The CW’s Arrow was easily my favorite new show of the 2012-13 TV season. Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Andrew Kreisberg took an established DC Comics character and gave him the love and respect that he deserves. In so doing, they also introduced a hot, new superstar in Stephen Amell, and gave the CW Network its highest rated scripted show. Each episode is a treasure trove of DC Comics inside references, awesome action, and good, episodic storytelling, with a far-reaching mythology always at work behind the scenes.
Now, as the show enters Season 2, Arrow is poised to start working toward the greater goal of establishing other DC characters, with rumors circulating that some BIG NAME stars would guest as their established BIG NAME characters (I’m hoping for Henry Cavill as Clark Kent!). However it happens, Arrow is part of the DC Universe and with a Justice League movie out there on the horizon, this TV show is about to get a whole lot crazier. I, for one, can’t wait. Here are the 6 Qs of Arrow, Season 2, episode 1.
1. What is it?
Arrow Season 2, episode 1, titled ‘City of Heroes.’
2. Who’s in it?
Stephen Amell stars as Oliver Queen/The Vigilante; Katie Cassidy as Laurel Lance; David Ramsey as John Diggle; Emily Bett Rickards as Felicity Smoak; Willa Holland as Thea Queen; Colton Haynes as Roy Harper; Susanna Thompson as Moira Queen; Manu Bennett as Slade Wilson; Paul Blackthorne as Officer Quentin Lance; Summer Glau joins the cast this season as business tycoon, Isabel Rochev; and Celina Jade guest stars as Shado.
3. Who made it?
‘City of Heroes’ is credited as Story By Greg Berlanti and scripted by Andrew Kreisberg and Marc Guggenheim. All three men also serve as Executive Producers on the series; the episode was directed by John Behring.
4. What is it about? (**possible mild spoilers**)
‘City of Heroes’ opens five months after the “undertaking,” the event that destroyed most of the slum-like Glades section of Starling City. Oliver (Amell), having lost his best friend Tommy (Colin Donnell) at the end of last season during the destructive event, has been living on the island where he spent five years, and Diggle (Ramsey) and Felicity (Rickards) are finally able to track him down. Oliver refuses to come back to Starling City, having retired the vigilante persona for a life of solitude in the jungle.
When Oliver learns that his family’s business, Queen Consolidated, needs him, as it is being target for a hostile takeover from Isabel Rochev (Glau), he reluctantly returns to Starling City to save what remains of his family’s legacy. Upon returning, Oliver learns that a group of copycat vigilantes have been attacking and killing “one-percenters” they feel are responsible for the destruction of the Glades. With Oliver Queen now back in Starling City, he becomes the number one target. Oliver resists the temptation of putting his own emerald hood on, instead focusing on protecting the company and trying to get sister, Thea (Holland) to go see their mother (Thompson), who is incarcerated at Iron Heights Prison.
When the copycat vigilantes kidnap Thea one night at Club Verdant–which she now runs–Oliver is forced to suit up and go after her, but this time, not as a vigilante; now he will be something so much more.
There are also two subplots involving Oliver’s time on the island and his continued learning/training under Slade Wilson (Bennett) and Shado (Jade), for whom he has started a relationship with–much to the dismay of Wilson; and in present day, Thea’s relationship with Roy Harper (Haynes), as he tries to follow in the footsteps of the hooded vigilante that saved his life, even as Thea begs him not to.
5. Any revelations, tie-ins, easter eggs, etc.?
A ton of DC Comics references this week. There are mentions of S.T.A.R. labs, Central City (where Barry Allen/The Flash calls home), a particle accelerator (possible foreshadowing to The Flash, though in the comics, the crimson speedsters’s origin involves a chemical spill and a bolt of lighting), Iron Heights Prison, and new characters are introduced in Brother Blood (in name only, though he will be a character on the show later on), TV reporter Bethany Snow (originally from Teen Titans), and there is the first sighting of Black Canary, as she saves a woman in distress in the Glades that Roy Harper had tried to rescue first with mixed results.
6. Will we watch next week?
I’d have to be dead not to. Arrow is in a stride that fans hope Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will one day get to. The series is packed with action, story exposition, comic book references, and a greater mythology that makes me want to watch week-in and week out. I called Arrow my favorite new TV series of last year, and if this first episode of Season 2 is an indication of where the season is going, it’s going to be a fun ride.
