Jessie Robertson reviews episode two of Arrow season 3…
This weeks’ episode is all about dealing with the fallout from Sara’s death. Laurel, expectedly, is on edge and feeling vengeful and cements her spot on the Arrow squad, even knowing where the handguns are kept! Must be Diggle’s. Oliver, who in some ways was closest to Sara, keeps it all internal, but is desperately trying to connect to his own sister, Thea. Only Roy knows the truth about Thea’s motivations when leaving Starling City and after confiding in Felicity, he fesses up to Oliver. This is a pointed moment where you can see how much Oliver has grown not only has a person back into normal society, but as a leader, as he seethes all his anger into one demonic stare at Roy as he gives him the note, then simply acknowledges it with an “okay” before letting the whole matter rest, at least for now. Roy had the face of a kid who just got out of a very long grounding by his parent.
Again, this week Felicity may have had the most interesting storyline; surprisingly, she takes Sara’s death very hard. With Felicity’s feelings for Oliver, Sara always seemed like an opponent in that arena, but Felicity never seemed to view her as that; you can tell she looked up to her, even comparing her to an Amazonian warrior, heh. She then calls Oliver out for his complete coldness towards her death even after he defends himself by saying “Everyone looks to me as the leader; If I grieve, no one else can.” Felicity responds with a very profound comment that haunts Oliver later on, saying “I don’t want to die down here,” and she leaves. No matter the event, she always brings it back to ground level and gives the show that real feeling, to me. This prompts her later on to accept Palmer’s proposal of joining Queen Consolidated again. Perhaps she’s off Team Arrow?
Villain of the week was actually quite cool looking, had a very similar look to the League of Assassins and Merlyn with the black outfit except he was wearing a black hockey mask. They find out he’s a contract killer named Komodo who has been racking up quite a body count in Starling City as of late, using black tipped arrows. He does some really cool things, like shooting through several panes of glass and later on battling Oliver on Kawasaki’s as if they were on horseback jousting in medieval times. Near the end we do get a bit of a fight, which felt refreshing. All signs pointing to this baddie sticking around, which I’m all for.
Laurel also gets a lot of screen time this week, naturally, as we see her go from complete devastation, through anger, sadness, clear her head and get some answers (almost re-breaking some guy’s arm to get clues to their investigation), to completely breaking down at Sara’s funeral. Give Katie Cassidy credit for packing all that performance into a one hour show but then again, Laurel has always been a tough role, as she’s constantly in flux of motives and emotions; I don’t think she’s smiled since season 1.
The show ends on a high note with the Season 3 introduction of Thea and Merlyn, two tremendous characters, and I have no doubt the show will get damn good with these two back in the mix. Great follow up to the premiere.
Other notes:
– The flashbacks to Hong Kong are super short so far, which I think is a good move. Everything on the island seemed way too drug out and I think they realized that. But one bonus was the return of Tommy! This makes me think Sara will not be gone from the show entirely, as there is a lot of origin that is still in the ether.
– The guy Laurel breaks down dirty cop style mentions he and the rest of Komodo’s victims are in league with an oil company Amertek. This company is notable from DC Comics for being the workplace of John Henry Irons, better known as Superman’s sometimes partner, Steel. Please no return of Shaq.
– Komodo mentions as he’s pinned to a wall that he has an alibi for Sara’s killing; he was drunk off his ass in Bludhaven! Gotham’s slightly slutty sister town that Nightwing becomes the caretaker of.
– Laurel knew exactly how to lie to his father, his police officers and break down a potential witness, but she forgot to the check the gun for ammo! Nice one Oliver.
– Diggle tells Laurel that Sara will not be forgotten as they are naming their daughter after her. Super Awesome moment.
Feel Free to comment below on the show and let us know what you think will happen next week!
Jessie Robertson
Originally published October 16, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
