Arrowverse

Arrow – Emerald Archer

  • Title: Arrow – Emerald Archer
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Arrow - Emerald Archer television review

Several familiar faces return for Arrow‘s 150th episode presented as a documentary (featuring alternate takes and camera angles of clips from several episodes over the series runs) about Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), vigilantes, and their role in Star City. Those returning include Quentin Lance (Paul Blackthorne), Sara Lance (Caity Lotz), Thea Queen (Willa Holland), Sin (Bex Taylor-Klaus), Barry (Grant Gustin), and Ragman (Joe Dinicol) who provide their own takes on Oliver and vigilantes along with interviews and sequences from the current cast of series regulars. And when Oliver puts himself in harm’s way to be lure out the villain of the week, the episode even offers the return of Team Arrow. The documentary-style of much of the episode offers its strengths and weaknesses, but overall the episode turns out well (and we do get more regular scenes between characters when not in front of the documentary crew).

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Arrow – Past Sins

  • Title: Arrow – Past Sins
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Arrow - Past Sins television review

Arrow delves back into First Season plotlines in “Past Sins” when the son of the bodyguard murdered in the life raft by Robert Queen (Jamey Sheridan) shows up looking for revenge by targeting Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) and the Star City Police Department. As whacked-out loonies go, the baddie of the week is pretty far out there (what did he really hope to gain by targeting police? and how does killing Oliver avenge a death he had no part in?), but the episode fulfills its intended purpose of helping Oliver win some trust with his half-sister Emiko (Sea Shimooka) by throwing his father under the bus. Just how Ollie plans to balance his new public transparency and his knowledge that his sister is the new Green Arrow with attempting to keep Emiko’s trust, however, is yet to be seen.

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Supergirl – Blood Memory

  • Title: Supergirl – Blood Memory
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Supergirl - Blood Memory television review

The relationship between sisters is the theme of “Blood Memory” when Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) takes a trip with Nia (Nicole Maines) to her inclusive home town. After meeting Nia’s sister (Hannah James), Kara discovers why her protege has been so hesitant to embrace the powers passed down from her mother (Kate Burton). At the same time the show begins exploring the aftereffects of Alex (Chyler Leigh) forgetting Supergirl’s true identity from small memory gaps, to a lack of confidence, to being far less kind to the Maid of Might in the field. Bonding over their trouble with sisters, the episode works as both an origin story for Nia’s eventual hero push while also staying true to the show’s core principles of friendship and sisterhood as Kara reveals her secret to a friend whose turmoil she understands all too well.

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Arrow – My Name is Emiko Queen

  • Title: Arrow – My Name is Emiko Queen
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Arrow returns from mid-season hiatus unmasking the new Green Arrow and revealing it to be… Oliver Queen‘s never-before-mentioned half-sister Emiko (Sea Shimooka). A comic character originally inspired by Thea (a character created specifically for the show), there’s a weird circular logic to her introduction here as Emiko seems like an unusual choice to throw into the mix this far into the show’s run (especially presenting her as a near carbon-copy of Oliver from the show’s first couple of seasons complete with her own book of names to cross off). While we have to wait until next week for the first conversation between the siblings, this episode does see Emiko put her own posse together as Rene (Rick Gonzalez) and Curtis (Echo Kellum) join her fight.

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Supergirl – Suspicious Minds

  • Title: Supergirl – Suspicious Minds
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Supergirl - Suspicious Minds  television review

More than any of the other CW super-hero shows, Supergirl has shown a willingness to push the envelope and take an unexpected hard right-turn to shake things up in unexpected ways. This season has seen the show continue to mirror real-life political divisiveness and immigrant issues with an anti-alien hate group movement and the new President’s (Bruce Boxleitner) anti-alien agenda which gets Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) kicked out of the DEO and creates an investigation to uncover the hero’s true identity. In an episode about invisible alien assassins bred by the U.S. Government for black ops, it’s the core relationships between characters and how far they are willing to go to keep secrets to protect each other that highlights “Suspicious Minds.”

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