Arrow continues to surprise by blowing through what could be whole seasons of drawn out storylines in its first five episodes. A secret identity is something, in our high tech surveillance culture, that would be impossible to maintain, and it looks like the jig is already up for Oliver. Detective Lance caught him right on video pulling his gear out last week. BAM! Oliver's under arrest on a litany of charges under suspicion of being the hooded vigilante, including MURDER.
MURDER is the theme of the episode. Arrow kills. Diggle doesn't like that about him. After teasing with a Lois Lane-like fascination with the local Star City superhero, Laurel realized she doesn't like his killing ways either. All the Lances agree: Arrow = bad man.
Flashbacks on the Island show how Oliver learned to kill, mainly because he was hungry and for survival, lessons taught to him by Chinese Green Arrow. Killing a bird is different from all the humans Oliver kills. Oliver's a likable enough guy unless he's trying not to be, but the more he vocalizes his holy war mission, the more insane he actually sounds.
Meanwhile, Walter Steele doesn't seem like he's one of the villains of Starling City, but he's starting to realize his wife might be. The last thing he (or I) was expecting when he opened that secret warehouse Moira Queen embezzled $2.6 million to set up was the salvaged remains of Robert Queen's yacht, the Queen's Gambit. As for Moira, she and John Barrowman figured out the Arrow is taking out people who are on The List.
The weird thing in the episode was the Oliver and Thea stuff. No mention of her alcoholism or drug use, or even how she outed Laurel and Tommy as hump buddies when she was drunk. It was like the last episode never happened.
DC Comics shout out this week: "The 10:30 train to Bludhaven.
Finally, John Diggle is by far my favorite character on this show. I love this guy. First thing he does when he finds out Oliver is the Arrow is take a swing at him. Oliver gives him two hard sells about his mission and Diggle reacts like a sane, rational person and says no. Then he spends a couple of days eating at Big Belly Burger contemplating it before signing on, but specifically noting he doesn't want to be a sidekick. Plus he had the line of the night when New Bodyguard Rob watched Oliver slip off to the rest room. "That guy's long gone, man."
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