…and it was halfway decent.
SPOILER ALERT. If you have not yet watched this and intend to, I’m about to blow some of the show’s secrets! SPOILER ALERT.
This is shocking to me because:
A. I was CONVINCED it was going to suck.
B. It opens with a voiceover narration. I HATE voiceover narration.
Still, they did interesting things with the Green Arrow mythos and cast of characters, expanding the cast to include parents and siblings for both Oliver Queen and (Dinah) “Laurel” Lance. I mean, Black Canary had a dad, but I’m pretty sure that his name wasn’t “Quentin,” and I’m VERY sure he wasn’t Harry Dresden. (He was a cop, though, so points for that.) Speedy becomes Green Arrow’s little sister, complete with drug problem, but her name isn’t Mia, as far as I can tell.
But Ollie’s got a sinister mom who kidnaps him to find out what he knows. Laurel (that’s gonna bug me) has a slutty sister who seemingly died on the trip that got Ollie shipwrecked, but I’m confident that she’ll be back. There weren’t no body, after all.
Craziest of all, this skirted on the edge of being noir! I mean, nobody watches this episode and comes away thinking that Green Arrow (I’m not calling him Arrow, sorry) is a GOOD guy. He might be fighting people who are worse, but he full-on kills someone in order to preserve his secret identity in this episode. Granted, the victim was a murderer himself (hired by MOM!), but still.
Also, no trick arrows. Sorry, one trick arrow, but it was a utility arrow and not a combat arrow. My favorite version of Green Arrow just used regular old arrows. That said, there needs to be episode with Ollie in boxing gloves.
Anyway, end of the day, this is still a CW show. Everyone is preternaturally pretty, young and (mostly) white, and a lot of drama could be solved with a backhand and a “grow up!” (Not that I run around delivering anything but verbal backhands.) But I will check out the next episode.
