Jessie Robertson reviews the second episode of Arrow season 6…
After being outed as the Green Arrow, Mayor Queen deflects and dodges, as he does best, and by the episode’s end, has once again supplanted stories he is the masked vigilante, only to relinquish the hood to another.
This week’s Arrow played out as more like a Law & Order episode with a bit more flair; Oliver is being investigated by a hard nosed FBI agent while trying to re-purpose some of the city’s assets to bring jobs to Star City as an old friend (Anatoly) shows up and wants to cash in on the city’s latest windfall coming from the insurance payment for the destroyed police station last week. Whew. It’s all political and a lot of talking and a lot of maneuvering, but this show has grown into doing it so well. No flashbacks but none needed; if you don’t know or understand Oliver & Anatoly’s complicated relationship at this point, there’s no hope for you.
This episode ended up being quietly about the crossroads of two individuals; Ollie & John. As Oliver finds himself pulled from mayoral duties to comfort his son, William after being ganged up on, John struggles to let Dinah know he has serious nerve damage and may need to leave the team because he can’t fire a gun straight anymore. Oliver , later, comes to the conclusion he needs to retire as the Green Arrow for Williams’ sake, the only move he can come up with to make sure William knows he won’t lose him; but this begs the question: doesn’t Oliver realize John has his own , even younger child? Why does that not factor into any decisions here? I guess he realizes John has made this decision for a while and nothing really changes but as his best friend, he should realized the danger he puts him in asking him to be the Green Arrow. It’s a great twist of fate scene when John accepts. Cue Lyla cameo next week.
Meanwhile, Felicity and Curtis start a start up tech company, because well…..there’s not a lot else for them to do. And I’m sure it’ll be crazy successful and lead to at least one villain going rampant on them that Oliver has to stop.
Amid the intriguing action and political plot lines weaved into each episode, this crew has such good and natural chemistry so watching Arrow these days is the best thing on The CW you can let your eyeballs absorb.
Rating: 9.5/10
Jessie Robertson
