Arrow S2 E4 - 'Crucible' Review

Living is Not For The Weak.
After a short break from the TV show to review the Arrow tie-in comic series, we are back with 'Crucible' - an solid episode with thrills, spills and some big reveals which only seem to pose more questions.
The villain this week is the so-called 'Mayor', also known as Xavier Reed. He is an egotistical sadist who revels in the power he has acquired in the aftermath of the Undertaking. The character is slightly too over-acted, verging on the ridiculous, but actor Cle Bennett just about steers the Mayor the right side of crazy. His dialogue is fairly awful, but I liked the fact that he was a grounded villain - an opportunist who took advantage of the chaos to drive up gun violence. Ultimately, I was disappointed the show-runners killed him off, although it made for an impactful ending (more on that later!).
One of the big reveals this week was that the Canary was in fact Sara Lance - once thought dead sister of Laurel and daughter of Quentin. It's a great reveal and I remember my excitement and shock when finding out the first time around. Sara is still a little too smouldering for my liking and comes across as a bit too much sometimes, but her final fight alongside the Arrow was awesome, especially when they switched weapons temporarily. There are still many burning questions, including how on earth she survived drowning, which I can't remember the answer to  but look forward to finding out in the episodes to come.
Elsewhere, Laurel's drinking problem is getting worse and I'm glad they're finally giving this character a flaw, as she was far too goody two shoes beforehand to appear realistic in any way. Quentin's heartfelt speech at the end was powerful and I'm enjoying the changing dynamic between him, Laurel and Oliver.
The final huge reveal was that Sebastian Blood is actually Brother Blood!! A villain from the comics, Brother Blood's mask is super creepy and I'm digging it. His Church of Blood is hinted to by the follower that aids him in injecting the Mayor with a 'miracle' serum. The religious language only serves to make the whole scene more sinister and ending the episode on the Mayor's corpse with blood running from his eye is a hint towards the evil plans Blood has in store for Starling. I think Blood has been brilliant so far in portraying a manipulative politician with a dark past and hopefully we learn more about this as his role with the Church of Blood becomes clearer.
Overall, I really enjoyed 'Crucible' despite its lacklustre villain. The real power of the episode lay in its themes of family and surviving horrors, which pervaded both the present and past story-lines. Amell was tremendous in his portrayal of a shocked Oliver upon the realisation that Sara is alive and deserves special mention for his performance this week. The Mayor may no longer be in office, but the Church of Blood is just getting started.

 AWESOME MOMENTS:

  • EVERYTHING about that final fight - Oliver and Sara switching weapons, the Mayor's overly evil taunts ("Old school weapon. Respect. But can your arrows do this?) and great choreography across the board
  • Brother Blood's mask!! Reminds me of the scarecrow from Batman Begins
  • The intro was fun, switching between the Arrow fighting criminals and Felicity defending Oliver's absence at the party
  • Blood's crucible quote was also very cool
EASTER EGGS:
- The ship that Oliver is incarcerated on in the flashback sequence is named Amazo. Amazo is the name of an android that was a frequent enemy of the Justice League (and has crossed paths with Green Arrow on occasion)
- When Oliver is standing in his office watching the news just before Blood walks in, you can hear the news anchor mention that there were more protesters arrested who were protesting the S.T.A.R Labs particle accelerator in Central City
- When Lyla and Diggle meet on the bench, Lyla tells him "A crate of 12 M4A1s went missing from Camp Kirby two months ago." Camp Kirby is an homage to the icon Jack Kirby, a writer, artist, and editor of comics. In 1957 he wrote and inked Green Arrow stories in World's Finest Comics and Adventure Comics, leaning more toward science-fiction than the Bat-Man clone the character had been at that point
- The flashback scenes of Sara's last moments on the Queen's Gambit were re-filmed with Lotz
- First appearance of Anatoly Knyazev in the series, who would go on to be a reoccurring character
- The episode where Oliver finds out White Canary is Sara Lance
- This is the first episode of the series to not feature Manu Bennett (Slade Wilson) after being promoted to a series regular
- When Sara arrives at the hospital to check up on Sin, she is wearing a Starling City Rockets cap. Interestingly, Dinah briefly believed Sara to be alive after finding a photo of a woman who resembled Sara wearing a Starling Rockets cap back in Season 1.

RATING: 8.1/10

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