TV Review: Arrow Season 8 Episode 9

Arrow Season 8 Episode 9 “Green Arrow & the Canaries”

Director: Tara Miele

Starring: Juliana Harkavy, Katherine McNamara, Ben Lewis, Joseph David-Jones, Katie Cassidy, Charlie Barnett, Andrea Sixtos

Rating: TV-14

Runtime: 42 minutes

The decision to make the penultimate episode of Arrow and the first one after Crisis, a back-door pilot for the show’s final potential spin-off was one that raised more than a few eyebrows, but it turned out to be the right call.  “Green Arrow and The Canaries” is both an impressive statement of why Laurel, Mia, and Dinah, or rather Katie Cassidy, Katherina McNamara, and Juliana Harkavy deserve their own, future-set show and a nice breather from all the multiverse-hopping chaos, offering one last, breezier dose of Arrow crime-fighting before the presumably tear-jerking finale.

The episode’s opening feels like one that could have been in any installment in the past couple of years with Laurel (the Earth-2 version) frustrated at herself for failing to prevent an innocent girl, Bianca Bertinelli (Raigan Harris) from being kidnapped.   What makes the episode unique is where Laurel’s investigation is taking place.  Or more precisely, when it’s taking place.  Because while she’s still in Star City it’s in the year 2040.  The crime rate has reduced to almost zero as a result of the citizens’ respect for Oliver’s sacrifice to save the universe.  But as Laurel’s dilemma proves, the city isn’t a total utopia.  She’s surprised when, in the course of her investigation she comes across Dinah Drake, no longer a cop or superhero but running a bar where she also sings and plays the piano occasionally.  It’s here that the episode reveals that, at least from Dinah and Laurel’s perspective, it’s taking place after the finale, with Dinah describing how she found herself in the future the day after Oliver’s funeral, with no memory of how she got there.  She also quickly discovered that there is no record of her ever having lived.  The episode doesn’t provide answers to any of these questions, obviously planning on using them as ongoing mysteries should a Green Arrow and The Canaries show be ordered.  Laurel’s explanation of her own whereabouts is much simpler: Sara dropped her off in 2040 with one of the Legends’ time machines.

Laurel manages to get Dinah to agree to help, despite the latter still considering the idea of a life away from crime-fighting but the former, also knowing they’ll need more back-up and there’s only one person in this time they know can provide it.  Because of the changes to the timeline caused by Crisis, Mia has enjoyed a much more luxurious life.  Having grown up in the public eye because of Oliver’s fame, she feels pressure to live up to his memory but she’s also happily graduating college and gets engaged to a much less murderous version of John Diggle Jr/JJ.  When Laurel and Dinah come to her graduation party to investigate she has no idea who they are.  Laurel, as abrupt as ever, flashes her with a device Cisco made to duplicate Martian Manhunter’s memory-restoring abilities.

It’s a testament to how much both the writing for the character and McNamara’s performances have improved this season that I was actually missing the old Mia.  But the creators make the interesting choice to not bring her back exactly the same as she was.  For whatever reason Mia, unlike everyone else who has had their pre-Crisis memories restored, doesn’t totally revert back to her old personality.  She does for the most part but the new, happier Mia is in her head too along with all the memories of the new timeline and McNamara does a good job of portraying the mental and emotional strain this puts on her.  This difficulty is especially apparent when she next runs into JJ, who she now remembers as both her doting fiancé and the ruthless enemy who killed her friend Zoe (who is alive and well in the new timeline).  Charlie Barnett is unfortunately not able to make JJ’s reaction to this unexpected shift in his relationship compelling, though in his defense “confused fiancé” just isn’t a particularly engaging type of character.

The episode could easily get lost exploring the psychological implications of Mia’s “awakening” but it’s much more interested in teaming her up with Laurel and Dinah and for good reason.  The scenes with the three of them working together are where the episode shines and McNamara, Cassidy, and Harkavy have excellent chemistry both as a trio and in the individualized partnerships between Laurel and Mia and Laurel and Dinah (one thing the spin-off will have to accomplish quickly is establishing a unique dynamic between Mia and Dinah).  Cassidy, in particular, steals practically every scene she’s in with her snark and dry wit, even if it’s McNamara’s hour overall.

When the trio goes out to follow a lead they’re attacked by someone in a Deathstroke mask, prompting them to assume JJ is behind Bianca’s kidnapping.  This leads to the aforementioned conflict between JJ and Mia as the latter accuses the former and is suspicious of him because of things he never did.  Eventually, however, the ladies discover that the Deathstroke is actually just Bianca’s boyfriend Trevor, who kidnapped her in service to an unknown woman.  The Canaries and Mia, embracing the Green Arrow identity, engage with Trevor’s forces and rescue Bianca.  The big fight is solid enough but should Green Arrow and The Canaries go to series it will have to be sure to come up with some more creative choreography that caters to Laurel’s batons and Dinah’s bo staff because most of the better moves here all go to Mia.  Still, there is one absolute show-stopper of a stunt when Laurel bends a bad guy’s back and knees in such a way that Mia can him as a ramp and lands on another.

With Bianca rescued Mia, Laurel, and Dinah decide to continue working together, with the latter two also planning to set up the Canary Network.  As they discuss this Laurel reveals to Dinah the real reason she was so determined to get Mia to suit up as the Green Arrow.  Laurel had gotten Dinah to agree to help find Bianca by showing her news footage of Star City a year later in 2041.  Before their intervention Bianca was killed and for some reason this caused the city to descend into chaos, rendering Oliver’s sacrifices meaningless.  But, as Laurel later reveals,the only other thing she and Sara were able to find out about the city’s fall is that Mia was involved in it and that she hopes by getting her to accept her heroic destiny they can prevent whatever she does.  Meanwhile, Mia and William are talking beside a statue of their father as the Green Arrow.  William produces the hōzen that’s been passed throughout the family since Ollie gave it to Thea.  As Mia admires it she realizes it bears the same design as a tattoo she saw on Trevor’s arm.  She doesn’t have any time to ponder this, however, as they’re suddenly attacked by a group of masked men who hit her with a tranquilizer and kidnap William.  Lastly, JJ is also attacked by a hooded figure who restores his memories.  This is all intriguing stuff and that last beat is especially welcome as Barnett just seems better suited to the villainous role he started in but those last few minutes also are a bit overstuffed.  It’s clear the writers wanted to create enough dramatic hooks that there’s a demand for the potential new show but it’s also somewhat risky featuring so many cliffhangers.  Should Green Arrow and The Canaries not get picked up it will be frustrating that Arrow ended with such big story threads, particularly the fate of Oliver’s son, left hanging, even if it’s likely that should that be the case one of the other Arrowverse shows could resolve them in some fashion.

Despite my apprehension of what it could mean for Arrow‘s ending overall this is another excellent episode in this supremely strong final season that accomplishes its main goal of making the viewer want to watch a new show following this story in excellent fashion.

Notes:

•  It’s not really clear whether Harris is intended to be a part of the spin-off beyond this or not.  It seems possible that the only purpose of her character beyond being a human McGuffin was to reference her adoptive mother Helena, the Huntress.  Given that Green Arrow and The Canaries would essentially be a Birds of Prey show in everything but name the creators may try to bring Jessica De Gouw back to the Arrowverse.
•  Aside from McNamara and Barnett they don’t really get a lot of screen time but given that this is probably the last Arrow episode for the future cast minus McNamara I’d like to compliment their work for the last year and a half of the show.  Their parts weren’t always written with great depth but they all created solid characterizations.  Ben Lewis, in particular, became one of the show’s standout performers.
•  One other thing the spin-off will have to work on is conveying the future period through production design and other elements of the mise-en-scene.  The city is a little sunnier and less grungy looking than usual here but that’s all that really signifies the utopian setting.
•  Dinah’s bar is called the Fishnet, the latest in a line of references to the Black Canary’s famous comic book outfit.