Arrow Season 2, Episode 10 “Blast Radius”
Written by Jake Coburn & Keto Shimizu
Directed by Rob Hardy
Airs Wednesday nights at 8pm ET on The CW
After ending 2013 with a bang (literally), Arrow returns this week with not one, but two more explosions, courtesy of a internet forum whacko with a penchant for cell phone trickery named Shrapnel. Yes, he’s a crappy antagonist, hearkening back to season one when bad guys were less characters than placeholders for one specific personality trait – but “Blast Radius” uses his exploits to great effect, a reminder to Arrow (and the audience) that even with a great new mask and a bow, he can’t do everything alone. More so, it stands as an ominous warning for the future: Oliver better be on his toes in the coming weeks, or Slade’s Blood-enhanced plan to destroy Arrow and the city he protects in one fell swoop is going to end up a little more similar to season one’s finale than Arrow and company would like.
Of course, there’s a pretty hefty amount of time spent on relationship dramatics in “Blast Radius” – Oliver and Felicity bicker after her return from Central City (where Barry Allen lays comatose), Roy bickers and makes out with Thea, and Laurel doesn’t trust her new not-boyfriend Sebastian Blood, investigating him in the most useless (which is kind of fitting) way possible. Everybody’s cranky in the episode, especially those reeling from the events of “Three Ghosts”, where Roy was injected with Mirakuru and Arrow felt afraid for the first time since he left the jungle: and with a crazed man outsmarting Felicity and blowing up buildings, it’s no surprise that everyone’s on edge. However, it comes out in the most frustrating ways possible, as Oliver’s growing jealousy and Roy’s attempts to protect Thea from what happened to him lead to a lot of exasperated female faces – something The CW specializes in, and Arrow really shouldn’t.
There are a few moments where all the crankiness leads to an effective end: when Oliver points out how important Felicity is to keeping him (and the city) alive, it’s the rare moment where a superhero giving props to his partner don’t feel obligatory. Regardless of how Oliver might feel romantically about Felicity, she’s more than a friend or an employee: she’s a partner, a person who Oliver looks to lean on when he’s either unable to find something (like when he’s stuck in a well-rigged room full of lasers), or finds himself weighed down by the emotional strain of his past (his general irritability surrounding the re-emergence of Mirakuru).
But it’s a good point: without the help of Felicity and Diggle, Arrow’s bound to make a mistake, simply because he can’t see all the angles. He’s intelligent – but like any human being, he misses things, especially in his search to find people he can trust, both personally and to help rebuild Starling City. It might seem like his newfound alliance with Blood is a surprise: but with Slade pulling the strings, Arrow’s getting manipulated by the very man who helped transform him into who he is. He’s walking into a trap Brother Blood and Slade are setting for him, and since Arrow doesn’t have Laurel (who is still trying to chase down The Hood, her lawyering skills unable to discover the name change) on his side, Blood is his biggest logical blind spot. Desperate to find a solution to a city being threatened by evil around every corner, Oliver’s alliance with Blood foregoes any of the careful steps he might normally take before bringing someone into the fold (unless it’s Barry, who was forced into knowing) – and it appears Laurel’s going to take a long, long time to discover anything useful, spending her time popping pills (ugh) and hunting down an aunt who reminds us all that Blood is evil (and really, really hates his parents for some reason).
In terms of the overall picture, “Blast Radius” is more inconsequential than it initially feels – Roy’s secret isn’t going to last for long, just like Arrow and Blood’s alliance is bound to be short-lived. The key here is to keeping these story lines interesting through the season’s second act, and although “Blast Radius” features a baddie-of-the-week I’ve already forgotten, it manages to keep things intriguing with the hints of what is to come. As long as Arrow can continue to find ways to keep the narrative from feeling stagnant (like Thea’s business savvy, or Quentin’s search for a mole in the department), there’s going to be plenty of material to enjoy before the show moves into its season endgame.
Other thoughts/observations:
– timeline update: the explosion in Central City (the closing moments of “Three Ghosts”) happened five weeks ago. Did we miss anything else? Apparently not.
– wouldn’t Thea have noticed Roy’s leg healing from his arrow wound quickly? The glass shard in his arm seems redundant (though how it comes about is hilarious).
– the thought of 1000 soldiers like Solomon Grundy sends shivers down my spine.
– The key to Mr. Scheffer not turning into Shrapnel is a simple case of reverse Clark Kent: put the glasses back on, and the murderous, cell-phone loving cyberhack is just a toy train salesman.
– the mask makes its debut – and the only person who notices is Quentin. How self-involved is everyone in Starling City?!
– speaking of Shrapnel: the guy can scramble cell phones and remotely detonate bombs on cellular networks… but he can’t hide his IP address on a public internet forum? For crying out loud.
– If Diggle isn’t still in that brace next week, I’ll be pissed. Not only because of continuity reasons, either: given his speech to Felicity, the next few episodes of Arrow could feature situations where Arrow is without his brain (Felicity) or his backup muscle (Diggle), which always comes in handy. A replacement? BIG BAD ROY-DING HOOD, MOTHERFUCKERS.
– WHO CARES ABOUT SHADO’S FEELINGS? I really hate that this is the foundation for the destruction of Slade and Oliver’s friendship… it’s so silly, and CW-ish in the worst way.