By: Wendy Mericle & Ben Sokolowski (story)
The Story: If you’re facing prison time, there’s only one thing to do—party!
The Review: The maintenance of a secret identity has been the meat and potatoes of comic book drama for years and years now. I really don’t know how readers in the fifties and sixties bore with Superman’s constant finger-biting all those years over Lois possibly finding him out. Anyway, every hero still comes pre-packaged with that particular conflict, though it’s almost guaranteed everyone he tries to keep his secret from will find out eventually.
I don’t even begin to understand how someone so much in the public eye can possibly fool himself into thinking a secret identity can work. When you’re being monitored that closely, even if no one catches you doing your caped-crusader thing, the pattern of disappearing at opportune times, only for some costumed vigilante to show up on a repeated basis, seems pretty obvious. Ollie has it even worse; the timing of his return and the appearance of the Hood should be clear to anyone with a brain, and consider how often he’s showed off high-class fighting ability.
The weight of all that evidence alone should be damning, which is why I thought the show had made a possibly smart move toward exposing Ollie early on. Alas, I was, as I often am, disappointed by a missed opportunity. Even worse, Mericle-Sokolowski play out Ollie’s escape from police scrutiny with several old, unconvincing tricks.
You see, even as Detective Lance is putting Ollie through his paces, there’s still a list of corporate bozos to take down. It really doesn’t take a genius to figure out to whom Ollie turns to do some stalking and gang-busting in his place. If Diggle continues to serve in the role of beta Hood, that’d be a clever way to confound the authorities in the long-term. Instead, the show is content to reduce the plan to the ol’ “seeing someone else in the costume” maneuver.* Falling for it makes Lance look a little simple-minded.
Then there’s Dinah’s representation of Ollie, which was almost laughably predictable. I confess it was a bit difficult trying not to let me own legal learning infect my feelings about the episode. I mean, the personal conflicts-of-interest stuff alone is probably worth a whole class discussion of professional responsibility. Beyond that, it’s not only a waste that the show doesn’t make an effort to create some genuine legal/police drama out of this whole situation, it undermines the credibility of the characters and the plot.
Still, the show provides a few redeeming moments. Ollie’s acting the playboy has never seemed so convincing (I like the touch of the inmate ID number on his clubbing outfit). Although the polygraph test was never going to reveal anything crucial to Dinah or her dad, Ollie’s choice and manner of responses definitely had important effects on both his counsel and interrogator. The family tensions within the Lances and Queens both offer some compelling drama. The island flashbacks definitely earn their keep in both high-stakes action and important plot movement.
But for each of these virtues, there’s a slight, diminishing flaw. The constant drifting between fun-Ollie and downer-Ollie should be a blazing red flag to everyone that he’s up to something fishy. It’s also annoying that the show’s writers can’t stop themselves from pushing Ollie and Dinah together, forcing her to insist over and over, in a futile sort of way “Nothing can ever happen between us.” And the violence of the island only serves to highlight how pedestrian taking down corporate bozos is by comparison, especially when you don’t see the actual suffering they inflict on Starling City.
Conclusion: Even by the lower standards of a CW show, this series is starting to slide on that slippery slope toward stubborn mediocrity and aversion to risk.
Grade: B-
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: * Coincidentally enough, the same move Ollie had Clark pull off in Smallville.
– I don’t think you have to be a lawyer to know that Detective Lance’s interrogation was atrocious. I mean, follow up, man—follow up!
Grade
Conclusion