Arrow S01E04 - Arrow up.

ARROW
Series 1, Episode 4

So, hey, today you get episode 4 of „Arrow“, CW’s new hit show. Why me and not MarXus? Easy, I have some free time to spare and he asked me to fill in for him. Therefore I’m reviewing the episode but don’t be afraid, our opinions don’t differ that much, or that’s what I like to pretend. :P

For the guidelines he has established until now, I will try(!) to follow them but bear with me if I do something else from time to time, after all I’m not him, am I?

For Arrow: While we now have three episodes beyond us, episode 4 kind of feels like another of those “everything’s changing/new”-episodes which I can’t say I dislike. But let the review unfold (magic). And even so, it might not seem that way from the beginning, I’m actually a big fan of the show, no hate comments necessary. ;) 

THE PLOT

Intro voice-over again (you know it) and then a “Previously on”-tag. I’m not going into this for obvious reasons. (For those still in the unclear, this is not, I repeat, not part of episode 4.)

While episode 3 left us hanging with a shot Diggle and Oliver basically showing him that he indeed is Arrow, we now get to see the very outcome of the situation. “Hey.” 

Ep4 centers on Oliver’s try to recruit Diggle into becoming his side-kick. So, of course, we start off by a heated discussion on whether Diggle should join him or not. Here comes the first big plus this episode gets from me: Diggle stating what is true, Oliver being a murderer.  Thank you for pointing this one out, finally. And again, I truly am in love with his hide-out, they definitely should show some more of it with the coming full-season order. 

Back at the castle, character development is in order, but an unbelievable one at that: Laurel who is still NOT his girlfriend again comes home to see if he was hurt in the shooting (Ep3). Where is the credibility behind this move? I mean, sure, after yelling at Oliver and all this stuff, she has no better things to do than playing the lovey-dovey girlfriend part. And next on, right there on the spot, is Thea. And that’s not a good one either because she knows way less about Oliver and his relationship to Laurel than, I suppose, Oliver himself. I mean, he is older (Thea is still going to some sort of college/school after all) and all she does give him as advice is in such a “go for it” manner like he wouldn’t. Please, writers, stop this kind of development. It really kills the realism the show is clearly trying to establish.

But there is also something good on the horizon and yes, it’s another flashback even if it is short for the moment but we’ll get to that later on. 

So, for the plot: Peter Declan, guy who apparently didn’t kill “his wife in their baby’s room”, just two days prior to his execution. What I have to give credit for is that this time, the writers disguised (or at least tried to) their “going after the list”-pattern quite good for a 42-minute show by making Declan’s wife a whistle blower working for Jason Bordur, another bad guy on the very list. So, nothing to argue here, the story setup seems real, a small plus for “Arrow” once more.

"Hey, you! Give me back my wallet and car keys, damn it."

While we had to wait patiently for now to know what would be Diggle’s next move after being asked to join Oliver on his revenge quest, we get a part of the answer in form of Rob Scott, the replacement bodyguard who obviously has no idea what he is up to. Which is of course a lot of ditching. The motorcycle sequence is an awesome one while we’re there. It has lots of humor and is not out of the usual storyline waters. Afterwards, when he ditches him at the café, again, it is put into motion well. So, this time, full score on the fun parts of the show. (But again, it is kind of unrealistic that playboy Oliver Queen is also a perfect smith these days, but damn, some online courses sure must work hell.) 

"Eleven minutes. Confirmed."

Eleven minutes into this episode, the show delivers what everyone has been waiting for, Arrow meeting Laurel in person (kind of feels like Smallville’s big Louis-Superman moment and if I think about it, the castle really does remind me of Lex’s castle back there, coincidence or trying to blend in like a very familiar setting so you don’t question the show’s portrayal?). And it starts off with Laurel pointing a gun at Arrow. But never mind why she put the gun into a drawer so far inside the room, let’s focus on Oliver standing right in front and behind her and she still doesn’t get the connection between our rich guy and our vigilante, kind of unrealistic but necessary for the show to continue, just saying. And wow, an innocent guy, who would have thought that? And of course, she does as she is told and goes visit the framed guy who delivers a really grasping story, very good acting here.

Now, for a (hopefully) season-long side plot and yes, every show needs a good one. And Arrow kicks it off with a not so big revelation, 2.6m $ missing. Could be a book-keeping error, couldn’t it now? 

Back with Diggle: an intense moment when Oliver admits to him that his father shot himself in the head right before his eyes and that he is out for revenge with or without him. But he still hopes to do so with him. Kind of part of the conversation, he drops the bomb that he took out the sniper from last episode who killed Diggle’s brother as was hinted previously by the name Andrew Diggle on the chest of that very sniper in E3. Nothing wrong with that, and I’d say this is the best part of the whole episode that gets topped off with Oliver, you guessed it, ditching the new guy. That is the kind of “Arrow” I really enjoy from the bottom of my critical television soul. Keep up the good work here. 

Following the money trail, Moira (Oliver's mom) solved the mystery with herself being the culprit but Walter ain’t buying that, which of course is the right choice. Meanwhile, Laurel becomes lovey-dovey with Arrow, sorry Oliver (who is still using a voice scrambler). And damn, just when I thought this roof scene was still okay in its own cliché way, they let me down by letting Laurel say “[t]hat sounds lonely.” And that I can’t overlook, sorry, but that’s just too over-dramatic and really unnecessary. But they save some by giving Arrow an exit way he deserves. 

In the big Q building Walter isn’t letting go on the 2.6m and Miss Smoke is the trusted one he refers to, same as Oliver did in a previous episode. And she seems natural, not that much over-acting, good job until now.

"I told you everything, now let me go."
- "Do I look like the good guy to you?"

Elsewhere: tranq dart for the bad guy. Nice move. But what comes is much better, Arrow’s art of questioning and I really really liked that “it’s time for the ten-fifteen to Blood Haven”-moment there. And besides all critics or irony, this scene looked so damn good. 

Watching along, Laurel now goes against the bad guy from the list, personally. “Prison can be a dangerous place.”  Indeed. Why prison? Because she has to meet her client (who is still imprisoned) again after court didn’t go as well as hoped. And now we get to see a (slightly) darker side of our favorite hero when he is desperately trying to save his love during a prison riot set up by the bad guys. And it surprises me how fast she can run in heels but oh well, this is television after all. Now for that scene where Arrow is beating up some guy who attacked Laurel - and boy, he hits him good. Initially, the show runners had shot a different scene, one where Arrow (in his fake police uniform) has the guy in a safe headlock and then would go on to break his neck but is stopped from Laurel. But since the darkness the scene is shot in prevented this feature to be seen in post-production, they re-shot the scene like this. Which I consider sad because this would have been a wonderful parallel to Oliver’s bird killing on the island which we get to know in a flashback.

Safest password in the world, really.

Lastly for the side plot act: Walter finds, beware, the “Queen’s Gambit” in a warehouse downtown right there in Starling City. Suspense. 

In the very last minutes of the episode, the show wraps up its three loose plots: 1) reuniting the innocent guy whom we have already forgotten about with his daughter while throwing the bad guy in prison (by the way, there is one little flaw here, Arrow first shot his left hand but later he is shown having his right hand injured), 2) Moira meeting CAPTAIN JACK (omg, awesome, for those who don’t get it, Barrowman played Captain Jack Harkness in several “Doctor Who” episodes and its cool spin-off “Torchwood”, check it out if you haven’t already) a.k.a. John Barrowman (very good actor, should do this show good who really only has one extremely good actor, David Ramsey a.k.a. John Diggle) and guess what, he is kind of the boss behind everything connected to the Queen family’s wrong-doings and 3) making Diggle accept the job offer (and he is a side-kick as the show is not called “Arrow and a bodyguard”) as anticipated (his replacement resigned by the way but that’s the other position). 

Two things I have left out until now, for importance reasons of course, the flashbacks and Detective Lance’s inquiry on the Oliver-Arrow theory. 

First things first, the flashbacks. While they’re surely not the best ones we’ve seen until now, they make for perfect side story telling, not in a way of an actual side plot but more of accompanying the real plot like they did this time. The intended parallel is what makes me have actual hope this show is set for even greater things than it seemed until now. Connecting both story lines is a stunt not many shows would have been able to do so easily seeming like “Arrow” did. And that gives the episode another plus.  And on top of that, the surprise that the Asian guy on the island can actually talk English was a nice goodie at the end which also shows that the time of no-speaking is over and action will find the island now. 

Second, Lance’s Oliver-Arrow-theory: Having heard from Laurel that Arrow does not always wear his green costume, he gets the idea that he might have overlooked something and yes, he certainly did. Oliver being caught on camera pulling out his Arrow costume from some trash bin from the party earlier, before the shooting. And therefore, he comes into the castle and, bam, arrests Oliver on everything from “obstruction of justice” to “murder”. Which is also the big cliffhanger the episode leaves us with. While we now have to say “how stupid was that guy for missing a camera where he hid his costume?”, the next episode will deliver a solution for all this, so this one will not be acknowledged in the final score out of fairness. 

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

This, I will do character per character which are actually getting developed during the episode. 

OLIVER / ARROW – He is mostly defined through what we get to see in the flashbacks. Which is the case this time as well as we get to see Oliver’s first hands-on murder, killing that bird. He is reluctant at first but slowly because of his hunger gives in and gets himself something to eat (what the Asian guy had planned all along). Sounds realistic, is realistic. The other development Oliver has in this episode is having to prepare to get rid of Laurel’s picture he is carrying around. Yes, while he screwed around with her sister. Really the bonding guy, our protagonist. But what gives our guy a humanly touch again is the fact that he needs to talk his soul off to someone and that particular someone is Diggle whom he tells about the list. Pretty bold move, but at the right time. I’m good here. 

"See, I'm Arrow, not Oliver."

LAUREL – From all lovey-dovey (and yes, she is that, there’s not a single more accurate way to say it otherwise) to lovey-dovey for Arrow who “stands against everything [she] believe[s] in” but hey, she’s attracted to him. That was achieved way too easily and way too fast. A little bit more time (two episodes or so) would have done that development a lot better because just about now, I do not think of Laurel as the great character anymore she was introduced as in the first couple of episodes. Just too much here, sorry folks. Big negative one. And she doesn't get that Oliver and Arrow are the same even though she stands centimeters in front of him.

THEA – She kind of becomes the “big sister” for Oliver here and even gives him relationship advice while also she is okay with the fact he banged her sister (doesn’t even seem to care, hello?) out of fun. That is the most unbelievable character development “Arrow” has yet delivered. It is not in any kind justified or previously implied to at least masquerade it as a constant development. It’s just there for one episode and end. That’s one major disappointment which will cost the show some serious stuff. 

DIGGLE – I like the fact that Diggle fights with himself here about whether he should join Oliver on his quest or not and if he should go to the police, for that matter. After all, Oliver is basically a murderer. Pretty good in the development category here was also that first (back in the hide-out) he wanted to punch Oliver and now (back at castle at the end of the episode) he agrees to join him. Mainly this is achieved through Oliver’s out coming (as mentioned in Oliver’s development chart). I’m looking forward seeing him as the side-kick in the next episodes. 

MOIRA and THE REST have not that much of character development, so I exclude them here for time and space reasons.

THE PRESENTATION

One disappointment, “Arrow” sadly keeps on delivering, is the major over-acting at some points, mainly in Oliver’s and Laurel’s cases. But that won’t change from one episode to another, so I hope the actors get more relaxed with episodes coming.

Other than that, “Arrow” is an awesome ride because you don’t feel like this is your regular TV show. It continues to do so because of cool-looking scenes like the prison riot, the train questioning and the roof meeting that all contribute to an overall feeling that the show truly deserves to be on air. I mean, all negative aspects beside, the show’s feeling is mostly “awesome” which is why it also is one of my favorites of the 2012-13 TV season. 

CONCLUSION

"Hi, Captain Jack's the name. Wanna ride on my star ship?"

Episode 4 has an overall good feeling behind its back while it also delivers some few flaws that cost some now. While the story development was extremely good and well-prepped, it doesn’t play out for now because it is set for way more episodes that are still to come. Therefore, the episode also feels like it’s missing something. And sadly, we could just see a brief moment of John Barrowman, so that couldn’t save another star which it could have easily done because Barrowman is an amazingly talented actor who as said would do the show good in disguising some serious over-acting. 

3 stars for a good episode that delivered good scenes and a decent enough plot but still lacks in some departments. There goes my hope the show will rise to its possible high that is in reachable distance, especially with the new cliffhanger of Walter discovering the ship. I’m intrigued to see how that will play out over the course of the season (series?). Arrow up.