Arrow (2012 TV Series)

[BatmAngelus]

The thing is, I'm not sure if this is actually true.  The source comes from a fansite called TheGreenArrow.net, with no citation of where they heard this. 
http://www.thegreenarrow.net/arrow-episode-2x05-titled-the-demons-head-synopsis/

There have been no reports from official press, like EW or Deadline or TV Lines, or statements from the executive producers in the press or on their twitter accounts.  For now, I'm taking it with a grain of salt until they come out and it's confirmed by someone else.

[BatmAngelus]

Well, looks like I'm half-right.  The title of the episode is not Demon's Head, but League of Assassins, according to showrunner Marc Guggenheim's twitter:
https://twitter.com/mguggenheim/status/369969538982756352

So while we are definitely getting the League of Assassins next season, I'm not sure if we'll see Ra's al Ghul, at least not yet. 

It makes sense since the Merlyn character in the comics is a member, Malcolm Merlyn referenced being trained by "a man" in Nanda Parbat in Season 1, and this season will also feature Lady Shiva's daughter, Sin, played by Bex Taylor-Klaus:
http://www.superherohype.com/news/articles/178791-the-killings-bex-taylor-klaus-joins-arrow-as-dc-character-sin

[riddler]

Anyone get the DVD/blu ray of the first season? I just did; 4 discs for the blu ray, about to pop in disc 2 today. I actually never finished the first season so I should be caught up by monday.

[riddler]

season 2 underway, interesting turn of events. Seems it'll be following the movie pattern of super heros giving up their moniker in their second adventure.

[gordonblu]

When they asked Oliver at the end of the episode what he would like to be called (instead of Hood), I couldn't help blurting out "Mr. Coffee". My friends laughed pretty hard at that.

If that was indeed BC helping Roy with the rapists, I approve of the costume design. It reflects the comics while being logical at the same time (it's cold at night, she wouldn't be an effective crime fighter if she loses her legs to hypothermia!).

I'm disappointed that Katie Cassidy appears to have lost weight (i.e. bowing to "all women have to look like super models" pressure). In the first season she was pretty but also looked like a real person, in last night's episode she looked like just another CW Barbie.

[BatmAngelus]

Second season's off to a good start.  While I know the show will get accused of ripping on The Dark Knight with the copycat vigilantes, I think the show, by virtue of being a TV series, was able to explore the idea more and have it play a bigger role in Oliver's character development, leading him to get rid of the nickname "The Hood."

Now he needs to graduate from "The Arrow" to "Green Arrow."   

Overall, the storylines feel a lot more connected than it did in the beginning of the first season.  Glad to see Roy and The Arrow working together- the possible beginnings of Green Arrow and Speedy/Red Arrow?

Quentin's middle name is Larry.  Nice.  (Larry Lance is the name of Dinah Lance's dad in the comics).

In the flashbacks, it seems that we've got a bit of a love triangle among Oliver, Shado, and Slade.  I just hope that Slade's jealousy doesn't become a huge part in his evolution into becoming Deathstroke.  His burns from the attack make me wonder what'll happen with him next.  As for Shado, her romance with Oliver makes me wonder if the show will bring in their son, Robert, in future seasons.

Also, it looks like the prison ship may take Oliver off the island and could explain how Oliver joined up with the Russian mob.

The Ra's mention was a treat.  Looks like Malcolm's hooded costume was a League of Assassins uniform and the new Black Canary is a former member.  Since Sin is Lady Shiva's daughter in the comics, we might see Shiva too.  (Funny enough, Kelly Hu/China White plays the most recent Shiva on Arkham Origins).

I do wonder how the current Black Canary is going to tie into Laurel's evolution into Black Canary.  Or will it?  Personally, I hope she is the last of the "fake out prototypes" on the show.  We met Tommy Merlyn before we met the actual Merlyn villain.  We met "Deathstroke" before meeting Slade Wilson and finding out the man in the mask was Wintergreen.  Not to mention that Oliver's outfit actually comes from Yao-Fei and Shado.  The showrunners like tricking us, but if they keep using the same trick, it's going to get old.

[BatmAngelus]

After last night's episode, Crucible (SPOILERS to follow, obviously)...

I've read a lot of fans hoping that Sara Lance stays on as the real Black Canary and that the writers stop trying to turn Laurel into BC and just make her a red herring character like Tommy Merlyn instead.  Honestly, I can't blame them. 

There's a reason why so many people- including comic book fans- champion for Oliver to get with Felicity Smoak instead.  This season hasn't exactly done Laurel's character any favors, from unfairly blaming The Arrow for Tommy's death to drowning herself in pills, wine, and self-pity despite all the people in her life trying to help her.  While her pain comes from an understandable place, it doesn't make her very likable, especially when compared to how the other characters seem to have found better ways to deal with their pain.

I thought that the one advantage Laurel had over Sara (other than having the name Dinah) is her history with Oliver, but even now it turns out that Oliver and Sara had a much deeper history than we even knew about. 

Not to mention that Sara:
- Has a reason to take on the canary persona, since she was the one with the pet canary as a kid
- Is a skilled fighter and already works well with Oliver in the field
- Already has the Watchtower and the partnership with Sin
- Has the outfit down and looks more like the comic book character than any of the previous live action actresses, including Katie Cassidy's Laurel.  Sure, she's not in fishnets, but the costume looks much closer to the character than what Rachel Skarsten and Alaina Huffman wore in Birds of Prey and Smallville, respectively. 

The mask does evoke the Golden Age Black Canary, Dinah Drake, though, which leads me to fear that they're using Sara as their version of the first Black Canary and that they'll kill her off (for a third time and for good?) to make way for Laurel to adopt her persona and possibly don the blonde wig to fool people into thinking she's the same person. 

It's not out of the question, but it'd be a shame since Sara's Canary feels like the genuine article already and I haven't read anyone who's actually championing for Laurel to turn into Black Canary, especially after seeing Sara's BC in action.

Also, I was predicting that they were going the Harvey Dent route with Sebastian Blood, but it looks like he's been Brother Blood from the start.  Wish his mask didn't look so much like Scarecrow's though.

Can't wait for "The League of Assassins" next week.

[The Laughing Fish]

I've decided to give this show a chance by spending the last few weeks watching the entire first season, and getting up to date with the second season. And I have to say that despite some soap opera-like acting, I got to say this show is rather decent. The reason is because the story is surprisingly more compelling than I thought it would be.

And even though that this show does rip off ideas from Nolan's Batman films and tries to "ground itself in reality", I'd say Arrow's plot and character development is far, far more satisfying. Not only because the advantage of being a TV series allows to flesh out ideas better than a movie, but even the plot has some logic by comparison. How? By having Arrow being consistently pursued by the police for being a vigilante. By not having Arrow adopt a half-assed moral code that only gets broken whenever it's convenient to the story. By having more people initially suspecting that Oliver Queen is the vigilante because of his disappearance for five years (in contrast how nobody in TDKR ever makes the connection that Bruce/Batman disappeared, reappeared, "died" etc). By making Arrow go through his experiences AND actually learn from them - which is something Nolan's Batman never did. There is actually character development with Oliver Queen; he goes from being determined to wipe out everyone responsible for corrupting Starling City at all costs until Tommy's death and the destruction of the Glades made him reconsider his crusade. And after capturing the copycats, Oliver realises he can still save Starling City without always resorting to lethal force.

Even the Gordon-surrogate in Quentin Lance has great character development. He goes from passionately leading a task force to bring Arrow down, to becoming grateful for his rescuing of Laurel for more than one occasion, and even works with Arrow for cases that the police can't solve. And then Quentin actually faces consequences with this alliance by losing his job as a detective while desperately trying to warn the police about Merlyn's attack on the Glades (of course, I'd imagine that Quentin would've been arrested for obstruction of justice instead of being demoted to patrolman, but still...).

But I do have some complaints about the show: mainly the acting. Some of the acting, especially by Stephen Amell is pretty ordinary, and the guy who plays Malcolm Merlyn is pretty awful. Brother Blood's lack-of-costume is a clear ripoff of Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow, which sucks for me personally because I always thought Murphy's Scarecrow was a crappy design to begin with. At least Brother Blood's mask looks cooler. :p Thea Queen can be annoying at times and a brat, and it's rather dumb how a girl fresh out of high school can run a club a year later. And really, the secret of her being Merlyn's biological daughter is a bit of a soap opera cliche. That being said, Arrow is still better than what I expected, and I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the second season.

By the way, when Merlyn explained his resurrection to Moira by saying "death is an illusion in some parts of the world and I learned to be convincing", does anyone else get the feeling that the Lazarus Pit is going to miss out again? Because judging from what he had said, it sounds like he is trained to fake his own death.

[BatmAngelus]

Glad you gave the show a chance, Laughing Fish.  I agree with your assessment of the story being more compelling than expected and how the format lends itself to more character development.  As you said, I don't mind the similarities to the Nolan Batman since they manage to take those ideas and explore them further (i.e. Oliver throwing off suspicion that he's "The Hood" in Season 1).

I believe Merlyn simply faked being dead and healed his wounds in between seasons.  Judging from his last scene with Moira regarding Ra's Al Ghul, Merlyn seems to have been cast out from the League, so if the Pit exists in this world, he wouldn't have access to it anyway.

[The Laughing Fish]

Exciting developments have occurred over the past few episodes (SPOILERS):

Slade Wilson as Deathstroke makes his appearance as he kills Sebastian Blood's cronies as punishment for Blood's incompetence, despite Blood throwing off suspicion that he is the masked freak by sending one of his henchmen in disguise to fool Laurel and Arrow. Laurel's drug addiction has cost her job as the Assistant DA. Bronze Tiger escapes and tries to deliver Merlyn's earthquake emitter prototype to a buyer, until he was defeated by Arrow and Roy Harper; Oliver reveals his secret identity to Roy to earn his trust and prevent him from following the same path as Wilson did after being injected by the Mirakuru. Ra's al Ghul's other daughter, Nyssa, kidnap's Sara's mother in an attempt to force her to return to the League of Assassins (while revealing the two were in a romantic relationship). Sara rescues her mother and convinces Nyssa she won't return, and now the entire Lance family know that Sara is alive...but Laurel's drunkenness and bitterness causes her to blame Sara for taking Oliver away from her and breaking up the family.

It's only a matter of time till Ra's al Ghul appears. There's an upcoming episode within the few weeks titled "Birds of Prey", with Nyssa NOT being the antagonist (at least from what I heard). I'd imagine that Huntress will return, though I wouldn't be surprised if she'll be the villain since her vendetta against her father is painting her a darker picture.