TV Retrospective: Arrow Season 2 episodes 1-3 review

We now take a look into Season 2 of the series, before we dive into the first episode, I'll briefly mention the series 1 recap bonus. It's a basic recap of events leading up to the season 1 finale, and their eventual outcome. It’s quite thorough, but it is just a recap of events narrated by John Barrowman (Malcolm Merlyn) and there is no chance in hell I will be reviewing it, with that said, let's dig into season 2 of Arrow and see how the destruction of the glades pushes the quality of the show.

Episode 1 – City of Heroes

We open in the present day with Oliver… On the Island? What a great place to get away from your problems, the place where you spent years of hell.

Diggle and Felicity parachute onto the Island and we see a sunken ship, another Deathstroke mask with an arrow through it (which still makes no sense given what we know happened) and we get another reminder of the mines on the Island.

They need him to come home because of his responsibilities of being Oliver Queen, they want him home to be the Arrow again, but that’s essentially his choice.

So, time to catch up on current events. Thea owns the club and is dating Roy for realises this time, she also doesn't want to visit her mother, until a certain stressful experience convinces her other. Star Labs is preparing a particle accelerator, Roy is trying to stop crime in the glades and is getting hurt in the process, worrying Thea. Laurel is back, and she’s working for the District Attorney after the destruction of CNRI, and there are copycat vigilantes trying to do what the vigilante did and failing quite miserably.

Quintin Lance has been demoted to an Officer for his collaboration with the Arrow (yeah, I know they don’t call him the Arrow quite yet, but I've called him it in most of season 1) actually Laurel makes sense here (and that will probably be the last time for a while you hear her do that) in saying that she felt like she betrayed Tommy by sleeping with Ollie in that scene in the penultimate episode.

Of course, the copycats go completely over the edge, deciding the Queens are to blame for everything. Oliver and Isabelle Rochev, a rival businesswoman, discuss business sh*t and incoming action scene. Damn that glass is easy to break. Oliver has his moment with Moira, and makes a suggestion for saving the company, Walter, duh!

Ollie is worried about the body count that comes with being the vigilante, but circumstances force his hand when the copycats kidnap Thea, despite Roy's best efforts to the contrary. Oliver manages to subdue them without killing them, beginning his new journey

On the island, three mysterious visitors arrive on the Island searching for some graves, they kidnap Shado and Oliver beats one of their heads in with a rock.

And then in the final moments, Laurel stops making sense, blaming the Arrow for Tommy's murder for some f*cking reason. Also Roy is given an assist by a strange blonde woman in black.

So, not a bad start to season 2, all the major threads established (including vote blood posters)

Rating 8/10

Episode 2  - Identity

Ah, this intro… “I must be someone else, I must be something else” I hate that line.

China White and the Chinese triads are hijacking medical shipments for the glades. Roy attempts to stop them in yet another stolen vehicle, but… It doesn't work and the triad secures the shipments. (I love Kelly Hu) Roy gets the talk from Laurel, because she's still hunting the Arrow for reasons that even the show will admit soon don't make any sense.

Oliver finds out from Roy about the shipment hijacks and encounters Sebastian Blood for the first time (who, by the way, is nothing like his DC Counterpart, at all, also in the DC comics, he's a Titans villain, just some trivia) Sebastian believes the Glades has been abandoned, and much like a copycats, Oliver is blamed for the actions of Merlyn via some bad acting.

With China White, we have Bronze Tiger and they engage in combat until a SWAT team arrive. "This time it's different because they got in my way" oh deary me… Yeah, trying being Batman, in his early years the police always got in his way.

Thea decides that she can't handle Roy getting injured and offers an ultimatum. Either he stops going after criminals, or they part. This frankly, is an ultimatum that's gonna crop up time and again, and it will fail every single time.

Oliver agrees to host a benefit with Alderman to show what needs to be done to repair the Glades. Yeah, we all know this is something Ollie's not gonna show up to owing to his responsibilities as the Arrow, otherwise Identity would be a pretty lousy title for the episode.

Because Ollie's an idiot, he confronts Laurel not once but TWICE, the second time is a trap, and the first time Laurel spouts a load of bull about why she blames the Arrow for… whatever it is she blames him for.

Diggle proves his worth as an ally once again by joining Arrow and taking on everyone whilst he takes care of Bronze Tiger. Including taking on China White himself, that's brave, thankfully the Arrow arrives to save him in time.

On the Island, Oliver comes to terms with what he did, and find the graves that were spoken of in the last episode, including the hosen Thea gave to Roy earlier on. Roy and the Arrow finally confront each other, Roy becomes the intel provider for the Arrow

There's a hint of stupidity in some actions here, but it’s a decent episode once again

Rating: 7.7/10

Episode 3 - Broken Dolls

So, Ollie is rescued by the mysterious woman in blonde from episode 1. And we’re quick into the opening credits.

The Dollmaker has returned, and Quintin has a score to settle. But when the police won't let him near the case, he resorts to using the Arrow to stop him. The Dollmaker seems have a thing for taking beautiful women, and stuffing them with plastic, lovely. A very different Dollmaker than the threatening child-abductor used in Gotham

Moira seems to be willing to accept at least some of the guilt for the people who died, but is shocked to discover the defence seeks the death penalty.

So, the Dollmaker's lawyer is: Tony Daniel: Oh come on, you're not even trying to be subtle with that reference. (For those who don’t know Tony Daniels is the writer who created the Dollmaker in Detective comics #1 (The New 52)) For some reason the lawyer needed to be tortured by an arrow in the shoulder in order to reveal a potential hotspot. But of course it's a trap, and Quintin is forced to listen while another woman gets the plastic treatment.

Roy's tasked with tracking down the woman in blonde. He gets a tip that Sin would be a good lead, and ends up chasing her half way cross the city, breaking his no engagement rule (albeit unintentionally in the process)

Quintin ends up captured by the Dollmaker with Laurel. And a few more references later the stage is set for the final showdown, the Arrow shows up having found them somehow, and so does the woman in black with the blonde hair, who kills him. Laurel comes to the realisation that she feels guilty that Tommy came back to save her…

On the Island, Oliver gets captured and brought aboard the AMAZO. Oh and an assassin working for Ra’s al Ghul shows up for the Blonde Assassin

Another solid episode from a solid season

Rating 8.5/10

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