Friday, October 19, 2012

Arrow 1.02: "Honor Thy Father"

“Look, I know it was hell where you were. But it was hell here, too. You gotta let me in, Oli. You gotta let someone in.”
- Thea

Much like the pilot, we begin with a voice over from Oliver, explaining about his father’s wish to clean up the city. We see Oliver as Arrow taking down yet another corrupt business man. Next we find him; he’s off to court to have the ruling of death in absentia nullified. I have to say I wasn’t aware that was a real thing but it makes sense. I still don’t particularly like the voice overs. I think they’re somewhat distracting. But it appears they are here to stay. Anyway, after the hearing, Oliver and Tommy run into Laurel, her friend and their client. Laurel is still kind of cranky with Oliver for sleeping with her sister. Or maybe she’s just acting tough for her client. Not surprisingly, the defendant is another wealthy businessman named Martin Summers who may have ties to the Chinese mafia. As Laurel gives her opening statement, we see Oliver working out and training. He’s going to have his crack at the guy too as the name is in his father’s little book. In fact Oliver threatens to kill Summers if he doesn’t testify that he had the father of Laurel’s client killed.

Back at the Queen mansion, Moira is none-too-pleased that the body guard she hired to protect Oliver can’t keep track of her son. Oliver materializes and feeds his mom a line about being “alone” for five years (apparently this implies he’s getting laid…a lot). He promises to take his body guard with him from now on just as Thea is heading out. She’s on her way to a party to get drunk. She gives Oliver a grief saying all he’s been doing is judging her and ignoring the rest of the family. She can’t see he’s trying to stop her from turning into him pre-castaway. I mean I can see how it’s hard for Oliver. He’s trying to act like he’s still that jackass pretty boy at the same time he’s trying to rectify the city’s wrongs.

Apparently one of Summers’ minions called 9-1-1 after Oliver popped around and Detective Lance is not happy. He doesn’t trust Summers and he certainly doesn’t like him. In fact he gives Laurel around the clock police protection and no matter how much she wants to argue about it, he’s not letting up. Meanwhile, Oliver is getting a tour of Queen Consolidated. The company has been successful in various fields and they’re breaking ground on a new facility for one of the science divisions and Walter and Moira want to name it after Oliver’s dad. Which Oliver is okay with. He’s not happy about being asked to head up his own company. He gets a little pep talk from Diggle (bodyguard) and I have to say, I think they could actually work well together. Diggle is a good guy. We get another flashback to the beginning of Oliver’s time on the island. His dad’s body is still in the life raft and scavenger birds are starting to circle. Oliver is understandably upset and after puking (likely from the smell of decaying corpse) he drags his father’s body from the raft.

We briefly visit Mr. Summers having a meeting with his Triad contact, China White. I’m not familiar with the villains in the Green Arrow ‘verse but this lady has a really bad wig on. The white hair just looks so unnatural. She says she’s going to go after Laurel since going after Oliver’s alter ego and Laurel’s client are too difficult. The next morning Thea sees Oliver’s scars and gets bitchy when he doesn’t want to talk about it. He sort of apologies and says he needs to get better at talking about it but he’s just not ready yet. Thea takes him to visit the family graves (which is kind of creepy and what with Oliver being alive and stuff…they ought to get rid of his headstone). She used to talk to Oliver’s grave and she tells him he needs to talk to someone. So that obviously translates to going to see Laurel. She lets him in and they share ice cream (Oliver dreamed about eating it on the island). Things are going well. At least they’re not arguing or glaring at each other. Of course, things have to get interrupted. Oliver hears someone on the fire escape and a bunch of goons along with China White bust in. Thankfully Diggle is around and takes out two of the guys. He gets a few good swings in at China and Oliver even saves Diggle with a well-timed throw. Guess having a bodyguard can come in handy. I really think they’d make a great ass-kicking duo.

In the aftermath, Detective Lance shows up and tells Oliver to stay the hell away from his daughter (after thanking Diggle of course). So much for Lance blaming himself more than Oliver for Sarah going on the boat trip in the first place. Diggle and Oliver head back to the mansion and Diggle makes a rather astute assessment of Oliver’s knife-throwing abilities. Oliver brushes it off as luck and feigns being tired. He’s just off to take out Summers for trying to hurt Laurel. He manages to take out a lot of his goons but Lance gets called to the docks mid-assault. I guess it was probably for the best seeing as he was losing the argument about trying to keep Laurel safe. There was no way she was going to recuse herself from the case or drop it (which honestly makes me twitchy seeing as whether to go forward with a case is the client’s call not the attorney’s).

Oliver is pretty good at getting Summers to confess. He even has a decent fight with China White before they both take off after the cops arrive. Oliver nearly gets caught by Detective Lance but leaves an arrow that recorded Summers’ confession. Handy little things. Laurel is kind of happy that Arrow is around. He got justice for her client. At the ground-breaking ceremony, Oliver shows up and it appears he’s a little drunk. But he makes it clear he wants people to stop expecting him to be someone he’s not. He flashes back yet again to the island as he carries his father’s body up a cliff and buries it (after finding his dad’s little book of names). He has a little heart to heart with his father’s headstone, saying that in order to honor his father’s wishes, he may have to dishonor his father’s memory. His mother continues to plot with someone who has a notebook with the same symbol as Oliver’s dad. We end with Oliver getting shot by a spear on the island. So at least we know how he got some of those scars.

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