Review: Arrow

My husband and I have watched, I think 3?, episodes of Arrow so far. Spoilers follow, but mostly ones you should probably know about before you start watching the show.

Arrow is a new show set in the DC universe, about the Green Arrow. One of those boring superheroes that doesn't actually have any super-powers he's just a rich dude with mad skills (I'm kind of a superman fan, sorry).

Oliver Queen comes back from the dead when he's found on a deserted island off the coast of China, 5 years after he was mourned as dead by his friends and family. Apparently the fact that it was a deserted island is super important because they mention it a LOT.

And basically NOTHING IN THE SHOW MAKES ANY SENSE if you believe that that is true. After being stranded on a deserted island for 5 years, Oliver Queen is suddenly super awesome at shooting arrows, hand-to-hand fighting, knife throwing and Russian. I spent most of the first two episodes shouting "HOW DID HE LEARN THAT ON A DESERTED ISLAND" at the TV, and if laughing at how NOTHING MADE SENSE AT ALL wasn't so much fun I really would have given up on the show right there and then. Seriously. In the first episode (I think) he HACKS (untraceably!) a bank account. With an arrow. I bet they run classes for that sort of thing ON DESERTED ISLANDS.

I would have bought it a lot more easily if there was some kind of weird glowy shrine on the island that gave him super-arrow powers. Really. That would have seemed way less stupid.

But then a few episodes in there is a big reveal that he wasn't alone on the island after all! Seriously - this should not have been something they waited several episodes to reveal. Basically NOTHING that happened before the reveal made ANY SENSE AT ALL. Now it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but there's a certain amount of nonsense I'll buy when everything is taking place in a comic book universe.

I'm having a lot of trouble following anyone's motivation in the show though, and I don't really understand Queen's priorities so much. He's basically a vigilante who's not afraid to kill a bunch of henchmen to take out a baddie each episode. But then in the episode I just watched someone beat him to the baddie... so he went after that guy instead for being a killer (apparently he kills without 'honour' or some shit, whatever).

So yeah he kills people for being corrupt (or really for being on his Daddy's List Of Terrible People). But really if we tally his body count he mostly kills people for working for the people DLOTP. And it mostly makes me feel sad because... I don't imagine that everyone has the luxury of choice here. People have to pay their bills!

Also there was this part where Queen's ex-girlfriend (that he was cheating on, with her sister, when his boat sunk and she died along with everyone else except him) slept with his best friend. Then apparently they were supposed to apologise because apparently it's super important to remain faithful to your cheating, dead boyfriend? or Something? It was kind of gross.

I'm trying to think of things I actually like about this show to justify the fact that I am going to keep watching it but... uh, honestly I am mostly enjoying snarking at it. So there's that. I'll probably see out the season and then try and decide whether it's worth watching any more of it or not (unless it gets really bad in the meantime, I guess!)

PS. At one point in the 3rd episode there were 5 people in a scene and only 2 of them were white. So that was kind of neat!