Jessie Robertson reviews the tenth episode of Arrow season 7…
We return to Star City on the edge of last year’s cliffhanger: that Oliver has a sister! Duhn-Duhn-Duhn!
Sea Shimooka (Emiko) does an admirable job in her first go around here and she’s the large focus of this episode. I can see her channeling Season 1 Oliver; full of rage, a weapon, just needing something to point it at. She’s been around (as the new Green Arrow) since episode 1 of this season but tonight we get the full breadth of what she’s all about. She’s after a notorious killer, and as she explains her backstory, the man responsible for her Mother’s death, in fact, her killer. She weaves her story in a profoundly sad way, albeit brief, as waiting every day for her Father to come to her and her Mother yet it never happened, so they got by as they could. Rene immediately identifies with this as Zoe’s mom is gone and you can see the thing he’s been longing for, he’s found it and he attaches himself to her immediately.
Skipping ahead to the flash forward, Rene is wearing an awful, awful……just awful hair piece as the future Mayor of Star City. We know Zoe is involved with Dinah but she apparently holds the same job her father did years prior as the Mayor’s right hand man, or woman in this case. In a quick scene that felt very clichéd, they bicker about ideals and beliefs. With Rene finding success in politics, he almost spits on who he used to be, further expounding upon that is when he is confronted by Dinah, who needs some codes to his top flight security program that helped him straighten out the Glades. (Once they flip it on, we see it’s an eye in the sky; a camera system that sees literally everything; how has it taken Arrow this long to use this one?)
When Emiko finally accepts Rene’s help (and by extension Curtis, who is sorely missed in his small pop ups), it’s very much a need, not a want for her and while it feels like retread ground from past Arrow episodes, Rene brings such enthusiasm it’s hard not to root for him to find a storyline that makes more out of him. That being said, I hate his future self. I was so relieved they didn’t wrap up Emiko’s revenge plot in a neat little bow as she is ready to kill the man she believed responsible when he redirects her anger to another culprit.
The only other thread that really sunk in was the interrogation of Ricardo Diaz; Diaz, for me, is great in these little spurts, and here he immediately re-set that ominous psychotic but brilliant villain he has played for now 3 seasons worth of time. Lyla and Diggle do have a rapport that I enjoy and we got some of that here, but not enough really. They are bringing back the Suicide Sq…..sorry Task Force X…..hold on, did she say Ghost Initiative? Whatever it is, gutsy choice!
Oliver was nil in this episode and the passage of time was all out of whack: Emiko and Rene go through several days and a major attack while Oliver sorts through boxes in what seems like one evening. There wasn’t a lot of emotional material to comb through as you’d think with this revelation, except his mother and Walter Steele knew about Emiko.
Random Thoughts:
– Khandaq? Did someone say Khandaq? If only we could get Black Adam in this universe! And not the old man withered one from Injustice 2.
– Why did Dinah leave Curtis’ name out when talking about the Arrow target tattoos?
– The extras this week were awful actors!! Those dumb security guards and high strung CSI tech? We can do better, Canada!
– Does Robert Queen’s bastardness have no bounds??
– Felicity talking about Robert abandoning his child while William stays stuffed away at boarding school feels really heavy handed.
Rating – 7/10 – Emiko intrigues me, as does Rene teaming with her. Let’s see where this goes.
Jessie Robertson
