So last week’s episode was good. I enjoyed the bits with Yao Fei (I have not yet found the Yao Fei fan club so I’m considering just starting my own, let me know if you want in), and of course Diggle as NotArrow, was sad about Walter’s departure, and chose to ignore the whole Laurel and Oliver thing completely.
This week? Well, I have mixed feelings about ‘Legacies’.
Firstly? Yay Royal Flush Gang!!! They are in Starling City to rob a bank but we already knew that. What we didn’t know is that Kyle/Ace was going to go all guns blazing and shoot a cop. Never a good idea. It did however set up nicely the father/son/gun theme that would run throughout the episode. I will say that the re-imagining of the Royal Flush Gang worked, for me at least. I wonder where I can get my hands on one of those masks.
For a moment however, let’s forget all plot line and story because wow.
Oliver Queen and John Diggle practicing what looks to be the Filipino martial art, eskrima.
Practice on fellows, practice on.
That scene wasn’t all shirtless sweaty hotness though, Oliver and John did have a meeting of the minds concerning Oliver’s path as the Vigilante. I really hope they come out and officially give a name to his alter-ego (they haven’t have they?) because I know it would help people who write about the show quite a bit as we never know how to refer to him whilst wearing the hood. I’ve done Arrow just because, duh The Green Arrow, but I’m fairly certain they’ve never actually called him Arrow so I’m torn.
Either way, Diggle thinks whatever they are calling him needs to be a hero and work on all types of crime in Starling City while Oliver thinks he should just focus on “The List”.
The flashbacks in this episode were all about Oliver’s dad and usually lined up with “King” of the Royal Flush Gang and his dealing with “Ace”. Even though this wasn’t a favorite episode, I really did like how they set this up. I really do wish though that they would set this show up less like a procedural. I don’t know that there’s any reason to have the bad guy be done at the end of the episode. It makes me want to weep when I think that a villain group as great as The Royal Flush Gang is just going to be one and done. Then again this is the same group that instead of moving on to a new city after being outed as bank robbers, they stick around until they are caught/killed. Can’t say these are the smartest cards in the deck. Of course they previously robbed banks in Keystone City and The Flash didn’t catch them so perhaps they felt they were safe.
I’m going to discuss Laurel now but she annoys me to the point that I can’t even see her face so I went instead with a nice gif showing off Stephen Amell’s form. He’s got a nice anchor point and appears to be solid in his stance.
Too bad he isn’t drawing back on Laurel’s ridiculousness. Apparently not only has she become a stellar lawyer in all forms of practicing law in the matter of 18 months, but she also is running the CNRI (which has to be a play on Canary) and because of that is understandably upset at Stagg Industries pulling their funding. SERIOUSLY PEOPLE?!?! Ugh, I just can’t even deal with that crap at all. I’m looking forward to the next episode when Laurel is appointed special counsel to the President of the United States after successfully suing Pol Pot posthumously for crimes against humanity. Not only does her completely ridiculous career path annoy me, but seriously she needs to look into something to treat her mood swings. In the span of 30 seconds she went from “Tommy I don’t need your money” to “My best friend and I play a game called “convince me in ten words or less” and she won so yes Tommy I’d love to throw a fund-raiser with you.”
I can’t even bring myself to discuss how Tommy won Laurel over by saying she was more preferable to a repeat one night stand.Merlyn need to be bad and Laurel needs to don some fish nets before I write both of them off as boring and useless.
Much to my surprise, I’m liking Thea more. Granted the whole crush on big brother’s best friend thing was a little left fieldish but her interactions with Oliver have become much more pleasurable. I loved the scene with Oliver and Thea giving Moira crap about going on and on about Carter Bowen. It’s a long practiced pastime of siblings and it’s fun to watch them grow/fall back into it. I’m also coming around to the idea of Thea being Speedy if for no other reason than they keep making a point of calling her Speedy. At first it was a passing thing but now there’s been commentary on the name as well. I’d say it’s only a matter of time before we see her flinging arrows at Starling City’s derelict business leaders.
So are we to believe that Oliver Queen can break into the police department (complete with some amazing ceiling acrobatics), download entire databases full of evidence, take that evidence, and then glean the needed information from it but he doesn’t know how to work google?
I’m only half complaining because I want Felicity Smoak to be on the screen as much as humanly possible but still, maybe she needs to be challenged a bit more than inputting something into a search bar.
I said earlier that the running thread through the episode was fathers and sons but I change my mind. It was more of just family in general. As much as I loved the banter between Diggle and Oliver, and especially when Felicity was brought in, it was actually the final scene between Moira and Oliver that was tops in my book. So sweet. I really hope they show more of her story with the boat and the Barrowman and why she was so interested in figuring out what Oliver knew because I want to love her, but there’s this little niggle in my brain (actually it’s my husband sitting next to me going “Don’t trust her Oliver, you can’t trust that bitch.”) that is preventing me.
Seriously if that doesn’t tug at the ol’ heartstrings than you are a heartless bastard. The End.
No new episode next week due to the holiday, but Arrow will return on November 28th with an episode titled “Muse of Fire” featuring a character I’ve been looking forward to since there were first rumors of her… The Huntress!
Until next time- Happy Thanksgiving Arrow fans!
Grizzly Bomb 