library for a modicum of normalcy when someone just tried to assassinate her? That's just stupidity.
Anarky! Anarky is... well, he's a great villain here. He just has relatively little in common with comic book Anarky. Here, Lonnie Machin (while the term 'anarchy' is used a couple of times he's not yet known by that name) is a loose cannon, an embodiment of chaos, and a well-known crime enforcer. Comic book Anarky, on the other hand, is a child prodigy who has an extremely nuanced political and philosophical point of view that's more about tearing down governments to empower the people, a stark contrast from, well, chaos. Comics!Anarky would absolutely hate the Anarky here... who in all his desire for chaos actually resembles Comics!Anarky's possible father, the Joker. Huh. Maybe that's why I like this version of Anarky quite a bit?
He's definitely a villain with a presence, though. No golden mask or big hat, but he definitely has his comic-book counterpart's penchant with gimmick staves, and him fighting Oliver with two electrified staves is absolutely brilliant. And while as much as I dislike the deviation from his comic book persona, I can't say that I'm not entertained by this variant of the character.
We get some nice little continuity nods, too, with him making his classic symbol, the A with a circle, out of the paramedics' blood. And apparently he used to work for the Bertinellis, the crime family that Huntress was born in. Man, poor Huntress. Is she ever going to return? Anarky also apparently worked for a certain Rick Pinzolo, a name mentioned twice in the episode, but googling it doesn't seem to yield any DC-related results. So I dunno.
In the flashbacks, Oliver gets a haircut. He infiltrates some big secret militant operation forcing people to become slaves led by Baron Reiter, otherwise known as the obscure World War era Wonder Woman villain Baron Blitzkrieg. Who is a Nazi in the source material, but here, obviously, he's not. He's even played a black dude! Doubtful that Reiter's going to become like his comic book counterpart and they're just plucking a name from DC lore (like Shrieve last season) just for the hell of it, but hey. Also it's nice that despite this season's lighter tone, they're not just flushing continuity down the drain and Oliver Queen is still in full Assassin's Creed expert killer mode since all the flashbacks will lead to Grimdark-Season-One Oliver. Depressing to watch, yes, but it makes sense.
Overall, a very solid episode all around. I quite like it. Not something I expected from Arrow, honestly, after the gigantic mess that is the third season, so this fourth season might just rise from the ashes just like Sara Lance no doubt will do in a future episode.
No comments:
Post a Comment