ARROW's Legacy Builds

Episode 106 “Legacies”

The new Green Arrow TV show delivers another entry from the DC Universe: the Royal Flush Gang.

Well, sort of. A family takes to robbing banks, wearing hockey masks painted with playing card faces. So it’s a more realistic rendition of the group, and it fits into the tone of the show. And Oliver thinks they’re a distraction from his “mission” — and you could make hay over the whole White Collar vs. Blue Collar categories of crime, and whether or not Oliver needs to concentrate on one over the other (in fact, io9 has a rather snarky analysis of just that topic).

In any case, John Diggle convinces Oliver that crime is crime, and this gang needs to be stopped. Ollie still thinks it’s a job for the uniforms, but since a cop got shot and Diggle moved him to a good hospital and committed Ollie to paying for it, well… Ollie’s kind of boxed into a corner.

Which is the explanation we get for why this family has taken to robbing banks: Derek Reston, who worked for Queen Consolidated before the plant got shut down, feels boxed in and is desperately looking for a way to take care of his family. I’m not sure if the writers are trying to justify the action because of the whole “rich people are evil” meme that’s going around these days (which the show seems to be playing to), but at least they ultimately make this about a choice the Restons make to do what they do, which gives Ollie the justification to go after them.

Meanwhile, CRNI loses a major source of funding, and Laurel & Co. worry about where their next meal will come from. Well, not that extreme, perhaps, but it’s a cause for concern that they won’t be able to keep doing the fine work they’ve been doing… wait, what do they do, exactly?…

Anyway, Tommy Merlyn, taking advice from Thea — who thinks Merlyn has the hots for her because she’s got the hots for him — throws a big fund-raiser for CRNI because he wants to make nice with Laurel and impress her with his charm and class and style and money — and doesn’t this smack of a desperate attempt to buy Laurel’s affection?  Of course, it kind of works, as Laurel gives Tommy a big smile at the end of the episode, when Tommy is taking a very drunk and depressed Thea home from the party.

(Prediction: The whole Tommy-Laurel-Ollie triangle is going to be the event that puts Speedy on the road to becoming… well… Speedy.)

Need we mention, Thea’s also embarrassed for making a little bit of a drunken jealous scene at the party?

Flashbacks! Ollie on the island, in the cave, hallucinating that his father is giving him what-for because Ollie’s making a general mess of the whole surviving thing. But at least we get an explanation of where all the notes in Dad’s journal came from. Remember, Ollie found the book while burying Dad, and the pages were blank. Ollie’s since been using them to feed the paltry fire in the cave. Turns out, Queen Senior used invisible ink, which shows up when exposed to the heat from the fire. So, now Ollie has his mandate, because he’s got a revenge list.

The rest of the episode is a pretty interesting attempt to show that personal responsibility actually counts for something. Not a thought that gets a lot of play in society these days, and it’s a chance for Reston to make a choice to either hang up the hockey masks or keep going in the destructive direction he’s taking his family. The conversation Oliver has with Reston is well-written, with Ollie making the point that they’re both dealing with the consequences of Robert Queen’s actions.

I’m glad to see the trick arrows, but I’m also glad the writers aren’t overdoing in on those. So far, we haven’t seen very much of a Lucius Fox analogue. When is he going to show up? Somebody has to be designing those trick arrows, right?

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