Arrow: Season 3, Episode 3

Arrow

Episode Title: “Corto Maltese”

Channel: CW

Director: Stephen Surjik

Writers: Erik Oleson and Beth Schwarz

Genre: Action, Adventure, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi

Runtime: 45 min

Rated: TV-14

Original Air Date: October 22, 2014

Oliver wants to bring Thea back to Star(ling) City so he, Roy and Diggle run off to Corto Maltese to do their thing. Diggle has a side mission for A.R.G.U.S. while he's there, and it goes about how we expected it to go. It seems like an odd time for this mission and it's fallout to be written in, I find it hard to believe that the audience has forgotten that A.R.G.U.S. is bad news. They implant explosives in bad guys and send them on suicide missions, I'm not sure it was necessary at this time to remind us that they're bad people.

We get a break from the Hong Kong flashbacks, which haven't held the same charm as the island scenes, in favor of seeing Thea's training at the hands of Malcolm Merlyn. I know this is a comic book world, but I'm not ready to believe that after six months of training Thea is some kind of skilled combatant. The flashbacks were fun though, Mr. Barrowman has a presence that they should utilize as often as possible. After initial attempts to convince Thea to come home fail, Oliver resolves to tell her the whole truth, and then promptly does no such thing. We find by the end that what he told her was apparently enough, but I find myself thinking that everything is going exactly as Malcolm planned.

Felicity starts her new job and, surprise, she's not a cog in the machine! She has an office and an executive assistant. She sets about recovering some information that was lost when Team Arrow took out the applied sciences division of Queen Consolidated at Ray Palmer's request. There's a pretty funny scene where Palmer is in her office and both Diggle and Laurel call her for help, leading to him witnessing a rather awkward side of her conversations. Speaking of Laurel, ugh, after doing something remarkably stupid she appeals to Oliver for training, he refuses so she sets about getting training elsewhere, and the local boxing gym is what makes sense to her. Her trainer is to be Ted Grant, whom comic readers will recognize as the alter-ego of Wildcat, the trainer of many of DC's heroes, but I still question the decision to so quickly push the Canary angle with Laruel.

Two other little tidbits from the episode. Ray Palmer is very interested in the weapons that Queen Consolidated has worked on in the past. He gets an almost villainous gleam in his eye when the schematics are revealed, which would be a major departure for the character. The other thing is a surprise return that everyone was waiting for, but no one was quite sure how it would go, my guess is poorly!

Conclusion: More of a set-up episode than a resolution episode, even with Oliver and company successfully getting Thea home and completing Diggle's mission. There are plenty of options available to the characters right now, and I'm very interested in seeing which way the various arcs go.

Rating: 7/10