The Top 10 Episodes Of Arrow So Far

It wouldn’t be 100 per cent accurate to put the credit (or the blame) for the impressive slate of superhero shows on our TVs on Arrow, but the success of the CW’s adaptation of the Emerald Archer probably has something to do with the fact that during the 2015/16 season there will be over a dozen comic book inspired series across the television dial. The immediate success of Arrow, and the way it captured all the drama and thrills of its graphic novel origins, launched a TV trend that’s still unfolding, and a little empire of its own that now includes two spinoffs. Season four of Arrow premieres on October 7, but if you’re wondering where to begin with the series if you’ve never seen it before, or maybe just enjoy the show for what it does best, we’ve provided the following list. Submitted for your approval, in chronological order, are the 10 best episodes of Arrow so far. From its impeccable stunt work, to cast chemistry, to comic book Easter eggs, Arrow has become the hero we both deserved and needed. At least, on our TVs. So, let’s journey back to Starling and pick out ten hours that did not fail this, or any city. 1) “Pilot” - October 10, 2012 Super-soldiers, super-powers, and soon the supernatural. It’s curious then that looking back at the very beginning of Arrow it was dedicated to the idea of gritty realism. Inspired in no small part by Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, Arrow was originally intended to be a serious crime drama that just so happened to feature a man in a hood and armed with a bow and arrow. Let’s just say things evolved, but as an encapsulation of the original concept, the pilot of Arrow is a solid hour of television that strikes all the right notes. It started with solid casting. Stephen Amell was a surprise find to play Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, and he immediately established an impressive authoritative and physical presence in the part. It was the latter, of course, that managed to draw in a mainstream audience and The CW was unafraid to parlay the fact that Amell is a good looking man in its advertising for the show. Structurally though, the Arrow pilot is a well-constructed hour. Veteran TV director David Nutter helped birth the show’s strong stunt work and awesome fight choreography, while the script immediately establishes the complex and sometimes tenuous relationships between the characters, and clearly sets up Oliver’s mission as the Starling City vigilante going forward. The entire affair is almost a movie in and of itself, not to mention the fact that it launches the series on a very strong note. 2) “Lone Gunmen” - October 24, 2012 Like most post-pilot entries in a series, episode #2 spent a lot of time going over the same ground as the pilot in establishing Oliver’s crusade, his father’s list of bad people and his struggles to reconnect with his family after being fundamentally changed over his five years away. Episode #3 adds a bit of spice to the formula, not only by introducing DC Comics utility bad guy Deadshot, but by shaking up the status quo by bringing Oliver’s already long-suffering bodyguard Diggle in on the secret. It was still early days for the show, so the love triangle between Oliver, Tommy and Laurel gets some play, but it seems that three episodes in the producers already knew what it was their core viewers really wanted. We see Oliver due some detective work, we learn that Oliver is somehow a member of the Russian mob, and we see him form a nascent alliance with Detective Lance, even if it’s just in the interest of protecting Oliver’s stepfather and other potential buyers at a high-profile auction. The series’ stunt work also continued to shine with the Arrow/Deadshot fight becoming an instant classic and Michael Rowe’s performance as the villain becoming so essential that not even an arrow to the eye could take Deadshot out of the game. 3) “Vendetta” - December 5, 2012 Oliver’s first attempt to find a costumed sidekick fails in “Vendetta,” the second part of the Huntress’ origin that sees Oliver try and make a human connection with Helena Bertinelli, but ends up making an enemy of her alter-ego in the process. The Laurel and Tommy drama is used to good effect this time, highlighting the reasons why Oliver and Helena can’t be a normal couple by day and a pair of vigilante butt-kickers by night, but the entire affair teaches Oliver a couple of valuable lessons going forward. First of all, he can’t help someone who’s a lost cause. In the end, Helena was too far gone down the path of vengeance against her father to ever find a middle ground, and all Oliver did was make her a better operative. Second, he has to be a bit more cautious about who he lets into the Arrow-cave; Diggle was a calculated risk, but there was some calculation. And finally, it’s okay to take chances with your heart, and there’s more to life than your father’s list of bad people that must be taken down. In the end, it wouldn’t be too long before Team Arrow would undergo a significant growth spurt again. 4) “Betrayal” - February 6, 2013 Matters of trust occupy this hour of Arrow. In the present, Diggle begins to suspect that Moira Queen knows more about the list of names from Oliver’s book than he realizes, and despite Oliver’s apprehension, Diggle begins an investigation into Moira. Flashing back to the island, we see Oliver arriving at the coordinates given to him by Yao Fei, and a meeting that may be the most significant of Oliver’s life, his introduction to former ASIS operative Slade Wilson. On the island, we see Oliver take his first real steps to not just surviving, but becoming actively engaged in his own survival as Slade takes him on and trains Oliver to help him in a plan to escape the island. You could say it’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Meanwhile, Oliver throws off Diggle’s attempts to convince him that his mother knows something about the list, even while we’re introduced for the first time to a term that will have wide-ranging and negative implications for everyone in Starling CIty, the Undertaking. The case of the week was also not without its fair share of drama, as debate over the necessity of the Arrow puts a wedge between Quentin and Laurel, not to mention Laurel and Tommy. When a released con tries to re-establish himself as the city’s top crime boss by taking out the vigilante, Laurel gets caught in the crossfire after her father uses her as bait to catch the Arrow. This may be a breaking point for Detective Lance, as he soon comes to realize with his city’s rampant corruption, even into the halls of his own police precinct, there may be a necessary place for a vigilante after all. 5) “Three Ghosts” - December 11, 2013 Like any good mid-season finale, this episode from Arrow’s season two was a satisfying conclusion to the story points laid out so far, and offered some intriguing hints at what’s to come. In the island flashback, Ivo sets up Oliver to make an impossible choice that results in Shado being killed, which the now Mirakuru-fueled Slade takes as an act of war, not knowing that it was Oliver’s actions that inadvertently lead to Shado’s execution. Meanwhile, in present day Starling, Sebastian Blood’s plan starts to take shape, as it’s revealed that the identity of his benefactor is a very alive Slade Wilson. How can Slade be alive? Certainly Oliver believes he’s dead, as Slade is one of the titular apparitions that appear to him (Shado and Tommy being the others). Diggle convinces Oliver that spirits have something to tell him, and they do, but it’s the ghost of Tommy that makes Oliver believe he can be the hero he wants to be, and perhaps relieve himself of some of that guilt that’s been driving him mad. Oliver, in the end, learns a powerful lesson about letting go, and is able to do the impossible and beat a Mirakuru super-soldier single-handedly. Of course, the flipside of “Three Ghosts” is that it’s a continuation of Barry Allen’s introduction into the Arrow-verse, complete with the episode’s final scene that sets up things nicely for The Flash. We see Barry get struck by lightning after the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator blows, which makes “Three Ghosts,” in some sense, the birth of two heroes. 6) “Heir To The Demon” - February 5, 2014 This is the episode in which we meet Nyssa, daughter of Ra’s al Ghul and, as the title says, Heir to the Demon. The introduction of Nyssa to the world of Arrow opened the door to the future appearance of Ra’s, which at the time sounded like a really awesome idea, but this episode affirmed that the coming of the League of Assassins was going to be something really cool even though we now know it turned out very differently. So that didn’t pan out, but what the episode did offer was some compelling insight into what Sara’s time between the island and her Starling City return entailed, including a love affair with Nyssa, who, as played by Katrina Law (another Spartacus alum on Arrow), showed both tremendous strength and vulnerability. Smartly though, the episode doesn’t get lost in the Easter egg fun of having the League around, and instead focuses on the drama of the Lance family as Laurel continues her spiral into drunken depression, and Quentin struggles with being the only one in his family to know that Sara is still alive. Sara’s struggles with finding a place where she belongs, unwilling to go back to the League and unsure if she can find a place back home, makes her even more endearing, and in the end, her officially signing on to Team Arrow is very well earned. 7) “The Promise” - March 5, 2014 It took over a year to get to this moment, the reunion of Oliver and Slade in the present day, and predictably it doesn’t go well. The tension filled hour was the first to portray the former island bros as enemies for the first time, and the first to give Oliver and his teammates a real hint at the full weight of the enemy they were up against. How was Oliver going to react to Slade? Could he act while in the company of his family, who were host Slade as the newest contributor to Moira’s mayoral campaign? Would Slade show the same restraint? “The Promise” is also an anomaly in Arrow as the focus of the episode is more on the flashbacks versus what’s going on in the present day. The action-packed story chronicled how Oliver, Sara, and Slade took the freighter Amazo, and freed the prisoners, only to see their hope to get off Lian Yu fade once Slade learns that Ivo killed Shado supposedly based on Oliver’s choice. The episode’s title comes from Slade’s final words to Oliver at the end of the hour, words that have guided his mission all season so far: to make his former friend suffer and lose all that he holds dear before finally killing him. 8) “Suicide Squad” - March 19, 2014 In perhaps the most blatant bit of universe building outside the introduction of Barry Allen, Arrow gave fans the Suicide Squad, and they did it so subtly, too. Deadshot, Bronze Tiger, Shrapnel and Amanda Waller, the head of A.R.G.U.S. herself, were all introduced in separate episodes, but who knew there was a plan to bring them all together. And bonus points to the Arrow team for working in a sneaky Harley Quinn cameo. More important to the narrative of the series though, was that this is a John Diggle’s story, and David Ramsey relishes the opportunity to take centre stage as the episode’s leading hero. As Oliver struggles with living in the shadow of Slade’s master plan, Diggle gets to quarterback his own team, lead a mission and get the girl in the end. The week’s flashbacks are also Diggle’s, revealing a brief hint of his time in Afghanistan (and some of those ghost he talked about earlier). The heart of the episode wasn’t the James Bondian action of the Squad though, it was Diggle learning a powerful lesson about perspective: sometimes the good guys act dishonorably, and sometimes the bad guys aren’t all the way bad. In the end, even the man that killed your brother has his own story, and though he may deserve to die, that doesn’t mean he’s expendable. 9) “Seeing Red” - April 23, 2014 In the tapestry of season two, “Seeing Red” services a number of storylines, including Roy’s Mirakuru rage, Moira’s political ambitions and the cover-up of Thea’s heritage that has driven a wedge in the entire Queen family. On its own though, “Seeing Red” highlights the dramatic differences between many of the characters, who are all fighting for the same cause, but have very different ideas about how to achieve their ends. Some, like Sara, decide that they’re too far gone to be a part of the group anymore; others, meanwhile, try to reconcile albeit nearly too late before tragedy strikes. Yes, the Grim Reaper returns to Starling City, and this time it’s to pick up Moira Queen. Slade stages a recreation of the night Shado died, this time making Oliver choose between his mom and his sister as the one to die. It’s Moira who chooses, by sacrificing herself to Slade as Oliver and Thea watch helplessly, which satisfies Slade, who leaves the Queen family there to mourn. Love her or hate her, Moira was a complex and nuanced character, who has capable of doing despicable things, but always in the best interest of her family. It was easy to think of her as a Machiavellian figure, but there was no plotting, or scheming, or thinly veiled threats here, just a mother’s instinct to act in the best interest of her children. It’s a brutal scene, and one that shakes our hero right when his city is about to need him the most. 10) “The Brave And The Bold” - December 3, 2014 The third season of Arrow didn’t have a lot of bright spots, but one of the few was definitely this half of the first major crossover with The Flash. Characters from both shows had started criss-crossing over before there even was a Flash show, but this was the big, official crossover. An adventure so big that it required both the Emerald Archer and the Scarlet Speedster to get together for the hour. Really, the threat was just Captain Boomerang, a former intelligence operative with no powers, just a fetish for boomerangs, but the point of the episode was to highlight the strengths and differences of both heroes. Flash characters Barry, Cisco and Caitlin are introduced to the grim and gritty world of Starling where violence can come at anytime, while Team Arrow gets a taste of something more light-hearted, with silly villain nicknames, jokes, and the philosophical place of super-humans in the universe. In other words, the two casts brought out the best in one and other. Perhaps it also proved that there’s more room in the world of Arrow to be less depressing and more fun. After all, the Green Arrow of the comics is a populist hero that sticks up for the downtrodden while still having enough whimsy to come to a fight armed with a boxing glove arrow. Perhaps it’s a sign that Arrow should shake things up for season four with friendlier Starling City vigilante… I guess we’ll find out on October 7th.