*spoilers*
The fourth episode in a network television season always seem to have issues because the excitement from the premiere episodes has died down, narrative development slows so it can be stretched until the winter break, and the episodes usually contain a plot that just fills an episode total quota, hence the nickname “filler” episodes. This week’s Arrow struggled from a lot of these issues and was the weakest effort thus far in the show’s run, but the good news is that there’s still enough positives in the episode to make “An Innocent Man” worth a watch.
This week’s name from the list revolves around an innocent man named Declan accused of murdering his wife. This week’s “Lister” (as I’ve dubbed them) is a big business man covering up toxic dumping that Declan’s wife was going to expose before she was brutally taken out and D-man was setup for the fall. As you can see, the story was pretty generic, and the first half hour just draaaagged. I understand you can’t always have a DC villain like Deadshot to spice things up like last week but they have got to do something more interesting with the Listers if the show wants to maintain its audience.
We find Oliver this week feeling lonely and isolated after brushing off Laurel last episode and then Digg quitting in the opening segment of this one. But lo and behold to the rescue is lil sister Thea, whom the writers have decided this week is back to giving sage advice to Ollie instead of getting wasted, snarking at their mom and outing people’s secrets. Ugh. Can she become Green Arrow’s sidekick Speedy yet? But her advice did initiate a neat little scene/trick that I dug because it spurs Oliver to seek Laurel’s help as Green Arrow, and instead of putting on a silly Batman voice when they meet he actually uses a high-tech gadget to change his voice completely. Why don’t all superheroes do this when hiding their identity?!
Digg and Oliver’s buddy/mentor relationship continues to be one of the highlights of the show. As revealed last episode, Oliver outed himself as Green Arrow to Digg after saving him from a poisoning by Deadshot. To the surprise of probably some viewers, Digg didn’t immediately jump into Alfred-mode and was actually pretty disgusted and disappointed to find out Ollie is a “criminal” and a “murderer.” Uh, yep. Can’t really argue those points. Oliver is really no better than fellow anti-hero on another network Dexter because he can justify cold-blooded murder in his own mind of those he deems evil – some of which are probably just down on their luck working-class guys trying to make a buck working for those rich Listers.
There’s definitely a fun rapport between Oliver and Digg and they’ve started to develop a sweet, almost brotherly friendship while setting up Digg to be the heart that keeps Oliver grounded instead of killing because he’s bored. If the goal of the writers was to start Oliver out as a wild feral beast with no remorse in killing and have him regain his humanity to become the hero we know from the comics, then I retract any of my previous barbs about the murderous character choices so far, because that’s actually pretty good stuff.
The flashbacks to the island are normally my favorite aspects of the show, but this week nothing interesting went down. Oliver killed a bird that the Island Faux-Arrow provided to keep him from starving. Yep, that’s it. Oh, and the Faux-Arrow can speak English. Because, you know, the audience isn’t smart enough to have to keep reading subtitles. But the flashbacks served the purpose of showing the first moment of Oliver’s descent into detachment from murderous remorse and foreshadowed just how traumatic life on the island will be for him.
The best parts of the episode revolved around the overall conspiracy storyline with Moira and the shadowy group. Walter discovers she apparently embezzled 2.6 million from Queen Consolidated. For what you ask? Well, you know normal mom stuff like housing the wrecked remains of the “Queen’s Gambit” family boat that killed her husband in a warehouse with the easiest password for entry possible. Walter tried maybe 3 guesses before gaining access with Robert Queen’s first name. (Huh, it’s not 1-2-3-4?) We then see Moira having one of her shady limo meetings with a new contact that has Green Arrow in his sights because he’s figured out the connection between Arrow’s targets and the list. Wait…is that??…John Barrowman, aka Captain Jack Harness from Doctor Who/Torchwood as this”well dressed man”?? Yes!! Nerd swoon!! The cast just got waaaay better.
Our cliffhanger leaves us with Detective Lance (criminally under-used this week) ID’ing Oliver on security camera footage doing some Arrow’ing, then marching into Queen mansion to arrest Ollie in front of his entire family and his back-again buddy Digg. One thing this show never skimps on are the excellent cliffhangers. Well done.
While introducing some very intriguing elements such as the “well-dressed man” and Digg joining the vigilante team, the majority of the episode was boringly slow and predictable with all the good shoe-horned into the last fifteen minutes. Business picks up next week though because after the tease in the pilot episode: Deathstroke comes to Star(ling) City! Can’t wait.
FINAL SCORE: 2.5/5