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ARROW |
Oliver Queen - Stephen Amell Laurel Lance - Katie Cassidy Dana Faraday - Jennifer Ferrin John Diggle - David Ramsey Quentin Lance - Paul Blackthorne Thea Queen - Willow Holland Moira Queen - Susanna Thompson Felicity Smoak - Emily Bett Rickards Isabel Rochev - Summer Glau Malcolm Merlyn - John Barrowman 
OTHER ARROW SEASONS Season 1 OTHER SUPERHERO SHOWS Birds of Prey No Heroics Heroes Misfits 
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City Of HeroesDiggle and Felicity go to the island to drag Oliver back because Starling City and Queen Consolidated need him. There's an awful lot of fallout to be gotten through before the new season of ARROW can truly get underway. Oliver is dragged back from his island hideaway with such ease that you have to wonder why he bothered going there in the first place. What's the point in running away if someone just goes 'please come back' and you do? Still, if you're going to borrow then borrow from the best. Sadly, this opening effort has a lot of ground to cover storywise as well as covering the action and acting standard that we're going to expect from the show. There's a good deal of moodiness as all of the characters have been affected by the loss of Queen Sr and the return of Queen Jr, but little of it comes across as being convincing. The four would-be Hoods taking revenge for the events in the Glades are a low-level threat, but a good reintroduction considering that the focus was always going to be on the emotional impact. That they take Thea hostage, thus making it all personal is beyond tedious. Obvious isn't always the way to go, people. Fortunately, there's a new girl in town and she's pretty good at taking out the bad guys and has no new respect for life to get in the way. TopIdentityDrugs that are meant to be going into the devastated area of the Glades are being intercepted by an old enemy. The Hood sets about making his presence felt in the city once more, only without killing people this time. China White has been one of the more fun enemies that the Hood has had to face, but there is nothing known about her. She's just there and doing bad things. That's not such a problem as it allows the focus to fall on the slow recovery of Oliver's superhero support team and the Queen family as they face the aftermath of what happened in the Glades. There's plenty of action, though none of it outstanding and things move at a fair clip. The show's team seem to have got their act together and this could be a sign of better things to come. TopBroken DollsA killer who uses a poison to turn his victims' bodies into doll-like mannequins is terrorising Starling City and Laurel is his next target. The idea of the Dollmaker is a fine and rather disturbing one that works well right up to the point where the writers insist that he has to go after Laurel in order to ramp up the personal connection and build up some tension. Enough of this, already. Not everyone has to have a beef with a member of Oliver Queen's immediate circle of friends. That said, the evolving relationship between the Hood and Laurel's father is nicely handled and gives the episode a bit more depth and believability than has often been the case. TopCrucibleGuns are being brought into the city and a new crime lord has sprung up. Both the Arrow and the Black Canary go after him, bringing a new secret Oliver's way. Laurel is drinking and now taking drugs and nobody seems to be able to reach her and it's ... well it's really difficult to care. She's always been a character far too full of her own problems to see those of others and this doesn't make her any more appealing. The bad guy this time around is purely throwaway, there only to serve the purpose of having someone to shoot the place up before being dealt with by the super duo. As for the big reveal of the Black Canary's true identity - well it was pretty obvious really. TopLeague Of AssassinsSara is attacked by a team of assassins and admits that they are the ones who trained her. Now, her family's lives are in danger unless they can be warned. At the same time that Sara is throwing over Oliver in the prison barge, he is helping her out in Starling City. He helps her to fight the assassins and to reconnect with her father. That means a whole lot of parent/child emotional pain before the fisticuffs kick in. For once, the bad guys are every bit a match for the hero and his sidekick (which Black Canary is for the moment), making the climactic fight more fun and more action-packed than a lot of other encounters. It's a pity, then that it's over too soon and the female vigilante decides to head for the hills before we got used to having her around. TopKeep Your Enemies CloserA friend of Diggle's has been put in a Russian gulag whilst chasing down Deadshot. Oliver and Diggle fly to Russia and come up with a plan to get her out, picking up an unlikely ally along the way. Now this is disappointing. There's a pretty good set up with Deadshot being in a Russian prison and Diggle's friend being thrown in there with him whilst trying to get to him, but the resolution of all this is utterly nonsense. A plan is whistled up on the back of a fag packet and an entire prison guard contingent, armed to the teeth, is eluded and delude with painful ease. It's all nonsense. The only bit that really works is the personal story of Oliver and Isabel getting it on, without getting any closer. For a moment, Oliver Queen was an interesting character. For a moment. TopState vs QueenMoira is on trial for her life. That makes it the most inconvenient time for a previous drug kingpin to come out of the woodwork to wreak revenge on the Hood. Apparently, there aren't enough new villains for Starling City to call upon, so old ones have to be dredged up in regular rotation. Two are shuffled back on the board in this episode, one who is the bad guy of the week and at least gets taken care of in old-fashioned Hood style, but the other comes back in the twist ending and it's more a case of 'Really?' than 'Wow!'. Before that there's a metric tonne of family angst to wade through and a flashback to the island that really is hard to care about. Top |
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