Arrow Review – “Broken Arrow”

Jim’s Review

If you’re following Arrow this season, you probably know that enjoying an episode requires suspension of disbelief. Most books, TV shows, movies etc…require that to some degree, and Arrow is no different. With Roy claiming to be the masked vigilante who rescued him on a live TV broadcast, the show is pushing disbelief a little far, but if you can make that leap, this is a satisfying episode.

We had a villain of the week, and that brought about a team-up with Ray/The Atom, and that felt a lot like prepping for the upcoming spin-off. It wasn’t a bad story, it just wasn’t enough to really grab my attention this week. The real strength of Arrow at this point is the heat from Ra’s al Ghul. That’s really what’s providing the show with the thrust that Deathstroke gave last season, and that’s why I think Arrow is gaining steam as the season moves to a finish.

If there’s one thing I absolutely have to take the Arrow writers’ room to task over, it’s their tendency to find an angle, then play it entirely too hard. I feel like Captain Lance has been that angle the last couple weeks. I get that he’s a grieving father, and that’s cause enough to forgive a lot of his outbursts and his clouded judgment, but they’ve played it so hard that Lance is now unlikeable in my eyes. He’s become too much of a hypocrite, too spiteful, and while the show seems to be acknowledging that internally with the chief of police apparently questioning Lance’s investigation of Oliver, it’s going to be a difficult–if not an impossible thing for his character to rebound from.

All things considered, this was a decent episode. I’ll try and keep it spoiler-free, and just say some major things happened. Roy’s story felt a little rushed, and the reason given for deceiving Ollie wasn’t at all satisfactory. It was clear they just wanted to fake-out the audience. Thea’s twist at the end had a lot more potential, but the trailer for the next episode sloppily gave away a spoiler there.

After a slow and inconsistent start to the season, I’m gaining a little faith that season 3 will finish strong.

Kyle’s Take

This week’s episode of Arrow, “Broken Arrow,” wasn’t as bad as I had feared—they didn’t go the Spartacus route, so I didn’t have to change my underpants—but it wasn’t satisfying either. My suspension of disbelief has been stretched wafer thin.

The Roy storyline wasn’t a little rushed, it was me after two bowls of bran cereal, three cups of coffee, and five doses of X-Lax. Team Arrow has wanted to get Roy off the set since the beginning of the season and they’ve accomplished that. But Roy’s story felt down right regular, when placed beside Captain Lance’s.

I’ve never seen a character, like Captain Lance, start out hunting a vigilante, then joining his crusade, and then start hunting the vigilante again. While I wouldn’t be surprised if Lance switches back (he has a way of doing that), it’d take Sarah coming back from the grave—and it looks like that could be arranged.

Whenever you introduce the Lazarus Pit, you always have a chance of characters coming back to life willy nilly. And here we go. Since Arrow already spoiled this one for us, I’ll go ahead and explain what happened in the trailer. Thea’s pierced gut won’t keep her dead for long. She gets a Lazarus Pit bath, goes crazy, and Ollie will have to spend some time in Nanda Parbat to talk her down from the ledge. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Sarah receives a similar spa treatment. If this happens, Captain Lance will either accept Ollie for bringing his daughter back to life or spend years trying to talk some sense into a zombiefied Sarah.

The villain of the week could have set up the impending spin-off in more ways than one. We got more Atom and he should see more action in the spin-off, but we also got a hint of another villain. No, not Jake Simmons’ Deathbolt, but the one who turned Simmons into Deathbolt. In the comic, Deathbolt was the lab rat of the Ultra-Humanite. You could confuse the Ultra-Humanite with Grodd. He’s an ape-like mad scientist and one of Superman’s first villains. He’s been a fixture in Action Comics before Lex, and that could cause problems with the whole “we can’t mention Superman” rule the CW has, if they go the Ultra-Humanite route. We’ll have to see.

Getting back to the Ra’s Al Ghul arc, Arrow has something to build on for the season finale, but like The Flash introducing a time travel element, I’m not sure how much will stick, now that Arrow has the Lazarus Pit. Perhaps, not even Sarah’s death sticks.

Verdict:

Arrow’s “Broken Arrow” was one of the stronger episodes this season but we’ll have to see if anything was ventured or gained this week. Only time and the Lazarus Pits will tell.

Dig deeper with Arrow by checking out our secrets page.

The Flash Review – “All Star Team Up”

Jim’s Review

This week’s episode of The flash was rough. There’s just no other way to put it. With Iris making a scene during a nice group dinner, she’s actually becoming radically unlikeable.

The team-up between Ray and Felicity and the STAR Labs group made for a couple of fun moments, but ultimately, it felt manufactured. Felicity’s advice to Barry about dealing with Cisco and Caitlyn was a bit obvious. “Trust them” is a little simplistic, and ignores the problem of having trusted Dr. Wells in the first place.

Emily Kinney was completely wasted in the episode. In fact, I’m thinking back on it, and I’m not sure she was ever shown standing up. Her puns were absolutely cringe-worthy, and they never did explain why Barry couldn’t maneuver around her droid-bees.

I’m sorry to say this has been a true stumble in an otherwise very strong season.

Kyle’s Take

The Flash has been stumbling for a while and this week, it couldn’t catch itself before falling flat on its face. At the beginning of the season, we were calling The Flash electric (pun intended), fantastic, and a great inaugural season. Now, we’re calling it a very strong season and I think the villain of the week format contributes the most to its decline.

I’m not as big of a Kinney fan as Jim. I guess I should be a Kinney fan because she’s from Wayne, Nebraska and I should back my fellow cornfed, Great Plains walkers, but she was less wasted as an actor and more cast in a role she had no business portraying. The two characters Kinney’s Queen Bee draws inspiration from are forty-fifty years old. Kenney’s almost thirty but she played a teenager in The Walking Dead because she looks that young. Her Queen Bee in The Flash was supposed to have a PhD and you don’t have a PhD when you’re nineteen unless you’re Sheldon Cooper. What are they supposed to do with her, attach freaking prosthetic crow’s feet? Enough about the villain’s age and the miscast, and let’s get to the actual Queen Bee character. Brie Larvan has the abilities of The Atom villain, The Bug-Eyed Bandit, but she shares a name with HIVE’s leader. If HIVE sounds familiar to Arrow fans, it should. Arrow has name dropped HIVE five times this year (they were the ones who hired Deadshot to kill Diggle’s brother) and this week looked like a golden opportunity to introduce the gang and have a multi-show cross-over, and they blew it. Like so many villains of the week, The Flash flushed her.

Not even an “All Star Team Up” could save this episode. Usually, a superhero team up means a great episode for The Flash or Arrow, but Atom visiting Central City was unmotivated and disrupted Arrow’s timeline. Not to get too into Arrow during a Flash review, but the last time Rickards made an appearance on The Flash as Felicity, she didn’t show up in that week’s Arrow. It’s okay to give the same actors screen time in both shows, during the same week, but the creative team set a precedent with Felicity’s inability to return to Starling City in time for the Arrow’s exploits—heck, she was on a train at the end of the previous crossover episode and still couldn’t make it to Starling on time.

The Wells saga has been marking time for a while and the longer it drags out, the less believable it gets. I believe in Barry’s mistrust of Wells, but The Flash still hasn’t explained how he knows Wells is the Reverse-Flash besides Wells’ slipping up about the speed force. Barry (to Cisco and Caitlin): Here are two flow charts. One is of my mother’s killer and the other one is of Wells. They look somewhat similar, so Wells must be the Reverse-Flash. Okay, Barry. You too, other Barry.

And I don’t know about Jim, but whenever more than half of a table gets upset and simultaneously leaves in the middle of a meal, it’s no longer a nice dinner party. It becomes a tense dinner party. I don’t like how Iris left the table either but with Ray buying out the entire restaurant, making the restaurant empty, you can’t call her freak out much of a scene. My biggest issue with Iris is that everyone’s lying to her but she picks on Eddie. I’m sure her character is channeling her emotions but the writing doesn’t reflect that. She’s oblivious to everyone else lying to her. You’d think she’d know when her father or stepbrother was lying but apparently not.

Verdict:

“All Star Team Up” is the weakest episode of The Flash so far but the next few weeks look promising: Wells might get outed, Grodd makes his official debut, and the Rogues return, hopefully with some other villains in tow.

If you want to know more of our Flash musings, check out our secrets page here.

iZombie Review – “Flight of the Living Dead”

Kyle’s Review

The biggest question from this week’s iZombie, “Flight of the Living Dead,” is how big is this zombie infiltration? These zombies are less of a swarm and more trying to exist amongst the living. That’s an interesting take on zombies.

This week’s police work was more of the same. iZombie tried to add more weight to it by including one of Liv’s college mates but the show didn’t earn the intimacy required to pull off a real connection between Liv and this week’s victim. The real heavyweight was the growing zombie population.

Okay, we may have met Liv’s love interest this week. I was skeptical of including romance with zombies—and iZombie didn’t help its case by mentioning Warm Bodies—but they’re cultivating the romance angle instead of jumping right in and I could get on board with it if they build up to it. This isn’t your typical Romero zombie, so I can suspend disbelief enough for a potential romance. But I’m more interested in how many zombies there are in this world.

The biggest surprise is that there may be more than one zombie in the police department. With so many homeless disappearing, there has to be a larger conspiracy here. I can put my misgivings of a zombie romance aside for the larger picture.

Verdict:

The weekly mystery did little for “Flight of the Living Dead” but we did get plenty of peripheral arcs that should make for some engaging TV.

Powers Review – “Aha Shake Heartbreak”

Kyle’s Review

After last week’s introduction of a riot torn city, this week’s pull back of Powers went in reverse. That saddens me because the best thing going for Powers the previous week was the stinger at the end of the episode of humans rising against powers and the death of a power. Powers downplayed the riot and reduced the dead power to a police procedural and while I’m sure there’ll be some lasting issues, most of the tension was as dead as the alley’s corpse. Still, there was plenty to like in “Aha Shake Heartbreak.”

There might be a larger outcry against people in tights after this week’s episode. Krispin takes his “Kaotic Chic” message to the public and it causes some problems when a washed up power, named RedHawk, mock attacks Zora. I won’t spoil it here but let’s just say that if Krispin wasn’t messed in the head before, he is now.

Calista’s back in commission—for a while—until she gets caught by the Powers Division. She wanted to be treated like a power and now she’s gotten her wish. I’m tired of Calista but she hits a nerve with Johnny Royalle and when Johnny finds out she’s in lock up, it’ll strain his relationship with Walker.

Johnny Royalle wishes to end Wolfe’s life and this week, he explained why he’d want to do so. The little bits of Wolfe he’s been given people allow Wolfe to sap their powers from anywhere in the world. I wonder why Powers didn’t explore this angle a few weeks ago, when Wolfe was on the loose. Oh well, Wolfe’s potential feeding frenzy can’t be a good thing but it took Walker most of the episode to realize that. Anyway, the boys join forces again and we saw ample flashbacks of their glory days.

The rest of the episode tied the scattered arcs together but left them messy enough to provide wiggle room for another couple of episodes. As the last major power, Retro Girl represents the larger power community and she doesn’t want her abilities. That should turn up the pressure cooker on the struggle between normal humans and powers. But this episode wasn’t all good.

They dropped the Simons arc. That thread questioned if draining powers of their abilities hurt them and I have a sneaky suspicion that we haven’t seen the last of it. Simons was another bright spot last week and I missed him here. And I don’t usually harp on special effects but these are really bad when compared with the other superhero shows out there. These effects wouldn’t stick out as much as they do if Powers didn’t give them center stage. Do they actually think these effects work? They’re hokey at best.

Overall, I liked this episode but I see it as a bridge between two major events and might be reading too much into it. Last week’s episode fired up Krispin’s mob and then we don’t see them at all this week but I have hope that they’ll return next week after the events of “Aha Shake Heartbreak.”

Verdict:

Initially disappointing, Powers’ “Aha Shake Heartbreak” presented enough goods to get me interested for the season finale.

Grimm Review – “Hibernaculum”

Kyle’s Review

Grimm had a few major developments in this week’s “Hibernaculum.” Monroe experienced flashbacks from his time as a captive. Team Grimm has gotten lazy this year when the week’s mystery doesn’t involve Octopus Face (in the beginning) or the Wesen purists. There have been some nice spots, but most Wesen have fallen flat. This week’s mystery was a rare okay one, while the ongoing story arcs delivered more punch.

I still don’t buy Juliette’s transportation but this week’s use of flashbacks set some foundation for this arc. I had forgotten Nick’s aunt—on his Grimm side of the family—warned him of his and Juliette’s doomed relationship. The two have stuck together for three and a half years after Nick turned Grimm, so I don’t think this was the plan. Still, it works here. Renard and Juliette getting together had an ick factor and I remembered that the two of them had a thing, but that was a spell, not natural attraction. I hope that there’s more to this and I definitely hope that we’ll see more of Monroe’s struggles.

Grimm has presented enough arcs that could have long-reaching ramifications and should propel them to the season finale. I never thought Nick and Juliette belonged together, so I hope this break-up sticks, the Monroe story has legs, and then we have Adalind’s babies. We’ll have to see how things shake out.

Verdict:

The weekly Wesen added little but the ongoing story arcs did.

iZombie Review – “Liv and Let Clive”

Kyle’s Review

iZombie continued with its slow build. Liv gained another fitting ability from a brain she ingested, and the anxiety she got as a result of the gray matter felt earned (as in it fit with the kind of character whose brain she ate) and the episode shined a light on Detective Babineaux’s past. There might be a lot to work with there, but the two things “Liv and Let Clive” did best was show how Liv still has feeling—maybe—for her ex-fiancée and how bad-boy-zombie Blaine—say that three times fast—plans to corner the market on brains.

While I dig Blaine’s flair for zombie capitalism, I don’t agree with his clientele’s willingness to go along with his enterprise. 1) Blaine turns billionaires into zombies. 2) He milks them for money and favors. This poses way too many questions. How does he get close to these well-to-dos; he’s just a street rat? Most of these businessmen and women got to where they were—prior zombie—because they’re ruthless and now, they kowtow to a nobody? I guess one of Blaine’s customers found him attractive before she became a zombie, but she was too eager to rat on Blaine’s competition for my taste. Blaine only mentioned his other clients but iZombie better have a good reason for these other bigwigs to swear fealty.

I did like that Liv got her doctor friend and her ex-fiancée to move in together. Her anxiety-addled brain helped but this development allows Liv to reconcile with her ex over time, if that’s the path iZombie. If that isn’t the goal, this new living arrangement could lead to friendship and wacky character interaction.

Verdict:

iZombie took a step forward but we’ll have to see how it plans to proceed in the coming weeks, and they need to shore up Blaine’s business model.

Powers Review – “You are Not It”

Kyle’s Review

Powers muddled through another down, in terms of action, episodes. While I thought that was okay for last week, I’m not so sure about this week’s “You are Not It.” Calista may be dead—she’s at least not in a good way. Johnny Royalle was wasted. He merely popped in and out, but of course, that was what everyone says he did when he fought crime, so I guess that tracks. But we’re treated to more awkward screen moments with Walker and Pilgrim.

The action of the third, fourth and fifth episodes masked these two, but these last two weeks made them stick out like a couple of elephants pretending to be poodles. Not even a healthy dose of Michelle Forbes as Retro Girl and her great scenes with Logan Browning’s Zora helped to assuage the pangs of Walker and Pilgrim. And it doesn’t help that the story arc got stuck in will Pilgrim get his powers back or won’t he. I’m not invested in the character enough to care.

Throw in some decent moments with a suicidal Wolfe and one of Simons clones dying and you get some watchable television. I’m not sold that Simons’ clone dying was part of Royalle’s plan to see Wolfe. It felt more like an honest goof and Royalle took advantage of his cronies’ mistake.

Powers also had some mistakes in special effects. These aren’t the same effects we’ve seen in shows like The Flash and Arrow. They look amateurish, but Powers did show some signs of life. I liked how some normal humans fought back against the powers. Krispin has inspired a vocal group to lash out against people with powers. This story thread could have legs and could drive the series to its season finale.

Verdict:

Powers had an uneven episode this week but hopefully, the civic unrest introduced in “You are Not It” will spark something interesting.

Archer Review – “Drastic Voyage: Part 2”

Kyle’s Review

Archer has made and remade themselves countless times in the last couple of seasons. They don’t hold back when it comes to placing their characters in compromising positions. This week’s episode was the conclusion of “Drastic Voyage,” and to make a long story short, it didn’t end well for the ISIS gang. Sterling went off on a self-indulgent rampage, Ray got crippled again, and Lana didn’t get the support she needed from Sterling, or Malory, as a new mother but just when the show looked like it might fall into familiar ground, we caught a glimpse of what might be another complete reboot like last season’s Archer: Vice.

I admit. I got lulled into a false sense of here-we-go-again, and then everything turns upside down. The gang’s out of options and they turn to Archer for wisdom—never a good idea—and he says that he has some ideas. What a cliffhanger. I can’t wait to see what cockamamie plan—or plans—Sterling comes up with for next season. Just when Archer started to show some wear, it proved it still has legs.

Verdict:

A great twist ending leaves me hungry for the next season of Archer.

Grimm Review – “Heartbreaker”

Kyle’s Review

I think this Wesen of the week played better than last week’s—but not that much better—while the ongoing stories grew stale. We’ll get to the Wesen of the week in a bit but let’s check in with Juliette, Adalind, Renard, and Nick first.

The Juliette and Nick story marked time. Juliette officially moved out but she was already gone before this week, so this wasn’t a surprise. I still don’t buy her animosity toward Nick. I guess she blames Nick for becoming a Grimm again but she was the one that insisted he regain his Grimm powers. He’s trying to make it work, while she’s pushing him away after all they’ve been through. It doesn’t work and I see the creative team thrusting the two back together artificially in the not so distant future. Then, I wonder who cares about Adalind’s baby?

With Adalind pregnant with Nick’s baby, she’s all but abandoned her missing child for trying to find a sugar daddy. Thankfully, the royal family put the kibosh on that but Renard already doesn’t want to find their child and now it looks as though Adalind doesn’t either. That leaves the royal family as the only ones giving a squat about the Adalind and Renard kid. Of course, we got more of Renard’s near-death experience this week but this story never worked for me. Juliette’s hexenbiest side effect happened close to enacting the spell but Renard’s spell side effects took half a season. Sure, this is a fantasy but fantasies aren’t devoid of logic: they have their own internal logic and Grimm abandoned it with this story line.

Finally, we come to this week’s Wesen. She’s a tragic one—and that’s always preferable to the mean-spirited Wesen—but Grimm took on battered women again. That’s not a bad thing but the show has done this story once, or twice, every season, so it had to bring something interesting to the conversation and it didn’t. The resolution was too on the nose and the woman finds love after losing her Wesen-ness, which in turn, made her look like she had a face tattoo and the only person who could love her in return was a man with a face tattoo. Again, this was a little too on the nose. While Grimm shouldn’t retire the battered woman story, they should find a new angle for it. And I must say that I loved Grimm’s story arcs against bigotry this year. I can’t help but see moments where they could reintroduce Monroe and Rosalee’s turbulent lives into a story, because the Wesen of the week lends itself to drawing parallels to these two, and this week was no exception. My only hope is that Grimm doesn’t tease us with this all year with no follow through. It doesn’t have to be right away. I can wait until the season finale.

Verdict:

One of the weaker episodes this season, let’s hope Grimm finds a way to make their ongoing arcs relevant and reintroduce one that worked well earlier this year.

Arrow Review: “Public Enemy”

Jim’s Review

Well, last week’s Arrow was borderline bad. The Suicide Squad plot was tacked-on, and Ray and Detective Lance behaved erratically, and without believable motivation. This week was a much better episode, but unfortunately, I’m still struggling with Detective Lance’s character development. I get that he’s angry that his daughter’s death was kept from him, but he’s continuing to let anger cloud his judgment, and that can only go so far before it affects the way an audience will see him. His refusal believe the Arrow is being set-up makes no sense, really, and it’s hurting the show.

With that said, the big development with Ra’s and Detective Lance represents a big chance the show is taking, and that’s going to help keep things fresh. Of course, Roy changed things in the end, but it was still enough of a bombshell to know that things with Team Arrow can’t be the same anymore. It’s risky storytelling, and even if it doesn’t go where we may be hoping, risky is interesting.

I can’t say I’m very invested in the romance angle between Felicity and Ray, and their subplot was mostly forgettable, but the league’s interference in Starling City, and Ollie’s changed standing with the SCPD may be the sort of kickstart this season has needed.

Kyle’s Take

Last week’s episode wasn’t borderline bad, it was a 100%, genuine-article bad, and I guess it’s better late than never to have a kickstart to Arrow’s season. But kickstarting the season this late reminds me of the Star Wars prequels. (Paraphrasing George Lucas) You have enough story for one movie and you put three-quarters of the story in the last film.

Having The Atom occupy the same city as The Arrow is risky storytelling—and it’s not working. The Atom possesses similar clout (as Green Arrow) in the DC Comics Universe, owns Ollie’s business, has proven talent Brandon Routh portraying him, and wants to convert Starling City into Star city—I know they dropped this story arc, but for how long?—and the Star City Palmer has planned won’t include The Arrow.

The only reason The Arrow exists is because the show’s named Arrow and he has to exist. The creative team doesn’t have a lot of options, so they threw in a lot of turns to try and reboot the show, but a TV show isn’t NASCAR. You can’t drive really fast and make a lot of left turns in order to get to the same place you were when the race began. That’s not even how NASCAR works, really, so you end up with the nonsensical Detective Lance and an ill-fated League of Assassins story.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Arrow pulled a Spartacus and have every member of Ollie’s team claim that they’re The Arrow, and then the entire Glades joins them: “We’re the Arrow.” This show and The Flash have a lot of cast members from TV’s Spartacus. Despite all that, I do like that they’ve taken all of these chances—even though most of them haven’t worked—but there’s little chance this arc ends well. I’ll try to erase it when we enter season four (and I think that’s what the creators are trying to do with these NASCAR turns).

Well, there is a precedent in the comics for Ollie giving up his identity in a public forum–you’ll have to check out our secrets page–and I hope that Ollie turning himself into the police sticks. If the Spartacus thing I described actually happens in the coming weeks, I may have to change my underpants.

Verdict:

This week’s episode was better than last week’s but that’s not saying a whole lot. Let’s hope that Team Arrow can right the ship.

Do you want more Arrow? Check out our Arrow Secrets page.