Yes, I'm still chugging along with Arrow, though at this stage I'm at least one whole season behind. Apparently season four has just started, though it feels like only yesterday that season three aired. Is it just me or do hiatuses feel shorter when they're for shows you don't regularly watch?
As the title would suggest, this is a female-centric episode, and for the most part they deliver on that implicit promise. And surprise, surprise, taking the focus off Oliver actually makes for a pretty good episode – as Suicide Squad already proved, the last episode I watched over two months ago.
With that in mind, it took me a few minutes to catch up. Sara and Roy have joined Team Arrow, Thea and Detective Quentin are still in the dark, Oliver is on-edge since learning Slade is alive and vengeful, and Laurel is attending Alcoholic Anonymous meetings.
Guest star of the week is Helena Bertinelli, also known as the Huntress, who for the last few years has been driven by her desire to avenge her fiancé by killing the man who murdered him: her own father Frank Bertinelli. I'm not sure what this says about me, but considering so many innocent bystanders have already been caught in the crossfire of this little vendetta, I'm of the opinion that Oliver should either have Helena incarcerated, or just let her kill the man to prevent further deaths.
Last time we saw her things were at an odd impasse: Oliver felt enough responsibility towards her (of the Create Your Own Villain kind) that he wanted to give her a second chance, and yet took the moral high-ground when it came to the principle of protecting Bertinelli Senior (despite Oliver having a pretty impressive body count himself).
With all that baggage in mind, it's a very good thing that the show decided to tell most of this episode from Sara's point-of-view – and not just because it allows for the inevitable Designated Girl Fight. Turns out, these women have a lot in common.
Like Helena, Sara is a killer – perhaps even one with less justification considering Helena has a very real and personal grudge against her father. In comparison, Sara was a hired and impersonal assassin. Pitting them against each other was a great idea, with Helena as the Big Bad, Sara – surprisingly – as the Bigger Bad, and Laurel as a sort of mediator between them, attempting and failing to reach Helena but successfully bringing Sara back to herself.
I have my fair share of issues with the If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him trope (I direct you to this review of Penny Dreadful for further discussion) but it was handled with a fair amount of finesse in this episode, largely because of the focus on Sara and Helena. Had Oliver been the protagonist, dominating the situation and trying to convince the women-folk that they must follow his orders, it would have failed miserably.
As it is, almost everything about the episode asks us to see things through Sara's eyes: the first five minutes establishes they are following Detective Lance on duty because she wants to protect him, she's admonished by her father for using excessive force on one of Bertinelli's men after he shoots him, and she repeatedly informs both Oliver and her father that she's prepared to do whatever it takes to protect her sister. Even the island flashbacks focus on her.
Both she and Helena are driven by the intensity of their feelings toward family members, and twice in this episode Sara is depicted as having to make a choice between giving up a bad man (presumably to die) in order to save a loved one. She makes the same choice each time.
And let's not pretend that they aren't her choices. Oliver is allowed in on the episode's action without ever impinging on the decisions made by Sara (to give up Bertinelli/Hendrix), Helena (in hunting down her father) and Laurel (from taking the case in the first place). The narrative also demonstrates a certain amount of sympathy toward Sara and Helena's grievances that makes it impossible to throw them on the "irredeemably corrupt" or "irrational women" categories.
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| I tried to get a decent shot of the Huntress/Canary fight but it was too fast and too dark. This'll have to do. |
That goes for Laurel as well, who leaps at the chance to take on the law-case involving Frank Bertinelli, offered to her by Paul Adam Donner. It's understandable why she wants to be back at work, but it turns out she was simply a pawn in a larger plan to capture Helena, designed by the police to draw Helena out into the open. Bertinelli was the bait and Laurel was window-dressing to make the setup look realistic.
It's another blow for her self-esteem, but she resists the bottle and uses the incident to take her job back, utilizing blackmail that's received so nonchalantly by the district attorney that I blinked. Does she get this a lot?
But I'm jumping ahead. Unfortunately the show continues its trend of undermining Laurel at every turn, first by having her completely fail to recognize her own sister in vigilante gear (which unlike Oliver's disguise, is only an eye-mask), and then by immediately being taken hostage by Helena's thugs while she tries to free all the other captives. It's frustrating to say the least.
And then we've got Helena, who naturally doesn't immediately kill her father when she confronts him outside the courtroom. And yet I can buy this hesitation – subconsciously Helena knows that she must draw out her father's death, for once the deed is done she'll have nothing more to live for.
In any case, she gathers up the hostages and promises their safety only if her father is delivered to her. After Sara attempts to take her down and fails (leading to Laurel being put in added danger) Oliver and Detective Quentin agree to the hostage exchange – which essentially involves kidnapping Bertinelli from police custody.
But there's some clumsy stuff before and after this takes place. Laurel and Sara's conversation in the law house isn't something any two people would have while hiding from armed mercenaries. Instead it's a discussion designed to set up Meaningful Echoes for later in the episode – and not particularly profound ones either. (Yes, Laurel convinces Sara to spare Helena by repeating the words "show me" back to her, but it's done in such a trite way that it falls flat).
The same goes for Laurel and Helena's talk, in which Laurel divulges details about Tommy's death (this part is good) and Helena gives her the line about "letting the darkness in" (which is not). Again, Laurel repeats these words to Kate Spenser when she uses blackmail to get her job back, but the words are used in such a different context, and one so adverse to what Laurel is currently trying to achieve with her life, that it feels more like a writer trying to be clever than an organic character moment.
But as for Helena, her wish is finally fulfilled and her father dies – though not at her hands. And as was to be expected, it doesn't bring her peace. Or does it? In a way I suspect the writers didn't fully foresee, the Helena that Oliver talks to at the police station is clearly not the same one that existed pre-patricide. Her rage is gone, she's gained the clarity of hindsight, and her ensuing conversation with Oliver gives me hope for a future redemption arc.
The only problem is that the character is still defined by her relationship with her father and not, you know, all the murders she committed on her way to him. I mean, that's presumably what she's been charged with, right? Are any of those cops, security guards or mobsters that died by her hand playing on her mind?
Thankfully Oliver doesn't take the moral high-ground in this moment, but points out to her that he's also a killer, one just trying to find a new path. Sara is a killer too; a fact that defined most of the choices she made in this episode. Diggle is one, having killed a child in Afghanistan, and Slade is certainly one, accruing a higher body count even as we speak (probably).
I have a point to make with this, but I'm not sure what it is yet. Perhaps the season finale will clarify it.
***
In this episode's subplot, Roy breaks up with Thea on Oliver's say-so. Yup, after managing to stay out of Helena, Sara and Laurel's business over in the A-plot, he at least finds some time to dictate the trajectory of his little's sister's life and happiness.
What happens is that after trying to head-off Helena's arrival in Starling City, Team Arrow instead comes up against an armed youth who was paid to joyride around in her stolen car. Roy ends up shot through the hand (tis but a scratch for someone with Mirakuru in his veins) and just as he's about to lose control, Oliver steps in with a reminder of Thea.
This leads to Oliver instructing Roy to break up with her. Oddly enough, this isn't framed as a "vigilantism or happiness" choice, but instead follows the "you're a danger to her so you must give her up" line of thinking. I say oddly because it's Thea who's been keeping Roy's impulses in check. Oliver knows this; he just used it five seconds ago to talk his protégé down, so why remove this important emotional trigger from Roy's life? What happens next time he loses his self-control and mention of Thea doesn't rein him in because he no longer has a reason to care?
It leads to a powerful yet also rather awful scene in which Oliver tries to comfort his heart-broken sister who tearfully tells him "you're the only one who doesn't lie to me", oblivious to the fact that pretty much everything she's crying about is because of his backstage management. And Oliver doesn't enlighten her. I really hope there are repercussions to this.
Because of course, breaking Thea's heart in an attempt to keep her oblivious to the danger that swirls around her leads directly to her hopping straight into Slade Wilson's car. Nice work, dumbasses.
Miscellaneous Observations:
I don't think I'll ever feel totally at ease with this show's treatment of death (specifically, the taking of lives). Obviously it's not a good thing that Helena was trying to kill her father, but in a show that wants us to root for vigilantes running around in masks who kill Mooks without hesitation but dither when it comes to offing any character with a last name, it's difficult to know how to structure your moral framework.
And in Helena's case, I can't help but bristle over how her desire to kill a man who murdered the man she loved (and probably hundreds more) is something to be irrevocably condemned. Obviously I don't condone her attempted murder, but anger is a normal emotion, and so it the need to vent it. Though I liked Helena's final scene, in which she finally grasps the futility of her mission, too often storylines like this expect deeply traumatized characters to simply shrug their shoulders and get over their grief. It's especially galling when the original criminal escapes justice and depicts absolutely no remorse – as was largely the case here.
It's a no-win situation is what I'm saying.
So if Thea (judging by her nickname) is going to be Speedy, then Roy will end up as Arsenal, right? Or was this the first step in Oliver bestowing the Speedy moniker on Roy instead? I know they joked later that he didn't like the term, but it denotes a sibling bond between them and might yet catch on. We'll see.
Hey it's that guy!
I remember him from Charmed and Scary Movie – and yikes, how long ago was that? Because there's been some serious aging since then.
Felicity's frat boy joke didn't make sense. She says the young man who drove Helena into Starling City told the police: "I didn't know I was aiding and abetting known felon" – but we see this incident for ourselves, and he's clearly being forced to help her while held at arrow-point. So... how is this an example of frat boy idiocy?
My favourite moment would have to be when Detective Lance calls the Arrow – and Oliver's phone starts immediately starts ringing right beside him. Oliver deflected smoothly (and I love that he presumably prepared for this by using Moira's name for Lance's number) but how can the man not put two-and-two together after this? I'd love it if the eventual reveal has Quentin shrugging his shoulders and telling Ollie: "yeah, I guessed ages ago and just didn't say anything."
"Are you one of the good guys?" "No, but I'm friends with them." So that's where that meme comes from. And I'm SO glad it belongs to Sara.
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