Written by Marisa Carpico
“The Calm” or the Opposite of What I Am After that Premiere
Plot: Five months after Slade and his mirakuru-enhanced soldiers nearly destroyed Starling City, things are finally looking up for Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell). Encouraged by the city’s new-found calm, he decides to ask Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) on a date — which is when things take a turn, of course.
How we doing Arrowheads? What a way to kick off a season, huh?
Team Arrow has been busy since we last saw them. Equipped with a newly leather-suited Roy Harper (Colton Haynes) and a quiver filled with fancy trick arrows (countdown to a boxing glove arrow beings now), Oliver and company have succeeded in nearly ridding the city of crime.
Things are finally looking up for Starling City and because of it, at least in the first half of the episode, this is the least brooding Oliver has ever been. Most of that is thanks directly to his shameless flirtation with Felicity. Granted, there’s always been chemistry there–that’s the reason the character went from a one episode guest spot to an integral part of the show–but this was next level. Oliver and Felicity have been dancing around each other for nearly three seasons and the show deserves kudos for not leaving the couple in will-they-or-won’t-they purgatory long past the point of the audience caring like some shows *cough* Bones *cough*.
Anyway, the date is sweet and heartfelt and Oliver and Felicity are utterly adorable in their nervousness. It’s perhaps the lightest and most fun the show has ever been. So of course the whole thing ends in an explosion.
Things only go downhill from there as Oliver learns that the man who launched the rocket launcher has taken up the Count Vertigo mantle and his new version of the drug has an additive that makes those who take it hallucinate the face of their deepest fear. In Oliver’s case, that’s Oliver himself. It’s kind of a heavy-handed metaphor, but it’s true nonetheless. Oliver has a gift for self-sabotage and watching Felicity get hurt sends him right back to broody-ville.
Things play out as they must from there. Oliver tells Felicity that being the Arrow means not living a normal life as Oliver Queen, she begs him to tell her there was never a chance so she can move on and he literally kisses the possibility of their relationship goodbye with some pretty epic lens flare in the background. It’s a really well-acted scene for both Amell and Rickards and it’s impossible not to feel a little emotionally raw after watching it.
But things only got more emotional from there when Sara Lance (Caity Lotz) returned to Starling City just to take three arrows to the chest and fall off a building right in front of her sister Laurel (Katie Cassidy). For those of you riding the C train this morning and wondering why that girl with the red headphones was loudly cursing at her iPad, now you know why.
It was, by far, one of the most brutal scenes the show has ever shown and maybe the most shocking death in a show that makes a habit of them.
What makes Sara’s death now so shocking and upsetting is that the show let us believe she was safe. I spent most of last season convinced that when Slade finally got down to recreating Oliver’s island flashback choice between Sara and Shado, Sara and Laurel would be the women involved and this time, Sara would die. Obviously, the writers went in a different route (one that I’ll admit pleased me greatly) and put Felicity in Sara’s place. So, when Sara survived the finale to go off with Nyssa to the League of Assassins, I believed we didn’t need to worry and I was genuinely floored by her sudden and horrific death.
Having had time to process (lies, no amount of time is enough), I find I’m of two minds about the development.
One the one hand, I’m pissed. I started Season 2 deeply displeased that Sara was still alive after the Queen’s Gambit sank. The writers were cheapening their characters’ fundamental emotional motivations. Laurel and her father hated Ollie for being the reason Sara was on that boat in the first place and Oliver’s guilt about her death was the first step in him becoming the brooding, intimacy-shy Oliver we know now. Worse, it cheapened the gravity of death on the show, something they were already doing by letting Malcolm Merlyn survive his climactic battle with Oliver.
Yet despite all that, I fell in love with the character. She was a badass, she was queer and it was no big deal and she developed Oliver and the Lances in exciting ways. She was one of the best characters the show’s made. And now she’s gone.
Still, as upset as I am about it, I’m also hopeful. Realistically, there weren’t a lot of new places the writers could bring the character. She had mostly come to terms with being an assassin, she and Nyssa were presumably living happily ever after, she had repaired her relationship with her family—there wasn’t any conflict left. Her death, however, creates story for our major characters, especially the one who most needs developing: Laurel.
In season 1, the most interesting thing about Laurel was Tommy and last season’s alcoholism plot was equal parts hit and miss. The writers needed to find a way to make the audience invest in Laurel and watching her struggle with whether or not to take up her sister’s mantle to do good in ways other than by lawyering is pretty compelling. Whether they also deserve censure for killing a really interesting, queer character to prop up a mediocre character whose turn to vigilantism might never be believable instead of killing of the less interesting character played by a bigger name is a whole different discussion altogether.
http://youtu.be/LQcVaK8VAuM
In any case, Laurel won’t be the only character struggling to define themselves. The writers have said that Season 3 is about identity and the premiere sets up the central struggles for each character. For Detective Lance, it’s about finding a way to be an effective cop without risking his own life. For Diggle, it’s about whether he can be a soldier and a father. For Roy, it’s whether he has a point on this show other than the fact that he is played by the very attractive Colton Haynes. For Felicity, it’s whether she can be part of Team Arrow and have a life outside of it that doesn’t involve Oliver Queen. And for our titular hero, it’s about reconciling Oliver Queen and the Arrow.
Though Oliver’s struggle isn’t exactly new. His inability to reconcile being both The Arrow and Oliver Queen has been his main issue since the beginning and I’m excited to see the show finally deal with that head on. If I were a betting man, I’d guess that he’s going to spend this season learning that he has to be Oliver Queen even if he doesn’t want to be, that living is worth the risk of getting hurt. True to his stubbornness, he’ll wait all the way until the finale to have that realization and then he and Felicity will start the relationship they almost had in the premiere. But then, what do I know? My track record for predicting what this show will do isn’t very good.
Rating: 8/10
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