I think Arrow has finally decided to just go ahead and embrace the “so bad it’s good” mentality. This is not a bad thing though. Sometimes “so bad, it’s good” actually ends up being the most enjoyable types of entertainment. However, minus the reveal of the “Well Dressed Man” as Tommy’s father and the return of Walter, last week was a bit lacking. Helena Bertinelli wasn’t all that riveting, Oliver was delusional in his “justice vs. vengeance” non-argument, and there wasn’t nearly enough John Diggle.
Thankfully Diggle returns this week in ‘Vengeance’, because Oliver needed his ass handed to him. What part of “secret lair” is hard to understand? Why not just have an open house at this point? Bake some cookies, put out a cheese ball, and invite the whole neighborhood why don’t you?
Best line of the entire episode though came from that chick that shouldn’t know his secret in the first place. I damn near aspirated my coffee when after Oliver tries to get Helena to learn how to be a proper vigilante from him she says “Thanks for the coffee… and the sex, but I’m not interested.” Someone call Hallmark, I think we’ve got a winner here! Actually this entire episode was one fabulously ridiculous line after another.
- “You should be in the Olympics” John Diggle to Oliver who is working out… again
- “Street cred” both Helena and Oliver utter this without a trace of irony
- “I don’t speak Chinese so I’m going to assume you said goodbye.” Helena before she shoots a member of the Triad
Okay, the last one was fantastic. It was one of those things that you certainly didn’t expect in the middle of a fight scene which made it a thousand times funnier. I am a little peeved that like Boardwalk Empire (how many times this week have you seen a correlation made between Boardwalk Empire and Arrow?) they talk about this huge war and how it’s going to tear the city apart and it’s all over in one nice and neat scene. The Triad (with the kick-ass China White making another appearance) storms Bertinelli’s house and that’s it? That’s a war? Perhaps I’ve been watching too much Gangland but that seemed a little weak.
Speaking of Chinese in the show, there is a tumblr user who watches the show and posts the translations of the Chinese spoken there. You can find her blog here. Shameless plug time: while you are on tumblr anyway, might as well go ahead and follow Grizzly Bomb as well.
Helena became Huntress even though they never called her that, unless I missed it. We got to see her girl out on the color of her outfit (purple of course) but we saw a bad girl quality when it came to the unintentional double date with her and Oliver and Tommy and Laurel. She was the one who suggested they have dinner with them and then she got all pissy when she found out who they were. Come on Helena
, don’t be like that, you are giving us girls a bad name. It was fun to see her and Oliver go hunt down Anthony Venza together though.
I’ll admit that I thought Oliver was going to win out over Helena and she was going to see the err of her ways and turn to the Force. I was wrong. So wrong that when we saw Helena standing over father, crossbow aimed at him, I was taken aback. Come on now, taking down his business is one thing but now you want to flat out kill him? I’m with Oliver on this one, put him in jail, no need to go off and revenge kill your dad.
Random, but I really hope I’m not the only person that thought immediately of Bryan Adam’s 1991 power ballad, “I Do It For You” from Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves when Mr. Bertinelli was begging his daughter not to shoot him. I fully expected Kevin Costner to come walking from the woods. Actually now that I think about it, that would have been awesome.
Subplots? No real big surprise, Walter doesn’t trust Moira. Well if he did, the trust was fleeting because Felicity comes and shows him an image that he knows he’s seen before and he ends up finding a book that looks exactly like Oliver’s book of names and it is filled with names as well! Ahhhhh! What does this mean? Will Walter confront Moira? Will she tell him about Merlyn/Well Dressed Man? Will he leave again? Will he and Felicity join up and become super sleuths together? Yes please. Felicity is easily the most entertaining person on this show. She needs more air time and I’m hoping this detective bit with Walter will do just that.
The whole Tommy and Laurel thing is just a means to an end (that end somehow being Tommy an antagonist and Laurel and Oliver together) so I refuse to get emotionally invested in that. That being said, Laurel needs to shut her mouth. It was absolutely none of her business if Tommy went to Oliver for a job or not. Then to bring it up at dinner? That’s dirty and results in one of the most awkward double dates I’ve watched in recent memory. Yikes.
As for Diggle? I think he’s going to end up with his sister-in-law. Not only did he give a telling look her way when he was talking to Oliver about the “right one” but she made a point of saying she was his “ex-sister in-law”. I’m interested in seeing how that plays out. If for no other reason than to hear them talk more about what a bad neighborhood this immaculate and relatively beautiful fast food restaurant is in. I don’t think he’s going to leave Ollie, no matter how much he says he is. At least he better not.
Overall, great episode. Like I said, I think they have decided to just own the cheesy dialogue and ridiculous story lines and I think it makes for a better show in the long run. There’s only one episode left until the hiatus and I’m sure it will be a good one. This week was lacking John Barrowman and Yao Fei, but made up for it with Felicity and Diggle so let’s stick with a four out of five rating.
Until next time Arrow fans!
Grizzly Bomb 