Arrow (Season 8, Episode 1): “Welcome to Hong Kong”
Starling City-2 is just a memory as this week’s episode of Arrow begins. Oliver wakes up alone in Earth-1’s Hong Kong, revisiting a city that took up most of the flashback story from season three. It’s been many years since I first watched that season of Arrow, so my memory is a bit fuzzy, but luckily Oliver quickly meets up with Tatsu (aka Katana from the comics) who is all too happy to dump large heaps of exposition on Oliver to help us out.
Before Tatsu (Rila Fukushima, The Wolverine) reunites with Oliver, The Monitor crashes Oliver’s hotel room to chastise him for going off book on Earth-2. According to him, Oliver’s decision to meddle in the affairs of Earth-2 helped ensure it would be the first victim of the Crisis. He warns Oliver to not disobey his orders again or a similar fate could befall whatever Earth he currently is on or all the Earths. This pushes Oliver to try to remember his Amanda Waller training of being single-minded in his pursuit of his mission, which this week is to capture a Chinese scientist who re-engineered the Alpha Omega virus from season three, which R’as al Ghul intended to use to destroy Starling City back in 2015.
Over the course of the episode, Oliver clashes with an old foe, China White (Kelly Hu, X2: X-Men United), over control of the scientist and his super virus, and Tatsu reminds him of the cost of single-mindedly pursuing a mission. After a few fun action scenes and some quippy banter with John, Oliver hands the scientist over to Layla and Argus for safe keeping while he takes Jon and not-Laurel on a quest for answers about The Monitor to…Nanda Parbat and The League of Assassins.
While all this is going on, not-Laurel is struggling with the idea her entire universe, literally, just vanished before her eyes. It was only the very end of last season when she decided to return to Earth-2 and make up for her years as a villain there by doing some good and helping keep Starling City-2’s streets clean. Since she made that resolution, it seemed like she genuinely was reconnecting with loved ones and redeeming herself. Now, in the blink of an eye, her entire universe has been wiped from existence and she is the lone survivor.
She rages at Oliver, refusing to believe there’s truly nothing left of her universe. Shortly thereafter she teams up with Layla, who John called for back up for his and Oliver’s mission, and they find a tech genius who might be able to fix the broken portal opener to bring her back to her Earth. Sadly, it turns out the device isn’t broken. It can’t bring her to Earth-2 because Earth-2 no longer exists. Devastated, not-Laurel commits herself to Oliver’s cause to ensure this doesn’t happen to any other Earth.
It’s very smart of the show to give over the episodes B-plot to the emotional cost of failing to stop the crisis. Not-Laurel is a character we have grown to care for over the last few years, and Katie Cassidy is excellent as she tries to grapple with the total annihilation of her entire universe. Survivor’s guilt doesn’t even approach the gravity of the emotions she’s feeling (Layla: “I know what it’s like to lose people.” Not-Laurel: “Do you know what it’s like to lose an entire universe?!?”). All of this truly helps inform the scope of what’s at stake if Oliver and company can’t prevent the Crisis.
Meanwhile…in the future… Team Arrow: The New Class confronts J.J. (Charlie Barnett, Russian Doll) who has thoroughly outplayed them. It turns out his heart to heart with Connor was all a diversion to buy time for his Deathstroke cronies to track down the Arrow lair and kidnap William. J.J. is a very compelling and charismatic antagonist for this storyline, and the tension between Mia and Connor as they continue to jockey for leadership of the team is well executed. The story is clearly being slow-walked, but so far I’m finding it quite enjoyable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AzlJyzxu7Q
