Arrow - 'Tremors', 'Heir to the Demon', 'Time of Death' and 'The Promise'

"...and that's a terrible name, because tigers aren't bronze." Oliver may be
back with Sarah, but we still love you, Felicity.

With Arrow Season 4 on the horizon and largely spoiled for Season 3 by The Flash, I finally get back to mid-Season 2 of the second best Batman show on TV (the best is not the one with actual Batman - or at least Bruce Wayne - in it.)

In 'Tremors', Roy's training is interrupted when someone breaks Bronze Tiger out of jail to help steal Malcolm Merlyn's prototype earthquake machine. Roy's anger issues threaten to let the machine slip away, but when it is activated, Oliver is able to appeal to Roy's love for Thea to snap him out of his rage. The catch: Oliver has to do it, not the Arrow, so now Roy is in on the secrets. Amanda Waller reappears to recruit Tiger for her squad, and once more the leggy young woman playing her makes me pine for CCH Pounder. I like to think that they have cast Waller so far against type because if you can't get Pounder, why approximate.

The League of Assassins is hardcore Batman plot. The show is
barely pretending anymore.

'Heir to the Demon' sees Sara Lance summoned back to look out for her sister, who is angling hard for angry, drunken super-bitch of the year. It turns out that in part this is because she has been poisoned in order to lure Sarah out of hiding (although mostly it's because she's a crashing bitch; her writing this season is tooth-grinding.) The lurer in this case is Nyssa, daughter of Ra's al Ghul and titular 'heir to the demon', and Sara's former lover before all the murderin' rubbed the glamour off being in the League of Assassins. Nyssa targets the Lance family, but when Sara opts to poison herself instead of coming back, releases her from the League. Dinah and Officer Lance (Oliver continues to call him Detective, which is actually quite adorable) are delighted, but Laurel is a thundering bitch about it, declaring all of the problems of everyone anywhere to be Sara's fault and refusing to go with her dad to AA (admittedly he kind of stuffs up by tricking her to a meeting) because no-one there can possibly understand her traumatraumatrauma.

Arrow renews its commitment to equal opportunity fan service.

'Time of Death' piles in some non-Batman references, with a break-in at Kord Enterprises (Ted Kord, the original Blue Beetle) orchestrated by meticulous mastermind William 'Clock King' Tockman, a bona fide Green Arrow villain whose technical wizardry - aided by a Kord Enterprises digital skeleton key - outmatches Felicity, which coupled with the appearance of Sara leaves our favourite blonde feeling like a fifth wheel. When Tockman manages to disable the Arrow Cave's mainframe, Felicity puts herself in harm's way to stop him, and lets her inner badass out of the cage.

Sooo awkward.

The episode also features the most awkward family dinner in history, with Laurel seething with resentment, Quentin desperately hoping that something might reignite with Dinah (it doesn't) and Sara bringing Oliver along in the belief that it will somehow help to show that they're already at it again (it doesn't.) Oliver delivers a scathing verbal beatdown after Laurel storms out, pointing out that while he screwed up on an epic level and cause huge amounts of pain, a lot of her current problems are her own doing and she can't just keep blaming him, or Sara, or her father.

He has his own family issues throughout this. Walter (yay!) persuades Moira to run for Mayor against Blood, and they pay off her OB to keep the secret that Malcolm Merlyn was Thea's father. Unfortunately, they use an account that Felicity has been tracking, and despite Moira's assertion that it will make him hate her as much as anyone, Felicity can't keep that secret and Oliver severs all ties with his mother, maintaining appearances for Thea's sake, barely.

Also awkward.

In 'The Promise', Slade Wilson finally shows his hand, making a contribution to Moira's campaign and charming both Moira and Thea while Oliver seethes. Alerted to his presence, Sara leads Team Arrow in a full court press, but Diggle is kidnapped before he can shoot Slade in the head.

More importantly, this episode is the big flashback. Oliver, Sara and Slade make an audacious assault on Ivo's freighter, but when Slade learns that Oliver 'chose' for Shado to die instead of Sara, he goes off the res. Sara escapes with a few of the other prisoners to the island, while Slade cuts off Ivo's hand and holds Oliver captive, promising he will die when he knows true despair.

Arrow Season 2 continues to improve on Season 1's sometimes shaky pacing, and builds a stronger backstory for Oliver than just 'there was this island'. Manu 'Azog' Bennett provides a heavyweight threat, just as charming as Malcolm Merlyn, but far more physically convincing, either as the titanic masked killer or the smooth businessman rocking his piratical eyepatch and talking art. The addition of Sara Lance, while not unwelcome, serve to further illustrate the immense pointlessness of Laurel, to the degree that part of me is convinced that she is actually resentful not that her sister is sleeping with Oliver, or that her family forgive her for disappearing for five years and coming back with ninjas, but because the writers care so much more about her. As of 'Time of Death' she is at least attending Underwritten Characters Anonymous with her dad, so maybe there's hope yet.