I’m worried that four seasons in, Arrow is starting to show its age. For instance, do we still need that intro? The show is getting close to its hundredth episode, is there any risk of someone tuning in randomly and bolting upright halfway through, gasping “Oliver Queen and the Arrow are the same person?” It’s just an unfortunate indicator of Arrow‘s tendency to repeat itself – look at Damien Dahrk, who even Ra’s al Ghul was wary of, who arrives with his nefarious plan to…oh, destroy Star City. Very original. He must have gotten the idea from Malcolm Merlyn, or Slade Wilson, or Ra’s al Ghul. Arrow fetishizes the destruction of cities in a way that would make Roland Emmerich blush.
So is “The Candidate” a total disaster? No, not at all. There are a few parts of this episode that just flat-out work, and that’s due in no small part to the capable direction from Arrow vet John Behring, and the cast’s enviable chemistry together. Now that Red Arrow, Canary, and, um, Diggle in a Judge Dredd helmet are a firmly established crime-fighting team, Arrow gets to try its hand at being more of an ensemble show. And it succeeds admirably. Watching the team work together is one of this show’s new and most enjoyable pleasures, and while, yes, the team was established in season three, it was fractured early on, with Roy’s departure and Oliver’s involvement with the League.
Speaking of Roy: yes, I miss him, yes, Thea does a good job of filling his shoes, and no, I don’t want another storyline where Oliver has to look out for someone wearing red leather. Thea is starting to experience her Lazarus Pit hangover, which isn’t a totally boneheaded move on the show’s part, but it’s, again, more of the same. I will say that Willa Holland does anger well, and the best scene of “The Candidate” is a very intense, personal fight scene between her and Oliver (kudos again to Behring, who stages the hell out of Arrow‘s combat).
Jessica Danforth, an old family friend of the Queens, is running for mayor of Star City, which right away puts Oliver and Thea on edge, because A, the city is overrun with the forces of the Hive, and B, the last three mayors have been murdered (at least Arrow is seemingly aware of how often it returns to the same well). Danforth is played by Jeri Ryan of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame, and she does fine by a character who only gets a handful of scenes. My concern about Danforth is that her arrival breaks the New Girl Rule, which I made up while watching this episode. It refers to the arrival of Linda Cardellini on New Girl, playing Zooey Deschanel’s wild child sister, in a misguided bit of stunt casting that never once felt real. Are we supposed to buy into the importance of someone who we’ve never even heard the name of? Danforth – and Arrow – skates around this, but just barely. Her continued involvement, which is not a given, might change my mind.
Oliver and Thea are right to be worried, because Danforth is attacked at a press conference announcing her candidacy. The culprit isn’t the Hive, but rather Lonnie Machin, alias Anarky, because DC is hilariously bad at naming characters. Damien Darhk – see? Just terrible – is opposed to the kidnapping of Danforth’s daughter, which is a nice touch. Neal McDonough was bred in a lab to play characters like Darhk (principled psychopaths), which anyone who has seen season three of Justified can tell you. Danforth drops out of the race, leaving the audience wondering what the point of any of this was, until Oliver tells Thea that he plans to run for mayor. So Oliver is the titular candidate, in a nice tricky bit of plotting and misdirection.
That’s something I’m actually interested in! Also, how I’d like to know how the hell Quentin wound up in league with Darhk, because it’s so incredibly out of character that the explanation has to be totally insane.
A Few Thoughts
- Is someone in the writers room a big Brooklyn Nine-Nine fan? Because I can think of no other reason to have a gay black character whose last name is Holt. It’s just so bizarrely specific. There is one other prominent character on TV named Holt, and it’s a gay black man. It’s as if B99 had a bow-wielding vigilante named Oliver brought in, and expected it to not distract viewers
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