Review: Arrow ‘State v. Queen’

This time around on Arrow, ‘State v. Queen’ finally resolves that whole nagging issue of Moira being involved in the death of all those people in the glades.  It also happens to bring back Count Vertigo for another round against Arrow as well as presenting us with more than a few “shocking” surprises.  And while the episode was put together very strong as a whole, many of the elements were, in my opinion, more annoying than anything.

First up, we find out that Vertigo is out and about again.  He’s recovered from his insanity and when the prison fell apart during the earthquake, he escaped.  He also happens to be the one that let old Dollmaker out.  Further, The Count appears to be working with someone, someone in a position of power.  By the end of the episode we discover that the person in question is likely Brother Blood (AKA Alderman Blood).

To get the ball rolling on his next evil plan, Vertigo runs about randomly injecting people with his newly altered version of Vertigo the drug.  This time around, it’s super addictive.  His plan is to get everyone buying, but of course Oliver has something to say about that, particularly once Diggle becomes a victim of The Count’s shenanigans.  So Ollie and Felicity head out to find The Count and stop him from being such a jerk.

Eventually, they do track him down, although it’s Felicity that makes first contact.  Naturally, she gets captured.  And then The Count figures out that Ollie is Arrow and challenges him to come rescue her.  In order to rescue Felicity, however, Ollie has to make the fateful choice of whether to kill Vertigo or not.  Minus one Arrow villain.

In the meanwhile, Shado, Slade and Oliver are running around and trying to escape from crazy terrorist scientist people on the island.  Not really much else going on there, but the crew is one step closer to finding this miracle drug that is lost in some Japanese submarine.  The same miracle drug may also be used to save the badly burned Slade, though what will become of it we don’t quite know yet.  In the present, Brother Blood is working on his own brand of miracle drug, most likely connected to the island concoction in some way.  And, in a twist, we find out the Malcolm Merlyn is still alive and that he happens to have a daughter.

While the overall episode flowed very well, moving from present to past and from arc to arc in a fashion that kept me intrigued, the various elements were weaker than the whole.  Vertigo was a bit of a silly villain and I’m glad he’s dead.  The trial of Moira sped by in record time (a trial like that would have realistically taken months if not years with all the media involved).  And when Merlyn showed back up to reveal that he had a daughter, I almost face-palmed.  The shock that the writers were going for in that final moment was just too much to bear and, in my opinion, a useless twist.  Still, the episode was pretty good overall, if not one of the new season’s high points.

I look forward to seeing what the Arrow writing team does with all the story arcs that are flowing around right now.  This is their chance to really go out with a bang or to drop the ball and leave us all not caring about anything that’s going on.  December 4^th’s episode (sorry folks, no new Arrow next week), ‘The Scientist’ introduces Barry Allen (AKA The Flash), so we should see something interesting going on there, what with his connection to the miracle drug and the big role that it’s playing in both the past and present of Arrow.  For a sneak peak at that one, head over here and check it out.

Photo Credits -           

State v. Queen courtesy of digitalspy.com