Arrow Season 5 Premiere Thoughts

"Legacy"

With a surprisingly different level of quality than I imagined, the Season 5 premiere of Arrow ranked itself as one of the better season premieres in the recent weeks of newly released comic book TV series. Those of you who've been following my episode reviews for Arrow know that I've been highly critical of the past two seasons of Arrow as far as drama and action goes (alongside other little nitpicks with the story direction). However, in just the first episode of the new season alone, I can happily say that the action elements have upgraded exponentially to level where it needed to be after Season 2 and a portion of Season 3 left off.

Watching the Green Arrow take down criminals used to be the adrenaline filled highlights of the first two seasons, but started to die down for whatever reasons later on. However, everything from the amazing  choreography, highly dynamic camera work, visual FX, and the overall scale of the action scenes have truly risen up in quality in this episode alone. Seeing Oliver latching onto a helicopter to take down the main villain followed by using a parachute arrow (something new to the series and a fun implication that we will get more trick arrows in the future) was really fun and engaging to watch and a reminder of why this character was such a joy to see in action.

The flashback storyline within the previous couple of seasons were also the center of negative comments in the past, but I must say that after watching this episode, I'm actually really curious to see just where Oliver's journey during that time will take him. This is a character that has always been surrounded with a mysterious past even after 4 seasons, so it's nice to get a new and interesting layer of backstory added in, but more importantly, one that might actually earn its keep during each episode's runtime. Oliver Queen joins a Russian mob and we get to see him possibly kill a few people to blend in? Sign me up.

As far as everything else in the premiere goes, the performances are as decent as I remembered alongside all of the different quirks and personalities that we've traditionally associated with each of the central characters. In other words, no one sticks out like a sore thumb here which is always relieving to see. Once we keep it that way and avoid any overly dramatic soap opera character moments like the last time, we should be in pretty good hands moving forward I'd imagine.

As far as the main villain of this episode, Tobias Church, I can't say that I was really excited to see this character enter the scene of the Arrow-verse as he perfectly came across as a forgettable "Villain of the Week" gangster that is simply there to show up and eventually get beat down possibly in the next episode. I won't say that this was a major issue for me considering some of the past weekly villains in the series, but I was a little worried at the thought of just how prominent his role might be and if this is any indication of how dull the future villains of Season 5 will be.

Speaking of other villains, I enjoyed the fight scene in the intro with Oliver fighting Lonnie as it played out like a nice little "another day in the life of..." type of intro that you'd see in superhero stories. However, I've never really enjoyed the Lonnie character up to this point and I never really bought into to the fact that this guy could seemingly stay on par with Oliver as far as fighting skill goes. There's something about the presentation of the character that made it hard for me to see him as a threat, so it's nice to see them swiftly take him down in just the beginning action sequence. I just hope that we've finally seen the last of him and villains who can somehow keep up with Oliver who probably shouldn't be able to whatsoever.

We also get brief little hints of other vigilantes in Star City and an interesting story concept introduced here with Oliver struggling with the thought of recruiting a new team and fully moving forward away from the past which of course was the traditional vigilante ensemble that we've known for years. It's a nice statement not just from a story perspective, but for the series itself telling the fans that there are indeed planes to expand and grow keeping the title fresh and relevant especially with the recent concerns of Arrow being the weakest of the CW DC lineup.

As far as story arcs go, the mayor-vigilante angle is definitely one to have fun with, but Arrow has always centered itself around a powerful and captivating villain, so I'm curious to see just what the writers have in store for us with the Prometheus character teased in the end. I also enjoyed the throwback to the Season 1 premiere with the Oliver Queen chair escape scene as well as seeing the Green Arrow actually working with a police team during a mission. There are quite a few welcomed old and new elements being woven in here which is great to see making this season premiere a fun and interesting look into what fans can expect going forward.

Overall, despite all of my complaints with the show in the past 2 years, if this season premiere is any indication for what's to come as far as entertainment quality goes, I can happily say that I'll be awaiting each episode of Season 5 with an excited grin on my face as I should be. I only hope that we do get some sort of a hook for why fans should really be hyped up going forward story and character-wise. 

Bonus Content

Season 1 Throwback

This is probably the first time that I've done a Bonus Content segment for Arrow, but it was definitely warranted here as the Season 5 premiere perfectly tribute to the Season 1 premiere's chair escape action scene. In both scenes, Oliver does the same body and facial gesture to his captor when revealing that he's free before taking them down as well.

Parachute Trick Arrow

That's right! We finally get to see a new trick arrow introduced in the series that isn't just another explosive or USB drive. The Green Arrow character is all about trick arrows as far as "abilities" go, so it's nice to see the series give a cool nod to that element from the comics.

Episode Rating: 8/10