Jessie Robertson reviews the fourteenth episode of Arrow season four, ‘Code of Silence’…
The answer to most questions is always “Maybe less glitter.”
It feels like a whole lot happened this week on Arrow. It centered around the Arrow crew trying to pin down Damien Darhk as his wife, Ruve, enters the Star City mayoral campaign. With such a bold transition to a new character, questions arise whether or not we’ll get a back story as to how that marriage exactly works. At the beginning of the episode, the Arrow crew track her down to a parking lot and within seconds, literally, her car disappears and she steps from out of the dark. Does she possess powers of any kind? So far she’s pretty bland but I feel there could be an undercurrent of evil in her.
The campaign, in itself, is treated as the backdrop of this season, with it coming and going as the story dictates and this week it was determined to have the campaign manager guy not around, but Oliver boning up on his political acumen, which by Thea’s quizzing and the unseen debate itself, seems that he’s doing pretty well. I love how they always have their gear at every political function, just in case team Arrow needs to put the smackdown on some baddies.
Speaking of baddies, this chick uses a nailgun! Just a nailgun! They’re the Demolition Crew, a group of (‘I’m quoting here_) “precision demolitionists” hired by Darhk to tear up some old buildings that just happen to fit into the motif of things they need done this episode (ex. bury Lance on a bogus police call, destroy the debate). It has to be a low point in Arrow villains and that’s saying something, although Diggle did lose a fight to the guy with the sledgehammer and Oliver had way too hard of a time beating up the guy with the painted on beard! The crew members with the nail gun and hammer are carrying around useless tools when there’s a bomb expert on the team! I mean a nail gun is for putting a building up, not down! Really, really awful stuff.
Let’s talk about these two: Thea, through her campaign duties, finds out about the $1 million check Moira wrote to Samantha as baby-daddy-hush money and digs deeper until realizing Oliver has a son. She chides Oliver on leaving Felicity in the dark because it’s best for her and him. Did we forget when she left Roy for him lying to her too much? Now she’s giving Oliver the same advice. It’s really dumbfounding. Let’s also look into Damien Darhk using Merlyn’s new piece of advice by kidnapping William, and bringing him home to live with him. The boy is supposed to be the most important person in Oliver’s life, which given the circumstance is a hard pill to swallow, but we’ve seen only 1 occasion of Oliver visiting the boy , so for all we know, he hasn’t seen him since. Now, of course, being who he is, he’s not going to let Darhk harm a child, especially his own but the pretense of the whole situation is a bit much to swallow.
7/10- Too many contrived plot elements and vapid characters this week; I still prefer the single based story episodes with an ending element to drive forward the over-arching plot but it didn’t work at all this week
Other Notes:
– I didn’t get to speak on it, but in passing, it’s mentioned Lyla is now head of ARGUS in wake of Amanda Waller’s brutal, sudden death a few weeks ago. Was that unexpected or what? Was that a direct result of the DC Cinematic Universe? I hope the Diggle’s get a really good babysitter.
– Lance’s pet name is “Pooh Bear” from Donna Smoak; it’s just so cute.
– I think Oliver could get away with giving Felicity a damaged laptop for an anniversary gift, how about you?
– Andy doing work! We have no idea where he is but dude’s coming up in spades on the research for this episode
– Good-bye Conklin- you were fun for a while.
– Not sure which particular piece of dialogue stood out poorer this week- “big pot of evil stew” or “ticky tocky bombs” but I never want to hear either of them again.
– I did like the nail effect whizzing by Laurel’s face
– “Not saying it lacks irony” never has a better expression been devised for a man who keeps killing people in “self defense”
– Did Curtis just make a Walking Chip for Felicity? How would that even work? Holy cow, this just got Gotham – levels of ridiculous now!
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