Arrow: 1×04 “An Innocent Man” (EPISODE REVIEW)

We are whisked back and forth between the island that Oliver was lost on and the modern day Oliver we see here, and it gets old fairly quickly. Since they’re going this route, I’d wish that the parallels were more consistent than him snapping a bird’s neck for food, and almost killing a prisoner that attempted to murder his ex. And a good portion of this episode is littered with unnecessary drama. Laurel comes to see if he’s alright, and after she sees that he’s alright, she finds the right to put him down and tell him he doesn’t care for others. Diggle spends the entire episode moping in his ex-sister-in-law’s restaurant about what he should do.

Realistically, Oliver is being particularly careless about his alternate persona of The Arrow. Not only does he outright show Diggle in the beginning of this episode, but he meets his ex-girlfriend throughout the episode, and his face is clearly lit up. When she sees his face in the ski mask you do see that she at least recognizes him. At least that’s what you’re led to believe – but later on we’re to assume she was just frightened because he would have clearly killed the man that was trying to kill her if she wouldn’t have intervened. But I beg to question how many people wouldn’t want to kill the person that is attempting to murder people that you love.

Walter is strangely innocent in all the machinations that seem to go on in Starling city, which surprises me because the actor is usually cast as shady characters (see Doctor Who – Silence in the Library). I’m curious to find out what he knows about the Tempest program, what he will know, and what the heck Tempest is. And why is John Barrowman and Oliver’s mom involved?! So many questions!

I really hate how bipolar Thea is, despite the fact that that is a fairly representative characterization of the average affluent white female. One minute she’s a drug addict who doesn’t listen to her mother, and now she’s loving sister with food relationship advice.

Anyway, this episode sees Oliver go from vigilante taking down big names to hero, standing up for those whom need help, which I appreciated. What I didn’t appreciate was that he hides his bow and costume in a garbage can right next to a camera in the last episode and gets arrested for it in this episode. That’s pretty friggin’ dumb Ollie. VERY nice mention of the fictional DC city of Blüdhaven which resides just adjacent to Gotham. Guess they don’t have the rights to say it.

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