Arrow: The Sin-Eater
February 23, 2017 4:37 AM - Season 5, Episode 14 - Subscribe
China White, Cupid, and Liza Warner break out of Iron Heights and head to Star City for revenge...
Oliver tries to bring in the newly-formed girl gang but the ACU intervenes mid-fight. To his surprise, they are there to arrest the Green Arrow for the murder of Det. Malone. Meanwhile, Lance feels responsible for the prison break after Warner tell him she heard about him working with Damien Darhk. (Also, Thea and Felicity get Susan discredited as reporter to prevent her from exposing Ollie as the Arrow.)
CBR recap - Cupid, China White, & Liza Warner Stage a Prison Break
Den of Geek review - Arrow would have its heroes atone for their sins... which may be a wee bit overdramatic given how squeaky clean they are.
AV Club recap - A friendly reminder from Arrow: Never, ever mess with Thea Queen
Oliver tries to bring in the newly-formed girl gang but the ACU intervenes mid-fight. To his surprise, they are there to arrest the Green Arrow for the murder of Det. Malone. Meanwhile, Lance feels responsible for the prison break after Warner tell him she heard about him working with Damien Darhk. (Also, Thea and Felicity get Susan discredited as reporter to prevent her from exposing Ollie as the Arrow.)
CBR recap - Cupid, China White, & Liza Warner Stage a Prison Break
Den of Geek review - Arrow would have its heroes atone for their sins... which may be a wee bit overdramatic given how squeaky clean they are.
AV Club recap - A friendly reminder from Arrow: Never, ever mess with Thea Queen
Gawk! That was a terrible, terrible episode. I don't even know where to start. Should I go with Team Arrow is considered to be "auxiliary law enforcement"? (Really, since when? I must have missed that memo). Maybe I should start with Quentin running around with known, wanted-for-murder vigilantes while not wearing a mask or any kind of disguise? Or how about with Quentin who is no longer a member of the police force shouting "stop, you're under arrest"? Maybe the place I should start is when the show even telegraphed that Oliver and the Green Arrow using the same language with Pyke is a really, really stupid idea? No, that's not it. Perhaps I should start with the police force just deciding that, hey, it's too bad that a masked bowman killed a cop, but oopsy, because it was an accident they'll just let it slide.
Oh, I know, maybe I should start with Thea and Felicity planting "documents" on Susan's computer to "prove" she plagiarized her reporting, which, given that she's a on-air TV reporter, should be pretty impossible to do, unless they destroyed the station's database and the digitally (maybe with good CGI software that Felicity wrote in the time it takes her to breathe in and out) recreated all her taped reports. (Note I'm not saying it's impossible for a video journalist to commit plagiarism, I'm just saying it's harder to fake than throwing together some "fake news" documents.)
Speaking of Susan, even though she's a character I really don't like and don't think is good for Oliver in any way, shape or form, I thought the show was going to do something novel and surprise me. When she asked the question, and Oliver responded yes, I thought, "wow, now that they've run the Batman, League of Assassins/Shadows storyline into the ground, they've switched gears into a Clark Kent/Lois Lane mode with Lois knowing about Clark." I was really excited. After all the DCCW relationship drama across all of the shows (I'm giving a special side-eye to you Flash, especially after the ridiculous way Patti was treated) I thought that maybe they were going to try something new: a hero being honest about his identity with the person he claims to care deeply about. Silly me! And even then, when she gave him the ultimatum about not lying, Oliver could have said something honest and not just remained doing his impression of a dumb tree stump.
For a while I was wondering if all of the focus on Opal City was going to lead to a few clues about Prometheus' identity, but I can't really think of an Opal City character/villain who would neatly map onto what we know about this season's bad guy. In a lot of ways, Opal City doesn't really make a lot of sense to exist in the Star City/Arrow universe (as it's more of a place of magic and energy forces) unlike Hub City (corrupt, crime-ridden hell hole) which has been mentioned before (and where they went to find Dinah).
Normally, I find this show flies along at a pretty good clip. This episode, however just kept dragging and dragging. I swear I thought it was never going to end, and boy did I want it to end!
I have no idea how something that was going so well (okay, at least relatively well) at the beginning of the season fell off the rails in such a spectacular fashion.
posted by sardonyx at 9:49 PM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
Oh, I know, maybe I should start with Thea and Felicity planting "documents" on Susan's computer to "prove" she plagiarized her reporting, which, given that she's a on-air TV reporter, should be pretty impossible to do, unless they destroyed the station's database and the digitally (maybe with good CGI software that Felicity wrote in the time it takes her to breathe in and out) recreated all her taped reports. (Note I'm not saying it's impossible for a video journalist to commit plagiarism, I'm just saying it's harder to fake than throwing together some "fake news" documents.)
Speaking of Susan, even though she's a character I really don't like and don't think is good for Oliver in any way, shape or form, I thought the show was going to do something novel and surprise me. When she asked the question, and Oliver responded yes, I thought, "wow, now that they've run the Batman, League of Assassins/Shadows storyline into the ground, they've switched gears into a Clark Kent/Lois Lane mode with Lois knowing about Clark." I was really excited. After all the DCCW relationship drama across all of the shows (I'm giving a special side-eye to you Flash, especially after the ridiculous way Patti was treated) I thought that maybe they were going to try something new: a hero being honest about his identity with the person he claims to care deeply about. Silly me! And even then, when she gave him the ultimatum about not lying, Oliver could have said something honest and not just remained doing his impression of a dumb tree stump.
For a while I was wondering if all of the focus on Opal City was going to lead to a few clues about Prometheus' identity, but I can't really think of an Opal City character/villain who would neatly map onto what we know about this season's bad guy. In a lot of ways, Opal City doesn't really make a lot of sense to exist in the Star City/Arrow universe (as it's more of a place of magic and energy forces) unlike Hub City (corrupt, crime-ridden hell hole) which has been mentioned before (and where they went to find Dinah).
Normally, I find this show flies along at a pretty good clip. This episode, however just kept dragging and dragging. I swear I thought it was never going to end, and boy did I want it to end!
I have no idea how something that was going so well (okay, at least relatively well) at the beginning of the season fell off the rails in such a spectacular fashion.
posted by sardonyx at 9:49 PM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
After posting my rant I decided to read a couple of reviews. I checked out the AV Club one (which is part of my regular reading list) and the Comics Alliance one, which I swear I didn't read before posting, but boy it hits all of the same points I did. Anyway in the CA one, there is a link to Paul Blackthorne's twitter account and to a selfie he posted which involves him wearing Oliver's flashback wig which I absolutely needed to share.
posted by sardonyx at 10:10 PM on February 23, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by sardonyx at 10:10 PM on February 23, 2017 [2 favorites]
Gawk! That was a terrible, terrible episode.
Yes! But Arrow is a terrible, terrible show. And this episode hit all the beats that make Arrow simultaneously terrible but also entertaining and fun.
For me the absolute highlight is bringing back China White (or Chien Na Wei, as I think they finally said out loud for the first time.) What a ridiculous, stupid character. I mean her name is 'heroin', but it's not even a clever pun on "heroine", she's just a supervillain. Without any particular story or meaning. She literally exists to satisfy fantasies of the hot Asian chick in leather who beats guys up, doubly exotic with a ridiculous white wig. She's marvelous. Particularly grouped up with the hot White chick in leather and the hot Black chick in leather.
It's absolute shlock. I love it.
Plenty of other schlock moments too. Mr. Fantastic is back in a new kevlar jacket without matching pants. He still can't fight, but there he is being a punching bag in the Big Dumb Fight. The Russia flashbacks have moved on to the point of irrelevant confusion. Oliver's back? Still helping his old buddy against some random new Bratva Captain du jour? Whatever, the Eastern Promises reference was enough for me to have a bit of high brow association. Did we mention that the new Team Arrow person is also a cop? And she can blast people with the magical power of her voice?
Otherwise I 100% agree with you, it's a stupid episode with a stupid story. The Susan storyline is particularly awful and I continue to be angry at Felicity every episode she lets her one true love keep having such an obviously terrible relationship. Not to mention Thea. Smarter writing would have them own the mean thing they did to Susan, destroying her career, being proud of it because seriously Oliver what the fuck are you thinking.
posted by Nelson at 9:53 AM on February 27, 2017
Yes! But Arrow is a terrible, terrible show. And this episode hit all the beats that make Arrow simultaneously terrible but also entertaining and fun.
For me the absolute highlight is bringing back China White (or Chien Na Wei, as I think they finally said out loud for the first time.) What a ridiculous, stupid character. I mean her name is 'heroin', but it's not even a clever pun on "heroine", she's just a supervillain. Without any particular story or meaning. She literally exists to satisfy fantasies of the hot Asian chick in leather who beats guys up, doubly exotic with a ridiculous white wig. She's marvelous. Particularly grouped up with the hot White chick in leather and the hot Black chick in leather.
It's absolute shlock. I love it.
Plenty of other schlock moments too. Mr. Fantastic is back in a new kevlar jacket without matching pants. He still can't fight, but there he is being a punching bag in the Big Dumb Fight. The Russia flashbacks have moved on to the point of irrelevant confusion. Oliver's back? Still helping his old buddy against some random new Bratva Captain du jour? Whatever, the Eastern Promises reference was enough for me to have a bit of high brow association. Did we mention that the new Team Arrow person is also a cop? And she can blast people with the magical power of her voice?
Otherwise I 100% agree with you, it's a stupid episode with a stupid story. The Susan storyline is particularly awful and I continue to be angry at Felicity every episode she lets her one true love keep having such an obviously terrible relationship. Not to mention Thea. Smarter writing would have them own the mean thing they did to Susan, destroying her career, being proud of it because seriously Oliver what the fuck are you thinking.
posted by Nelson at 9:53 AM on February 27, 2017
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posted by FallowKing at 5:10 AM on February 23, 2017