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- Airdate: 1/29/2014
- Director: Guy Bee (Arrow, Supernatural, Criminal Minds)
- Writer(s): Marc Guggenheim (Arrow Co-creator/Executive Producer) & Drew Z. Greenberg (Arrow, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Warehouse 13) – These two also wrote earlier season 2 episode “State Vs. Queen” together.
Last week, Arrow set about solving a problem like Laurel Lance by having her be the sanest person in the room before completely shattering her confidence, stripping her of her job and Oliver’s unyielding support. Roy, on the other hand, finally become too loose a cannon for Oliver to ignore. It was an episode whose big emotional moments landed as intended even if the logic of the plot lines didn’t pass the smell test. This week, on the other hand, was just a big ole mess.
Let’s break it down:
THE MAIN PLOT THREADS -
No One Understands You, Roy, But Oliver Does -
Oliver’s attempts to train Roy mostly amount to Oliver yelling, “You have to learn control” only to have Roy then punch something so hard he breaks it. Not surprisingly, Roy loses control when Oliver reluctantly takes him into the field to investigate a heist at Malcolm Merlyn’s old mansion. Turns out Bronze Tiger has been busted out of prison and hired by someone to steal a prototype of Merlyn’s earthquake machine. Oliver would have stopped them right there if Roy hadn’t nearly punched one of the goons to death. Roy later cancels their partnership, literally tosses Oliver across a room, and heads off to stop Bronze Tiger on his own. However, Oliver and Roy only manage to stop the bad guys by working together. Roy does go apeshit yet again in beating the bloody hell out of Bronze Tiger, but an unmasked Oliver reveals his secret identity and convinces Roy to stop the hastily turned on earthquake machine. They just blow it up together. In the end, Roy is initiated into Team Arrow, meeting both Felicity and Diggle, while Tiger is sent to prison where Amanda Waller recruits him into the Suicide Squad.
Moira – An Unexpected Candidate -
Moira has a dinner date with Walter. Oh la la. Could love be in the air? Has Walter forgiven her for that whole ”partially responsible for you being captured and held hostage for a couple of months” thing? Maybe, but love is definitely not in the cards. Instead, Walter and a political consultant want Moira to run for mayor because Sebastian Blood’s campaign policies would bankrupt the city in 8 months if enacted. Speaking for any sane person, Moira thinks it’s a positively ludicrous idea, yet everyone keeps saying things like, “I’d vote for you.” So, Moira decides to run for mayor, although now her pesky doctor who knows Thea wasn’t Robert Queen’s daughter must be dealt with. Now, that sounds more like the Moira we used to know.
Laurel’s Having a Bad Week -
Last week, Laurel was kicked down. This week, she’s forcefully pushed even further to the ground, told to stay down each time she tries to get back up. Try to make things right with dad by having a nice dinner together? Your dad lied about dinner to try and trick you into attending an AA meeting. Try to find a job at old pal Joanna’s new law firm? Your resume for the new job came to the attention of a member of the state bar association who is now investigating the circumstances of your firing from your last job. As a result, you are probably about to be disbarred. Goodbye, law career. There’s always that career as a florist the comic book version of Laurel enjoyed, right?
After such a depressing turn of events, Laurel would have likely preferred to turn to pills, but those were confiscated last week. So, she enjoys any alcoholic drinks that come with olives at Oliver’s bar, and when Oliver and Thea try to cut her off she insults both of them and maybe, kind of, sort of also an onlooking Felicity. Oliver’s too busy to deal with this. So, he calls someone to help. We’re probably supposed to think he called Laurel’s dad, but the episode cliffhangs by revealing he really called Sara, who hovers over a drunken Laurel in her apartment.
Meanwhile, Back On the Island… -
Sara and Oliver track Slade to the cave with the dead Japanese WWII soldiers. Luckily, Slade left behind rocket launcher drawings on the cave walls. Oliver quickly deduces Slade means to use the rocket launcher from last season to sink Ivo’s ship, the same ship that’s still their only way off the island. Well, that’s not good. So, at the rocket launcher Oliver talks Slade down, even after having a gun pointed at this head. His message? [paraphrasing]: “Shado loved you, not the way you wanted, but she sure thought you were swell. Now, you can’t blow up that boat because we’re going to steal it!” It works.
THE REVIEW
It’s the rare episode of Arrow where you know you’re in trouble based solely on the cold open (the pre-title card sequence). However, “Tremors” immediately overreached by asking us to buy a man having smuggled into a prison each individual item of Bronze Tiger’s (Michael Jai White) metal claw under his skin. The immediate reference point is the prisoner with the bomb sown into his stomach by the Joker in The Dark Knight. Plus, maybe history has shown this type of thing to happen from time to time. However, when I saw a guy randomly pulling blades and a claw out of different parts of his body at the beginning of “Tremors” my reaction was an indignant, “Oh, come on!” Then the stupid prison guard turned his back on Bronze Tiger even though he was clearly hiding something, and I said it again. Sadly, that was a common reaction for the remainder of the episode:
- Oliver’s disguise and modulated voice is good enough to fool anyone who doesn’t know him, but how did Roy not recognize him? It’s not like that warehouse was as dimly lit as that rooftop Oliver always seems to meet Detective Lance on.
- Malcolm Merlyn just happens to have a prototype of the earthquake machine stored in the basement of his mansion that criminals know about, but every law agency which has surely gone over every details of Merlyn’s life and possessions after last season had no idea?
- The bad guy paying Bronze Tiger just panics and turns on the earthquake machine?
- Oliver can’t open the shipyard containers on his own?
- All they had to do to stop the machine was blow it up? Really? I know it’s a prototype, but don’t we remember how much trouble Detective Lance had shutting down a full version of the machine last season?
- Moira Queen is going to run for mayor? No, seriously, you’re actually having her run for mayor? This is the same Moira who got off scott free in such an obviously unjust way it’s a wonder there wasn’t rioting, and when Oliver threw her a “welcome back to work” party hardly anyone showed up to support her. Now, you’re telling me nearly half of polled voters feel sympathetic toward her?
- Felicity and Diggle are all “Can we really trust Roy?” one minute but all smiles and “Welcome to the team!” the next?
However, this is a comic book show. Plus, we are a long way removed from the Christopher Nolan mimicry of season 1. Realism is no longer their dramatic calling card but instead an anchor they are not entirely concerned with maintaining. So, is it possible I am just nitpicking “Tremors” the way it is so easy to nitpick big comic book movies? What was Arrow really trying to accomplish here?
“Tremors” clearly references the potential literal tremors associated with the earthquake machine as well as the trembling hand symptom shared by Slade and Roy as a result of the mirakuru. Furthermore, Sara’s early line about love being the most powerful emotion but also the most dangerous applies to the resolutions reached with Slade in the past and Roy in the present, both pacified by Oliver’s appeal to think of the person they loved to keep on the path of good. The intent to parallel Slade and Roy is obvious, with this connection being just another method by which the writers are attempting this season to make the island flashbacks far more directly (instead of just thematically) relate to present day story lines.
However, it seemed bizarre that for both Slade and Roy’s storyline they would roll out last season’s two big doomsday devices, the rocket launcher on the island and a lesser version of the earthquake machine. Those were both such big deals last season tying into season-long story arcs. However, now here they were in a normal episode with no build-up. For Roy’s story, the device doesn’t really matter. They simply tried to create a situation where Roy had to be the hero when Oliver couldn’t and save Thea without reverting to a more standard Thea as damsel in distress scenario. That makes the earthquake machine an obvious solution, but whenever you do a callback like this to your big bad device from a year ago you are playing with fire because it introduces questions you usually don’t answer.
Elsewhere, involving Moira in a mayoral election in opposition to Sebastian Blood seems like another way in which the writers are following through on their stated goal to streamline all stories this season to more revolve around Oliver. Last week, the show at least temporarily removed the main opposition to Blood’s criminal persona by destroying Laurel’s credibility. Now Moira enters as the counterpoint to Blood’s public persona. This is the same Sebastian that Oliver has publicly endorsed and considers to be his friend, thus re-introducing the potential for conflict in Oliver’s relationship with his mom. Plus, it finally brings back the backburnered drama about Thea’s true parentage, thus now placing both Moira and Thea into the Sebastian/Slade story line.
The problem is that they had to spend an entire episode trying to convince us that Moira running for mayor actually makes sense. For their storytelling needs, it absolutely does-it’s her new redemptive arc. However, for the universe of Arrow it’s a harder sell. Remember, that in “State Vs. Queen” (also written by Guggenheim and Greenberg) the prosecution’s argument was Moira 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. Her defense pretty much had no case, and no one, not even Oliver, understood how she ended up being found not guilty (they still don’t know Merlyn bought the jury). This is the woman who will now run for mayor in that universe. They try to compare her to politicians who sought redemption in the public sphere, but a couple of sex scandals are not the same as being partially responsible for the catastrophic deaths of over 1000 people. This is a ludicrous concept they’re hoping we’ll go with because they’ve earned our patience, or because we realize Susanna Thompson’s Moira Queen will be amazing opposite Kevin Alejandro’s Sebastian Blood.
The person who then stuck out this week was Laurel, who returned to sort of existing in her own separate TV show before crossing over into the proper Arrow show at the bar and at the end with Sara in her apartment. It’s hard to imagine this moment not being rock bottom for her character, but they do like to maker her suffer. Katie Cassidy’s drunk acting might have seemed big, but if so you didn’t see what Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch just did on Sherlock last week. For Laurel (and probably Cassidy’s sake), Sara’s return to Starling City couldn’t have been better timed. At some point, they have to let Laurel get back up off the ground as she’s kind of been down there this whole season.
Someone in the comments section of my review of last week’s episode, “Blind Spot,” argued they weren’t interested in finding out more about Laurel when there’s a character like Felicity around whose background remains mostly a mystery. However, my bigger criticism might be that the recent ascension of Roy to sidekick status has meant the demotion of Diggle to, what, cracking jokes and making concerned comments from the peanut gallery? Plus, what ever happened to Diggle actually helping Oliver in the field? I know he was just shot two episodes ago, but that doesn’t seem to be a factor here.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The first two episodes (“Blast Radius,” “Blind Spot”) since the mid-season finale were busy, transitional pieces which were easy to nitpick but still managed to land their big emotional moments. However, “Tremors” is an episode which happily brings back Walter, gives Moira more to do yet ultimately feels a tad messy. Not even the emotional moments manage to completely land because the crazy leaps of logic are too big to ignore this time, with no great action scene or impeccable sense of pacing around to distract us by entertaining us. Even then, Stephen Amell continues to shine as Oliver (even back to being shirtless for no reason this week), Felicity still gets a good line or two, and the cliffhanger promises a far better episode next week. We sure hope so because this one wasn’t that good.
THE NOTES
1. Comic Book 101: Ben Turner, aka, Bronze Tiger
- First Appearance: 1974
At the age of 10, Ben Turner killed a burglar with a kitchen knife. Alarmed by his ensuing rage, he funneled his energies into martial arts, eventually traveling East and studying under a legendary sensei. He and a partner, Richard Dragon, bounced around from organization to organization until the CIA had them attempt to take down the League of Assassins. That went…poorly. Turner was brainwashed by the League into becoming their masked assassin named Bronze Tiger. As Tiger, he most famously defeated Batman in one-on-one combat while attempting to assassinate Batwoman. After that, Turner was deprogrammed and recruited into Amanda Waller’s group of incarcerated supervillains known as the Suicide Squad who serve government missions in return for a commuted prison sentence. Turner is actually one of the few kind of nice guys, sometimes serving as leader of the Squad.
Michael Jai White played Turner mostly as a thug earlier this season, and although his costume hasn’t greatly improved he appear to have ever, ever-so slightly more shading in “Tremors” as in he doesn’t seem 100% okay with the earthquake machine, more like 98% okay.
2. Would it sound less or more goofy if everyone on the show finally stopped calling the dang drug Mirakuru but instead by its American translation – The Miracle?
3. So much now apparently rides on Slade’s love and anguish over Shado that it seems all the more glaring how relatively little they did to establish their connection prior to her death.
4. How on Earth will Roy ever explain to Thea what the hell was going on that day he came into the club, commanded her to leave town with her family, just about crushed her arm, and then ran away while staring at his trembling hand?
5. Favorite joke of the night? Oliver’s playfully looking up at the roof of the Arrow cave/floor of the club when Thea calls him and asks how close he is to the club.
What did you think? Like “Tremors”? Hate it? Love it? Let us know in the comments section.
All of the pictures used in the above review, unless otherwise noted, came from CWTV.com © 2014 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Second Opinions
- Review – Arrow, “Tremors” (screencrush.com)
- TV Club: Arrow – “Tremors” (avclub.com)
