CW’s Arrow
Review: Arrow S01E11
“Trust But Verify”
Now, I admit, comics, due to their long running and serialized nature, tend to border on the soap opera genre. However, they aren’t actually soap operas. Could someone please tell this to the writers of Arrow?
First of all, we have the prerequisite episode where one of the main character’s former hero/mentor turns out to be mixed up in something and is quite probably the bad guy. Mostly a yawn and a criminal underuse of Ben Browder. Seriously, it’s freaking Crichton! Just point him in any direction and let him loose!
Secondly, the little sister is as whiney as ever. “Mom is a cheat and a liar,” blah blah blah, “I’m gonna be cliché and get wasted and wreck my car.” Do we care? Should we care? Maybe if she hadn’t been such an annoying character from the the very first episode onwards who just sounds spoiled and worthless. I get what they are trying to go for, she did lose her father and brother and all that, but tone it down and find a fresher angle.
As for Tommy and Captain Jack, once again, nothing but ‘relationship drama’ that walked straight out of 90210. Seriously, two major subplots in this episode and they are both “I have issues with my single parent.”
It wouldn’t be so bad if it was a one off episode but more and more Arrow has become saturated with soap opera drivel that should be on a show like Dallas, not a super hero show. You don’t see them making speeches every five minutes about how they feel on shows like Burn Notice, do you? Which, if you think about it, is pretty much the same show-ish.
The writers need to make these characters more relatable and likable by toning down on the speeches and giving them obstacles and villains with more substance than flavor of the week. We need to see them react, not listen to them talk about their reactions.
Oh, and this episode was seriously lacking in the Dresden. Really, you can never have too much Dresden… who is apparently married to River Song… okay, yeah, I think the internet just exploded…
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