With Supergirl taking the week off, Matt Gilbert offers us an update on this week’s episodes of Arrow and The Flash:
Arrow – Season 7, Episode 12 – ‘Emerald Archer’
If the 150th episode of Arrow had an unofficial theme, it would be “I forgot how much I missed that.” Opening the episode with a mockumentary retrospective look at Star City and the effect vigilantes have had on it caught me off guard enough, but beginning it with a talking head by Quentin Lance was surprisingly touching. Between Quentin, Sara, Cindy, the brotherly dynamic between Oliver and John and the entire Team Arrow suiting up again, the episode was full to the brim of people and things we haven’t seen in so long I occasionally forgot they were ever there. Such nostalgia mad this the most satisfying episode of Arrow in a very long time (and not just because Diaz was strictly relegated to 20 seconds in the very beginning).
The episode’s villain, a vigilante hunter dubbed Chimera, provided the perfect contrast to the documentary’s pro-vigilante stance. His relentless hunger for hunting and collecting vigilante masks forces Oliver and co. to examine their tendency to put others in danger by being targets. Chimera was so powerful and mysterious I was surprised that he was captured and resolved in only one episode.
The underlying plot of the episode of Mayor Pollard’s attempted crucifixion of Oliver in front of the city was a welcome change of pace from the glacially-moving Dante plot. Oliver also stays committed to transparency as he gives Dinah the New Green Arrow’s identity in a pleasant exchange between Oliver acting as an officer and Dinah as a friend. Finally, William finally came home full of angst and frustration, annoyed at how long it took for him to be brought home. Felicity later learns that he was expelled from his boarding school and we have yet to learn why. The climax in which Team Arrow suits up again to take down Chimera, along with Dinah exposing her Canary-self to the bitter Mayor, was both a great action scene for the series and a very satisfying moment for Dinah’s character. Watching them all (sans Oliver and Dinah) get arrested after the fact hurt. But their arrest bore unexpected fruit as now John, Curtis and Renee are all being deputized alongside Oliver in an opportunity for Dinah to prove the mayor wrong about the positive impact vigilantes have. It will be so nice to have Team Arrow proper back in the mix, and I hope that means the season-spanning conflict will come closer into view.
The episode ends with Oliver looking back at the destroyed remains of the bunker, reflecting on the mistakes that led him to this moment and on the verge of starting a new chapter in the Green Arrow’s crusade. It fakes out into a flash forward of Connor Diggle and an unknown girl in the flash-forward timeline watching the Emerald Archer documentary, ruminating on the downward spiral the vigilantes sent Star City into, saying they all deserved what they got. There is little information as to what that means, but I am excited to see these two enter the mix of William, Zoe and Dinah in the weeks ahead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xw6eCnMk0w
The Flash – Season 5, Episode 13 – ‘Goldfaced’
One would hope that Nora West-Allen had learned her lesson after last week’s shenanigans: that the measures she takes to conceal her secrets from her parents will ultimately be the reason they are discovered. No such luck.
In the two most recent episodes Nora has become the biggest obstacle in the plot moving forward. Cicada does not represent enough of an existential threat to terrorize the heroes every week and constantly be updated. Though Nora’s hesitance to revealing her working relationship with Eobard Thawne is understandable, Barry and Iris’ eventual discovery of the fact is the only central plot thread that feels like it will move forward any time soon and Nora is the only thing keeping it from doing so.
This time, her aim was to throw Sherloque off her scent by appealing to his romantic indulgences. This led to a delightfully comedic scene in which he is confronted by four of his ex-wives (who it turns out are all the same woman on different earths) looking for their overdue alimony payments. Other than that, Nora was absent for most of the episode and Sherloque’s exploits with his soon-to-be seventh wife will seem to continue in later episodes.
Meanwhile, we got some great acting from Grant Gustin and Hartley Sawyer and a fun new villain in a b-plot that did nothing but eat the runtime but also tested the morals of Barry and Ralph’s respective characters. Spoiler: they both passed with flying colors. Finally, Iris, desperate to take risks in starting her new news outlet, tracked down Orlin Dwyer’s home address and snuck in to learn more, only to be met by the man himself before she could leave. Iris once again proves her strengths as an improviser and reporter, but her cover is blown and she and Cicada fight for a bit. In the only important moment of the episode, she stabs him right in his injured chest, briefly incapacitating him so she can escape. Team Flash now knows Cicada’s weakness and is beginning to form a plan to cure him of his metahuman gene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNM7mk-S_YA
