DJ Watches: Arrow Season Five: Episode One: Legacy
My name, is DarkJuno. After four years of watching the CW television show The Arrow, I’ve come to something of an impasse. It had a wobbly but still generally strong start, and had a terrific second season, but from that point on, it began to slide somewhat, making some odd decisions in writing and plotting, and also began to take itself far more seriously then it had any right to. Normally, I would just dump a show at this point, but I can’t help but feel like I have a responsibility to keep watching this show that birthed both The Flash and Supergirl. And so I’ve resigned myself to keep watching this series, until I break decide to watch something else.
Once I decide to do……something else.
When we last left the newly elected Mayor Oliver Queen, the table had been very much upended from the status quo. Laurel Lance, the Black Canary, was dead, as was his season long nemesis Damien Dahrk, by his own hand. The other members of Team Arrow save Felicity had broken apart, with John Diggle, Spartan, re-focusing on his wife and child and Ollie’s younger sister Thea Queen, the second, speedier Arsenal, taking a step back to the normal civilian life to sort herself out. Oliver himself had to take back his vow to not kill again, deciding that Dahrk had to be taken down, and the choice left him less then thrilled with himself despite the logic behind it. Similarly, FLASHBACK!Ollie just had made a promise to his companion on the island whom he, also (some might say conveniently) had to put down, after a season of trying not to do so. And so, the season ended with a sense of uneasiness hanging over Star City, despite Oliver and Felicity’s attempts to be positive, as it ended with a resounding thud for viewers everywhere.
So, as we return to Star City, it seems like they’re not wasting anytime – there’s a big fancy social function going down, and Mayor Queen is late again, as it seems to be the norm. As one might expect, his Mayorship is busy taking part in a pretty well choreographed fight scene against Anarky, yet another villain on loan from a certain Caped Crusader’s rogues’ gallery, who’s still trying to blow things up in order to reign…I don’t know, disorder or something. With that loose end from last year tied up, we find that there are in fact multiple vigilantes running around Star City now, all inspired in one way, shape or form by the actions of the Green Arrow and his former team, and one in particular, Wild Dog, shows up to help. Arrow shows his graciousness by….kicking the crap out of him and shooting him in the leg with an arrow, barking at the Sportsmaster looking dude to stay out of it. Oliver, it seems, has been waiting around for his old teammates to return, and all the while telling these new upstarts who’ve apparently been popping up in the past 6 months to back off, stopping ort of criticizing them for their choice of sports equipment as body armor.
Being mayor apparently isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, as despite the access it gives Oliver to resources, his hands are tied, and he feels that going out and donning the hood and bow do more for the city then trying to run it from within, hindered more by the apparently corrupt police force which they somewhat touched upon last season but not really, which makes it a little surprising. Said corrupt police then proceed to try and make off with some dirty money from some drug dealer, but unfortunately for them, they run into a new crime lord trying to muscle in on Star City, and he rather brutally and effectively takes over the small gang of bad cops and adds them to his own, save for the man formerly in charge. The new crime boss, Tobias Church, has a plan, and that’s to take down the city’s biggest, baddest guy, the Green Arrow, and to get to him, he plan to go fishing, and wouldn’t you know it, he intends to use the city’s mayor as bait. And thus, at a statue unveiling of the dearly departed Black Canary, he and his crew show up and after briefly rather easily taking a few of the mooks down, Ollie notices the cameras are rolling and starts to play along, allowing himself to be taken down.
The former detective Lance, meanwhile, has seen better days. In a move indicative of this show, his formerly promising future dating Felicity’s mother is hand waved away off screen – though to be fair, the romance itself was always weird and unbelievable anyway – and has fallen off the wagon hard. Nevermind we’ve actually seen him worse then this, despite everything letting us know that this is actually the worst, but hey, whatever. Still, while an attempted pep talk didn’t work, the rousing speech the mayor gave at the statue’s unveiling did open his eyes somewhat, and as soon as Oliver is whisked away, he somewhat hesitantly jump back in and tries to give a hand to Felicity and Thea. Speaking of the former, Felicity has been trying to convince Ollie that maybe, just maybe, he should be more welcoming of these new vigilantes popping up across town, citing that they all seem to have good intentions and could be a big help in cleaning up the city. Despite his refusal, Ms. Soak still presses forward, enlisting and some would say forcing the new member of the group, Curtis, who will totally stick to his guns and stay in support and neeeeeeever do something like paint a “T” on his face and join the fight in full, to track down Wild Dog to convince him to join up. Things don’t go too well for the poor guy, nor do they for Thea.
While she was adamant about not going back to the vigilante lifestyle, Quentin gives a somewhat honest and far more truthful pep talk to her, citing that, frankly, a much as you’d like to take a pause, life goes on, whether it’s the one you want to have or not, it’s the one you have, so do something about it. Also, that’s your brother Thea, of COURSE you need to try and save him if you can, not doing so is sorta just messed up. Still, she regrets it immediately, since upon “saving” him, Speedy notices that big bro straight up murders a fool by snapping his neck, and then proceeds to just shoot a few more with a gun point blank in their escape. Questioning his decision to allow killing back into the fold, Thea once more refuses to put on the costume again, but I suppose we’ll see about that. Lance, for his part, comes through in his own way, giving Oliver a list of names of good cops, effectively giving the mayor and the Green Arrow his own personal strike force. And so, in another pretty good and silly action scene, Ollie returns, rescues the other hostages, beats the crap out of Church, escapes from an exploding building by using a grappling arrow onto a helicopter, and then uses an parachute arrow to land safely back on the ground.
Arrow, you need to stop doing stuff I love so I can just hate you already.
Anyway, Tobias Church escapes, and for some reason continues to be cocky as all heck despite the fact that the Green Arrow thoroughly schooled him in a one on one fight, and honestly, sorta embarrassed him with his trick arrows, though I guess he did get away in the end. He gathers together what’s left of the city’s crime families, revealing he has insiders in every last one, and essentially proclaims that it’s his yard now. And thus we leave Star City, with Ollie now open to training and mentoring these new vigilantes – including Curtis, who’s presumably tired of getting his butt kicked all the time – and confiding to Dig over Skype that he needs to move on…at least, with most things, since it turns out Felicity has in fact gotten herself a new significant other back home. And also, hey look, another evil archer, which despite being old hat is still more promising then a lot of things from the last two years.
So, here we are. It’s on the higher end of quality as far as last season goes, but it’s still not great. Arrow was a show that started off so strong an spawned this great DCW Universe, but it just can’t seem to find its footing and identity now. It should be a more serious show then The Flash or Supergirl, certainly, but it seems to still want to have the goofy stuff like trick arrows and outlandish fight scenes, and it’s just way too much of a mood whiplash going from genuinely good yet completely unbelievable fight choreography to just gunning people down or telling people life sucks and sometimes you can’t do anything about it. It’s like telling kids the truth about how sometimes hard work just doesn’t pay off….when they’re still in Kindergarten. The dichotomy is certainly true to life, but the delivery is just inane. The show is also completely willing to throw out any and all character development for the hell of it or whatever the current plot demands. We’ve seen it in the past with Malcolm Merlyn, an now we see it again with the sudden dissolving of Quentin and Donna’s relationship, or Oliver doing a 180 and deciding that no, being the Green Arrow is actually more important then being mayor.
There’s a lot to like about this show, which makes it all the ore frustrating. The characters are still relatable and likeable whenever they’re not holding the idiot ball or being suddenly out of character to meet the demands of the current script, and I can’t stress how actually pretty great the action choreography has gotten. Bringing in more minor vigilante characters from the DC universe is a good idea, though time will tell if they’ll turn out great like Ray Palmer or not-so-great like The Huntress. As I alluded to, while “Hey look, another archer” is a thing this show itself has already joked about, it’s also somewhat back to basics compared to dealing with Ra’s Al Ghul or Dahrk, so a more grounded villain like season one Merlyn or Deathstroke were in the past should work pretty well, hopefully.
I guess we’ll have to see, this season is very much make or break for this show, and there enough indicators that it could go either way. Still, with all these dudes running around or shooting arrows into each other, and with Star City being one female lead down, we need some more female representation here, presumably the super powered sort. Maybe someone who can leap building in a single height and more powerful then a locomotive. Someone who has a more famous cousin that can make guest appearances every now and then…but I suppose that’ll be up to someone else to cover.