Review: Arrow ‘City of Heroes’

When someone reminded me that Arrow was returning for season 2 this week, I was very excited (mostly because I had completely forgotten about it).  So here I am, back to reviewing the show as I did with the first season.  And while I expected the CW to pack a huge punch with the first entry into the new season, I was somewhat upset that the first episode, ‘City of Heroes’ was pretty damned mediocre.

Last time around, Tommy had died and Arrow was blaming himself for it.  Malcolm’s destruction of The Glades was complete and hundreds of people got squished.  Mother Moira had given herself over to the police in an attempt to do right.  And Arrow had a weird little wanna-be guy trying to imitate him.

As we return to the show, Oliver has returned to the island of his past, trying to get away from being The Hood.  Unfortunately for him, Diggle and Felicity show up to bring him back.  Without much of a fight, he agrees and then we’re back to the show.  As all this is going on, Thea has taken over Oliver’s old club and her boyfriend has upped his game with the whole running around and beating up bad guys thing.  Needless to say, this causes tension between the two.

But even as he comes back to take over his family’s company in an attempt to save it from being bought out, Oliver doesn’t want to don the hood anymore.  Of course, that can’t last for long and all it takes is a group of rampaging idiots calling themselves “The Hoods” kidnapping Thea to get Oliver back in the game.  This time, however, he’s trying to beat the bad guys without killing people relentlessly as he did in the past.  How that will work out remains to be seen.  Oh, and there’s some stuff back on the island (in the past) with Oliver learning to become bad-ass.

All the places they went wrong… where should I begin?  Well, almost none of the actors have gotten any better since last season.  They still deliver choppy dialogue that is more bad than good.  The set-up for various events is still very expositional, though I can understand with the move into the new season there has to be a little bit of this.  Unfortunately, from what the show has done before, the exposition and convenient writing will likely persist throughout the entire season.

There were a few things that were pretty cool, though.  First of all, Oliver has a new “ArrowCave” that is filled with all sorts of neeto technology courtesy of Diggle and Felicity.  So we’ll get to see him becoming a proper hero with high-tech resources which, hopefully, will raise the bar where it comes to what enemies he will be facing.

But the real thing that stood out to me, surprisingly so in fact, was the acting job that Willa Holland (AKA Thea Queen) put in.  Considered by many to be the most annoying character from the first season, Holland made everyone else on the set look like amateurs in a school play.  Sure, she had to deliver the same campy lines and be in the same semi-goofy situations as everyone else, but she got into every moment and displayed a level of acting that one does not normally see on even the best of television series.  Even if Arrow falls flat in season 2, I find myself very interested to see where Holland ends up.

All things considered, not a great way to start the season.  Let’s hope that episode 2 is a little better.  And for a look at that, head to this site.

Photo Credits -           

Arrow City of Heroes courtesy of digitalspy.com