I am still quite dumbfounded after the mid-season finale of “Arrow” last night, but I assure you, I am dumbfounded for all the right reasons. So much happened last night to bring this increasingly awesome show to a mid-season climax that my words on it will probably not do it justice; but I am going to try and I have a long-time Green Arrow fan in tow with me to share his over-all thoughts on the show thus far. Full spoilers follow!
Oliver didn’t fare to well in his fight last week with Cyrus Gold (aka Solomon Grundy) and was in pretty bad shape at the beginning of this week’s episode which picked up right where last week left off. Luckily, Barry Allen was still around to help bring Oliver out of his tailspin towards death and was able to get the hero back on his feet; though, Oliver was none-to-happy with Felicity for revealing his secret to Barry without his consent.
From here, it was an all out sprint to the finish line with so many plots that have been building up during the first half of this sophomore season of “Arrow”. Oliver and the gang desperately trying to stop Brother Blood from mass producing the “super solider” serum; Roy still trying to find out how his old friend was killed, despite the vigilanted telling him to back off and putting an arrow through his leg to get his point across; Oliver coming to terms with some pretty horrific events that happened to him on the island. So much of this came to a head this week, and it did not disappoint.
One of the main drivers of this episode was Oliver dealing with hallucinations of those who have died “because of him”. We find out Shadow’s fate on the island (and later on, the reaction of Slade who awakes from the “dead”) and why Oliver blames himself. Thus far, Oliver has tried to do the right thing and battle to save Starling City – perhaps his methods weren’t always the best, but he has tried, and finally this week he got fed up with those close to him dying and was able to use this as motivation to finally whoop the shit out of Solomon Grundy in an awesome climactic throw down and save Roy – now injected with the serum – from dying.
This was just an amazing mid-season finale for “Arrow”, and it only proves to me that the show has very much found its groove. We are focused more on Oliver and his fight against evil, and less on the dramatic aspect of his return from the island and the relationships that affected – but if you assume that means we are no longer getting strong character development, you’d be wrong. After last night, “Arrow” his hands down my favorite show on television right now. The acting has improved, the stories are more involved and intertwining, and the creators are folding in so much of the DC universe, but in a way that makes sense to the show and without the feeling of “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if we…”.
The big reveals from this week include: Shadow’s fate on the island; the reveal of Slade Wilson in the present day, looking very much like the character we know from the comics; finding out Slade Wilson is pulling Brother Blood’s strings; a lot of nods to the Solomon Grundy character; Oliver finally gets a mask thanks to Barry Allen – and I must say, it looks really good without crossing the cheesy line; and perhaps the biggest reveal of all – Barry Allen become the Flash a la the particle accelerator we’ve been hearing so much about via news casts on the show – this sequence was incredible and actually caught me off guard how well they treated this origin in both special effects and thrills!
I feel like a broken record at this point telling everyone I talk to to watch this show. “Arrow” is hands down the best superhero show we have had on television in recent memory and it deserves to have a large audience. I assure you this is not your typical CW teen drama, frankly, the show feels like it shouldn’t even be on this network. With us being at the mid-season hiatus, you have a great opportunity to get completely caught up before mid-January when the show returns, and I can’t recommend enought that you do so.
If you don’t believe me, I have brought along some help. I asked long-time friend of Big Shiny Robot!, and the biggest Green Arrow fan I know, to share his thoughts on the show from the perspective of a fan of the character from the comics. I assure you, you will never meet a bigger fan of this character.
Thomy:
As a big Green Arrow fan, reading the comic for over 10 years, you could safely assume I was going to be excited over his own TV show. After seeing his appearance in Smallvile and nerding out in every episode he was in, it was great to see him become the coolest character of the show. Now, seeing him in his own show, and seeing other people geeking out about him too is just what I had hoped for. However, I could not have predicted how amazing the show was going to be. With Season 2 finishing its mid-season finally, I was asked to write a couple words on how I think the show was going so far. I LOVE IT. Plain and simple. I have seen my favorite hero become the badass I know him to be, and have started hearing others think so too. In just a short time I’ve gone from trying to explain who Green Arrow is, to convincing people I heard of him first.
Green Arrow is by far the most interesting characters in all of superhero literature to me. He is just a normal guy who had one skill and he decides to better himself and the city he lives in with that skill. One of the things that makes him more interesting to me is that he seems more human than any of the other superheroes I read about. On multiple occassions he’s proven himself to be selfish and narcissistic. He is in no way the perfect hero; he has no powers and can be morally bankrupt, but he still wants to be good, he still want to do what he can and tries to be someone to look up to so others not only want to be him, but they can be better than him. Green Arrow is in no way a boy scout or a man with a vendetta, but a man who sees bad things and a way to fix them.
One of the strongest points of “Arrow” to me is how they, right of the bat, let you know that this is the DC world, not just Green Arrow’s world with his friends popping up like in “Smallvile”. They let you hear about the other cities and introduce villains that are not just Green Arrow’s alone and this is a great way to bring in other viewers. It’s great to see they they’re staying pretty close to the source material, which is always a great way to keep the fan base you already have happy and to get new readers to the books. Within season one they were hit and miss on some of the finer details about the characters, so at first I thought it was just me being picky, but the creators must have thought that too because they seem to be fixing a lot of the minor things that made me twitch. Green Arrow doesn’t just go around killing people. he avoids doing it, but he is only human and when he’s pushed to the limit or not in control of his emotions, he loses it and isn’t afraid too.
In just the short amount of time during two seasons, we have seen a bigger budget, better acting, and bigger and better fight scenes. Truthfully, the fight scenes have been getting better and better with each episode from the start, but this season especially shows what I want to see: more fight scenes with Green Arrow fighting with his bow, using his arrows to aid in his fights to pin people down, and smacking people with his bow. This really brings a much needed look at superhero fighting styles, showing that they each have their own tactics and don’t all just go down to their gym and learn karate and suddenly seem to know every move and every counter to it.
“Arrow” doesn’t dumb down their dialogue or character development either. The writers actual assume their audience is smart, and season two shows that they think we know enough about Oliver after one season that they are able to move deeper into other characters’ development. This broadens the universe and prevents the show from becoming stagnant by not giving us four years of development on just Oliver, like we got with Clark in “Smallvile”.
One of the things I’m very proud of with season two is they’re still telling his origin without me being bored already. The creators are not flashing back to story points that are only crucial to the story out of order to drive the current week’s plot (i.e. If something happened before he met Slade that is crucial the the new story line, but there only now just telling you, out of order.), but instead they just haven’t told you the whole story yet.
So far in season two, we’ve seen the rise of Black Cannery, the beginning of Roy’s and Oliver’s team-up, the mention of Ra’s Al Goul, and, just in the latest episode, we’ve seen Barry Allen become the Flash, the death/birth of Solomon Grundy, and the twist of fate of Slade Wilson – so what’s not to love about this season?! Even with so much going on this season, I still have high hopes for the show as it continues into the second half of this season.
Finally, to wrap up, here are a few things I hope to see in the future from “Arrow”: Oliver training and teaming-up with Roy; seeing Oliver finally get together with Laural, getting married, and having him cheat on her to show that Oliver isn’t as great of a man as some people might think. I’d love to see him lose all of his money and start doing the vigilante thing on a cheaper scale and less of a “Batman scale”. And finally, my hope is to finally see his sister die.