TV REVIEW: Oliver Takes a Back Seat in in Arrow’s “Corto Maltese”

By Justin Carter

Last season on Arrow, one of Slade Wilson’s steps to breaking Oliver was to essentially ruin his life, which he managed to do fairly well. He kidnapped Thea, told her that Malcolm Merlyn was her father and that both Oliver and Moira knew, and killed Moira in front of both her children. Oliver went on to defeat Slade, but Thea was paid a visit by Malcolm himself during the Starling City siege, alive and a kicking courtesy of means unknown. Thea, done with all the lies her family and Roy have been feeding her, leaves with Malcolm and has been training with him for the past in-show five months.

Chasing dead ends for Sara’s killer is getting nowhere, so Oliver and Roy head to Corto Maltese to bring her home, joined by Diggle, who’s searching for an A.R.G.U.S. operative at the request of Lyla. A.R.G.U.S. and Team Arrow have been mutual allies at best, with Diggle holding Amanda Waller at gunpoint in the last finale aside, so the request for Diggle to help out with an A.R.G.U.S. situation would have to be fairly big. Sure enough, the operative in question knows about a device up for sale that’ll reveal the identity of every A.R.G.U.S. operative and their family members.

The operative doesn’t really matter, though, not really. His only purpose as far as the story is concerned is to give Diggle some doubts about being Waller’s errand boy from time to time, which may be revealed through Oliver’s flashbacks pretty soon. Amanda Waller has clearly shown time and again that she isn’t above extreme measures to get what she wants, and the fact that she’s threatening a man’s family to get Past Oliver to do her dirty work, whatever that ultimately leads to, says a lot. That temporary alliance with Team Arrow may break pretty soon, depending on how things go.

Despite being the central lead, Oliver is relegated to passenger seat this week in favor of Diggle and his sister, showing her training with Malcolm over the course of five months. John Barrowman continues to sell Malcolm Merlyn as someone you want to hate while ultimately sympathizing with him. Malcolm’s problem is that he dives into everything blinded by raging passion, which is what inspires him to detach himself from Thea as a parent in favour of a teacher. The final fight scene where they duel with swords definitely shows that she’s come a long way since crying for help last year, and if the lack of pain to coffee on the hand is any indication, it was more than tough love that made Thea into who she is now.

Barrowman and Willa Holland have a nice dynamic together, and she feels more like a character now and in the handful of last season’s final episodes than she did in all of season one. She justifiably ran away from the secrets and lies that’s plagued her life, and living in Corto Maltese with no one knowing who she is has definitely changed her. When Oliver tells her a half-truth about Robert killing himself during the shipwreck, it felt more like he was saying that he needed her home as an emotional crutch than a family member. Of course, Oliver has barely told her half of a truth, and now that he’s flat out said he’ll tell her more truths since she’s coming back home with him, she’ll definitely be sure to keep him on his word.

While the Queen family is trying to put their home life back together, the Lance family is starting to crumble. Sara’s death is still hidden from her father, and Laurel is chomping at the bit to do something, leading to one of the weirdest moments for Laurel where she tries to beat up the abusive boyfriend of a fellow AA member. It goes about as well as expected with Laurel getting her ass kicked, but what makes it strange is that she went to Felicity for help before deciding to go after him. I suppose Felicity was her plan B in case things didn’t go as planned, but even then it felt like she barely had a plan to begin with. The only positive thing that came from it all was that Laurel turns to boxer Ted Grant for some training, since Oliver is understandably refusing to help make her a hero. I made peace with Katie Cassidy becoming Black Canary pretty much in season two when Sara handed her the jacket, but I still feel like the show is pushing its luck by having her wear it. I can understand that they want to speed things along since Laurel’s storylines the past two years have been slow at best, but there has to be a way to do that without making Sara almost feel like just a stand-in.

“Corto Maltese” is a push forward for the characters into their plotlines for the season, and in that regards, it does its job pretty well. But even with the appearance of Nyssa at the end and an indication that something has happened with Thea, it feels like there’s no real idea of where the show is headed. Hopefully next week has a target in mind.

Additional Notes:

• “Are we favor friends now? …Are we even friends?”

• Oliver manages to create his own bow and arrows for him and Roy using stuff from their hotel room. He could start his own handyman business!

• “You can’t take your bow on a plane.” “I’ve never actually flown before.”

• “What is it with your family and islands?”