ARROW Gets Dolled Up — with Name Checks!
Episode 203 “Broken Dolls”
[photos: Cate Cameron/CW]
Yeah. That just happened.
Lots of name-checking in this hour. Lots of fan reaction on Twitter. And lots of movement forward in the story. So let’s get right to it by first saying — we know the identity of the Black Canary. And you should, too, if you’re paying attention.
SPOILERS
Not going to spoil it here, because it looks like the reveal is next week, so it’ll keep for now. But the Canary makes a big impression this week, busting in with a tech-based Canary Cry to get Arrow out of his jam — surrounded by cops in Laurel’s office. This, of course, gets Oliver hot to find out who this new vigilante is and what she’s doing on his turf. Is she friend or foe? From where does she hail? And where does she get those wonderful toys?
But the search for “Miss Black Leather and a Decent Mask” (come on, Oliver, they’re not hard to find…) must be put on hold. Turns out the earthquake popped quite a few bad guys out of prison, among them a very nasty cat named Barton Mathis, the Dollmaker — who first appeared in Detective Comics, so he’s a Bat-rogue — a serial killer who goes after young women with “delicate skin”. His victims become his doll creations, as he pours a quick-hardening plastic into the girls and literally turns them into porcelain dolls. Lance was the one who put him away, and he’s now almost mad with obsessive-compulsive urges to get the guy at all costs, up to and including a turn to “the Arrow” for help, since Lance has been threatened with arrest if he gets anywhere near the case.
When Barton gets another girl and kills her while he’s got Lance on the phone, Lance is at his breaking point. It’s certainly one of the darkest moments on Arrow yet, and Paul Blackthorne plays it with just the right amount of restrained desperation, keeping it from getting too soapy and over-the-top.
Felicity volunteers to hit the shops where a certain skin cream is sold, as it turns out to be the connection between the victims. Barton almost gets her, and Team Arrow almost gets Barton, but not quite. Now, the biggest problem I have with this whole sequence: Lance knows who Felicity is, knows where she works, and not once does he even try to make any kind of connection between the Arrow and Oliver Queen? Especially after so much time in season one where the good detective was sure they were the same man?
And Oliver has to get a mask. Really. It borders on the insufferably stupid that no one is going to recognize him simply because he paints a little green around his eyes. Really.
Oliver, meantime, has put Roy on the scent of tracking down the Canary. Our boy “Abercrombie” finds Canary’s sidekick, Sin — who also has a history in the world of the Bat — and she gives him a good run for his money. Literally. It’s a well-staged parkour chase through parking lots and back alleys all the way up to a clock tower, which can only be a shout out to Birds of Prey, really. The Easter Eggs are thick this episode… The number 52 crops up more than once (a little overdone, really), plus Metamorpho and Granger get a mention, and the mother of all Easter Eggs at the end…
Canary wants to know if “they” sent Roy, and we don’t find out who “they” are until the end of the hour, in a scene that had Twitter jaws dropping after a certain name was dropped on us. To hear Ra’s Al Ghul mentioned in this show — well, let’s just say we’re in for some solid story universe expansion this season. Not only that, but we also get another step closer to Slade becoming the mask-wearing Deathstroke, as the flashbacks give us ‘splosions! on the island, rockets fired from a boat — the Amazo — and Shado’s fate a mystery while wig-Oliver becomes a prisoner.
Plus, we must mention the appearance of Jean Loring (played by genre veteran Teryl Rothery), another name dropped from the DC Universe. She and Ray were already mentioned in a season one flashback, so now that we’ve seen Jean, could Dr. Ray Palmer be far behind? And check the name on the door for Barton’s lawyer — Tony Daniel — named for the DC Comics artist who helped create the Dollmaker. A nice touch, that.
Some good work also between Blackthorne and Katie Cassidy, as father and daughter find themselves reversed in their feelings toward the vigilante. Laurel, of course, is transferring her guilt over Tommy’s death, blaming the Hood instead of herself. It’s a spot-on moment when Lance calls her on it, with a decent payoff later in the hour when Laurel admits her folly after she and Lance escape Barton’s attempt to kill them both. Barton, of course, meets his fate at the hands of the Canary, who’s left Roy in the clock tower after Thea sends him a desperate text saying Laurel’s been kidnapped.
Some great stunt work this week, and the byplay between Arrow and Canary is about to heat up. If some of the images are any indication, we may get a reveal next week as to the identity of this particular pretty bird.
We know who she is, of course…
[Official Show Site at CW] [Previous Recap: “Identity”]
