Arrow
Episode Title: “The Brave and
the Bold”
Channel: CW
Director: Jesse Warn
Writers: Marc
Guggenheim and Grainne Godfree
Genre: Action,
Adventure, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Runtime: 42
min
Rated: TV-14
Original Air Date: December 3,
2014
I'm
not going to go too in depth into the issue I have with this first
crossover event being two mostly self contained stories. If you're
interested in reading my opinion on that, you can find it in my
review of The Flash
“Flash vs. Arrow.”
This
season of Arrow
has seemed mired in an inability to compete with the last season.
Whereas it seemed like in season two almost every moment was building
towards an inevitable showdown, this season has seemed to languish
without getting the main story arc really moving. “The Brave and
the Bold,” while sounding like the rejected title of a soap opera,
didn't do a lot to put things on the right track, but it did happen
to be very fun. Some progress was made in the hunt for Sara's
killer, but the highlight here was the injection of humor and
lighthearted moments that the crew from Central City brought with
them.
The
philosophical differences between the two heroes, and their teams,
were one of the best parts of this episode. Oliver does things in a
much more brutal fashion than Barry is willing to accept, and they
have a pretty decent sized disagreement over the Arrow's methods.
The flashbacks this week, which I was surprised to see, though they
finally complimented the story in a logical way, centered on an event
that seems to have begun Oliver's loss of what he thinks of as his
humanity. Barry gets his chance to return the favor of an
inspirational pep talk in what was a really good moment between the
two heroes. While that is going on Caitlin, Cisco, Roy and Felicity
are talking about the differences in the way they approach their
jobs. The Central City crew reveals that what they do seems more
like a game, because they're working against metahumans it feels less
real. It was an interesting and believable point of view.
The
villain was handled very well in this episode, much better than the
villain in “Flash vs. Arrow.” Captain Boomerang had a believable
motivation, and had a screen presence that has been missing from a
lot of the villains recently. At first glance the idea of a bad guy
using boomerangs as weapons sounds pretty ridiculous, but they
managed to make it work. Nick Tarabay's portrayal of George Harkness
makes me hope that we see him again, and the fact that he's now
prison mates with Slade Wilson makes it seem like an inevitability
that he'll pop up again.
All
of the supporting characters had their moments, although with so many
appearing those moments were small. I liked Roy's reaction to the
S.T.A.R. Labs crew best, he wasn't thrilled to see them initially,
but was soon referring to the 'Arrow Cave' in an adoption of Cisco's
nickname for their lair. Thea popped in, and was the source for a
little more comic material involving how badly an attempt by Cisco to
hit on her would go. All in all the entire cast was used very well.
Conclusion:
This was the most enjoyable episode of Arrow
this season. Hopefully this marks the beginning of the writers
rekindling their desire to lighten the mood occasionally. They
showed a better ability to juggle the necessities of an ensemble cast
better than the folks over on The
Flash.
The few mentions of Sara's killer seem to finally be putting us on
track to find out exactly what happened on that rooftop.
Rating:
8/10
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