When Oliver and Digg go to Felicity’s office later to apologize, things really start to cook. “Dodger” becomes something of a mission statement on what the show’s procedural side could look like going forward, and the slight course correction looks like an improvement. After back-to-back dishwater villains, “Dodger” digs up a winner with its title crook, a gentleman thief with affection for the film 30 Minutes or less. As Felicity describes how the Dodger (James Callis, AKA Dr. Gaius Baltar) forces folks to commit his crimes for him -by attaching remote-detonated bombs to their neck-, you’re suddenly very curious as to how each member of Team Arrow would look with a new piece of collar hardware.
Of course, it’ll be Felicity who winds up with the new jewelry, as part of being the freshman on a superhero squad is having your first day on the job always turn out to be a dangerous one. It’s earned though, as Smoak quickly inserts herself into Digg and Oliver’s dynamic. While those two have plenty of muscle and brains between them, Felicity appearing is like the team getting a full-on heart transplant, lightening up those around her as though she radiates laughing gas. There’s an energy and pep to the usual counter-villain plotting that was sorely lacking when shared between just Oliver and Digg. The trio bouncing off each other at the burger joint, sans secret identities, and motives, was Arrow taking a big step towards what I was expecting in the first place: a comic book show.
Moira’s involvement this week is brief, but having her hire China White and the Triads to take out Malcolm is a smart, small example of using the tools already at your disposal, instead of scrambling to bring in new ones. The conspiracy element has been building nicely, and the more The Undertaking is mentioned, the more excited I am to finally see it undertooken. But the dark side of Arrow is always trying to be taken seriously in a manner that the budget, writing, and acting can’t justify most weeks.
What Arrow has proven itself great at is being campy fun. A shootout in an art storage warehouse, or Oliver chasing someone down on a motorcycle, are only as entertaining as the interactions surrounding the setpieces. When the villain of the week is an intriguing cad like the Dodger, and Felicity has room to offer relationship advice, as well as tactical intel, Arrow starts turning into the dumb-fun hour of TV I want to be watching. A good episode won’t push the show’s comic book origins out to the corners; it’ll embrace them, and remember that the golden age of comics was more about ridiculous romps than serious drama. Maybe one day the show will have shored up its foundation enough to tackle the big stuff, but let’s see how far this Smoak-fuelled version of Arrow can go, first, and then decide if the show really can do anything more weighty.
- Stray Thoughts
-I’ll admit, I first thought that the Dodger’s crime at the beginning of the episode was stealing Starling City’s most prized Jolly Rancher. The phoniness of the jewel just adds to the show’s cheesy goodness.
-The show’s “Excuse to get the cast Dressed Up” drought is finally over, and proved that not all my initial thoughts about Felicity were wrong. With the hair down, and the glasses off, Rickards is, unsurprisingly, a bombshell.
-There’s admittedly not that much to the Dodger, but that’s for the best. The last two guys bent over backwards to try and make themselves menacing, while Callis never needs to. His character has a charismatic profession, and an interesting method. That’s all we really need some weeks.
-While I dug the way Felicity kicked off the romantic subplots, their execution was less enjoyable. Both rely on the wooden dialogue (“This is difficult, and complicated. It’s not like there’s a playbook), and insane foot-in-mouth conversations that typify stretching out a romance beyond reason.
-Meanwhile, Laurel and Thea are off chasing a purse thief of some importance to the Green Arrow mythology. Colton Hayes looks like he’ll be pulling double duty as Roy Harper, both as a potential love interest for Thea, and a potential sidekick for Oliver, if the name holds any value.
-Roy’s sob story during his interrogation was ineffably maudlin and cloying, even by this show’s standards. I figured tale this tone deaf had to be a ruse, otherwise it proved once and for all that the show had no idea how far to push a sad backstory. I’m thankful it was, at least in part.
-The flashbacks this week addresses Yao Fei’s magic plants a little bit, and offer Oliver an interesting dilemma, in the form of a tied and beaten young man claiming to be a fellow castaway. I liked Oliver refusing to free him, out of paranoia, and want to know just how exactly the decision will bite him in the ass.
-Ab-tastic Workout of the Week: Stick-fighting one of the obstacles from Wipeout!. And then breaking said stick just to demonstrate that Oliver is extra broody this week.