Arrow: Season 3, Episode 18: Public Enemy
So this week Batman, Robin, Batgirl and Black Alfred were being hunted by the police, due to being framed for using lethal force in their vigilantism. Oh wait, are those not who these characters are? Wait, who? Oh okay, let me start over:
This week the Arrow, Arsenal (who’s not speedy for some reason), Black Canary (kind of) and Diggle were hunted by the police, because they were framed for killing a bunch of people. Arrow was being punished by Rā’s al Ghúl (annoyingly pronounced to by half the cast as “roz.” I mean they’ve met the guy and heard him say his own name. How are they still saying it wrong? Freakin’ Americans!) for turning down his offer of succession. Wait, are you sure this isn’t Batman? I’ve read a lot of Green Arrow and even more Batman and I’m pretty sure this is a Batman thing. Oh well, I guess this is just how these things work. I’ll just go with it for the rest of this post.
Oliver convinces Nyssa, who is still loyal to her father but not really, to help him track down his former friend Maseo. Oliver and company (see what I did there?) win the fight against him and his companions, but Rā’s shows up and pretty much stalls them until the police arrive. The gang spends the next few scenes escaping and gets away successfully.
While they try to regroup, Rā’s, in a massive d*ck move, tells Detective Lance that Oliver is the Arrow. Of course this makes his vendetta much worse. The detective even goes as far as to blame Oliver for all of the other “masks” that have appeared around town. You know, like that thing Commissioner Gordon explained at the end of “Batman Begins” or EVERYTHING Dr. Wolper says in “The Dark Knight Returns.” The chase is on as Team Arrow continues to avoid capture.
Eventually Oliver decides to turn himself in to take the heat off of his friends, but in the end Roy insists on taking his place. I’m curious as to what they do next with that revelation. The whole team is exposed to the whole city so what’s the long term plan for this show?
The flashbacks here were okay, but not nearly as good as they were in the previous seasons. The whole Hong Kong arc is becoming a little tiresome. All I really want to see in the flashbacks now is how Oliver and Maseo fell out and why Tatsu (Katana in the comics) is a hermit now. The whole Shado has a twin sister thing just threw me off. I really really don’t like the whole “dead character twin” thing (except in “Beer Fest,” which was hilarious). They can do better here. I’m honestly pretty glad they focused the flashbacks on Headshot last week. It felt well paced with that episode.
Lastly, the ever more cumbersome Ray Palmer/Atom subplot is continuing the opposite of smoothly. Felicity and her mother, effectively dressed as ketchup and mustard save Ray’s life after he gets shot with an arrow during the aforementioned framing campaign. It gave a pretty good opportunity to bring up his nanotech and shrinking background, but I’m tired of it. Even worse, Felicity, who is one of the best characters on the show, is back to being overly dramatic and frustratingly indecisive about which beautiful billionaire she wants to be with. Just how long are they planning on dragging that out?
This was obviously a “quiet before the storm” episode leading into the season finale. I hope they speed up a little on the way there. I still like watching Bat-Arrow.
Jonathan Thomas Jones is a speculative fiction author and founder of geekhavenreviews.com. He has been passionate about all things geek for his entire life. See more about him at jonathanthomasjones.com and follow him on twitter @jtgloryjones.
