Arrow: A Matter of Trust
October 20, 2016 12:48 PM - Season 5, Episode 3 - Subscribe

After a drug lord is dumped into a vat of chemicals (never a good idea folks) Oliver decides he needs help to rectify the situation. Enter Wild Dog, Mr. Terrific, Ragman and Baby Canary for their official team debut.

So we finally see Curtis suited up, which is something fans have been clamoring for since his first appearance. In addition, this episode introduces future Vigilante Adrian Chase (Billy from Sirens for anybody else besides me who watched that show) and we got Felicity's boyfriend, Billy Malone, officially introducing himself to the Green Arrow, who really should have given Billy a way to contact him in the future. (Does the full name--not just the Malone last name--mean anything to DC fans? I can't say it's ringing any bells for me, but that could just be memory leakage of older, obscure characters or unfamiliarity with newer ones.)

As for old cast members, Felicity is dealing with the guilt of dropping a nuclear missile on Havenrock, which doesn't seem like that compelling a storyline, even if it puts her in conflict with Ragman. John Diggle, on the other hand, seems to be in the middle of something that isn't made entirely clear. He's sharing a prison cell with Floyd Lawton, which means he's a) suffering a mental breakdown in response to killing Andy, b) is being played or manipulated by people with power who can influence the military correctional system or c) is somehow experiencing aftereffects of Flashpoint wherein his reality was altered by Barry messing with the timeline.

As for Oliver, we got to see him start to learn to trust the Bratva, even though it's a painful, confusing process.

Overall, I think the show is heading in the right direction this year and course-correcting from some of the mistakes of last season.
posted by sardonyx (9 comments total)
 
I was truly onboard with the idea that Flashpoint changed history so that Deadshot was still alive and did not see it coming that he was actually just a hallucination. Arrow did a better job with Task Force X than the Suicide Squad film did, so I was really hoping that now that the movie was over and done, we could get the band back together on TV thanks to a little timeline tweak. Oh well. Maybe next timeline.
posted by Servo5678 at 2:39 PM on October 20, 2016


I find the start of this season surprisingly... not bad ? Let's see if they can keep this up.
posted by Pendragon at 3:01 PM on October 20, 2016


Just when you think it's gone... Flashpoint brings that goddamned awful wig back into the show via the Bratva flashback scenes. Did anyone else get excited after his haircut last season? Flashpoint truly is the worst of all possible timelines!

#wigwatch

Oliver, you will backslide into being the Absolute Worst Controlling, Lying Dick Who Fails Literally Everyone by the end of the season, I just know it.

Can we please stop talking about Laurel in every Berlanti show on the CW... OMG that statue is awful and she generally sucked.

Sara Lance 4ever, Laurel Lance literally never. Teen Canary, come get your life!

(Although I'm def interested in seeing baby John Jr. eventually become the Green Arrow.)
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 10:09 PM on October 20, 2016


The Laurel hagiography is definitely being overdone. I can understand it a bit more in Legends. She was Sara's sister after all, and I can't imagine a League-trained assassin would really be big on forgiving the person who killed a member of her family.

As for the new teenager on the team, I know Laurel said she didn't want to be the last Canary, but honestly, I think we've had enough of them for now. I think she deserves her own identity, whether that's making up a new one like John did or borrowing one from the DC telephone book, I'd be fine either way. Since we're unlikely to see her on TV or on the movie screens in the near future, I personally think the Spoiler identity would be okay to borrow. It's not as if this show has never ripped off the Bat universe before.
posted by sardonyx at 9:58 AM on October 21, 2016


I'M NOT WAT-- sorry. I'm not watching Legends since it started out so bad last season, is it worth catching up and watching the current season?

I'm liking the current Arrow season so far, but I'm pretty lenient with this show (<3 Felicity). I just hope they go somewhere interesting with the new team rather than retreading the past 3 seasons with them.

I'm glad this Stardust storyline was kaput in one episode instead of a rookie team member somehow getting dosed with the new drug and we rewatch the crazy Roy story.
posted by numaner at 8:30 AM on October 22, 2016


I'M NOT WAT-- sorry. I'm not watching Legends since it started out so bad last season, is it worth catching up and watching the current season?

I'm liking it so far. It's still dumb, but more enjoyably so. And no more Randall Savage, yay.
posted by oh yeah! at 10:21 AM on October 22, 2016


Legends still isn't living up to its potential (but then which of these shows is) but it's a lot, lot better than it was in the first season. If you want to try an episode watch this week's with the JSA.
posted by sardonyx at 10:54 AM on October 22, 2016


Man I love Arrow. I started watching like two years late and have slowly caught up on my favorite pretty-people early-thirties soap opera. So great. Last season was really elevated by Damien Darhk. I'm not so sold on Tobias Church but I'm willing to see where it goes.

Confused about this season though. Are Wild Dog, Mr. Terrific, Ragman and Baby Canary real characters? Because they all seem really silly. I mean the Ragman character is OK, but the other hero/vigilantes make no sense. The Wild Dog actor is terrible and the character is a walking cliché, Baby Canary is silent and characterless. And while I absolutely love Curtis he clearly has no business out there fighting bad guys. Is this all being set up so they can go "psyche!" and write them all off in episode five or so? (Comic book spoilers are fine by me, but not sure how we feel about them on Fanfare.)
posted by Nelson at 6:55 PM on October 23, 2016


Except for Baby Canary, they're all "real" DC characters. Wild Dog even had his own mini-series back in the 80s. They're not necessarily good characters, they're C or D-listers at best, but they'll all names that old (sorry long-time) DC fans would likely recognize, even if they're in that "name the most obscure character wearing a hockey mask" kind of way. If you're searching for Mister Terrific, however, you'll likely be looking for Michael Holt, not Curtis.
posted by sardonyx at 8:57 AM on October 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


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