Green Arrow - 3x01 The Calm - Review

The Calm before The Storm

The CW's breakout superhero hit continues its hot streak with this phenomenal season 3 opener. Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) continues fighting the good fight as "The Arrow," alongside his fellow teammates: John Diggle (David Ramsey), Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) and the now fully fledged Roy Harper (Colton Haynes) as Arsenal. A new threat emerges from two fronts. One is the return of a familiar foe but with a new face (Peter Stormare) while the other (Brandon Routh) threatens very charmingly to take over Oliver's company.

This season opener starts with a bang. A really big one. It is a high speed case of grand theft auto showing Team Arrow taking down an eighteen wheeler in stylish superhero fashion. It is a great way to start the season and also surprisingly a really nice way of letting new viewers know who each character is and what they can do. You got Stephen Amell as our title character, Arrow, better known as Oliver Queen. He is still the efficient vigilante that he was in the past two seasons and it doesn't seem like he's going to stop being efficient anytime soon. But speaking of efficiency, we now have Colton Haynes really in sync with the team now as Arsenal, better known as Roy Harper. I refer to him as Arsenal mainly because this show doesn't seem to want to call him Red Arrow or Speedy, the actual superhero names of his character in the comics. Harper has is own red rendition of Queen's costume, which honestly looks a little bit more badass than Queen's. And of course you got David Ramsey's John Diggle, the veteran of the team and actual war veteran. While he has been a major part of the team in the past two seasons, Queen seems to be relegating Diggle to tasks that would keep him out of approximate danger. Which makes sense given that Diggle has a baby on the way, and Queen doesn't want a child to grow up without a father. Diggle is of course resentful of this at first, but in the end, he understands that Queen is right. However, Queen also acknowledges that Diggle is still an essential part of the team, and should help with what he can.

But what about that last teammate that fangirls of the show have been using as their conduit to have fantasies with Oliver Queen? Emily Bett Rickards returns as the lovable geeky tech girl, Felicity Smoak. Or as I like to call her, the hottest girl in the main cast when she takes her glasses off and lets her hair down. The lovable dork and awkward conversationist has been the subject of many fangirls wanting her Felicity and Oliver to get together, a subject referred to as Olicity. Well, this season didn't beat around that bush for too long. The season opener deals with the possibility of Oliver and Felicity becoming a couple as Oliver asks her out on a date within the opening minutes of the episode. I can already imagine the twitter stream from fangirls exploding, and maybe some fanboys too. While as a comic book fan I know this won't last because after all, destiny has already decided in the comic books that it will always be Oliver Queen and Laurel Lance as the definitive couple for the series. However, it was good for the show to address this right away. Because I mean, how long can someone dangle a maybe in front of someone's face? See what I did there?

Speaking of Katie Cassidy's Laurel Lance, she seems to be doing a lot better. She's once again a working attorney and now that she knows Oliver's extracurricular activities, she is taking the fight against crime to whole new level. The way Laurel puts it to Oliver is he bags them and she finishes them, through actual legal work. There wasn't much for her to do in the episode besides establish that her and Oliver are now on good terms compared to the events of last season. And things seem to be pretty good for them so far. However it does bring up her concern for her father, Captain Quentin Lance played by Paul Blackthorne. Last time Quentin was seen, he was a disgraced officer who suffered a really bad heart attack. Now he has reestablished himself and is promoted to Captain. On top of that, he also acknowledges the Arrow and his team as members of the police department, therefore canceling any anti-vigilante investigation teams. I hope this is permanent because that storyline would officially get old if it carried into this season. While Quentin seems to be fine, he does still have a really bad heart after taking a beating from one of Deathstroke's soldiers last season. Laurel is obviously concerned, but Quentin shows that he's not going to give up being what he is. Especially when new criminals are on the rise.

One of those criminals is Werner Zytle played by Peter Stormare. Comic book fans would recognize that name as the true identity of Count Vertigo. Now, there has been a character in the past two seasons of Arrow who went by the name of The Count played by Seth Gabriel. That character has now officially died last season, and was essentially meant to serve as The Arrow's counterpart for The Joker. This new Count, as he calls himself, actually has the name of his comic book counterpart, but not the royalty attached. No, the show's Count Vertigo is once again just a drug dealer who deals with the drug Vertigo, but that is perfectly fine. Stormare's portrayal is more like Heath Ledger's Joker than how Gabriel previously portrayed the character. This count's tactics are simple and straight forward: kill all the competition and The Arrow first then deal later. It definitely mirrors aspects from Christopher Nolan's Batman films, particularly the new dosage of Vertigo that the New Count uses which has effects similar to the Scarecrow's fear toxin. One could even call this entire season opener a big mash up tribute to Nolan's films, but it works out well for them in establishing a new Count and having Oliver confront his fears.

Unfortunately for Oliver, while he does have his fears to conquer on the vigilante side, the business side of things are just as shaky. Enter a very charismatic Ray Palmer played by former Superman, Brandon Routh. It's always nice to see Brandon Routh appear in something, mainly because I do believe the guy is a terrific actor who was brought down by a mediocre film carrying an iconic name. His outing as Ray Palmer, better known to comic book fans as the original shrinking superhero The Atom, shows off his best performance yet. He's everything a rich billionaire doctor and hacker would be, which shines a light on how far more serious Oliver has become since the past two seasons. From Palmer, we see a charismatic optimistic hero who just happens to be robbing the show's hero of what he needs to survive. Oliver seems to have lost some of that charisma, as it shows when the board members of Queen Consolidated favor Palmer and his plans of changing Starling City to Star City, a great nod to the comic fandom. It will be interesting to see more of Routh's character and if he will eventually become the shrinking man his character is known for in the comics.

If there is one thing about the show that I failed to mention, it is the flashback sequences that this show is known for. It deals with Oliver's time in Hong Kong after being saved by Amanda Waller. There wasn't much in these flashbacks as they were mainly used to set up two character who will become prominent later. One of them is Tatsu Yamashiro played by The Wolverine star, Rila Fukushima. Comic book fans will know her as the woman who becomes the assassin, Katana. How she ties in to Oliver's backstory has yet to be seen.

There is a surprise appearance by Caity Lotz as Black Canary. It is a brief appearance but is also the most talked about appearance in the entire episode.

With an ending like that, and the production values in the action stepping up to play, this show continues to be the best among the live action superhero shows on television right now. Welcome back, Emerald Archer!

SCORE: 9/10 - An excellent start to what should be an incredible season

STATUS: Continue to Watch - Here's hoping for more craziness to come

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