Arrow’s “Pilot” episode launched us into the action fast and furious and delivered a first rate, first episode. The story and acting were solid, the action was intense with well-choreographed sequences, and there were enough questions dropped to keep viewers interested for some time.
Greg Berlanti and Mark Guggenheim delivered a well-crafted script, and David Nutter’s expert direction kept the action moving. The cinematography was appropriately dark, gritty and atmospheric where it needed to be. There were enough flashbacks to fill in the necessary blanks so that the audience could make sense of the current plot, but there will no doubt be a lot more for us to learn about what happened to Oliver on the Island.
I have to confess that I have not read the Green Arrow comic, and I didn’t follow Smallville very closely. While the sets didn’t feel completely realistic, I also didn’t feel like they were completely in a “comics universe” either which struck a good balance for me. Because Arrow really doesn’t have “superpowers” other than those he’s trained for, this felt very appropriate. Nutter, of course, directed the pilot for Smallville too, but he also directed the pilot Supernatural which has a much grittier feel to it.
The main cast all delivered terrific performances, and here again the dialogue and reactions felt real, not melodramatic or forced as could have happened if the show had gone for that clichéd comic feel. Clearly, everyone is not what they seem at first glance, not just Oliver, who tells us that “he had to forge himself into a weapon to survive.” Stephen Amell gives a nuanced performance as both the obnoxious playboy of the past and the thoughtful son who has returned to defend his father’s honor. He also does a more than commendable job executing the very physical stunts and is in incredible shape. Kudos to Nutter for making sure that we can almost always see Amell’s face as he executes those stunts!
Katie Cassidy’s Laurel Lance is a good potential love interest for Oliver. She also has a mission to right the world’s wrongs but has a complicated past. She was, after all, Oliver’s girlfriend during his party heyday. Now she is a lawyer for the city’s legal aid office and is also committed to cleaning up the city. Her father (Paul Blackthorne) is the detective assigned to the Arrow case, who has little love for the guy who got his one daughter killed and broke the heart of the other. Another surprise in the episode is that Laurel has been having a relationship with Tommy Merlyn (Colin Donnell), Oliver’s best friend. I liked that she wasn’t ready to simply forgive Oliver – her feelings run too deep for that as they should. Her best speech was trying to explain to him that she couldn’t grieve for her sister because she was mad at her and she couldn’t be mad at Sarah because Sarah was dead. I really liked the complex way the writers handled that. Equally well done was the scene with Oliver’s sister Thea (Willa Holland) who told him not to judge her when he catches her underage at his big party and buying drugs. She tells him she’s simply following in his footsteps, and even more importantly, that when he and their father had died, she had been left alone all on her own to find her way. It’s not just the city that Oliver is going to have to help put back on a firm footing.
All of the people around Oliver appear to care about him, but few are without secrets of their own. I tried to remain spoiler free for this show, but I’d already heard who kidnapped Oliver and knew that it was his mother Moira (Susanna Thompson). She first seems to be simply the loving and relieved mother, but then we see that Oliver seems closer to Rhesa, the maid, and we learn that Moira has already re-married Robert Queen’s (Jamey Sheridan) business partner Walter Steele (Colin Salmon).
A theme that runs through the episode is that even when Oliver was a seemingly careless playboy, people like Rhesa, Laurel, and his father saw that there was more to him, that there was a core of goodness to him. In fact, it’s going to be interesting to see how long it takes for those around him to start getting suspicious. His bodyguard, who is ex-military, John Diggle – Digs (David Ramsey) shouldn’t be fooled for long. Tommy is already suspicious of Oliver having his party right beside Hunt’s building, and Tommy may seem like a carefree playboy, but that too could just be an act. He’s had five years in which to change too, and he certainly knows more about what happened in the warehouse during the kidnapping than he’s letting on. Laurel has already noted that Oliver was changed by the Island despite what he says: “the Island did change you. It made you honest.”
If you’ve been following the build up to the show, you likely know that there are a string of pretty amazing villains to come. If every episode is this tightly written and packed with action, I think this is going to be one of the best new shows this fall. Certainly, the fight scenes alone are spectacular, and the core cast is terrific. They’ve thrown a lot of balls in the air, and I’m excited to see them nail each one of them to the wall – just like Oliver did with those tennis balls...
