Arrow S03E03 – Review

Thea’s decision to leave behind Starling City and all the people who’ve been lying to her was probably the right thing to do at the time. Joining up with Malcolm Merlyn definitely was not. It just doesn’t follow that being betrayed by her boyfriend and brother means she should trust the man who killed hundreds (thousands?) of people, for which he shows no remorse. Thea’s always been a good one for bad ideas, and this one takes the cake.

In fact, the more you see of her relationship with Merlyn, the more incredible it seems that she would stick with him. Apparently, in her valuation, keeping secrets is a dealbreaker, while outright physical and emotional torture is not. Of course, Merlyn only hurts her by her request, sort of, in the sense that she wanted to learn how to never get hurt again and her nonchalant reaction to burning liquid on her skin at the end of the episode shows she learned that lesson well. But couldn’t she have gotten the same lesson by someone who’s not a twisted murderer?

Dinah does. For DC fans, the introduction of boxer Ted Grant is worth a small cheer, but for everyone else, your only takeaway is his impressive abs and street-smart attitude. Those of us who know the Black Canary mythos understand training under Ted is a key part of Dinah’s origin story, but from an outsider’s perspective, he must seem like a highly convenient means to an end: Dinah stepping into her sister’s shoes.

The episode indicates that process will be a long one, as Dinah’s first vigilante excursion ends rather humiliatingly. Sara got her chops from the League of Assassins and all the other fighters got fairly extensive training from exotic sources. If Dinah plans to keep up with them, she’ll need more than even a prize-winning boxer’s instruction.

The difference in ability is clearly highlighted in Ollie, Diggle, and Roy’s side-quest in Corto Maltese, where they hunt down a rogue A.R.G.U.S. agent to prevent him from selling out the organization’s most vulnerable secrets. Even out of costume, the three can handle a posse of gun-toting mercenaries, albeit with some makeshift bows and arrows from hotel furnishings (and a delightfully surprising bit of gun handling from Ollie). It’s decent action, even if the plot sort of disappears, leaving behind only agent Mark Shaw’s hysterical remark that A.R.G.U.S. is bad news—which is very, very old news.

The bigger development is Ollie’s decision to come clean to Thea about all the secrets in his life (although this episode sees him disclose only one). Arrow can churn out a convincing dramatic scene every now and again, and both Stephen Arnell and Willa Holland go all out to make the Queen siblings’ heart-to-heart a tearjerker. But since relationships in this show follow the one step forward, two steps back model, this breakthrough of Ollie’s can only be the prelude to a fallout to come.*

Besides Thea and Dinah’s respective angst, we have a third plotline in Felicity’s new job with Ray, which is turning out quite cushy indeed. Blame it on the rom-com overtones between them, but all these perks Ray’s showering Felicity with—the jaw-dropping office, the eager assistant—seem like courtship gifts, which means funny business to follow. It’s unclear if Ray knew he’d find unsavory data on the hard drive he has her recover, but the point is Felicity’s still unwittingly providing aid for his secret purposes.

– Minhquan Nguyen