For a while now, Arrow has been the strongest superhero series on television; it’s more focused than Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and way less campy than Gotham (although it does face some serious competition after The Flash‘s excellent debut). Arrow‘s second season ironed out the wrinkles of the first; it deepened the mystery, and strengthened the personal bonds that, at the end of the day, serve as the core of the show. So it’s a huge relief that Arrow comes back swinging into its third season. “The Calm” is a superb episode.
All seems well in Starling City. Crime is down, and Oliver finds himself finally able to relax enough to ask Felicity out on a date. Or a date date, in her words. (Stephen Amell and Emily Bett Rickards retain their adorably awkward style of flirting, really selling the idea that two such beatiful people could be bad at hooking up.) Also, Team Arrow has gotten stronger, especially with the full-time addition of Roy Harper, looking seriously badasss in his Red Arrow costume. But like a bad penny, crime always turns up, and this time it’s a deceptively familiar face: the Count. Of course, this is a new Count, Werner Zytle, played by Peter Stormare because of course he is. Zytle fires an RPG into the restaurant where Oliver and Felicity were dining, a go-for-broke act of villainy somewhat undercut by Stormare cheesily whistling “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” If we could put a moratorium on people whistling menacingly, that’d be great; I can think of only two instances where it worked, in The Wire and Fritz Lang’s M.
Oliver goes looking for Werner, and is joined by now-Captain Quentin Lance, sporting a buzz cut that looks great as a topper to Paul Blackthorne’s authoritative scowl. Werner makes a pretty badass entrance – he says “I’m Werner Zytle,” then sticks Oliver with a new, extra-potent dose of Vertigo, one designed to make you see your biggest fear, which A, worked better in Batman Begins, and B, why would anyone buy that?
Oliver has problems elsewhere as well, namely in the form of Ray Palmer (whom comic readers will recognize as the Atom). Palmer wants to buy Queen Consolidated, and rebrand Starling City as Star City. As played by Brandon Routh, Palmer exudes such boyish charm that I kind of want to sell the company to him too, so it’s not surprising that the board of directors hands him the keys to the kingdom.
There’s so much that Arrow gets right in “The Calm” that its easy – perhaps too easy – to overlook what it does wrong (I admit to being easily impressed with this show). Stormare is most likely a one-off villain, if a well-cast one at that; his decree that someone will always take up the mantle of the Count ensures that we’ll have to deal with the tiresome Vertigo storyline until Arrow‘s bitter end. Laurel gets little and less to do, until the end of the episode, where Arrow teases the audience with a bigger role for her in the future. Furthermore, Barry Allen’s cameo on Arrow seemed much more awkwardly shoehorned-in than did Oliver Queen’s cameo on The Flash.
But “The Calm” proves pretty conclusively that Arrow creators Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg, and Marc Guggenheim have not lost their touch. The team dynamic is as strong as ever, and with the eleventh-hour assassination of Sara Lance, Arrow proves that it’s not messing around. It’s a bold move, killing Sara, but also a smart one. The Black Canary mask is dropped at Laurel’s feet, leaving little doubt that she’ll pick up the mantle, but more importantly, who was that voice heard right before Sara was killed? Malcolm Merlyn? Ra’s al Ghul? See, these are the things that keep me coming back to Arrow.
About Author
