TV Review: Arrow 2×03 – Broken Dolls

November 17, 2013

by Demi Moumas, Reporter

In the last episode of Arrow, the vigilante is caught in a trap set up by Laurel. The woman blames him for the death of Tommy because a building fell on him. And yes, Laurel apparently can hold a grudge for a long time, enough that she even called in SWAT to capture the vigilante when he visited her for a second time. Seeing no other choice, the Arrow starts to comply with her requests. Fortunately, the Black Canary, or at least the woman who is supposed to represent her in this series, falls in and uses a sonic device to disable the men and Laurel before escaping with Oliver. When question about why she helped him, she just leaves him silence.

Oliver goes back to the foundry to try to puzzle out who the blonde woman in black is. Felicity focuses on the device while Diggle focuses on the reason Oliver was in Laurel’s office. Either way, they all decide that it is a good reason to figure out who the new player in town is. I think it’s kind of interesting that the Canary wears an actual mask while Oliver just puts on some green makeup around his eyes. I would still think you would be able to tell who the person is by their facial structure. It makes me think of the Sailor Moon where they just change their clothes and voila superheroes! I do like how they play with the shadows and lights of the city to hide their faces and make them more mysterious. This lends a bit of realism that isn’t found in the comics.

Trouble brews when Officer Lance finds out that a man he put behind bars has escaped. This man, Mathis, used a plastic liquid that chokes the girls from the inside out and then he fashions their bodies like dolls. Lance put him away years ago after Sara died. He got so obsessed with it that after the quake when Mathis escaped his higher ups decided against telling him. His ghosts are coming back to haunt him and the only way he can fight them is by calling some unlikely cavalry. Again it must be in their blood, because now both Lance’s family members have done a 180 on the way they feel about certain things.

Back at the Foundry, Felicity is able to dig up information about the Canary. One of the facts being she’s been helping women against would-be rapists. The list of injuries on the men coincides with the sonic device. So they figure out that she is going after criminals. Now considering she is a vigilante herself Oliver wants to find her even more now. As they are talking, Felicity gets a call from Lance asking her to set up a meeting between him and the Arrow. At the meeting Oliver is given all of Lance’s information on Mathis. Of course when I saw this, I was shocked that Lance went to the Arrow to get this guy. Apparently, he is starting to understand that sometimes to get the bad guy; he needs to help the person outside of the law. Hell, I’m sure we all know that despite wanting the law to work, it’s broken and very convoluted. Congratulations and breaking your stubbornness Officer, welcome to the Arrow bandwagon! Oliver brings the information back to Felicity and Diggle so they can try to make sense of it before going back out to help Lance against Mathis’s former lawyer. When Felicity mentions the Canary, Oliver goes to his newest recruit Roy for information. See, now Oliver is just gathering a team around him to help him at every junction of an investigation. Soon the Arrow won’t just be a team, it’ll be a corporation!

The Arrow and Lance are able to get the location out of his attorney, only to be led to an empty room. The room has a porcelain door with the article of Mathis’s capture in its hands. The phone rings and at first I’m thinking this is going to be like a horror movie. Lance answers the phone and begins to talk to Mathis. Felicity immediately starts a trace on the call, only to be blocked. Lance starts to become desperate that he begins to beg Mathis to stop, but the crazy man doesn’t. Seriously, the officer should know better. I mean he did chase the nutcase for a long time. Lance is on the line when the girl dies. Oliver goes back to the Foundry while Lance goes to where the police find her body. Felicity tries to break into the forensics database only to find out that they took their systems offline due to many break ins last year. Good job on covering your tracks guys. Luckily, Oliver suggests they do it like the Merlyn case, which means they physically need to get into the system. He gets Lance to tag along. Once in the server room, they are able to deduce that Mathis is stalking the girls who buy a certain type of skin cream, Mermaiden. So they set up a stake out.

Felicity volunteers to be the bait, which in hindsight she regrets. I think this is a great leap in her character development though. She is going from the curious IT girl to a full fledge field team member. Granted she probably won’t be on Diggle’s level, but it is amazing to see her growing to be a part of the team more. So the stake out has her going to all four shops where the skin cream is being sold, while having Lance, Diggle and Oliver watching over her. Mathis does take the bait, but luckily Oliver is close and arrows the guy, letting her escape while Lance chasing after him still. They unfortunately lose him, because of the cop intervention that was called in by Lance who was not supposed to be on this case in the first place. He tells the Arrow to leave so he’s not capture and Lance himself is taken in for obstruction of justice.

The next day Felicity tells Oliver about Lance’s arrest and how she set an email out from the Mermaiden servers to the stores locking the makeup down. Unfortunately, Oliver can do anything about it immediately because he has to go to his mother’s hearing. I never liked Moira Queen, but I do think that she should not be held accountable for Malcolm Meryln’s plot to destroy the Glades. Though she did work in cooperation with him, it was under duress for her family. That should account for something right? Even the fact that she came out to warn people should mean something. The judge seems to be against Moira from the start of the trial. Include the fact that the District Attorney is seeking the death penalty against her. Now we all expected the typical 25 years to life, not only that but the fact she’s a billionaire usually counts for something. You’d think in all 503 deaths from the quake would make people not want death anymore, but the D.A. wants Moira Queen to be the 504th. It seems to be a little personal too. How much you want to be he had someone who died in the Glades?

At the precinct Laurel gets Quentin out of cuffs. Here we see how the personalities and the views on the vigilante are switched now. Laurel wants to capture him and Quentin is working with him. He tells Laurel something that is true, the city needs help and you shouldn’t be particular from where it comes from. He tries to puzzle out why she is holding Tommy’s death against the Arrow. When Quentin pushes, Laurel quickly deflects it and leaves. Out in the garage, Quentin hears someone mutter to themselves and goes to investigate only to be captured by Mathis. He is thrown into the back of a van where Laurel is also tied up. Really? You’d think that this guy wants to make you suffer. Of course he is going to come back after you!

On the other Arrow’s investigation, Roy ends up being to finding the woman’s sidekick, Sin by selling some of Verdant’s liquor to a man in the Glades. Well, we know where Thea’s missing alcohol is going. After a long parkour filled chase, he ends up at the Canary’s hide out in what looks to be an old church in the Glades. Surprise, surprise she’s hiding somewhere up high. After a weird line of questioning on the person who sent him, she tells Sin to let him go after Thea texts him about Laurel’s kidnapping.

Oliver gets a lead on Mathis, who sounds an alarm after shooting a guard after he kidnaps both Lances. Felicity gets a shot of the van and Diggle tells them that the company was condemned after the quake. Meaning it’s the perfect warehouse to create some victims unnoticed. Creepy information, but Oliver suits up in order to rescue them. At the warehouse, he is able to save Laurel just before the liquid touches her mouth. Talk about close call. Now Laurel, better understand, he helped you even after you coming after him! Mathis runs further into the warehouse only to get stopped by the Canary. Now her bow staff is essentially two small parts that can magnetize together it seems. This is interesting and a good way to keep the bad guys off their game by switching up her fighting style. Eventually Oliver has to come save her and just as he is about to capture Mathis we learn the Canary doesn’t have the same no killing attitude he does.

The episode ends with Laurel blaming herself for Tommy’s death and realizing that he was only there because she was stubborn. Don’t blame yourself sweetheart, apparently it’s a Lance family trait. What surprises me is that she even called the vigilante the Arrow too. That’s surprising. We also learn that Moira is keeping more secrets from not only her lawyer but from her kids. Woman, haven’t you learned anything about keeping secrets? Only Oliver can do it and he has problems doing it. It seems no one in the Queen family learns…except maybe Thea…maybe. Another reveal we see is that the Canary is being hunted by someone, who wants her to come back to them, Ra’s Al Ghul. His messenger is dressed up like how Malcolm was, in what I am going to call a Dark Archer outfit. Wait…Ra’s Al Ghul…Batman’s teacher? Is Bruce Wayne going to have a guest appearance on Arrow? The Canary ends up killing the messenger in order to keep them from coming after her sooner.

I’ve got to say that I like the action sequences in this episode. From the chase scene with Roy to the last fight scene with the Canary. So not only did the stories progress beautifully, the fight choreography did too. I love how they are integrating the parkour in more seamlessly with Roy and bring in a different style of fighting with Canary. Another thing that was spectacularly done was the flashback. We see Slade and Oliver trying to gain sight on the pirates before they attack the plane they’ve been using as a base. After realizing Shado, who they left behind to study the strange corpses they found, is in danger they quickly rush back. Both Slade and Oliver are caught in the bombardment. Slade is seen with his hands and the right side of his face burning, while Oliver is just knocked out. When the young man wakes up he is on a freighter ship that is near the shore of the island. So the next danger of the island is revealed and the question begs…how will Oliver survive this?

Rating:
ComicsOnline gives Arrow 2×03 – “Broken Dolls” 4 crazy doll collectors out of 5.