Arrow S02 E10: "Blast Radius"

"Arrow" is back after its holiday hiatus. There is still no date for the pilot for "The Flash" to air but there's buzz of still another DC Comics character joining "Arrow" on the CW, Hourman, which may also tie directly into this series. Of course "Gotham" on Fox and "Constantine" on NBC probably won't be connected, but it seems like DC is taking over TV.

Meanwhile in Starling City, things are much the same as they were a few weeks ago. When we last tuned in, things were kinda turned up to eleven. Brother Blood was was out to make an army of super soldiers. He had injected Roy Harper with Mirakuru. Barry Allen was hit by a 'flash' of lightning after a particle accelerator explosion in Central City. And Cyrus Gold, not yet Solomon Grundy, was changing in his own way by getting his head splashed with green chemicals.

In the past, we witnessed Ivo killing Shado, and Slade brought back to life by Mirakuru. Finally we learn that Slade, in the present day, is the cause of all Oliver's problems. Caught up? If not, you can read my previous reviews of "Arrow" here. But now, we're back.

We open on Arrow taking out a drug dealer to find out who the man in the skull mask is. Oliver is scared, scared of what the bad guy will do with the Mirakuru. Felicity is not there, she's with the five weeks comatose Barry temporarily, which means Diggle has to tap keys and make magic. Felicity makes it look easy. And have I mentioned how much better our hero looks in a mask?

Laurel continues to investigate Blood, as he continues to run for mayor with Oliver's support. Laurel investigates by playing passive romantic interest to Blood, and asking occasional probing questions. It's awkward and we can see the man behind the curtain at times. It seems especially fake and manipulative when Blood tells her about his parents. I know that these two can act, but they don't show it here. More believable is when Laurel confronts Blood's 'aunt' and finds out what really happened to his parents.

In the midst of all this, there is an explosive arsonist, a military trained mad bomber that calls himself Shrapnel. Now in the comics, Shrapnel, principally an enemy of the Doom Patrol, although he has fought a plethora of heroes including Superman, Cyborg, and the Outsiders, is something completely different. He's a metahuman made of shattered metal who can explode himself at will the reform. Yeah, he's a deadly piece of super powered weirdness and evil. In "Arrow" however, Shrapnel is just a clever mad bomber.

Even though the relationship works in a simultaneously friendly and hostile atmosphere, I am loving the work dynamic between Arrow and Quentin Lance, refreshingly so anti-Batman/Gordon. Paul Blackthorne doesn't get to do much this episode but his chemistry with Stephen Amell's Arrow is tops.

As we watch Roy, and Thea, discover his new abilities via Mirakuru, in flashback we watch Slade struggle mentally with its effects as Ivo hunts our three heroes if the past. Neither Barry Allen nor Cyrus Gold appear in this episode, their shadows hang heavy in the plot. Too bad we know it will be some time before we have a resolutionary flash in at least one of those subplots.



The threat of Brother Blood is getting bigger, but it appears we may get a taste of Deathstroke in the present day finally next week. Can't wait.

Arrow S01 E09: "Three Ghosts"

This is it, the mid-season finale episode of "Arrow," and with a title like "Three Ghosts" so close to Christmas, it would seem that someone's life is going to change drastically. The pre-episode hype verifies that this one is definitely a game changer, and further speculation indicates that not everyone makes it through alive.

We begin moments after the end of our last episode as Central City CSI intern Barry Allen has been recruited by the Arrow team to save Oliver from an unknown drug he was injected with after getting his ass handed to him by the not-yet-Solomon-Grundy Cyrus Gold. Barry gets right to work. Rat poison sure has some interesting uses, doesn't it? Oliver is none too happy Barry knows his secret when he wakes up.

As anticipated, it's Christmas in the Queen mansion, but no party after Moira's disastrous 'coming out' event recently. Instead we have Roy, Thea, and Sin playing Scooby Gang (let's call them the Speedy Gang), and Oliver hallucinating Shado in the present. Well, there's one ghost perhaps. I have to wonder if Oliver actually woke up, or he's dreaming this while under the effects of the mystery drug.

Shado warns Oliver to put down the bow, take off her father's hood, and stop fighting - or everyone he loves will die. Even though Thea questions Oliver on who he's talking to, indicating there was no one there, we jump back to flashback island. Apparently, after obtaining the super-soldier serum, Ivo gave Oliver a choice - he could kill Shado or Sara or both. I think we know who he chose. Or do we? Ultimately he doesn't choose, and Shado dies at Ivo's hand.

This is just another example of what "Arrow" does best, the unexpected. One epic fail of "Smallville" is that while you had Easter eggs, you also knew essentially how the chips would fall. Here you don't. Does this mean Shado won't come back? No, not necessarily. Does it mean we'll never see Connor Hawke (in the comics, the grown son of Oliver and Shado, and the second Green Arrow)? Not necessarily either. Hell, we have both Speedies, yet haven't seen Speedy yet.

Speaking of the Speedy Gang, while watching, I finally remembered where I know Sin from. She's Bex Taylor-Klaus, the best thing about the last season of "The Killing," and pretty much the only reason to have watched. I like her, and hope we see a lot more of her.

In this episode there is a lot of naming names. For the first time on screen we hear that Oliver prefers the codename Arrow over The Hood or 'the vigilante.' Cyrus Gold's name as well as Solomon Grundy's are also checked. And even fanboy Barry gets to roll off a litany of Arrow's rogues gallery. Barry also indirectly references the potential Iris West by saying he has experience with someone who doesn't see him as he really is.

Brother Blood sics Cyrus Gold on the Starling City police. It's a trap set up by Blood and his plant in the department. In the middle of the episode as I watch Gold beating on Lance, I wonder if this might be the death rumored. As much as I would miss Paul Blackthorne, it would give Laurel a bit more angst, and almost seem fitting - after all, it would be a doomed Earth-Two character taken out by a major Earth-Two villain (Larry Lance and Solomon Grundy).

Oliver's second ghost is Slade Wilson, who shows up in the Arrowcave where the two fight, smashing everything except miraculously the blood test Barry is running. The results? Oliver is clean. If he's hallucinating, it's in his head, not in his blood. Hmmm... we did always know he was a sociopath, maybe Oliver is a psychopath too.

The Christmas theme seemed a bit forced at times, almost shoehorned in to coincide with the time the episode would air, and the three ghost vibe. I was pulled out of the story when Barry asks Felicity her plans for Christmas and she answers "Lighting my menorah." Any other year this would have been fine, and might give the episode a timeless quality in rerun syndication, but this year Hanukkah came at Thanksgiving. Tiny nit, and maybe time moves differently in the "Arrow" universe, but it knocked me off kilter.

Oliver's third ghost is Tommy, telling him he's not going to die, that he's going to fight. He's telling him what he's going to do. The tumblers click into place. If Tommy is the ghost of the future, and Shado perhaps represents sins of the past, does that put Slade in the present? Does that mean Deathstroke is alive in the present?

Tommy's appearance occurs after Roy is kidnapped and injected with serum by Brother Blood. When Arrow arrives there's a rematch with Gold, in which the villain gets doused with chemicals in derivative Two-Face style. Props to the "Arrow" folks for being unpredictable, but come on, I think we all wanted to see him thrown in a swamp not turned into yet another Batman reference.

The end of the episode is one of beginnings. It seems I was right on target (sorry, Arrow pun) with Slade Wilson. He's alive, and looking much more like his comics counterpart. And he's running Brother Blood. Looks like these Teen Titans villains stick together. And Barry left Oliver a present, finally a mask.

And Barry? He went home to Central City just in time (so unlike him) to see the particle accelerator blow up. Seconds afterward he's struck by lightning in his lab with a plethora of chemicals splashing on him. Sound familiar? Yeah, we've just seen the origin of the Flash. And was that Linda Park on the TV reporting the particle accelerator story?

There's no solid date for when the Flash pilot airs or when the series begins as of yet. They are apparently still casting for Iris West and someone referred to as Detective West, so it's a ways off. "Arrow" however returns on January 15th. See you in the New Year.

Arrow S02 E08: "The Scientist"

This is it, the episode, no, make that the two-part mid-season finale episode, we have all been waiting for. "Arrow" has been teasing us with comic book Easter eggs throughout the first season, and it has taken on a manic pace in the second - now we will see the debut of Barry Allen, destined to soon become, in a CW pilot, the Flash.

Now this isn't Barry Allen's first merry-go-round on television. He was animated by Filmation in the 1960s, and Hanna-Barbera in the 1970s. He made his first live-action appearance in the much-maligned "Legends of the Super-Heroes," and over a decade later starred in his own short-lived and low-rated TV series on CBS in the early 1990s. It was an expensive show, disliked by the comics community at the time, but it has aged well. Many look back on it fondly, myself included, but I liked it at the time as well.

The Flash was a mainstay of the DC Comics Animated Universe as a member of the Justice League, and was even in the TV pilot that some folks hated more than "Legends." Probably the less said about that the better. The character is almost a lock for a cameo at least, if not more, in the upcoming Man of Steel sequel, Batman vs. Superman.

In the comics, the Barry Allen was the first of the Silver Age superheroes, imbued with super speed after being splashed with electrified chemicals. He was my brother's favorite, and thus became my favorite. I've been reading Flash comics for almost five decades. So yeah, I'm psyched to see Barry Allen, even pre-Flash.

In "Arrow," Grant Gustin, formerly the warbling villain from "Glee," is our Barry Allen. Initially I thought he was miscast, but five minutes after he first appears I am sold. You can say he's a bit nerdy, but let's face facts, Barry Allen is a nerd, a comic book geek, and a police scientist. Gustin, except for his hair color (but then again, the 1990s version, John Wesley Shipp, also had dark hair), is perfect.

With all the myriad plots and subplots going on in this series, this episode starts with a new story. A man with super strength has stolen a centrifuge from Queen Consolidated. Similar crimes in Central City brought CSI Barry Allen to Starling City. I love that he's always late, he runs after a cab in the rain (just like in his origin story), and there seems to be foreshadowing lightning in the sky over Starling City. And he and Felicity are smitten with one another. I guess Iris West must be in another area code.

While I suspected it was one of our subplots, our perp turns out not to be Deathstroke or Solomon Grundy, but a partaker of Professor Ivo's super-serum. Oliver says Ivo is dead, as were all his subjects, but apparently someone's trying to make more. Turns out I was two-thirds right, as that someone is Brother Blood, and the guy who beat Oliver down is none other than our buddy Cyrus Gold, the as-yet-named-thusly Solomon Grundy.

Meanwhile, Barry Allen is not all he seems. He's not in Starling on assignment, but in a personal agenda. Similar to his post-Flashpoint origin, Barry's mother was murdered when he was young, by 'a man inside a tornado,' and his father went to prison for it. We know that man was Professor Zoom the Reverse-Flash. Since then Barry investigates other unexplainable cases of superhuman beings, and also idolizes folks like The Hood who could've saved his mom. Nice set-up. Outed by Oliver, he hits the road.

In the subplot department, Roy finds an overdose that was caused by Ivo's serum, The Hood tells him to stay out of it, and puts an arrow in his leg to make sure he does. Malcolm is still adamant that Thea is his daughter and he's going to take her away, but Moira puts the fear of the demon in him - by informing Ras Al Ghul that Merlyn is still alive. Oliver has one mean momma. She is positively icy when she tells Malcolm he should run.

After the ersatz Grundy (actor Graham Shiels growls and moans perfectly for the part) nearly beats Oliver to death, and our hero is accidentally jabbed with an unknown drug, Diggle and Felicity need help. In a scene reminiscent of a Bat Gas moment from the 1960s "Batman" TV show, they kidnap Barry. He wakes up in the 'Arrowcave,' secrets unraveling, cue credits.

There is also a nice shout out to Kord Industries, an indirect reference to the Blue Beetle, and the countdown has begun for the particle accelerator in Central City. I'm not sure if this will play out on "Arrow" or the new Flash series, but I can't wait. See you next week, same Arrow time, same Arrow channel.

Arrow S02 E07: "State v. Queen"

Might we have a misleading episode title here? I mean, what could be more exciting - a dry courtroom drama or the return of Count Vertigo? And don't forget Brother Blood and the League of Assassins are still lurking about. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what this one is about.

Six months ago, we witness The Undertaking from inside Iron Heights. We watch as The Count walks out, but first releasing the Dollmaker. I wonder how many other notable criminals got out the same way. We've seen what the Dollmaker was up to, now we find out what The Count has up his sleeve. Oh yeah, poisoning the city, and apparently Vertigo is the cure. And best of all for the comics folks out there, he has finally taken on the name, Count Vertigo. He also for the first time names our hero Arrow.

Actor Seth Gabel is taking the character further into Nicholson/Ledger Joker territory, he comes close to Mark Hamill's Trickster, but for the most part he is playing in bad over the top Black Scorpion super-villain mode. Yep, Overacting 101. However, The Count does indeed have an ace in the hole - he knows that Arrow no longer kills, and is using it against him.

There is a final duel between the two, with Felicity's life at stake (life or is it simply Vertigo addiction?). The Count has found out Oliver's secret identity, and admits to a higher up who set him up and sent him after Arrow to kill him. It works out the other way around, with The Count taking three arrows to the chest and falling several stories to his death. Looks like The Hood's killing career might not be over after all.

The trial of Moira Queen continues, with Jean Loring for the defense, and the Kate Spencer appointed Laurel for the prosecution. Yep, more comics references. As I've mentioned before, Jean is the mentally unbalanced love interest of the Atom, murderer of fellow Justice Leaguer the Elongated Man, and future host to god of chaos, Eclipso. Busy busy lady. Kate Spencer is of course the latest Manhunter.

I should also take back what I said about dry courtroom dramas in the opening of this review. Writer and showrunner Marc Guggenheim, besides being a comic book writer and lawyer, also worked on shows like "Law and Order," "Eli Stone," and "The Practice." This was anything but dry, especially when it leads to a not guilty verdict... the return of Malcolm Merlyn... and the revealation that Thea is his daughter!

Other goodies this week include Brother Blood being the guy who hired Count Vertigo, more hijinks with Ivo as they return to the island, the possibility of the wounded Slade getting some of that super-soldier formula, and Blood telling the survivor of an experiment that he's ready after he says he's stronger. His name is Cyrus. Hmmm... the only DC Comics character I know named Cyrus who's strong is... Solomon Grundy...

Our other comic book references this week would be the news on Channel 52 talking about the new particle accelerator in Central City. It's no coincidence that next week's episode is called "The Scientist," and introduces Barry Allen. And is that Deathstroke... in the present? I think Oliver's life is about to change... in a flash...