Arrow S02E20 – Review

By: Wendy Mericle & Beth Schwartz (story)

The Story: Long live the Queen.

The Review: I used to think of Arrow as having a very compact cast, but with all the new additions of this second season, the population is starting to get a little unwieldy. Despite efforts to give everyone his or her due in due measure, the show consistently struggles to find compelling things for certain characters to do. Two of them are featured in this episode, and by the end of it, the show chooses to continue investment in one and pull the plug on the other.

Had Arrow been an original series, I would’ve said the show had made a mistake in its choices. In any other circumstance, Roy would’ve been more suited for the chopping block, being the one-dimensional set of abs he is. Most episodes, he’s a foil for someone else rather than a distinctly motivated character, and here, he’s reduced to a plot device, a means to distract Team Arrow and the audience from the threat of Slade until the mercenary wrenches attention back on himself in the most shocking way.

[Spoiler alert.] Indeed, there’s no other way to describe the death of Moira. But like any good twist, the signs of Moria’s death were all there; we simply failed to put them together. The flashbacks should have tipped us off, being so Moira-centric and strangely incongruous to the present action, given their focus on Ollie’s pre-island days when his swinging habits lead to an accidental pregnancy. Yet even though Moira flat-out tells the baby-mommy that “there is no action that is inconceivable…no decision that is impossible” when it comes to her children, this is simply rephrasing things she’s said before. You have no way of knowing that this time, the words have a foreshadowing effect.

The strongest hint that Moira would soon bite the dust is the sudden and totally inexplicable revelation that she knows of Ollie’s extracurricular activities, and furthermore has known for some time. The why and how of it is left a complete mystery. In retrospect, it’s a necessary scene for Moira to make a clean break with the show, but it’s clumsily jammed into the episode nonetheless. The show would’ve been more credible doing away with it altogether, even if it did deprive us of a sentimental resolution.

I wonder if Mericle-Scwhartz couldn’t bring themselves to leave the Queen family in total disarray when Moira’s death is already so unspooling, particularly for Thea, who’s now deprived of any hope of reconciliation with her mother. Sadly, she still hasn’t scraped the bottom of the tragedy barrel just yet, though we’re getting close. After realizing that Ollie knew of Roy’s condition and return well before she did, and now aware of Slade’s vendetta, Thea’s only a couple deductions away from learning his final secret, and all the crawling worms attached to it.

So what’s left to say about Moira Queen, now that she’s gone? Well, it’s true that her purpose on the show hasn’t always been entirely clear, especially after the brouhaha over the Glades was behind her. Like Dinah, she sometimes hovered outside the main action of the show instead of participating directly in it. For all that, her motivation and personality has always been remarkably consistent amidst a cast of characters who are constantly finding new ways to compromise or elevate themselves. Whatever she does, Moria always does it for her children, even if it means stooping to murder or lying to them through her teeth then doing it again after she’s caught. Manipulative and unpredictable, she was truly a dark horse for the show, defeating even Slade’s carefully laid plans. While her death, unlike Tommy’s, won’t change the course of Arrow, it’ll have a profound effect regardless.

I suppose the same could be said of Sara, who more than ever seems doomed. As an outsider to the classic Green Arrow canon and a placeholder until Dinah’s ascendance, her place in the show’s firmament is tenuous, to say the least. She certainly doesn’t help herself by removing herself from Ollie’s inner sphere, which is toxic for a supporting character. Their break-up is more than a little melodramatic, filled with references to light and dark and “I just care about you too much” and other like clichés. It’s hard not to view this development cynically, as groundwork for Dinah to swoop in as Ollie’s emotional (and eventually physical) support, especially now when he’s on the brink of despair.

Conclusion: Powerful performances partially patch over some poor construction to the episode.

Grade: B

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – Sara astutely observes that in fiction, phone calls are mostly harbingers of disaster. “Both our phones are ringing. That’s never good.”

– Felicity Line of the Week. On Ollie’s injured leg: “Can you even get into those leather pants with that knee?”

– Felicity Line of the Week II (because that’s just how good she is). On procuring more snake venom to keep Roy comatose and Ollie’s pain in check: “It’s not like you can buy this stuff over the counter. Unless you’re in Tibet…then—maybe!”