Arrow "Corto Maltese" Review

Alright so basically Laurel gets her butt kicked, Thea is Mia Dearden, and NYSSA!!!

See you guys next week.

Nah just kidding, I'll review this episode. But really if you just want the skeleton of it, the first sentence sums things up pretty well. Oh, and A.R.G.U.S. is in it because aren't they in everything?

Coming off the emotional and Komodo episode of last week, Oliver decided to find out where Thea is and bring her home, while Felicity has taken up a job with Ray Palmer. Which begs the question: does Oliver make money? Like does he stay places or is he in the Foundry all the time? Have people forgotten about him? Maybe he and Roy hang out in the Glades. I mean, Dig's got it good: wife, kid, well paying-job, I think.

No time for any of that though, we've gotta go to South America! Apparently Thea lied about being in Italy and Felicity has found out that she's really on an island infamous to the DC universe, Corto Maltese. Oliver and Roy decide to head out there, not taking any of their gear since I mean why would you need bows and arrows to talk to someone. Meanwhile, Thea and Malcolm Merlyn are having a jolly-old time hanging out together. It's like a father-daughter dance but with one being a deadly assassin and the other a former diva.

Diggle decides not to go to get some time off but what's a good episode of Arrow without Diggle? Lyla apparently knew this, and tells him that there's an agent whose gone dark in Corto Maltese and she would have a whole team go check it out and make a mess or just send Diggle, who was basically whipped into doing it. Daddy Diggle to the rescue!

Felicity, meanwhile, decides to catch up on her job with Ray Palmer, and finds that she has been majorly (no, seriously) promoted to fully dedicating herself to the research lost in the explosion when Oliver destroyed the Applied Sciences building back when Isabel Rochev got her hands on it for Mirakuru reasons (also, was it called Q-Core? I think it was...yay!). She and Ray manage to get along a lot better this time, and once again Ray comes off as a charming and funny guy. She was probably a lot nicer to him since he gave her an "executive assistant."

Back in Corto Maltese, Team Arrow (the men) arrive and head out for Thea. Oliver arrives at the house she is at but a man tells him that she is somewhere else. On the other side of the door, Merlyn had an arrow nocked and ready to kill Oliver. Good dad. Oliver manages to find Thea and she wants nothing to do with Starling City.

Diggle manages to find his guy and discovers that there is going to be a buy of important information related to the families of A.R.G.U.S. agents and he had plans to stop it. However, the man betrays Diggle and steals the information from him, forcing Oliver and Diggle to take the fight to Corto Maltese. Hoo-ha.

Laurel, in Starling City, meets Ted Grant, a boxer, as she is looking into the case of a boy who Ted spars with. Later, she attends an A.A. meeting, where a girl exposits that her boyfriend has been beating her pretty badly.

In a pretty funny scene, Diggle and Laurel both call Felicity at the same time while she is helping Ray out with something, and she manages to actually sort out both problems, though she kind of makes it seem like she's doing rather illegal things...in front of Ray. You know, like hacking things and looking into police files. "Long story" indeed.

Roy goes to visit Thea and basically says its cool if she wants to stay in Corto Maltese because if she's perfectly content with all that, then it's great by him. At least she's happy. Good ol' Roy, looking out for Thea. Here, too, we get to see a pretty decent glimpse of just how much has occurred since the final battle against Slade. There's an obvious rift between the two former lovers and while Roy doesn't particularly seem to be trying to sew it back together, there are definitely shades of it evident throughout their conversation. Thea seems to be over Roy and Roy not so much Thea, but he's willing to accept her departure since she's now, at least he thinks, out of danger. It's interesting.

It also helps that the flashbacks this week don't focus on Oliver's journeys in China with Maseo but rather with Thea's early learning with Malcolm, and how at first he was kind and gentle and then he managed to really ramp it up and treat her like a student--thus treating her harshly and forcing her into a warrior who does not feel pain. Not only that, but she undergoes a new name: Mia.

Mia Dearden lives! Yes! There's a theory I have regarding her future and Oliver's and I'll explain towards the end...if I remember that is, which I usually don't (sorry).

But enough family stuff, time for fighting and what not. In Starling, Laurel tracks down the man and tries to take him down--in a ski mask no less--but gets pounded by him. Det. Lance visits her in the hospital and while Laurel has the perfect opportunity to tell him about Sara, she passes on it. I get it, it's very much too soon. But he's probably going to find out soon...from the last person you would want to find out from.

Who killed Sara?!

For even more fighting: Oliver, Roy, and Diggle take a look at the goings-on of the trade and when agents appear to make sure it goes through, Team Arrow kicks into high gear. Diggle has a gun, obviously, but Oliver has a little surprise. He pulls out two bows and two quivers equipped with 8 (plus or minus two) arrows, and we find out that he actually made them using various furniture from around the hotel room. Just goes to show what a master archer this guy is. The best part: they're actually effective against the agents!

Oliver and Roy manage to take down several soldiers before running out of ammo, in which Oliver takes Diggle's gun and shoots down a few men. So he can use a gun. Just some stuff he learned from China, no big deal.

The fight here, while at first starting out like a typical Arrow fight, actually felt more like a secret-agent battle as once the bows were used up, Roy, Oliver, and Diggle took to using their fists. Roy actually managed to take down some guys using his great street-fighter abilities while Oliver absolutely man-handles several of the traders without even breaking a sweat. I mean...when you fight Deathstroke there really isn't much competition outside of Talia al Ghul, Nyssa al Ghul, Batman, and Ra's al Ghul. And hey...two of those characters are gonna be in the next episode! Hooray!

So, the trade's off thanks to the helpful workings of Team Arrow, but before Oliver can leave, he tells Thea the real way their father died, explaining that their parents sacrificed their lives so that their children could lead successful ones. After sparring with Merlyn once more, Thea is able to leave with her brother, boyfriend, and bodyguard back to Starling City, though Merlyn promises to see her in the city soon. I wonder if he will once more be the main villain of the series. It's far too early to tell but we'll have to wait and see.

Laurel, on the other hand, gets rejected by Oliver to train her, since she has a burning desire to fight crime like Sara. Laurel disregards what he has to say about what would happen if Lance lost both daughters and goes to Ted Grant--wearing Sara's leather jacket--asking if they could start the training.

Canary Begins? Again...?

I don't know. All I know is that at the very end of the episode, our two archers were hanging out chilling relaxing out maxing out outside the school when suddenly they hear the familiar ting of an arrow being nocked. The camera turns and...

NYSSA IS RIGHT THERE BABY!

God I love that woman.

So yeah, bow in hands and arrow nocked, pointed straight at Oliver, she asks the question that is very much expected, "Where is Sara?"

I think it's safe to say that she is mighty mad that Sara is missing/ dead. As such, she might have to call in back-up. Suffice to say, we'll be seeing one more demon, I mean daddy, around Starling City next week. And if Nyssa's in it, I am so there!

This week's episode of Arrow actually surprised me in that it brought Thea home a lot sooner than I expected. Which, to get to that theory, made me wonder this: what if at the end of the series, or at least near the end, when Laurel fully becomes the Black Canary...Oliver remains as "The Arrow" and Thea, now very much trained in all forms of fighting, takes up the mantle beside her brother as "Green Arrow?" Instead of taking the exact Mia Dearden route and more of the little sister route that Emiko has taken?

Both are similar in that they have distinct daddy issues, deadly daddy issues, so I think it would be cool to see Thea become a super-hero. I mean, she's already on her way to being Mia Dearden, but, yeah. Very outlandish, but, so's the theory going around that Thea was the one that killed Sara.

Which, dang it, I hate to admit but I think it might be Merlyn. Who else could it be? Komodo's a no, so far (please change), and Ra's definitely didn't do it because he wants nothing but his definition of "good" for his daughter. The question remains of what that little green piece is that dropped at the scene, and how much significance it has.

Next week, the man-hunt for Merlyn begins for Oliver and Nyssa, according to the promo, so perhaps Merlyn can shed some light on it. Also next week, we get the appearance of Ra's Al Ghul, who will probably not be too happy that Merlyn is alive and has taken an apprentice in Thea. Exciting stuff man, so make sure to tune in! Because...you know, Nyssa is just that cool.


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