Review: Arrow ‘Crucible’

I have to say right off the bat that I am pleasantly surprised with the turn that Arrow has taken as of late.  Especially with this latest episode, the show seems to be getting better and better after a rather mediocre season intro.  Of course, I’ve seen this with Arrow during the first season, where there would be a string of 2 or 3 good episodes followed by a few stinkers, so I still remain critical that they’ll be able to continue the trend.  If they do, I think this may end up being one of my favorite shows of all time.  But all that aside, on to the review.

This week, Oliver dedicates himself to dealing with the proliferation of guns in the remnants of The Glades.  There’s a guy calling himself The Mayor and he’s got some serious high-grade military weaponry, which only means bad news for anyone that stands in his way.  Oliver, naturally, decides to stand in his way.  And though The Mayor doesn’t prove to be much in the way of an enemy, even by the standards of the show, it’s all the stuff going on around the action that makes this a great story.

Oliver decides to track Black Canary, to figure out more about who she is and what she wants.  He discovers that she’s actually following Laurel and (as many of us already knew) just happens to be long-lost sister Sara.  Surprise for Ollie, since he happens to believe that Sara died.  Nope, she was actually busy becoming a bad-ass, just like Oliver, and has returned to watch over her little sister from the shadows.

In the meanwhile, Laurel is having trouble dealing with her perceived involvement in Tommy’s death.  And in the past, not-bad-ass Oliver is getting the torture treatment from his captors courtesy of none-other-than Sara herself.  Turns out she survived the boat sinking and ended up with Ollie’s enemies, though we’ll have to wait to find out the reasons behind that one.  And there’s another little twist at the end, but I won’t spoil that one for you.

I don’t know if it was the director or some fateful alignment of the stars, but I didn’t cringe at the acting this episode.  I know, I was surprised too!  Everyone did a great job, which is unheard of for this show.  It could also be that they’re finally sinking deep into their characters now that they know they’ve got a steady gig lined up for the next however many years.  Whatever happened, I hope it keeps up, because the acting quality is one of Arrow’s weakest links.

On the other side of the coin, the action was back to being mostly bland.  They tried to make it look cool, with Oliver dodging a hail of machine gun fire with no cover, but the ludicrous nature of the fights contrasts with the seriousness of the rest of the show.  There were a few high points, but it was mostly pretty bad.  Hopefully, they can get the good acting and the good action all in one episode one of these days.

So with four episodes down and plenty more to go, Arrow is really shaping up.  If they can keep the momentum going, they’re guaranteed a third season and maybe even some award noms.  The storylines are getting darker and more serious, which is awesome, and whoever is plotting the overall arch seems to be paying more attention to it than the person that handled it last year.  There are subtleties and twists and turns and I no longer feel like I’m watching a “comic book television show”, but an actual series that can survive on its own without relying on the DC name to carry it.

For a sneak peek at next week’s episode, ‘League of Assassins’, head over to this site.

Photo Credits -           

Arrow and Black Canary courtesy of screencrush.com