Well, well, well… this episode had a ton of reveals and GA universe re-tweakings and I liked it! There is literally no way to talk about this episode without spoiling it so you’ve been warned and should probably go watch it on one of the many available to you. What we can talk about right away is the Huntress, who made her big premiere and frankly it was meh, but something else happened that was awesome and amazing for comic book fans and we’ll get to it later! The episode kicks off with some foreshadowing of Ollie on a motorcycle (it’ll make sense in a moment). He gets a call that he needs to meet his mom for lunch and heads to Q-Core or whatever they fucking call it on the show. Then a second biker appears and drives along the side-walk with a gun drawn and shoots at the mobster that Ollie’s mom was blowing off. Why the foreshadowing on the bike with Ollie? I don't know, but it's a common TV show visual device. The biker kills the man and nearly hits Ollie’s mom sending her to the ground. Ollie sprints over and checks on her then takes off after the bike which is moving incredibly slowly for having just shot someone in broad day light. After a daring attempt the biker gets away!
In the really boring love triangle storyline of Tommy and Laurel (who is supposed to turn in to the Black Canary before the end of the season by the way), we find Tommy and a pizza delivery guy both at her door. They have some boring dialog about food which is only there to act as a buffer as comic fans shit their pants upon learning Tommy’s last name! If you’re familiar with the comics then you’ll know who Merlyn is and I will give you a moment to connect the dots. Okay then, for those who don’t read the comics Merlyn is the evil archer that Green Arrow faces off against and since "Identity Crisis", has played a huge role in fucking with GA. In fact he blew up Star City like a total badass. The gist is that Tommy Merlyn is going to become the evil archer that appeared in all of the leaked photos this week. The rest of the episode is Ollie trying to find the shooter and falling in love with a mob bosses daughter who is of course Helena aka the Huntress aka weird teeth.
The actual Huntress and costume don’t appear in this episode, but we can see in the preview for the next episode that Ollie basically creates everything for her as both of their secrets are already revealed to each other. Huntress was meh, the storyline was just an excuse to put the two together and everything cool was just for comic fans and happened in the background. The other major reveal? Tommy’s dad is Count Vertigo (not the case in the comic, but fuck this is cooler) which makes things even more interesting between the two families.
The episode was probably the weakest one of the season thus far. Yet another person knows about Ollie’s alter ego and we still have to listen to his family drone on and on about not trusting him and how different he is. Maybe they’ll get over that with this episode as it’s alluded to in a conversation between mom and Speedy, but we’ll see. It’s an easy personality trait for them to go back to when none of the characters have anything real to say to each other. I’m still enjoying the show and I’m looking forward to seeing how the new villains play out, but more interested in seeing how Laurel can pull off Black Canary because I don’t think she can.
Score: 2/5