Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Arrow - Green Arrow & The Canaries


"Green Arrow & The Canaries" is an oddly constructed episode set 20 years after the events of Crisis. Following Oliver Queen's (Stephen Amell) sacrifice, Star City has lived in blissful peace for two decades, with Mia (Katherine McNamara) and William (Ben Lewis) growing up together in rich luxury. All that is threatened when evil starts to stir again with the kidnapping of Helena's daughter (Raigan Harris) whose death could be the domino to lead Star City back down the dark future seen in previous episodes (although given the number of baddies the new Deathstroke, and the not-so-hard-to-guess woman behind him put together, it looks like future version of Star City has plenty of killers and malcontents to deal with).

Bringing the reluctant Mia back into the fray are not one but two time-displaced Black Canaries in Laurel (Katie Cassidy) and Dinah (Juliana Harkavy) who force Mia to remember her alternate history, nearly ruin her engagement, and take-up the bow again in service to the city. As one who was never all that fond of the future storyline, I can't say I'm thrilled to see that this is how the show plans to go out. The three women working together, with an emphasis on also emboldening and inspiring a next generation of heroes, offers some good moments and a nice message, but with almost all of the core cast completely absent "Green Arrow & The Canaries" feels more like a chance to try and sell fans on a shaky spin-off concept than a precursor to next week's series finale.

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