Arrow Season 3 episode 1 ; The Calm
Arrow returned for its third season last week and I couldn’t have been more happier. The story picks up five months after the events of season 2. Crime is on the decline thanks to Oliver Queen a.k.a the Arrow. It’s this lack of crime that makes Ollie think that maybe he can have a life for himself and be happy. Diggle convinces him to admit his feelings for Felicity Smoak and ask her out on a date. Diggle himself has reason to celebrate; he’s about to become a father. Ollie’s life gets even better when Captain Lance deactivates the Arrow task force. Arrow has helped to bring peace to Starling City and Lance refuses to let the police hunt him ever again.
After the events of season 2, Ollie is now broke and doesn’t run Queen Industries anymore. He decides he wants back in and sets up a meeting to pitch himself to the board of directors. Unfortunately, he loses out to Dr Ray Palmer, who also has big ideas.
Ollie and Felicity plan their date. Sadly for them, a new threat looms on the horizon. There’s a new Vertigo in town. This new Vertigo wants Arrow dead and has a lot of the Vertigo drug at his disposal. He manages to plant a tracker on the Arrow, who unknowingly brings it with him to his date with Felicity. Ollie is clearly nervous on the date and confesses that he wasn’t on the island for the whole five years he was away. He was also in Hong Kong some of the time and we are shown some of these adventures in flashback. He admits when he came home from the island, he had a hard time trusting anyone until he walked into Felicity’s office. At this point the restaurant blows up. Ollie wakes up and brings Felicity back to the Arrow cave. Later on, Oliver admits that being anything but the Arrow is impossible.
Team Arrow finds out that Verigo is planning to take out the other crime bosses in town at a heavyweight fight. Oliver and Roy Harper–now wearing a crime fighting mask and costume, suit up but tells Diggle to go home. Now that Diggle is going to be a father, Ollie refuses to let him out in the field ever again
Oliver and Roy arrive at the fight. Roy disarms a bog and Arrow takes on Vertigo himself. He gets a surprise assist from the Canary who has recently returned to town.
Soon Diggle and Lyla have their baby–a daughter. Diggle is no longer angry at Oliver for benching him and agrees that it was the right thing to do. Ollie then tells Felicity that although he loves her, they can’t be together. At that moment his phone rings. On the other end is Barry Allen in what should be the first of many crossovers with the Flash. Barry has come out of his coma and needs to talk. That meeting was shown in the first episode of the Flash.
Spoilers if you haven’t watched the episode
As the Canary says goodbye to her sister she is shot with three arrows and falls off of a roof. Rumour has it that Ra’s Al Ghul is behind her death. Canary’s mask falls to the ground and the episode ends.
It’s no secret. I love Arrow. In my opinion, it’s the best comic book related tv series out there. I’m a lifelong Green Arrow fan from the age of five. I feel that Stephen Amell is the right guy for the job, The whole supporting cast is wonderful as well. Welcome aboard Brandon Routh. I can’t wait to see what he will bring to the character of Ray Palmer. Will we see the Atom some day? It was awesome seeing Roy finally suit up. Will he be called Arsenal? Red Arrow? Speedy? Time will tell. It was a shocker to see the death of the Canary. It feels like Laurel Lance is being groomed to take over the role. It would have been nice to see Ollie and Felicity become a couple. The reasons why they cant be together makes sense. I love the character of Felicity, by the way, and Emily Bett Richards really brings her to life and does a fantastic job. I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that Ollie actually got off the island for a year. We know he eventually gets back to the island, so we’ll have to wait and see. All in all, it was an excellent season premiere. Five out of five boxing glove arrows.
