Review: Arrow ‘Blast Radius’

After the dynamic mid-season finale, I was really hoping to see Arrow come back from its month-long hiatus with a huge bang.  Instead, it kind of came back with a much smaller bang, albeit it still banged enough to keep me happy.  While ‘Blast Radius’ did not present anything interesting in the way of villains, it did manage to advance the plotline a bit and even throw in an emotional moment or two.  Read on for more.

After the accident with Barry at the end of the last episode, the poor Flash-to-be has been left in a coma.  So off Felicity goes to keep him company.  Of course, that doesn’t mean that things slow down at Arrow-central.  In addition to spending every spare moment hunting down Brother Blood, Oliver has to deal with a mad bomber showing up and targeting important rich folks.  Unfortunately, without the help of his trusty computer girl, he’s having a hard time of it.

Luckily, Felicity returns to help but, after a missed capture of the bomber, Oliver flies off the handle and accuses her of not having her head in the game (whatta jerk).  Still, they continue to go after their target, eventually (as always) bringing him down.  In the meantime, Oliver is getting all buddy-buddy with Sebastian Blood (minus the creepy mask), all the while unaware of exactly how evil he is.

In the background, Laurel is getting a sneaking suspicion that Blood isn’t who she thinks he is.  So she pokes around a bit and ends up discovering a couple of secrets pointing to the fact that the mayor-to-be is not such a nice guy.  Also, Miracle-injected Roy is dealing with the changes in his body (non-puberty related), changes that are causing him to heal fast and get stronger.  While his transformation isn’t as dramatic as Slade’s or Cyrus’s were, he does appear to be getting super.

And in the past, we see Slade losing his cool as the Mirakuru wrecks havoc with his system.  So off he goes to find the guy that killed Shado so he can exact a little bit of vengeance.

All-in-all, not a bad episode even if it wasn’t one of the greatest.  They managed to throw in some interesting action along with plenty of plot development, even if they did base the movement of the show around a bad-guy-of-the-week.  And said bad guy was really quite boring.  Oh well, you can’t win them all.

The highlight of the episode has to be Felicity and Oliver’s tension over the fact that Oliver can’t handle her running off.  He’s come to rely on her and Diggle way more than he every suspected and is now just realizing this.  I can only pray and pray that this doesn’t mean any sort of return to the “Olicity” relationship that many fans are crying out for.  Really, their interaction is perfect as it is and played out well this time around.  There’s no need for Oliver to sleep with EVERY female character in the show.

Next week, things heat up as Blood discovers that Laurel is on his trail and Slade/Deathstroke shows up somewhere with his fancy new mask on.  For a look at ‘Blind Spot’, head to this site and check out the trailer.

Photo Credits -           

Blast Radius courtesy of denofgeek.us