- Airdate: 11/20/2013
- Director: Bethany Rooney (Hart of Dixie, Drop Dead Diva, 90210, Private Practice, and Brothers & Sisters)
- Writer(s): Marc Guggenheim (Arrow’s Co-Creator/Executive Producer) & Drew Z. Greenberg (Arrow, Warehouse 13, Star Wars: The Clone Wars)
Arrow was once Batman Begins the TV show with a generous side helping of Brothers & Sisters-style family drama and CW romantic anguish. It was kind of an anti-comic book show. This season, however, they are fully embracing their comic book identity, and throwing every soap opera trick (which when done well can be fun) they can think of at us. Most of the big plot developments don’t really make any damn sense, but other than their apparent attempt to assassinate the character of Laurel it’s all also managed to be incredibly compelling escapist fun. Can you still be mad at their whole “Oliver was just lying about Sara the entire time last season” thing after Caity Lotz turned out to be so awesome as Sara/Canary? Plus, even though it didn’t make a lick of sense Oliver’s hook-up with Isabel (Summer Glau) in the last episode was played for effective humor. It was stupid, “that character would never behave that way,” but it was also kind of run, right?
When does it go too far? Around the time Malcolm Merlyn showed up at the end of “State Vs. Queen” to reveal not only is he alive but he’s also discovered he is Thea’s biological father. What. The. Hell. Was. That? As a result, “State Vs. Queen” was an episode which might be defined most by its last minute of screen time. There was a lot to get through before we saw that, though. So, let’s break it down:
THE MAIN PLOT
State Vs. Queen -
Moira’s trial has finally arrived. Because this is a TV show, the trial takes all of one episode, which appears to take place over maybe 1 or 2 full days. The prosecution uses Thea not having visited Moira in prison all summer to torpedo any argument about Moira having a close relationship with her children ( just keep telling yourself, “Marc Guggenheim co-wrote this episode, and he has a law degree and practiced law before becoming a TV producer/writer. He knows what he’s talking about, right?”). This forces Moira into testifying, but the prosecution – with Laurel the lead attorney after her boss gets a bad case of “abducted by Count Vertigo” – found the thing Moira dreaded: evidence that she indeed had an affair with Malcolm Merlyn. So, basically, the prosecution has said “she confessed to being guilty on live TV,” is a bad mother, and was also a bad wife with a romantic relationship with the man who supposedly coerced her.
That must have been one very awkward court room.
So, of course the jury finds Moira not guilty of all charges. Why? Because Malcolm “I Was Only Mostly Dead” Merlyn bought the jury for her. Plus, he has discovered that he is….pause for dramatic effect…Thea’s biological father. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.
Vertigo Is Back -
Count Vertigo (Seth Gabel) has been out of prison for 6 months now, after escpaing through a V-shaped (you know, as in V for Vertigo) crack in the prison wall caused by Merlyn Malcolm’s earthquake machine. But, wait, wasn’t Vertigo basically insane and comatose last time we saw him? Yeah, but…shut up. Felicity later says Vertigo recovered. So, just go with it. His plan is to slip a super-addictive new iteration of his vertigo drug into flu shots as a way of luring Arrow out into the open so that he might kill him, as per Sebastian Blood’s orders. Oliver and Felicity first catch on when Diggle is infected with vertigo, but the Count fills them in on the rest after abducting Felicity and deducing Oliver is Arrow. Oliver puts three arrows in Vertigo’s chest before he can inject Felicity with a fatal dose of his drug. Felicity’s super sorry Oliver had to violate his new moral code and kill someone. She’s so sorry, in fact, she kind of uses her body language during their conversation to invite him to kiss her if he’d like, an invitation rebuked. Or they’re just really close friends comforting one another and not everything has a romantic subtext. Oh, and Diggle’s totally fine because Queen Consolidated scientists produced a cure in record speed.
Meanwhile, On the Island… -
Ivo and his men (and Sara) find Shado and Slade’s hide-out on the island, and apparently think that if you shoot at something and nothing happens in response that means it’s completely empty. Of course, Shado and Slade were in there, both being excellent at hiding and bomb diffusing. They later rescue Oliver, who drags Sara along with him. Due to Ivo’s rantings, they know the arrowhead is definitely the key to his research, and Sara says they should look for a Japanese WWII submarine that surfaced on the island. Whatever is in the submarine can, in combination with the arrowhead, help cure Slade of his near critical wounds, including a pretty much completely half-black face.
WHAT I LIKED
–Moira standing trial while also being directly responsible for the heinous actions perpetrated elsewhere in the plot by Count Vertigo was a nice way of connecting the plots. Vertigo did, after all, only escape from prison due to the effects of the earthquake machine Moira helped Malcolm Merlyn put into place. Plus, Vertigo also let the Doll Maker out, and we saw what horrible things that sick bastard did in episode 3. So, while Oliver is responsible for not having taken out Vertigo in the past, it is his mother who played a part in Vertigo being back onto the streets.
– Seth Gabel’s two performances last season as Count Vertigo were incredibly divisive. Others have described Gabel’s work as Vertigo as him cackling his way through an incredibly regrettable imitation of The Joker in Dark Knight. Here, Gabel was a wee bit over-the-top for my liking a couple of times. However, his entire last sequence with Oliver and Felicity was fantastic. He brought with him an incredibly new menace to the performance that made me legitimately unhappy to see the character killed off. The notion of a villain who knew Arrow’s identity could have been fun to play with, even if Vertigo figuring it all out so fast makes poor Quentin Lance seem extra stupid for having yet to figure it out.
–Barrowman! He’s back! He was so good last year as Malcolm Merlyn that I instantly delighted in seeing him again, even if I saw it coming the moment Moira got into her limousine. After all, this show mostly just puts her in limousines on the way to one of her patented clandestine meetings in a darkened alley with Malcolm or someone of a similar ilk. Sure, it seemed like Malcolm died last season, but they kept that vague, only recently having a character even say Malcom was dead. However, the Sara example has taught us that the characters on this show are no good filthy liars. His return cheapens his exit, but Barrowman is unquestionably fantastic as Malcolm.
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
–What cheapens Malcolm even more is bringing him back only to give him baby daddy drama. It’s like, “Crap, we killed off both Barrowman and the guy playing his son, and they were amazing. So, umm, bring Barrowman back and just say one of Moira’s kids is actually his? Problem solved.”
So, Moira and Malcolm had an affair? Even though we had already done that plot last season? You remember how they made Thea believe the two were having an affair, but Moira denied it, with the audience knowing the truth that Moira and Malcolm were actually secretly planning the undertaking. You could argue that they kept it purposefully vague last year with Moira ducking Oliver’s direct questions about Malcolm. We simply assumed it was part of her effort to hide the undertaking from the family. It turns out there was more to the story.
Moira and Malcom, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g, first comes love, then comes….Thea
However, Malcolm cheated on his wife? The same wife whose death was the straight up sole motivating factor behind his decision to become a mass-murderer targeting the poorest people in all of Starling City? Granted, nothing in that necessarily inherently means the two had a model marriage prior to her death. In fact, we can add an extra layer of guilt to his motivations in that regard. However, we also had no real reason to suspect anything of the sort until now. This 100% screams of a show that is making this up as they go, are searching for a way to re-introduce conflict into Moira and Thea’s relationship, and need another big secret for Moira and Malcolm to discuss in clandestine meetings. Just like the Isabel/Oliver pairing last week, though, this doesn’t make any sense.
–Oliver broke his new moral code, and killed Vertigo to protect Felicity. Angel fans might be reminded to some degree of the season 5 episode in which Wesley (Alexis Denisof) kills what he believes to be his father because it meant saving the life of Fred (Amy Acker), particularly how instantaneously our hero reacted in both cases to save the girl when she was placed in supreme peril. However, for Oliver’s dilemma to really mean anything there needed to be some consistency here. Oliver had absolutely no problem watching Russian guards being gunned down last week, and it sure seemed like he was killing all of The Mayor’s men in The Glades a couple of episodes ago in “The Crucible.” They did at least play with Oliver’s not-killing vs. Sara’s preference for killing.
–One of the promising elements of a return for Count Vertigo was the potential to see what he was like after his experience in the mental hospital. Or at the very least we would find out how exactly he recovered from his last encounter with Oliver. Well, we pretty much got neither. He acts as he always did, and there’s no explanation, really, for why he’s not more messed up. However, part of his menace in the last scene is directly due to his justified anger at Arrow for giving him a near-fatal overdose last season.
–Laurel yet again being asked by Oliver if she is okay is bad enough, but her just flat out running away from him? What the hell are they doing with this character anymore? Katie Cassidy is giving it her best, but she deserves better than this. This is starting to seem like a long-form PSA for substance abuse. I foresee a commercial break where after Laurel has finally had her break-down and asked Oliver for help we see Katie Cassidy deliver a solemn, short speech about not being afraid to ask for help and then directing us to a website or phone number for more information.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The trial of Moira is now behind us, Malcolm is back, and Sebastian Blood is gunning for Arrow. That all promises good things. However, while the trial may have been an unpopular storyline among some it seems ridiculous they’d rush through the actual trial in one episode, and have Moira get off scott free in such an obviously unjust way it’s a wonder there wasn’t rioting. Plus, Malcolm has been brought back because he’s Thea’s dad? It’s certainly a surprise; just not a good one. Seth Gabel made for a fun villain, so fun it was a shame to see him killed.
THE NOTES
1. The Flash Tease of the Week
We hear via news report that the STAR Labs particle accelerator project will take place on schedule.
2. Roy Let Thea Know the Joys of Boxing as Stress Relief
That was kind of sweet, actually.
The show will return in two weeks for the first of the two-part mid-season finale. Don’t worry, though. It’ll be back in a flash, with Grant Gustin as Barry Allen showing up in the next two episodes, although he likely won’t become The Flash until his own pilot for his spin-off show.
What did you think? Like it? Hate it? Let us know in the comments section.
All of the pictures used in the above review came from CWTV.com © 2013 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Second Opinions
- TV Club: Arrow: “State v. Queen” (avclub.com)
- Arrow Season 2 “State v. Queen” Recap and Review (theworldgoespop.com)
- Arrow “State vs Queen” (comicvine.com)