Arrow: Mid-Season Finale (S01E09) - Year's End.

Hey look it's my last ever Arrow review because I think giving a show half a season is giving a show a fair chance. I'm still not enjoying it, so I'm dropping it. Yay!


So a new archer is in town, or where they here all a- it's John Barrowman. I...erm...yeah, that was just a joke guys...I...I have no words. I don't know whether to cry or laugh or try and attempt to do both at the same time. I mean seriously? They balance this goofiness with...Christmas? So is this the Arrow Christmas special? Is that why Merlyn The Archer is so poorly cast, for a gag? Well I won't ever find out! Oh and there are hostages or something. At least Arrow manages to be consistent in how utterly stupid it is.

Oh also, if you've watched any episode of Arrow, you've basically seen this one too. Thea throws a tantrum and that is about where the story ends, although this time we have candy canes! You've changed in five years? One of the Queen's chimes. Yes, another Queen chimes back. And so you must accept them for who they are now! Chimes a third Queen with a knowing nod. A nod that is seemingly becoming more knowing each week as we deal with the same fucking thing each week. And at the end of each week, they all hug and share this warmth of learning and by the start of next week everything they learn fucking vanishes. Truly tremendous writing. All snide aside, you think more people would cut Ollie some slack, he just lived through real life Lost for five years and people seem to hold it against him that he hasn't completed Angry Birds yet. Are all these rich people so wrapped up in their own shallow bullshit they don't realise the incredible human achievement he completed by simply being alive? I'd want to buy this guy a beer every time I met him. And on a lesser scale but no less important, Thea is a teenager in a very privileged family in 2012, of course she is gonna want dick from guys with awful haircuts and to go out and get fucked up, I know he is her brother so he doesn't want to see it but acting like her nanny all the time is basically his jump the shark moment of every episode despite spending some of it running around dressed as Robin Hood. It's all bullshit.

I'm so glad we get some more Detective Lance, sure the Dresden Files TV show kinda sucked but Blackthorne is just great in this show. It's like he either really doesn't want to be here or just generally doesn't care and shuffles through every episode somewhere between being on the cusp of a heart attack and doing a Tony Stark impression, with every scene leaving me on the edge of my seat as I wonder whether he really is going to be sick or if that is just his default reaction to life. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'd happily watch a show entirely centred around him, where he goes to murder scenes, shakes his head slowly and shows mild annoyance at it all before shuffling off scene with long huffs as if being alive hurts him somehow. I love you, Detective Lance, you'll be the only part of this show I'll miss.

We get some solid action, giving Ollie another archer to fight is awesome and the fight in particular was reminiscent of the brutally visceral action from the pilot which was the best part of the series so far. But once again it's much too brief and takes up way too little of the episode. Plus the mixture of cheap CGI and the modern way of capturing action on camera through loads of pointless fast edits and a camera apparently balanced on a bouncy castle, we can't enjoy any of it. You know, there is nothing wrong with just setting up the camera and letting the action play out, sure we need some edits here and there but I think more is gained, than lost, when you stop flailing the fucking camera around and cutting every point of a second, for fucks sake.

Year's End is utterly charming in how completely bizarre it all is. Thanks to some clever staging it feels like a lost episode of some kind of slasher TV show, complete with the villain smashing through something they could have just as easily walked around, and I mean all of this in the most positive of lights. And I don't just mean the murder scenes, I mean the way the show balances people being killed in cold blood with Ollie goofily running around looking for candy canes and throwing tantrums over Christmas decorations while all the while Lance lumbers about like he's just stubbed his toe and is ready to release an onslaught of expletives, of course done in his usual, seemingly extremely drunk, fashion. I don't know whether it's intentionally this stupid or not but it's nice to have an episode of Arrow which isn't so damn serious without being brain achingly painful like the Deadshot episode. And in the end, my final outing with Arrow wasn't nearly as horrible as it could have been. Bye Arrow!

Pros;

• Detective Lance, never change. 
• Great Action. 
• Such an oddball episode, it kind of paid off. 

Cons; 

• I bet when you thought of a casting idea for Merlyn The Archer, John Barrowman was the first person to spring to mind. 
• So Thea throws a tantrum and stuff, yay...
• Keep your bastard camera still for the love of Christ.

Think About It!

-Locke