X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

CW’s Arrow

Review: Arrow S01E10 “Burned”

So, let me get this straight. Oliver spends five years surviving on the Island, joining the Russian mafia, and beefing up into a super-archer… but the first time he gets his butt kicked he calls it quits?

Not to mention all the other fails in this episode, not the least of which is why does a cop leave a vital piece of evidence just laying out on his desk.

But again, the show suffers two major pitfalls that are driving me crazy. The first is the villain. Once again it might as well been a common street mugger for all the care that is given the bad guy. I don’t know how big Firefly was in the comics but here he burns some buildings down, gives a little ‘you left me to die speech’, then becomes one with the flame. There is nothing in any of this that makes us care at all about the villain, let alone that Arrow actually does just about nothing to defeat him.

The reason Batman has been so successful in so many other mediums is that great care is given to the villains. They are either made sympathetic or truly scary. They also get a chance to come back and make things even worse. Not so in Arrow. These named characters are made to be fodder.

This might have been forgivable had the main characters not spent the whole episode making speeches. “I have to be this” “I have to do that”. Not only are they making these long speeches but they do them standing still. This makes everything very stagnant and dry. Plus, I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, if a character has to give a speech to explain how they are feeling and whatnot, then you’ve already failed in basic characterization. We should be shown all this, not told through constant talking.

I really hope this isn’t a sign of what we can expect from Amazon… Wonder Woman needs to be treated better than that.