Arrow S01E05 - Accidents can happen.

ARROW
Season 1, Episode 5

5 years ago – Asian guy shoots dinner. Right, so, there I am once more, filling in on another arrowing review because MarXus is busy doing some maintenance stuff for the site (yeah, we gotta do that as well) and he’s, at least I think he is, writing some other review already. But back to the important stuff: the review itself. Remember, Oliver had been arrested at the end of last episode for literally everything from secret hooding to murder. So, there we are now, go. (Catchphrase. :P )

Oliver on the island, a kind of familiar face about now. New to that, remember, Asian guy can speak English. So, he is practicing his shooting act with bow and arrow to become, well, “Arrow” which of course he didn’t know then. He misses and has to retrieve the arrow, nothing wrong with that, but nothing special. So why show us this stuff? Because, and that is a major gun the show is pulling on us, the island is not as deserted as we thought. In fact, there is some sort of military group there which, you saw it coming, catches our billionaire playboy son and takes him to a piss hole, eh, I mean, arrest cell. That was a really nice stunt the show performed well and which will define what’s coming, so don’t miss a second of the coming flashbacks.

Back in the present, Detective Lance questions Oliver but is interrupted by his mom and step-dad in charge, Walter. But Oliver is only accepting Laurel as his lawyer. So far, so good. But then, they dumb Laurel’s character into a dreamy what-so-ever, really, way to go there by letting her say something as stupid as “Mrs. Queen, what are you...?” and just seconds after that “it’s been all over the news”. You know, when she knows why Moira is talking to her, why is she asking? Feels -just not right.  

Anyway, despite the screw-ups the show is constantly delivering in the Oliver-Laurel relationship, it is still on solid ground since it’s logical that Oliver would only let Laurel represent him, therefore, I’ll let that faux-pas just then slip. And eventually she agrees. Nothing big to argue here and it’s being presented quite good, actually. (Even though I’m not so sure if a lawyer is allowed to just walk in to a hearing if he or she is late, but since I can’t confirm if that is possible or not, it’s a little positive point because it comes around quite cool and saves her character a little there.) 

"Man, even some random dude got more screen time than me."

Result: Oliver having to wear a GPS device. But he can still party in his garden which he of course does in an instant. Why the show did include Tommy (or Merlyn a.k.a. Merlin as MarXus once put it) here, I don’t know. But okay, he is his best friend, so he has one reason to be there but they could use him some more in a episode if he appears - oh well, guess thirty seconds have to be enough. In comes Diggle and here is again a serious over-acting or, for that matter, over-speaking to be seen/heard as Oliver kind of insults Diggle to shut the door. And since there is no conclusive reason for insulting Diggle here, it has to be Amell’s fault. But for resolving the cliffhanger we were left with – why did Oliver miss that very camera? We now get to know, he did miss it on purpose, yeah, that’s right. He lets himself get arrested, even prosecuted just to pretend like he’s not Arrow while he just could have sent Diggle to play the Hood while he is being seen on like, a camera or something like that as he wants Diggle to do now anyway? Well, of course, he is a show-off and okay, it was kind of awesome when the show pulled the arrest move out of their sleeves so early into the season but hey, nothing beats logic. 

"I'm Brother Tuck from Sherwood Forest, got a problem with that?"

Well, before I go on criticizing everything, now for the plot for that episode: a German businessman suspected of arm deals. And Diggle is supposed to play the very Hood Oliver is and well, give him an alibi and get information on the very businessman’s next deal. Whom he again knows about, why is not explained but since we are used to not knowing from where he gets his info, I guess, it’s all right. And the toys he has are awesome, I want more.

At the big Q building, Walter is moving his resources to transport the "Queen’s Gambit" but first, Oliver does a, wait for it, polygraph. Which he succeeds at (seems not that hard to beat one, after all). Here is, according to me, the most intense and epic moment of the season (yet?). Oliver coming around to tell Laurel and her father (and do not forget the tech guy) that he was not alone on the island and that he was seriously tortured, by famous Deathstroke. This character will be spared from this episode’s review because he is a comic character and he will be explained later on in the show. I’ll just say that until now, he lives up to the hype. What makes this very scene (the polygraph) so good, so excellent is it being so damn convincingly and I’m so intrigued to forget about every fault the episode delivered until now just for the very awesomeness this scene is filled with. And here, we finally see what Amell is capable of as an actor and if he keeps that performance level up, it would be perfect. 

Back with Thea, who disappointed completely in the last episode. But this time, she is back to her normal self. And she acts tremendously this time, keep it up. But still, she has some doubts about Oliver being Arrow and Oliver can’t live up to her suspicions but she puts them aside for now, just like Diggle did a few episodes back. Nice parallel there, plus point.

 

And the awesomeness doesn’t stop there with Walter then getting informed his chef of security (who he sent to move the ship) was involved in a car accident and died. And we all know that was no accident. Very good acting here, as always from Colin Salmon. Meanwhile, Laurel visits Oliver and we learn two important things: 1) she wore fishnets for him and 2) she still has feelings for him. The latter we all did know before, all right, but hey, kiss scene. As cliché as it was, I’ll let it stand there because I’ve seen Smallville’s numerous takes on that kind of scenes and know that in a superhero series this is the best you can/will get. And Laurel gets to see his scars, but oh well, that doesn’t matter for now.

Next up is a hit on Oliver. Yep, a murder attempt. That scene features again an amazing stunt coordination fighting scene and I must say, this is the kind of scenes where “Arrow” never disappoints. Really, great work here, the scene looks absolutely fantastic and Lance saving Oliver was, again, even if a little coincidentally, a very good choice. This scene has no flaws which is why it is so short-reviewed, in case you wanted to ask that. 

"So, you still haven't realized your son is Arrow?"

 In the ending minutes, Moira gets to be a little more the family member we had thought she was in the first minutes of the pilot episode before she was revealed to have all these connections and stuff. But this would not be a good ending point for a week if Laurel wouldn’t show up and tell him he lied in the polygraph and still passed despite of a little flutter during the questioning. Then the writers went a little overboard in giving Oliver the line “I can barely sign my name” which clearly as he demonstrated a thousand times, he can. Sad that Laurel can be that easily deceived or can she?

Lastly, Walter is leaving the big castle and Moira (good decision there),  Laurel does a little “save-my-alcoholic-cop-dad-bonding” and Diggle and Arrow make up for making him only a side-kick pawn right before Arrow goes in and finishes the job with the German businessman but again, now he is back with murdering everyone before taking his time to let the real bad guy know “he failed this city”. But, hey, it’s Arrow, move along, nothing special to see here. 

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

"Woah, Kermit the Frog, WTF?!"

OLIVER – This is the biggest development for Oliver this episode shows us. We get to know that he was brutally tortured on the not so deserted island. That he had lived through rough times back there and exactly that knowledge lets us view him differently then before. We now have the permanent image of him as the victim who overcame a storm which now kind of justifies his need to be a little more aggressive in his vigilante adventures (spin-off anyone?). And we get to see the real, damaged Oliver in two scenes, most important: the questioning with the polygraph when he for a moment opens up and shows that he is not the Oliver that the city has thought to be dead, that he is some other Oliver who knows the world’s brutality spreading around. The second one is his conversation with Laurel, even so it is mainly acted, some things still are true like he describing himself as damaged. And up until now this was the best character study of him that the show delivered, so a job very well done. 

LAUREL – Defining her in this episode are mainly again the exact same two scenes as in Oliver’s case: polygraph and conversation. She recognizes that she had seen a ghost version of Oliver all these days since his return, that Oliver has changed quite a lot and not to the better. And what is strongly implied is that she also takes a lot of the damage onto herself what Oliver suffered because she thought of him as the playboy he always was. But still, that’s everything that’s changing for her but it is strong and therefore enough. Good job again.

THEA – Back to her greatness of the previous episodes after the very last episode let me down in every way to Sunday for her character. She now faces the first doubts about Oliver and their relationship now again seems so realistic that, well, it could actually be real. I hope they keep this storyline up because it is a damn interesting one and it is the most perfect portrayal of a relationship in the show. 

QUINTON LANCE – What else can I say that, I like his character a lot and the acting is also near perfection. What justifies him getting some separate lines is the hit scene at the end where he, father of whom Oliver kind of killed, shoots someone to save his daughter’s “killer’s” life. He sees that Oliver has enemies and that he by far is not the playboy turned murderer for fun as he portrays him before the incident. He gets to see there is another dimension to Oliver’s character and that on the other side of the medal also gives him a new dimension which is introduced to us by him drinking to his thoughts at the bar, nicely put. I hope they explore this direction more. 

MOIRA – Well, she’s not as bad as everyone thought. But still, she stays true to her criminal side. Which is the right way to have taken this development for now. But they can’t do such little developments for her anymore because now, it is getting repetitive. 

WALTER – He confronts Moira about the “Queen’s Gambit”. That, I did not see coming (yep, the second time already which is a relatively good sign) and I really was “Oh wow” when I saw what game Walter was playing here. It was a dangerous game but I think he knows Moira is not the good housewife she wanted everyone to believe she was. Which is his character development while we there already. And his moving out scene at the end was also well placed and gave the series another new storyline to explore, so, again, well done. 

DIGGLE and THE REST were only side-kicks for the episode so I leave them out. 

"Do I have something in my face or what?"

THE PRESENTATION

What this episode finally gets straight is its over-acting problem. Though Amell kind of killed the feeling with his more of an insult voicing to shut the door, it was getting indeed better. There were still some scenes where it was more than visible but it was less than before and that is what counts.

And we got to see more of John Barrowman whose acting is really awesome to say the least (okay, I admit, I liked his acting ever since he appeared on “Doctor Who” but nevertheless it’s true), I hope, once again, to see even more in the next episode or the next ones crawling up.

Other than that, settings and the shots in general were again on a very high scale for a TV production which I again have to give the show a lot of credit for.

The plot however had some serious lacks of logic (like the “why bother to get arrested”-problem or the Laurel-thing in the beginning) but overall it wasn’t that bad, I have to admit. It wasn’t better than the last episode’s solid plotting but it wasn’t worse either, so I guess we’re in deep waters here for the moment.

The flashbacks again were not some of the best we’ve seen yet except the Deathstroke-introducing ones, but still they were again set into scene very well and the last one showing us that the Asian guy who was a military officer of some sort left Oliver back at his “place” in order to draw the guns for hire away from him made for an interesting turn in events, so another plus here.

CONCLUSION

Prison ain't that bad, really.

Though I have to say the episode had some lacks, it was the one with the most epic moments yet, the polygraph scene and the island torture. But as it was the case with the last episode the overall feeling of the show and in particular this episode’s development give more than enough reason to not rate it as a bad one. After all, “Arrow” is a fun show and that episode was awesome and was very short-lived in my opinion, so they surely did a lot of things (as mentioned above) right. 

Therefore this episode can be proud of it standing with a score of, hold it, close but still 4 stars. Because of the major flaw of Oliver not having to be captured for his little “I’m not Arrow”-stunt this episode would have only gotten three out of the five stars but since this is not a directly from this episode originating problem (more of the whole last two episodes) I didn’t count that one and of course, the better acting this time scored some as well. 

Arrowed up.