“Arrow”; starring Steven Amell, Katie Cassidy, Davide Ramsey, Emily Bett Rickards, Colton Haynes, Manu Bennett, and Paul Blackthorne; airs Wednesday nights on the CW at 8/7C.
Warning: This review will contain full spoilers.
After a brief hiatus over the Holiday season, “Arrow” is finally back with the latest episode called, “Blast Radius”!
Coming off of the epic mid-season finale in which we saw the “birth” of The Flash, I was curious to see if “Arrow” could come back strong. “Blast Radius” was definitely a strong return and abated any concerns I had as I fired up the DVR.
This episode introduced the villain “Shrapnel” to the “Arrow” universe. He is nothing like his comic book namesake, but while he may not have been the strongest villain we’ve seen on this show, he was a great baddie that helped drive the plot for a very strong episode – plus, we was played by “Firefly’s” Sean Maher! Oliver is putting in over time looking for Brother Blood, but continues to hit nothing but dead ends. Ollie is forced to put his search on a bit of a hold however when this building-bombing terrorist calling himself Shrapnel rears his head.
Back at the “Arrow Cave”, there is some tension among Ollie and his crew, namely Felicity, who has been spending a lot of time in Central City at the side of a comatose Barry Allen. Ollie feels that Felicity has been distracted from her vigilante-support duties due to her new friend’s condition. A bit petty? I thought so. But, Ollie is clearly under a lot of stress trying to hunt down Brother Blood and the Mirakuru serum with a terrorist who has a love of blowing things up running a muck in Starling City – enough to get a man to snap over even a legitimate reason for a partner’s absence. Luckily, Diggle is able to break up a heated argument before it escalates too far.
On the Sebastian Blood front, we didn’t really see any dastardly deeds from the man we know as a villain. I really love the way the writers are handling this character; he’s tragic and I actually like the guy when he’s not donning the skull mask, but we all now know his strings are being pulled by Deathstroke and nothing good can come of that. Oh, and there’s that little bit of information we found out about how exactly Blood became an orphan – by killing his father and locking his mother in a mental institution. It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens when Ollie finds out that this man he has been supporting for Mayor is the same man he’s trying to hunt down and put away.
We saw some follow-up with Roy and his new found super strength thanks to Brother Blood injecting him with the Mirakuru in the mid-season finale. He’s trying desperately to hide his new abilities from Thea, but when you live in a dangerous city like Starling City, that can be difficult. Roy saves Moira at Sebastian Blood’s rally by covering her to protect her from falling scaffolding and walks away uninjured. He explains this away to Thea by saying it was an adrenaline rush, but that doesn’t explain the already-healed severe cut he obtained earlier in the episode. He explains this away by . . . going home?
Roy has some work to do on hiding his new strength and endurance, and with an inquisitive girlfriend like Thea, he better step up his game. Oliver and company know that he was injected with the Mirakuru, and what that means for him, so why they aren’t keeping a closer eye on him to perhaps help hide this new development is beyond me. Roy already has some latent anger issues and we know the serum can exacerbate this so Oliver is going to have his work cut out for him keeping this young “go-getter” in check.
Back on the island, Slade is mourning the death of Shado and Oliver is feeling all sorts of guilty and responsible for her death. Sara Lance stops Ollie from coming clean to Slade about his role in her death, but I’m sure this little secret won’t stay a secret for too long. There is also the problem of Slade having been injected with the Mirakuru which puts Ollie in danger from his own “friend” on the island. The flashback for this episode wraps with Dr. Ivo trying to make a deal with the threesome by offering passage off the island in exchange for the Mirakuru they stole. A tempting offer, but upon hearing the offer, Sara goes to wake up Slade and he is nowhere to be found and has taken the Mirakuru with him.
“Arrow” came off it’s mid-season hiatus with a very strong episode in “Blast Radius”. The writers continue to prove they can consistently write quality episodes while driving several plot lines forward. Even though we have probably seen the last of Barry Allen until the Flash series pilot premiers, I am glad to see his presence is still impacting the events in Starling City. This helps in making it feel like a cohesive universe and will be a strong point when the two shows begin airing simultaneously. Ollie is going to continue unraveling the threads that lead to Brother Blood – and eventually Deathstroke – and I have a feeling that journey is going to be a hell of a ride.
Roy is seemingly on a crash course to become a hero alongside Oliver. However, I think that path is going to be a bit rocky for him. He has superhuman strength and endurance he needs to get used to, I’m sure he’s going to have to work on keeping that temper in check, and it will take some training for him to step in to the role of hero. Ollie can’t ignore Roy’s condition forever, and I am betting this will be acknowledged in an upcoming episode very soon; but don’t count on Roy donning the “Speedy” or “Arsenal” alias too soon, the writers have a knack for the “slow burn”, so I am betting this journey may not hit full speed until next season with maybe a bit of progress towards the end of the current season.
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My favorite thing about this episode was that we got to see “The Hood”/”The Arrow”/”Green Arrow” back to form and being a bad ass. The show opened with Oliver’s own style of interrogation, and followed that pace with an exciting motorcycle chase through the city, Oliver being trapped in Shrapnel’s toy store with booby traps, and an impressively accurate shot when he finally confronts this week’s villain. Of course, we also have the drama. I’ve noted before that the drama on this show is not your “typical” CW fare. We haven’t really seen much romance this season, but there has been plenty of drama between Oliver and his team, members of the family, and so forth. These interactions are superb at character building and it prevents the show from becoming the type of show in which you just endure the drama to get to the action (I’m looking at you “Smallville”!).
“Arrow” is just gearing up for the second half of the season and we have a lot of plots in play and moving forward. Deathstroke is working Brother Blood from the shadows, villains are becoming more than just thugs with a plot, and Malcolm Merlyn and Ra’s al Ghul are still out there somewhere, and I’m sure they are up to no good. This DC television world is expanding, and Oliver and team have their work cut out for them.