Arrow: Green Arrow
October 8, 2015 3:34 PM - Season 4, Episode 1 - Subscribe

Oliver and Felicity's blissful getaway comes to an abrupt end when Laurel and Thea ask for their help; Diggle is opposed to working with Oliver.

New Villian Damien Darhk and his Ghost Boys show up to steal missiles and threaten to destroy the city. Team Arrow crashes the Ghost Party and Thea gets intense. Oliver embraces his good side as Green Arrow, publicly vows to save the city, and puts on his fancy new outfit. Green Arrow and Diggle confront Darhk on a train, who apparently has magic powers. Then a flash forward to Green Arrow and The Flash standing over a grave, and Captain Lance working with the villain.

"Felicity Smoak, you have failed this Omelet."
posted by kittensofthenight (13 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I don't think we're supposed to express our opinions in the post, but this premiere was really fucking good. I was concerned after the teasers that Arrow would make the mistake of dragging out Oliver's angst about returning and conflict left over from last season. The only lingering resentment is Diggle's, which makes sense to me. After they left suburbia and Felicity expressed that she was secretly working with the team and wasn't happy just being a foodie there were some great examples of being a good partner from Oliver, something I didn't expect.

I'm excited about Thea's unhinged love for fighting, a villian that isn't emotionally tied up with the characters, and the whole team fighting together.
posted by kittensofthenight at 3:39 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


I really did not like this episode, except for Dahrk and the omelet joke. They made a point about Cisco making the costume, but there wasn't anything special about it except his arms are vulnerable now. Diggle is now the token "mad at Oliver" character, fine, whatever. Thea's an addict again, except now she's addicting to beating people up, fine, whatever.
posted by OnSecondThought at 4:48 PM on October 8, 2015


Do you think they're going for the addict thing again? I hated that arc with Laurel. Not done well at all. I guess I was feeling positive and assuming it was evil magic from the Lazarus pit...

I agree about the costume, and costumes in Arrow and The Flash in general, being pretty boring, even though it seems they make small iterations every few episodes.
posted by kittensofthenight at 4:55 PM on October 8, 2015


I laughed more than I should have when Waller's goons opened up the plane door to reveal Lian Yu and Oliver asked "Is that...?" *KICK*
posted by Servo5678 at 4:55 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]


From what I've read, they're not doing addict, but mentally unstable after the Lazarus Pit, which is the trigger to bring in John Constantine to help out.

As for the new suit, to me it looked like it was giving the Amell some mobility issues, i.e. his arms and shoulders seemed restricted and stiff. It also looked off-balance somehow. And I know he's a super duper world-class archer, but I kept looking at the forearms thinking there should be a cover on the inside of the forearm that holds the bow (as opposed to the one that pulls the string) as opposed to on the outside. Oh, and I still hate Diggle's Magneto helmet. How can he use his peripheral vision in that thing?

I thought the fight choreography was much weaker than in previous episodes, but maybe that's because there were more scenes of Canary and Speedy fighting, and I don't think either of those actresses have the amount of experience or training to make the scenes more believable. With both of them, I got the impression of lack of weight, power and follow-through behind the movements. Fingers crossed they get better as the season progresses.
posted by sardonyx at 6:01 PM on October 8, 2015


From what I've read, they're not doing addict, but mentally unstable after the Lazarus Pit, which is the trigger to bring in John Constantine to help out.

Which seems reasonable, but who cares about anyone smacking the crap out of Dammy Darko's goons? They're murdery terrorists. Let Thea have her fun.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:20 PM on October 8, 2015


I agree with the negative feelings about the new costume. The arms aren't great, and I don't like how shiny-plastic facets and stiff it looks. I liked that the old costume was a soft jacket with a hood.

Omelet jokes aside, not feeling it so far.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 7:42 PM on October 8, 2015


But...
...
...
wasn't he already green?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 10:40 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


wasn't he already green?

No, he was Olive r.....

I'll see myself out.
posted by Crystalinne at 12:14 AM on October 9, 2015 [10 favorites]


I'm on the fence. I don't like the new costume, even though it fits more along the line of the traditional costume from the comics (with the arms exposed), mostly because I thought the idea of Oliver Queen/Green Arrow of the show has evolved into its own thing.

I didn't pay much attention to the fight sequence, but I thought I saw some more acrobatics stylings which I like. I still don't think Katie Cassidy makes a good Dinah Lance/Black Canary, they should've somehow let Caity Lotz be Black Canary, who I thought had better fighting/acting.

I'm digging Oliver and Felicity more than I expected. Maybe because the whole will they/won't they got played out about 5 episodes into the previous season.
posted by numaner at 9:01 AM on October 9, 2015


I know we're in the build mode part of the season so I don't have super high expectations, but I was pretty happy with what we got. The stinger with Detective Lance was great and certainly better than the "we're going to kill someone before the end of the season" knell of doom that we got with Oliver and Barry.

But bored Felicity is giving me life. I really want to see her in charge of Palmer's company now that he's "dead".
posted by immlass at 10:49 AM on October 9, 2015


I liked it, on the whole; the new costume is a bit less practical but this isn't really a show about practical people. Within the context of overall-liking, and mentioned fairly thoroughly above...

- Diggle's helmet bugs the ever-loving crap out of me.
- Was Diggle always this huge? Has there been a costume change? He looks like his arms have grown six sizes since S03.
- Did not see the little double-agent action going at the end. Interesting, but feels a bit specious at the moment; hard to see Lance throwing in with such an overt bad guy, especially after he's blatantly murdered a number of his colleagues straight-up.

And

- From Arrow to Green Arrow? Really? That was possibly the goofiest bit of the whole thing. I mean, it's the same name with a colour added. It's like if Batman "died" and then a month later an identical dude, in a nearly identical costume, hopped on TV and said "Batman is dead. I am... Jeff Batman." and everyone was like "oh yeah, Jeff Batman, world of difference from the old Batman." Really?

On the fence about Dahrk; not generally a fan of all-purpose "magic!" characters, but I love the actor, so we'll see where this goes.
posted by Shepherd at 3:21 PM on October 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


- From Arrow to Green Arrow? Really? That was possibly the goofiest bit of the whole thing. I mean, it's the same name with a colour added. It's like if Batman "died" and then a month later an identical dude, in a nearly identical costume, hopped on TV and said "Batman is dead. I am... Jeff Batman." and everyone was like "oh yeah, Jeff Batman, world of difference from the old Batman." Really?

Seconded.

I like Felicity in this one. THEY BETTER NOT KILL HER OFF. Also, a happy Oliver is so much more pleasant to deal with. I really can't stand grimdarkjerkface Oliver without her.

Don't care about the flashbacks, ever ever ever.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:17 PM on October 15, 2015


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