Review: Metamorphosis

According to the official website, this film was made as part of the London Gallery’s showing of Titian’s famous Diana and Actaeon, The Death of Actaeon and Diana and Callisto, all depicting stories from Ovid’s Metamorphosis, brought together for the first time since the 18^th century. The event also spawned a number of related projects from various poets, contemporary artists, composers, ballet dancers, choreographers and filmmakers, all of whom were invited to share their projects as part of the Gallery’s themed exhibition.



The Death of Actaeon

I’ve always loved the myth of Artemis and Actaeon; perhaps because I’d love the power to turn perverts into deer and have them killed by their own hounds. I know at least three men who would be on the dinner table by now were I to possess this gift, and I suspect you have your share of unwelcome peeping toms. Heck, even rubbernecking neighbours can get on people’s nerves.

So it’s interesting to me that out of the myriad of stories that Ovid retells in Metamorphosis, and the incredible range of human-to-animal/plant/object transformations that it contains, it’s usually the story of Artemis and Actaeon that immediately leaps to mind at mention of the title (either that or Daphne and Apollo).

If Metamorphosis was a school, Actaeon would be its show pupil, so what is it about this story in particular that’s so compelling? Forbidden female beauty? The hunter becoming the hunted? The ironic tragedy of being killed by one’s own faithful dogs?

According to this short film, the appeal lies in the sense of justice and/or vengeance meted out from goddess to man, as disproportionate as it may seem. Unlike the myth, which usually depicts Actaeon accidentally chancing upon the bathing Artemis, the film has him deliberately seek her out in her bathroom, having already made her visibly uncomfortable earlier in the evening when he stares at her suggestively at the dinner table.

Transporting the story to an English mansion during the hunting season (in which Titian’s Diana and Actaeon is hung on the wall), our Artemis stand-in, played by Anna Friel, appears to be the only woman in the house. This, along with her white gown, emphasizes her vulnerability and consequently the predatory nature with which Actaeon (Ed Speelers, still with the world’s most punchable face) initially hunts for her.

His consequential metamorphosis is staged as painful and confusing, not only with antlers erupting all over Actaeon’s body, but with the room itself being invaded by nature, in striking contrast to the baroque opulence of the mansion.

With this, you can’t help but detect a faint air of feminist triumph, not only in the fact that it is clearly Artemis’s hound that leads the hunt for the transformed stag (she’s shown feeding it scraps at the dinner table; it barks a warning when Actaeon enters the bathroom), but in the relish with which she eats the bloody venison that’s been brought to the table after the transformation, eying the empty chair opposite.

Maybe it’s just me, but in this day and age, in which pornography is accessible at the touch of a button and private photographs can be spread with frightening ease across the internet without the permission of the subjects (usually women), it comes as a revelation to see a film that underscores the sanctity of a woman’s privacy and the dire consequences when it is invaded by unwanted eyes.

Arrow: Burned

So this episode involved Oliver trying to deal with the aftermath of his fight with the black archer, and it’s clear that he’s off his game both psychologically and physically. His training exercises are interspersed with flashes of combat with the archer (a nice way of demonstrating what’s on his mind) and his aim is off when it comes to his party trick of shooting arrows through bouncing tennis balls.

In a dash of exposition with Diggle (and seriously, the writers need to up their game with Diggle as most of the time he’s only used for encouraging speeches and exposition), we learn that six months have passed since the last episode. Walter has been missing all that time. The Queen family have been living in limbo. Progress on the night club has stalled. The Hood is lying low.

As with Year's End, a rather lacklustre standalone plot is strewn throughout character beats, flashbacks to the island, and setup for future episodes. Laurel’s co-worker Joanna finally gets something to do besides obsessing over her white friend’s social life; unfortunately for her it’s mourning over her brother who has been killed in a fire.

This may not have been entirely out of left-field considering he was a fire-fighter, but after doing some digging she realizes that the circumstances of his death were suspicious. She promptly hands this information over to Laurel, who in turn hands it over to The Hood.

Believe it or not, my knowledge of DC comic characters stretched as far as Firefly (it helps that he appeared on the animated Batman and Justice League), and I had his identity pegged the moment he stepped onto the screen. Thing is, villains don’t always need to be interesting. Often they serve their purpose simply by being intimidating or spooky, and with his old-fashioned gear, reflective visor and fire-fighting axe, this guy fit the bill, at least in appearances.

Imma just gonna sit here and die, mmkay?

 

His backstory was fairly predictable and his ending anti-climactic, but the whole thing was really designed to get Oliver’s head back in the game. Funnily enough, this coincides with Moira deciding to stop moping in her bedroom and head back out to work, courtesy of an angry speech from Thea (who, like Diggle, isn’t given nearly enough to do).

And is it just me, or are the island flashbacks really boring? Not only are they almost comically reminiscent of LOST (I keep expecting a giant smoke monster to pop out of the trees), but they move at a snail’s pace. This time around Oliver accidentally kills an operative and in doing so gets his hands on a map. Though I like that they showed Ollie giving the man what dignity he could in death (half-burying him in the foliage), if all this comprises the origin story of The Hood then it’s really not doing much to show me how a spoiled brat became a stoic hero. Not yet, anyway.

Elsewhere Laurel and Tommy debate whether to give the latter a drawer at her apartment, and Joanna is Put On a Bus, possibly for good. But finally we get an interesting development. Despite his jovial manner in allowing Laurel to keep the phone that he was using to communicate with The Hood, it turns out that Quentin Lance has fixed it with a transmitter and plans to use Laurel as bait to catch the vigilante.

Though it does beg the question: if a tracker is installed, then why give it to Laurel? Why not just ring it himself and arrange a meeting?

Miscellaneous Observations:

Nice shot of Laurel’s face reflected in The Hood’s cell phone (but it really took Quentin six weeks to check it for fingerprints? This guy might be able to tell the difference between The Hood and the Black archer's MO, but in all other respects he's not too bright).

Shouldn’t the news be all over Walter’s disappearance? I mean, I know six weeks have passed, but this is the second time in five years that the husband of a successful businesswoman has disappeared. It’s strange that Moira hasn’t been called in for questioning.

This marks the tenth episode of Arrow that I’ve watched, and whew – it’s been quite a challenge writing and posting daily reviews. I’m going to take the weekend off and see how I fare come Monday, though hopefully by then the first instalment in my Exploring Tropes project will be completed. Looking forward to posting that one!

Arrow: Year's End

As with Lone Gunman, I initially thought this episode was going to follow a Clear My Name storyline, only for the police to surprise me once again with their intelligence. After Adam Hunt (last seen in the pilot episode) is shot dead in his apartment, Quentin Lance immediately deduces that a copycat is at work. Not only are the arrows black instead of green, but he knows The Hood is not a killer. At least not most of the time.

Nevertheless, when Oliver finds out he wants to get to the bottom of the mystery. He also wants to throw a Christmas party, which seems a rather daft idea when you’re concurrently moonlighting as a vigilante.

And unfortunately, the identity of the black archer is hardly a surprise to anyone who’s been paying the slightest bit of attention (hint: it's the guy who smiles enigmatically and coins the name "Green Arrow"). Unlike the reveal of Helena as the motorcycle shooter last week, in which the surprise was based on the fact that she was a woman rather than her identity as Helena Bertinelli, it was pretty clear that Malcolm Merlyn was the culprit. No other character in this episode had enough screen-time (or the build) to qualify.

So it was to the subplots that I turned in search of something more engaging. Oliver’s aforementioned mission to throw a Christmas party was an attempt to explore the dynamics of this deeply broken family, except that I’m still not quite buying the emotional responses of Moira and Thea to a brother/son that they thought was dead for five years. Don’t ask me how mothers/sisters are supposed to act when their loved one comes back from the dead – but I get the feeling that it’s not quite this casually.

Elsewhere, Tommy proves to Laurel and her father that he’s not totally shallow by giving Laurel a picture of Laurel, Sara and their father as a Christmas gift (though the question of why and how he has a picture of the Lance family springs to mind), and Walter continues to pry in Moira’s affairs – with Felicity’s help.

Felicity also makes an effort to help Oliver track down the maker of the black arrows – though I’m still baffled as to why these men keep going to an IT girl to research things that they could surely accomplish on their own (except yeah, the writers were told to include Felicity more often; I just hope they find more logical ways of doing so in the future).

And over in the flashbacks, Yao Fei drags Edward Fyers back to his cave and instructs Oliver to kill him. Though not before they head back out into the forest (to a better execution site...?) and Ollie learns that the island was once a prison for dangerous criminals – of which Yao Fei was one. Hmm... does he have anything to do with the Triads in Starling City?

Okay, I’ll admit it – it’s very late over here and this isn’t my best review. I set myself the challenge of watching and reviewing one Arrow episode per day, but I’m going to have to give myself a break over the weekend! Still, it was a fairly piecemeal episode; with a variety of little plots getting shifted into place for future episodes rather than a self-contained story on its own.

The most pertinent development that it contains is that Oliver’s list is not the only one in existence, and that it’s therefore not the work of his father. Of course, we knew that already thanks to Walter’s investigation, but it does shed more light on the conspiracy that lurks behind what has otherwise been a string of self-contained episodes.
 

Arrow: Vendettas

Picking up where they left off (in bed together), Helena and Oliver now try to untangle the conundrum they find themselves in. He’s a vigilante trying to put high-class criminals in jail; she’s an assassin getting revenge on her father for the murder of her fiancé. Together they fight crime.

They just can’t agree on how to do it. Oliver wants to show Helena that there can be justice outside of revenge, whilst Helena claims that the two concepts are more or less synonymous. It’s hard to argue with her, as the differences between how the two of them go about their business are slight. Oliver claims that he only kills when absolutely necessary – but that’s still not strictly the same thing as “self-defence.”

At the end of the day, all that can be really said is that in the act of taking lives, Oliver does it with more restraint.

Still, he tries to show Helena how he works, rigging her up with her very own leather costume and mini-crossbow. She starts to buy into the idea, despite Diggle’s nay-saying. But here’s where things get a little clunky.

First of all, Diggle’s animosity toward Helena is a bit too heavy handed. It's expected that he would be hesitant at the idea of bringing someone else into the loop, especially one that’s already left a pile of dead bodies behind her, but the writers end up giving him far too much omniscient knowledge of the inner workings of Helena’s mind. When he starts going on about how she’s “dark and twisted”, I got a little disgruntled. Seriously Diggle, you’ve only spent about two seconds with the woman.

Add to that the fact the episode demonstrates Helena is certainly not a psychopath (she displays empathy by taking Ollie’s hand at Sara’s grave), and who can be made to see alternative routes to reaching her goals, and you can’t help but feel that both men gave up on her too soon.

Which leads to the second major stumbling block of the episode: that Helena’s Face Heel Turn is due to an awkward dinner with Oliver’s ex-girlfriend. Really? Romantic entanglements are what lead Helena back to the dark side? Instead of (let’s say) one of Oliver’s plans not giving her instant gratification?

It reduces everyone involved to emotional infants, and though I can’t say I know what it’s like to go around shooting people, I’m fairly certain that if I did, my dating life would be rather low on my list of priorities.

So Helena goes ahead with her plan to kill the Triads and blame their deaths on Frank Bertinelli before going after him herself. Ollie’s intervention saves the man’s life, but by now Helena can differentiate between justice and vengeance. And if sending her father to jail for life is justice, then she wants revenge after all (though sending a man to jail knowing that his daughter wanted to murder him is surely going to make him suffer much more than a relatively quick death).

So Oliver and Helena part ways not because of a fundamental difference in principles, but because Oliver still has feelings for Laurel. Which makes even less sense when you take into account that Helena explicitly tells Oliver that she’s not looking for anything serious.

Believe it or not, this entire storyline of opposing ideologies clashing played out a lot better on an episode of Xena Warrior Princess in which the titular character comes across an otherwise perfectly wonderful woman who secretly kills criminals who don’t convert to her belief-system instead of offering them up to the courts for justice. It’s called Crusader; go watch it and see how this episode could have been better nuanced.

Meanwhile, in two somewhat negligible subplots that will probably have payoff much later, Tommy asks Oliver for a job after getting huffy with Laurel for trying to do it for him, and Walter gets Felicity to investigate a notebook that he found in Moira’s bedroom. Why he’s asking an IT girl to do this instead of someone more qualified is a bit of a mystery, but she pulls through and discovers that the notebook is filled with names written in invisible ink. What’s more, the handwriting is exactly the same as that in Oliver’s book, and no doubt contains the same list of names. Ooh.

Miscellaneous Observations:

At times I was stunned by how much Stephen Amell looked like Chris O’Donnell in this episode.

I’ll admit I smiled when Helena is presented with her iconic mini-crossbow and asks if her costume “comes in purple”.

I’m glad that we got a bit more emphasis on Sara Lance’s death, even though it still feels as though the whole thing should have much more impact in the way Laurel and Oliver interact with each other.

Finally, that was a nicely shot fight scene right at the end there, in which Helena confronts her father in the mists by the lake. The wide-shots were especially good, giving the whole thing a suitably atmospheric feel.

Verdict: A wee bit of a disappointment after last week’s intrigue, with the beats of Oliver/Helena’s relationship playing out along extremely predictable lines. Still, at least she’s still alive and kicking by the end of the episode, and despite her parting of the ways with Oliver, I don’t feel as though the writers have cast her into the role of villain. Like Ollie said, I’m sure we’ll be seeing her again.

Arrow: Muse of Fire

Every hero must someday meet their Shadow Archetype. For Buffy it was Faith, for Frodo it was Gollum, for Harry it was Voldemort, for Merlin it was Morgana – heck, I could do this all night.

For Oliver, it’s Helena Bertinelli. He’s already had a minor Not So Different experience with Deadshot, but the deliberate comparison set up between himself and Helena is explicit, disturbing and (as yet) unresolved. In the final fight between Oliver, Helena and her father’s employees, my eyes were on the verge of a mighty roll, foreseeing Oliver trying to talk Helena down from her killing of the hit-man who murdered her fiancé. Instead, two things happened.

The first is that at the same moment Helena snaps the neck of the hit-man, Oliver has another assailant in the strangulation hold he had on his own murder victim in the pilot. The second is that as soon as Helena has killed her attacker, she turns to Oliver and says: “I didn’t have a choice. I can’t let anyone know my secret.” These of course are Oliver’s exact words when it came to making his aforementioned kill in the pilot. It’s not a coincidence.

Meaningful echo in 3...2...1...

 

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

The episode starts when Moira is nearly killed by a masked gunman on a motorcycle who successfully shoots the man with her: an associate of mob boss Frank Bertinelli. In an attempt to track down the killer Oliver sets up a meeting with Bertinelli and ends up going out to dinner with his daughter Helena instead. (Frank is called away to an utterly pointless meeting with the Triad gang in order to deliver a threat that could have surely been done over the phone). To his surprise, Oliver finds himself enjoying Helena’s company.

But when the restaurant is attacked by a protection racket, Oliver and Helen quickly realize each other’s secret identities. He’s The Hood and she’s the Huntress. Yet by the time we get the whole picture of who Helena is and why she’s assassinating employees of her own father, it’s clear that Oliver has very little moral high-ground when it comes to judging her.

It turns out that she’s not simply out for vengeance over the killing of her fiancé, but that he was killed after being falsely blamed for spying on the Bertinelli family for the CIA. Yet it was she who was the spy, secretly working to undermine her father’s criminal network. It takes an incredible amount of integrity to defy one’s own father on moral grounds and refuse to continue living off the backs of other people’s suffering. To have the man you loved killed as a result of trying to do the right thing may not strictly justify cold-blooded murder, but it sure as hell explains it.

For the record, Huntress is one of my favourite DC characters. In many ways she’s heavily reminiscent of Catwoman, but her background as the child of a mob family gives her vigilantism an interesting twist. Plus, I adored her incarnation in Justice League Unlimited. Voiced by Amy Acker, given a crucial role in the Cadmus Arc, and one half of the most unexpectedly adorable relationship with The Question, she was one of the highlights of that show for me.

She's awesome.

Here she’s played by Jessica de Gouw, who I was familiar with as Mina Murray from Dracula. I had heard prior to watching this that she didn’t deliver a particularly good performance as Helena, though the same thing is said about pretty much every attractive young actress out there (see also Emilia Clarke on Game of Thrones, who gets a lot of flak for her acting ability despite not being significantly better or worse than any of the other actors on that show who aren't respected British thespians in their mid-fifties). I liked de Gouw’s performance as Helena better than as Mina (in a single episode of Arrow she was given more to do than an entire season’s worth of Dracula) and the similarities with Ollie in regards to their secret activities isn’t the only thing they share – as the final scene demonstrates, both are relieved to finally tell the truth to someone.

 

Exposure and understanding can be a heady mixture, and the final kiss seems to be based more on mutual relief rather than attraction.

 

Much earlier in the episode, the reveal of Helena as the motorcycle shooter plays out fairly typically. The person that everyone has pointedly been referring to as “he” enters a garage, crosses out the face of the dead man on a corkboard, and removes her helmet to reveal that – gasp! – it’s a woman. But at this point it’s just a woman – we don’t know yet that she’s Helena Bertinelli.

 

As it turns out, Tommy is the son of Moira’s mysterious business partner played by John Barrowman. I have no idea whether Barrowman’s character has been formally named yet, so I went ahead and looked it up. His character is called Malcolm Merlyn, and the only possible hint of a familial relationship with Tommy was Laurel’s convenient new tendency to refer to Tommy as “Merlyn” for the duration of their scenes together.

The thing that interests me is this: that although the audience would have quickly figured out the identity of the motorcycle shooter had the writers not almost immediately shown us exactly who she was (and even then, she’s revealed to be the assailant even before she’s properly introduced as Helena), there was no real way for anyone to foresee Tommy’s paternity.

(Unless of course this relationship exists in the comic books, in which case many of you may have already known what was coming. I wasn’t aware of it; certainly not in the same way that I knew Helena Bertinelli was Huntress).

As such, the reveal that the two are related doesn’t have a lot of weight to it. It’s more of a flat “oh” than an excited “ah!” moment. And since John Barrowman’s character has been shrouded in mystery, gifted with only a vague sheen of the sinister at this early stage, we can’t really grasp what a father/son connection might actually mean for Oliver, for Moira, and for Tommy and Malcolm themselves.

Though we do know that Tommy now has a cash flow problem. If his father really does deal in dirty money, it provides an interesting contrast to Helena. Unlike Tommy, she’s actively trying to take down her own father (albeit secretly), presumably with full-knowledge that she’ll lose whatever wealth she currently possesses by doing so.

To be continued...

 

Miscellaneous Observations:

Like I said above, Frank leaving his meeting with Oliver in order to meet the Triad was utterly pointless, notwithstanding the need to establish that Frank blamed them instead of Helen for the recent deaths among his ranks. But what a waste of Kelly Hu!

The show’s irritating trend of having characters breeze into a room with a line of dialogue that neatly inserts them into someone else’s conversation continues. This week it was Helena quoting Latin out of thin air as she marches into her living room and into Oliver’s life. Seriously, this tactic could be a drinking game. Now that I’ve brought it up, I guarantee that you’ll notice it all the time.

Laurel ordered a mushroom and olive pizza, which is probably the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard of.

Walter’s back and reunites with his wife in a rather touching scene – though it’s made just a little bit creepy by Oliver watching through the bedroom door. Still I like the idea that Walter might just be the most morally upright character on this show. Moira clearly has a few secrets, and it would be an interesting twist on the usual “wicked step-parent” cliché to have Oliver realize that Walter is more trustworthy than his own mother.

Arrow: Legacies

The good thing about long-running shows is that once the formula has been established, it can then be subverted and explored. For the last five episodes we’ve seen Oliver target elite criminals from his father’s list. This episode inverts that pattern by presenting Oliver with a more mundane adversary, giving them a background that challenges the way he relates to his mission.

This episode starts with a good old-fashioned bank robbery, the latest of a recent string that Diggle calls to Oliver’s attention. Thinking that The Hood’s goal is to fight crime, Diggle takes it as a given that Oliver will help the police try to catch them.

But according to Ollie, he doesn’t fight lowly street crime. Why deal with the small stuff when you’re targeting tycoons and entrepreneurs? As I mentioned in my very first episode review, Oliver’s motivation is unique in that it’s not focused on getting vengeance or chasing justice – it’s all about trying to posthumously redeem his father. It’s a crusade on behalf of someone else, but it’s also rather self-involved.

So things take a turn for the interesting when Ollie learns who these bank robbers actually are. The reveal is set up nicely with the opening scene in which a female hostage desperately tries to convince a plainclothes officer not to intervene in the robbery. Her pleas call attention to the two of them, and one of the masked gunmen shoot him in the back. Yet this scene gets an entirely different meaning when Oliver realizes that though there were fourteen women in the bank, only thirteen came out.

Turns out that it’s not a crew of bank robbers, it’s a family of them. The woman in question is the wife and mother of the gunmen, and her attempts to dissuade the cop were to protect them, not herself. Ollie does some more digging, and it turns out that the family patriarch is Derek Reston, who worked for Queen Industries before Robert Queen outsourced 1500 jobs to China. The Reston family lost their home as a result, and turned to crime in order to secure their sons’ futures.

So now what? Ollie is faced not with punishing the guilty, but in trying to help the ... er ... slightly less guilty. And in an amusing continuation of Oliver/Diggle tension, Oliver decides to reach out to the Reston family, whilst Diggle continues to argue in favour of bringing them to justice. This is actually a really nice bit of characterization here; the way the two men react differently to the bank robberies, then to the sob story of the criminals involved, but still manage to end up with opposing opinions on how to deal with the situation.

So Oliver goes to Derek Reston and offers him a job at Queen Industries. To be fair, he has so far offered an “out” to everyone that he's targeted, but this time he does it without pointing a bow and arrow at the guy’s face. Derek refuses out of pride, and his fate is pretty much sealed.

Fate: sealed.

 

They hit another bank, Derek’s trigger-happy eldest son gets aggressive with the security guard, and Derek takes the bullet for him. It plays out with poignancy, with a final discussion on how fathers shapes the lives of their sons.

 

(Though oddly enough, we don’t find out what happened to the rest of the Reston family. Seriously, did they get away, or what?)

 

It ties in to something that Ollie says earlier in the episode: “I’m not a hero.” It sounds like a standard response to the insistence of minor characters that Male Lead is, in fact, a hero, but here it's true. Ollie is just trying to atone for the sins of his father and make sure Robert's sacrifice wasn’t in vain. At this point, he has no higher purpose other than that. So he’s right – he’s not actually a hero.

Unfortunately raising this question means that the inclusion of Carter Bowen becomes something of a misfire. What could have been a character who embodies everyday heroism; a man who seems to be sincere about his responsibilities, his career as a neurosurgeon and his idea of opening a free clinic for those in need, ends up the butt of a joke.

Of course, there’s a Carter in everyone’s life: that one guy/girl who makes us feel utterly subpar with their amazing accomplishments, but why do it like this? Chuck had Captain Amazing, a brother-in-law who made the lead character feel inadequate, as does Carter to both Ollie and Tommy in their respective subplots. But whereas Captain Amazing (real name Devon) was actually a genuine nice and supportive guy, Carter is ultimately dissed by both Laurel and Moira in order to make Tommy and Moira feel better about themselves.

Here’s where it gets really weird. Basically, Laurel’s pro-bono law firm is in dire straits and Tommy comes up with the idea to throw a fundraiser in order to impress her. Let’s not quibble over his motivation here – Laurel is specifically why he does this. Not because it’s the right thing to do, not because rescuing a law firm that supplies attorneys to those who can’t afford them is an heroic thing to do, but to demonstrate that he’s serious about his feelings for her.

Heck, Laurel even tells Joanna that it’s just an attempt to get into her pants... and it is.

Which is why Laurel is considered a big meanie for going off and dancing with Carter at the dance. Except that she apparently redeems herself by confiding to Tommy that: “Carter is a gigantic ass and the only reason why I danced with him is because he wrote a massive check to CNRI.” But THEN she tells Tommy that: “I owe you a dance. You earned it.”

Um...is anyone else seeing the problem here? I kind of hate the writers for putting these words into Laurel’s mouth. It’s typical “woman owes man favours for trying to win her over” mentality, and the worst part is that they don’t even see the irony in Laurel doing the exact same thing for Tommy as she did for Carter – owing him a dance because he did something that should have been done anyway.

So it’s really not romantic that Tommy is doing something generous just to impress Laurel, and it’s a bit daft that Carter is described as a “gigantic ass” even though his motivation seemed to born out of a genuine attempt to do some good. It's an uncomfortable subplot in what was otherwise a nuanced episode.

Miscellaneous Observations:

Were the bank robbers’ masks a nod to the Royal Flush Gang?

Like I said above, the opening scene of the bank robbery was nicely constructed, with the female hostage’s attempts to make the cop lay low given a twist in perspective when it became clear who she really was. That it finished with a Held Gaze between her and the masked man was another nice touch, especially when we later realize they were husband/wife.

Before Carter had even said it, I was thinking it was very strange that journalists weren’t knocking down the door for the chance to interview Oliver. Surely he should be getting hounded every second of the day and night.

For the first time Ollie uses a different type of arrow! These ones release cords that pin the duffel bags to the ground.

Moira gets angry that Ollie walked out on brunch. Surely she could cut him some slack on this issue? The problem is that these people really aren’t acting like Ollie has returned to civilization after a five year period of isolation. Of course, we know that things were slightly different for Ollie, but honestly – he needs an adjustment period and it’s just a damn brunch. There had to have been a less negligible reason of getting across the fact that Moira missed her only son.

And an explanation for why Robert Queen’s book was blank when Ollie first found it. Invisible ink!

Updates and Links

It’s been a bit of a rough week. I sent out ten queries and so far have six rejections – which is only to be expected as it’s damn hard trying to get the attention of an agent via the slush pile, but I’m determined to keep trying and keep a record of every failure. There are probably thousands of other writers in the exact same position as me, so hopefully being upfront about how difficult and disheartening this whole process can be will hopefully help alleviate that sense of isolation.

But there’s plenty to keep me busy in the meantime.

You know what I like most about television as an entertainment medium? There’s always more of it. Every time a show or season wraps up, something else will inevitably rise up to replace it. Both Orphan Black and Game of Thrones have only one episode left to go, but to compensate we get the first trailer for The Legend of Korra and some promotional pictures for The Musketeers. It’s like watching a constantly revolving stage; when one play ends, another begins.

First things first, Colin Salmon (who I'm currently watching on Arrow) and Antonia Thomas are joining the cast of The Musketeers as guest stars. The show was quite good regarding its inclusion of POC in its first season, but this is the first time a WOC has been featured, and she looks fab!

Apparently they’re a father/daughter duo from Spain, though I’m struggling to decide what class they come from. He looks a bit like a monk, but she’s definitely decked out in jewellery.

And then there’s our first trailer for The Legend of Korra: Changes ...

Jeez. The animation looks as fantastic as ever, though things go by so fast that you have to watch at least ten times to get a clear look at everything.

It looks as though the show is expanding in regards to geography; instead of just staying in Republic City or a few select locations, there is a huge variety of terrains and locations featured here: a silver city, the desert, the air-bender temples, mountain regions and of course, the spirit world. It looks as though the gang will be dispersed throughout the world this time around, which feels like a wise decision. One of the best parts of the original series was the beauty and detail of the world-building, and the whole quest/training narrative made this possible.

From what I could gather, the villains of this season are going to be criminals of some kind. There are a few glimpses of characters in what look like prison cells, and given their designs and propensity to stand around in the shadows, they definitely have the appearance of enemies. Let’s see; a girl with an eye on her forehead (like Combustion Man), another woman water-bending (and who reminds me of Hama), tattooed man doing chin-ups, and a guy who can apparently lava-bend!

There are definitely more air-benders out there in the world. Not just acolytes, but actual air-benders. As well as that, there are a lot of reappearances from past organizations: air-bender acolytes, metal-bender cops, the White Lotis Society, and the Dai Li.

Blink and you’ll miss them, but Bumi and Kya are in there, as well as Jinora, Eska, Skoochy (that urchin from Book 1), Lin Be Fong, and the usual crowd: Mako, Bolin and Asami, the last of which gets one of the most interesting-looking scenes in the whole damn trailer:

And of course, the cameo that got everyone jumping out of their chairs: ZUKO! I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t even realize it was him the first time around, but yup – there he is. Facial scar and all, still alive and kicking.

Apparently the woman below is the Earth Queen, which makes me wonder if we’re ever going to see Zuko’s daughter, the Fire Lady (wasn’t her existence confirmed by Bryke?) Unfortunately this woman isn't exactly setting off "good guy" vibes, which is a shame as a regal and benevolent Earth Queen would have been awesome. Let's just hope she's more competent and savvy than the last Earth King.

Dragons! Gliders! Airships! A surprising lack of spirits... But whatever. I’m officially pumped.       

It’s a great first look at Book 3, and a beautifully paced trailer. Every time you think it’s winding down, the action kicks in again, Jeremy Zuckerman’s score is as haunting as always, and its most innovative feature is its tantalizing lack of dialogue. They’ve done that for a number of trailers now, and it’s a brilliant idea; keeping the storylines under wraps whilst still delivering a beautiful set of visuals.

Finally, two interesting articles caught my eye which I’m linking here: How To Get Back To Narnia, which explores the nostalgia/difficulties in re-reading these books in adulthood (and takes C.S. Lewis to task for some of his dubious storytelling choices) and Hell Hath No Fury Like a Superfan Scorned, which explores the backlash against Veronica Roth after the publication of Allegiant, the last in the Divergent trilogy. There’s something about the passionate response of fans to stories that exist outside their control that always fascinates me – and hey, I’ve been there. When characters you love die, it hurts. And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

The next Arrow episode review should be up later today.