| Arrow: Draw Back Your Bow |
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| Thursday, 27 November 2014 11:23 |
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First things first—guess who just passed the California Bar exam, y'all? This nerd! Proud as I am of the fact that I managed to crawl over the hurdle on the first try—there is no such thing as crushing that thing, I don't think—I think I may even be prouder that I managed to do it and keep up with all the reviews at the same time. And to think my professor told me that was a terrible idea! He was right, but it all ended up working out, so toodles.
At the very least, passing the bar means I can now watch Arrow with abandon, though not exactly without guilt. Episodes like this one remind me that, at the end of the day, Arrow may not have magic or superpowers—yet—but it's pure escapism and fantasy nonetheless. If a hooded, crime-fighting archer takes a mild stretch of the imagination, you can pull a muscle allowing for an obsessive copycat stalker who calls herself Cupid and actually tips her arrows with red hearts.
I'll say this for Amy Gumenick; she commits to Cupid's (a.k.a. Carrie Cutter) crazy crush with a great deal of energy. The character's still pretty ridiculous as a concept, but Gumenick makes her seem truly unhinged, which, beyond her SWAT training and unpredictability, gives Ollie the most trouble in handling her. She doesn't quite fit into the common categories for Arrow's villains. She's neither unscrupulous nor vengeful (at first), and although she's certainly sociopathic, she's also pitifully unaware of how deranged she is.
This forces Ollie to take a more sensitive approach to Carrie in an already touchy-feely episode. When Ray invites Felicity to a dinner date, her and Ollie's unresolved feelings for each other resurface, only to sink down again without taking much action. You'd be forgiven for thinking Ray exists solely as a placeholder for Ollie. Already a rich entrepreneur, Ray closes the gap between him and Ollie even further by displaying his own respectable abs on the now-classic salmon ladder ("Oh, God," Felicity murmurs, "I have a type.") and paraphrasing Ollie's usual buzzwords of saving the city and being something else. Even his superheroic transition seems imminent, with mentions of "dwarf star alloys" extraction and a virtual model of his Atom suit.
Unfortunately, all this prods Ollie to do something about the Raylicity (Feliciray?) situation too late. But this missed romantic opportunity also gives Ollie another avenue to bond with Roy, a relationship the show seems increasingly intent on fostering. Now, Chase, the DJ who singlehandedly saves Thea's club opening with some even more grating techno music,* actually does exist only to put Thea and Roy into a love triangle. Despite the fact that his and Thea's meeting uses every rom-com cliché in the book, and that he has no personality whatsoever, Thea actually falls for the guy. This just proves that endurance training does nothing for a person's common sense.
To make up for Ollie's present relationship woes, things are starting to heat up between him and Tatsu in the flashbacks. Fortunately, the episode spares Ollie from engaging in any actual funny business while Maseo's away, but the wistful looks are all there. But that's an awkward scene for another day. For this episode, it's all about Tatsu shaming Ollie by singlehandedly taking out a crowd of thugs with her swordplay, revealing the future Katana in the process. All this is to say we can expect more Ollie-Tatsu in the future, which I heartily approve of, especially if she appears as Katana in the present.
Some Musings:
* And speaking of TV fantasy, don't you love how it only takes two seconds of Chase's new song to drive everyone onto the dance floor?
- I hope the show finds a way to use Diggle other than pushing Ollie towards uncomfortable subjects and standing around with hunched shoulders as Felicity does her thing.
- It's a good thing Carrie left a note inside the arrowhead instead of a tracker, otherwise Ollie would be in big doodoo.
The post Arrow: Draw Back Your Bow appeared first on Weekly Comic Book Review. Read more: http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/2014/11/27/arrow-s03e07/ |
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