“Corto Maltese” was Arrow‘s way of checking in with the women of the show, two of which are becoming ass-kicking badasses, and the third of which acted like a fucking ditz all night. Guess which one it was! Felicity interrupts Ray Palmer so she can take a personal call – making him stand there waiting like a schmuck – and then asks for time off on what must be her third or fourth day of working for him. Felicity, Ray is your BOSS. She’s really good at her job, but that new office must have gone to her head, because she pretty much immediately checks out. She’s already Office Space-ing at a billion dollar corporation. And this isn’t the usual cute ditzy Felicity Smoak, it’s just straight up annoying and rude. I honestly don’t know why it bugged me so much.
So Team Arrow – or some of it – takes a field trip to Corto Maltese to pick up Thea, who naturally doesn’t want to go home. The Thea flashbacks detailing her training with Malcolm are actually pretty badass, and it was genuinely shocking to see him hit her until she picked up a sword. Arrow always surprises me with its violence, probably because it’s on the CW and it’s not a show about sexy vampires telling the lonely viewers how pretty they are and of course I’ll go to the prom with you, how jealous will Becky be to see you show up with Ian Somerhalder?
I digress.
Since Thea thinking things over doesn’t make for compelling TV, Oliver, Diggle, and Roy accept a side quest to stop a double agent from selling a list of ARGUS agents, and if this sounds like the plot of Skyfall, then good job, you’ve seen Skyfall. There’s a pretty great shootout, handled nicely by director Stephen Surjik (Burn Notice, Wayne’s World 2), and Shaw, the double agent, makes a pretty compelling argument to Diggle for why Lyla should get the hell out of ARGUS. Between this and Oliver’s Hong Kong flashbacks, it looks like we’ll be getting more Amanda Waller this season, which is fine by me, because she is erotically terrifying.
Laurel is going from 0 to Black Canary with remarkable speed. She tries to beat up the abusive boyfriend of a woman she knows from AA, only to get her ass kicked in the process, which is kind of a rite of passage if you’re becoming a superhero. I’m glad Katie Cassidy is getting meatier material, but I don’t want to hear her talk about being tempted by booze every ten seconds. Since Oliver won’t train her – saying Sara would never forgive him, also, what if he has other shit going on, Laurel? – Laurel turns to Ted Grant (Wildcat in the comics), who seriously ups the beefcake quotient on Arrow. Between Oliver, Diggle, Roy, Ray, Quentin, and now Ted, I’m starting to think that Star City is populated almost entirely by Calvin Klein models.
Overall, the country of Corto Maltese – which is fictional – doesn’t make much of an impression in an episode named for it. I guess they just needed somewhere to go. The good news is, this episode did such a good job with 2/3 of its female cast that it’s earned a lot of leeway.
A Few Thoughts
- Looks like Felicity is heading to Central City for a Flash cameo. Because that’s who people want in a Flash/Arrow crossover
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Everyone was super sweaty this week
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