Advent Review #4: Arrow Season 3 Ep 8 (TV Show Review)

The previous episode of Arrow brought out Arrow-fangirl Cupid who wanted to be the hero’s sidekick and even developed a ruinous romantic attraction for him. It was a pretty decent episode that also brought forward the expected kickassery of Tatsu Yamashiro, the future superhero Katana. However, it was a relatively stand-alone episode and what actually leads into this week’s Arrow is the episode of The Flash from this week (review), where Team Arrow went to Central City on a case and ended up teaming up with Team Flash for some really good times that also featured a rather spectacular battle between Oliver and Barry.

And in this week’s “The Brave and The Bold“, we get to see a direct continuation of that episode as Team Flash visits Team Arrow in Starling to help them in their search for Sara’s killer, only to end up being the targets for new villain-on-the-block, Digger Harkness, former member of Lyla Michaels’ Task Force X aka Suicide Squad. This was a pretty intense action-oriented episode that only Arrow can do, and also recently that The Flash can do, and I loved this second team-up of these heroes, and all the little things that led to the spectacular ending, which was a cut above all that we’ve seen so far on both shows.

Arrow Season 3 Ep 7 (TV Show Review)

Last week we got to see something spectacular in Arrow. Ted Grant embraced his history as a vigilante, known as the Wildcat, and we learned that he was taking care of the Glades before Oliver Queen ever came back and started taking on the villains of Starling City. It was a pretty emotionally-charged episode with lots of action as well that also segued into the growing relationship between Ollie and Roy as mentor and apprentice, mirroring that of other character pairs on the shows such as Ted-Laurel and Malcolm-Thea. It was a great episode, and it only left me wanting more.

In the new episode, “Draw Back Your Bow“, we see the debut of Cupid, a woman super-obsessed with the Arrow who wants to become his lover, someone who can take care of him since he takes care of all of Starling. She made her debut by killing of Isaac Stanzler, who used to be the Arsenal to Ted Grant’s Wildcat a few years ago and who was the villain last week. As is usual on the show, we got to see some real-time commentary on how things are with Team Arrow, and we also see that Ray Palmer has some really big designs for what he is going to do with Queen Consolidated and its tech resources. Not a mind-blowing episode per se, but this one can easily fly under the radar, and I’d caution you against dismissing this one off-hand.

Arrow Season 3 Ep 6 (TV Show Review)

In “The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak” last week we got to see some really great things with all the characters as Felicity’s mom strolled into Starling City for some quality time with her daughter and we got to see how Felicity became the person that she was when she first met Oliver back in season 1. Pretty interesting stuff all around, and the larger mysteries of the season were also addressed, including a possible reveal of who might have killed Sara, though the why was/is still a mystery.

This week’s “Guilty” goes in a slightly different direction as it explores Ted Grant aka Wildcat’s past and what kind of an effect that his past has had on him, and what it might bode for the future of the show, specifically in relation to how Laurel sees him as a mentor and a friend. The episode does a fair bit to set up the debut of another villain, Cupid, while also dealing with the villain of the week, and the most important thing here is how Oliver has to make some really tough choices and how he is the only one, ultimately, who has to make them.

Arrow Season 3 Ep 5 (TV Show Review)

Goes without saying that last week’s Episode 4, “The Magician“, was a pretty big deal for the show since it finally debuted one of the true big bads of the DC universe, Ra’s al Ghul, the Demon himself. It was a bit of an anticlimactic reveal in terms of Matt Nable stepping on to the screen as the character, but the buildup has been pretty good I’d say and last week’s episode is definitely among my faovurites as well for quite a few reasons. With the big bad shown so soon, I have high hopes for how he is going to be portrayed on the show and I can only hope that we get lots and lots of moments with him this season.

But of course, this week’s “The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak” is still easily one of the most talked-about episodes of the show this season since it is finally going to delve into Felicity’s history before she ever came to work for Queen Consolidated, and I have to say that almost every moment of this episode is glorious. Ray Palmer is back again as well, at a time when Felicity’s mother also makes her debut, and we get lots of stuff about family this week, which was pretty nice in that there was a great synergy about it all. Plus, that cliffhanger. Man, that cliffhanger!

Arrow Season 3 Ep 4 (TV Show Review)

Last week I mentioned that Arrow is really good at keeping secrets close to its chest, until the right amount of critical mass is reached to unveil said secrets. The big mystery of who was bankrolling Sebastian Blood last year was a terrific reveal, as was the whole subplot about breaking to Thea the news that Malcolm Merlyn is her blood-father, not Robert Queen. And this season, it looks like the big mystery is “Who killed Sara?”. We’ve seen some development so far, not entirely satisfactory, but it has been a good source of background tension to the show and things look set to intensify even more.

Nyssa al Ghul made her season 3 debut on the show in this week’s “The Magician“, which also happens to be the show’s 50th episode. I’d expected some really great things from the show in this episode, but it kind of failed to deliver on that expectation. Sure, it was a fairly good episode, but it just didn’t feel like such a momentous episode, though I suppose that the detail is kind of irrelevant. Either way, I had a lot of fun with this one since Katrina Law’s Nyssa is one of my favourite elements of the second season, and she turns in a grand performance here, really charging the show with some much-needed drive and direction in the hunt for Sara’s killer.

Note: Some spoilers from the episode are mentioned here.

Arrow Season 3 Ep 3 (TV Show Review)

In the wake of last week’s episode of CW’s Arrow, I find myself a bit disheartened. With Sara’s death and the introduction of noted master-archer Simon Lacroix making his television debut, having been introduced last year in comics by creators Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino, I was all ready for a big archer-off between Ollie and Simon, but I guess that’s not really going to happen. So the mystery remains of who killed Sara and why. Trust Arrow to play cards close to the chest. But then, that’s one of the reasons why I love the show so much anyway, and this week’s episode wasn’t too different.

The new episode this week is titled “Corto Maltese” and as per last week’s teaser at the end of “Sara“, we know that this episode deals with Ollie going to Corto Maltese to find Thea, who has been training there with her blood-father Malcolm Merlyn, to get over her emotional troubles from the second season. It is a fantastic episode in almost every way that matters, and I loved seeing the new Thea on the show, a Thea who is much more confident of herself now, and who really can take care of herself. And with everything happening with Laurel, things are really looking to be on the up and up for the show’s female cast.