‘Arrow’ 1.4 Recap And Review: An Innocent Man

Ollie’s out to save the life of an innocent man on this week’s Arrow. Let’s discuss!

To bring you all up to speed: On the crime-fighting front, Ollie is attempting to save an innocent man from death row. Peter Declan was convicted of the death of his wife, a whistleblower who was in the process of disclosing the toxic dumping practices of List Member Jason Brodeur. In his guise as the Hood (and with the aid of a handy voice disguising arrow), he Ollie goes to Laurel to get her on Declan’s case. Investigation and a metric ton of witness intimidation uncover the truth: Brodeur had his goons kill Mrs. Declan and pin it on her husband to cover up Brodeur’s highly illegal toxic waste disposal practices (kind of like a grim version of Captain Planet this week, really.)

The family arena is where this week was really interesting, in my opinion. Dig tendered his resignation, but he kept Ollie’s vigilante habit secret. Walter discovered about $2.6 million missing from Queen Enterprises and, thanks to the detective work of last week’s quirky blonde tech girl, traced the money back to his wife and a secret spooky warehouse. He breaks into said warehouse by guessing one of the least-secure passwords ever and finds the wreckage of Ollie and Daddy Queen’s boat. The plot, she thickens! Is it possible that Walter isn’t as evil as his accent might suggest?

This, to me, was a much better episode than last week’s offering. Maybe I’m just too used to “no-kill” heroes like Batman or Spiderman, but Ollie’s “shoot first and autopsy later” policy has been a bit grim for me. This has been the first episode in which Oliver has actually had some sort of consequence to his vigilantism. Both Laurel and Dig expressed very strong opinions on what Ollie’s been getting up to, and while there was compromise, I don’t think either of them is going to fully back down on this. I like that Dig is gearing up to be a humanizing influence on Oliver.

I’m not entirely sure the writers quite know what to do with Laurel yet. She tends to swing from strong-willed, martial arts badass to broken bird damsel from episode to episode. Tonight was a decided turn towards a more Lois Lane character, and not the feisty, Terri-Hatcher-knows-kung-fu version. Granted, this could be an attempt at having a more complex character, but so far it feels more like they just don’t quite have a bead on how she fits into this storyline.

Best Quote:
Dig: You really did lose your mind on that island
Oliver: Found a couple of things along the way
Dig: Like what, archery classes?

Things to Ponder:

  • Deadshot seems a little too infamous to take out the brother of some random ex-military bodyguard. There has to be more to that story, don’t you think?
  • It’s pretty early in the series for the police to have figured out Ollie’s secret identity. What kind of red herring is going to throw off next week’s investigation?
  • Did anyone else have an ‘NSync moment when Ollie whipped out the “It’s gonna be me”?
  • Does the appearance of John Barrowman make up for this week’s lack of abs?

Review By: Jennifer Steele

Responses

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  1. Each episode is better than the previous one. The flashback scenes on the island were interesting. Looking forward to more Arrow.