Gas in the Mine
The Hype
Last week Arrow delivered an outstanding season premiere touching on all the things that make us love the show. Most importantly we got a huge twist ending/cliffhanger with the death of Sara Lance AKA The Black Canary. It has been obvious from the title and the promos would mostly deal with the aftermath of this suprising turn, but Arrow still has a lot of questions to answer. It's time for the crucial second episode.
The Review
We start off with Team Arrow discovering Laurel and a now very dead Sara Lance in their secret hideout. So we're gonna get my nitpicking out of the way early this time. How did former reporter, everyday woman Laurel lance single handedly drag the very muscular Sara all the way to the club, though the basement and onto this metal table? Sometimes I feel like they assume no one watches the show intently enough to notice things like this, but oh well, it's still minor. You could tell off the bat that this would be a slow and character driven episode, which is fine. Brandon Routh/Ray Palmer appears again with another great performance and he's fitting really well into the series. I don't see why he's being portrayed as such a creep. I get that he really wants Felicity working for him but it seems like a little much.
Like I said earlier this episode will mainly be our cast dealing with the loss of Black Canary. The first half of the episode seems very uneventful. With all the talking and character interaction we get throughout it still doesn't seem to go anywhere. It was nice to see the Arrow team in a more personal light as we see how they have become and are becoming closer. We also get a little Wonder Woman reference that doesn't feel terribly out of place, I can't help but think towards the possible TV Justice League. Hey, I can dream right?
Towards the end we get some amazing action and fight sequences that completely make up for the slow chatter of the rest of the episode. This weeks villain was handled perfectly, the minimalist approach made him much cooler and on top of supposedly being Sara's killer it makes him feel like an actual threat to the team. I'm also glad to see he wasn't too easy to catch and that Sara's actual killer gets away to make it to another episode.
Finally Laurel Lance has a little arc of her own, using new techniques to get information on her sister's murder and really embracing her vigilante side. She then makes the decision to keep her father in the dark about Sara's death, as if that weren't enough foreshadowing she picks up the Canary jacket and stares at it during the end of the episode. Katie Cassidy has been training and beefing up for something, Iv done my best to ignore this and prey it wasn't true but it seems Laurel is being primed to take up the Canary mantel. First off I was never crazy about Sara as the Canary but Laurel is an even worse fit. This on top of the Thea Queen cliffhanger and looks like the thing I feared most is happening, almost everyone Oliver knows will become a trained vigilante, and this is just too unbelievable for me.
The Verdict
Overall a great episode but some things are worrying me about the future of the series
7.9/10