Arrow: Legacy
October 5, 2016 9:31 PM - Season 5, Episode 1 - Subscribe

Oliver has to balance his daytime life as the mayor with his nighttime activities as Green Arrow. A new vigilante comes to town, Quentin returns to town and a new baddie wants to take over the town. Oliver gets to try out a new trick arrow.

The team isn't get back together (just yet). Digg is off fighting a war somewhere. Thea is happy living a normal, non-homicidal life. Felicity wants Oliver to recruit Wild Dog and others (including Vigilante), and Curtis is getting more involved with Oliver's unofficial job.

Flashback Island is gone, and instead we're (finally) getting Oliver getting initiated into Anatoli's Bratva squad, which should make for a welcomed change of pace during the flashbacks.

I kept expecting Oliver to name Quentin the new commissioner or to appoint him as some sort of City Hall official tasked with cleaning up the corrupt department (which I honestly didn't remember as being all that bad, especially when measured by the Star City Corruption Badness Scale), but I guess the writers want to keep him closer to the heroics than the politics.

Aesthetically this episode had a couple of problems that I just can't not comment on: first that memorial to the Black Canary is the ugliest statue I've seen since I happened across pictures of the Pegasus statue at Gulfstream Park. Second, that pinky/purple lipstick is not the colour to wear with an orange dress. Sorry Felicity's make-up and wardrobe team, that was just shockingly bad.

They seem to be putting more efforts into fight choreography, but the way it is being filmed makes it (to my eye) a bit shuddery and jarring. It seems like an unnecessary step: if the fighting and actions are good, let them stand on their own, they don't need to be dressed up with special effects.

And speaking of special effects, we got a parachute arrow. I can't say I've ever seen that one before, although I may have missed the issue where that one was pulled out of the quiver.

Oh, and apparently Felicity has a new boyfriend. I didn't keep up enough with the casting news, but I suspect he's probably one of the new vigilante recruits. Maybe Adrian Chase.

On a personal note, I'm looking forward to the FanFare discussion of season five. With all of the promised crossovers, I'm sure we'll have lots to talk about--both good and bad.
posted by sardonyx (12 comments total)
 
So who do we think is the the Dark Archer?
posted by Servo5678 at 5:05 AM on October 6, 2016


Yeah the statue of Black Canary is the ugliest thing I've ever seen.

I just hope the Dark Archer isn't Zoom from Flash ;P

Looking forward to Curtis becoming Mr. Terrific...that is happening, right?

Felicity's boyfriend is related to John Ritter, right? He is like a clone?

Looking forward to seeing who will be on the new team. I thought this was a pretty solid season opener. I like the bad guys so far and I liked all of the exterior night shots being all green-hued. The photography and the choreography seems to have been stepped up a notch.
posted by the webmistress at 7:01 AM on October 6, 2016


Apparently it is somebody using the name Prometheus.

According to the article above, Felicity's new beau is a cop. Somehow I didn't recognize him from earlier in the show. I guess I'll have to go back and flip through the video and figure out if he's one of Quentin's good cops or one of the rogue ones.

Any speculation on Tobias Church's younger brother? He must be important if he was name-checked this early in the season. (When typing "Tobias" in the context of a DC bad-guy, I seem to have to stop myself from adding "Whale" as the surname instead of Church. The Black Lightning villain seems to have claimed that first name in my brain.)
posted by sardonyx at 8:31 AM on October 6, 2016


Oh, I just want to say that even though I posted this first episode, I'm not claiming that right or responsibility going forward. I typically don't get to watch shows the day they are aired. This just happened to be a rare exception, so I thought I'd get the ball rolling on the new season.
posted by sardonyx at 8:54 AM on October 6, 2016


Looked at a picture of the memorial statue. Oh dear. Is that the one the kid in my class drew in 1981? The one who just noticed that he actually really liked girls, but only the cool ones?
posted by amtho at 9:42 AM on October 6, 2016


Felicity's boyfriend is related to John Ritter, right? He is like a clone?

Yes, he is Tyler Ritter, John's youngest son.
posted by plastic_animals at 6:01 PM on October 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


According to the article above, Felicity's new beau is a cop. Somehow I didn't recognize him from earlier in the show. I guess I'll have to go back and flip through the video and figure out if he's one of Quentin's good cops or one of the rogue ones.

He's one of the two detectives who are investigating the crime scene with the dead criminals and the beat-to-death criminal cop. Their degree of clean is undefined.
posted by phearlez at 7:11 AM on October 8, 2016


Thanks phearlez. That helps.
posted by sardonyx at 1:37 PM on October 8, 2016


That statue was godawful. And they never mentioned how nobody would put two and two together and figure out the rest of Team Arrow if Laurel is Black Canary. Like people saw all of them together out of their costumes all the time.

I didn't mind this premiere, I'm looking forward to them moving on with a new team. These shows need to take these risks more often (*cough* Flash *cough*).

Well ok, if Felicity (or more accurately, Emily Bett Rickards) leaves the show I'm done with it.
posted by numaner at 8:01 PM on October 8, 2016


Did Thea's dress choice at the memorial strike anyone else as _odd_? Nice navy blazer, appropriately frilly blouse, skirt short enough that she's risking flashing small children. Like she dragged it out of Season 2's closet when she was still a party girl and not an assistant to the Mayor.

I did like that the fight choreography and CGI work are merging better - the opening fight had more than the usual quick cuts between blows landing and people tumbling. And the directors seem to have finally decided that Arrow's quiver should have more than "arrows" and "arrows that explode" and "arrows that plant tracking devices". Remote hacking terminals and parachutes? Golly. Hopefully they didn't blow the budget in the first episode.

I thought Dark Arrow was Church, just continuing his "hit from the top" theme and besmirching Green Arrow's... good.. ish.. mostly... sorta.. name in (checks wikipedia for continuity) Star City.
posted by Kyol at 6:34 PM on October 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


And David Nykl's Anatoly finally fell back to Dr. Zalenka from SG:Atlantis for me. Had we seen him since getting off the island? Is it just that he's not done up in island chic for a change?
posted by Kyol at 7:32 PM on October 10, 2016


Oh, I absolutely side-eyed Thea's dress in that scene. It seemed so "off" for her new position as deputy/assistant/puppet-master mayor.

And in my earlier comment I should have said orange blazer instead of orange dress.
posted by sardonyx at 9:51 AM on October 11, 2016


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