‘Arrow’ 1.06 Episode Review And Recap: Legacies

Stick-fighting and crime-fighting on this week’s episode of Arrow!

For those who missed out this week, let’s catch you up: The episode opens up by getting the obligatory topless workout scene out of the way early. Ollie is teaching Dig the ancient art of shirtless stick-fighting. Dig, in his dual capacity as the Voice of Reason and He Who is Not on the Posters, is still allowed to wear a tank top. As the aforementioned Voice of Reason, Dig has decided to get Ollie to expand his horizons past the Revenge List and look into taking care of violent crimes as well as white collar. Ollie’s not really feeling it until Dig gets him involved in the case of a cop who was shot during a bank robbery by the infamous Royal Flush Gang. Conveniently, the Gang is nominally headed by Derek Reston, the unfairly fired ex-foreman of one of Daddy Queen’s factories, allowing Ollie to fight street crime while still “righting his father’s wrongs.”

Ollie tries to get Derek to give up his wicked ways, but Derek and the rest of his family are mostly listening to their hot-headed son Kyle (Kyle Schmid, Being Human). The Hood shows up to foil what would be the Royal Flush Gang’s very last robbery, but Derek ends up getting shot by the bank security guard, sending yet another relatively major DC villain/gang up the river. Arrow really is blowing through these guys quickly!

In the island flashbacks, Ollie is still trapped in his jungle cave and slowly starving to death. He’s starting to use the blank Revenge Book for fuel, which summons the Ghost of Daddy Issues Past. Ghost Dad spends most of the flashbacks badgering Ollie into getting off his (well-toned) rear and finding a way to survive. Ollie wakes up when he finally agrees to make his father’s death worth something, and that is when we find out the important part of this particular flashback. The blank Revenge Book isn’t so blank. Everything’s been written down in lemon juice (or something similarly acidic)!

The family subplots were a little weak this episode, to be honest. Tommy is trying to impress Laurel, and so gets advice from the only person on the show who probably watched Gossip Girl, Thea. Said advice doesn’t work nearly as well as Tommy’s honest nice-guy moment of taking care of Thea, who is drunk on champagne and unrequited “I thought you meant me!” teen angst. Moira, on the other hand, is trying to get her family back into the social groove by inviting the comedically-perfect Carter Bowen and family to brunch. Nothing comes of this in particular except a series of events that Ollie has to sneak out of to go do hero things.

I really liked where this episode went with regards to The Hood. If Ollie is ever going to become the Green Arrow that we all know and love, then this series has some definite groundwork to lay to transition him from revenge-driven vigilante to dashing, debonair crime-fighter. It looks like Dig is going to be one of the primary instruments of that change, and more screen time for David Ramsey can’t be a bad thing.

I wasn’t really down with the Tommy/Thea subplot this week, though. Starry-eyed teen crushing on the older brother’s BFF has been done many, many times before. It felt like a cheap way to give Thea something to do this episode and a bit of a regression for the character as a whole. All of the issues that they’ve written for her have been so much deeper and long-term so far. This one just seemed a little too sudden and a bit Degrassi for me.

No Arrow next week, but two weeks from now, we’ll be meeting The Huntress! Is anyone else as excited as I am?

Best Quote:
Dig: “Please tell me you’re not going where I think you’re going.”
Ollie: “Diggle, why do you even ask?”

Things to Ponder:

  • I don’t know about you guys, but I want to see Carter Bowen come back as a supervillain. No one can be that perfect and not be evil. Thoughts?

Responses

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *