What They Say:
State v. Queen – A mysterious illness impacts hundreds of people in the city, including Diggle; Oliver realizes The Count has escaped prison.
Content:
The Russian adventure in the previous episode was a fairly condensed work that went a bit too fast for my tastes, but it brought back a fun villain from the first season with Deadshot and allowed us to see how he can be reworked into this season. This episode does things a little too quick for my tastes in bringing back Count Vertigo, no matter how much I actually like the actor. The Vertigo adaptation was one that didn’t do much for me in the first season, though it wasn’t a surprising way to deal with him by going a drug route. There’s still an opportunity to change the character, but by going back to it already and working another drug angle, well, it’s just too repetitive. With what we saw with Deadshot, it at least changed things up a bit and gave us something new that advanced Diggle if not Deadshot himself.
What does become interesting with The Count here is that we see early on just how he managed to get back into the world. Tying back to events from the end of the first season with the project that Moira was involved with as the earthquake hits and we get the prison collapsing in part from it. A little nod and a wink works and we get The Count gleefully making his escape into the city. It is, of course, unusual that we haven’t heard anything from him in months or others finding out about it through the news, but with Oliver out of commission for awhile during the break between seasons, it makes some sense in a stretched kind of way. You do have the way that villains always seem like they can escape prison, but at least they did it well enough here to make it believable and set up a somewhat long term plan to get back at those that imprisoned him.
The Count’s storyline has him spending his time building a new drug to introduce into the community, one that he wants to be discovered since he’s trying to draw out his prey. We see the new vertigo drug getting into Diggle quickly because of the flu shot he got, which was the point of entry for the virus from him, and that’s just the start. While Oliver is able to get him on the mend relatively quickly because of his relationship with him, we start to see more impact of the virus that’s out there since a lot of people have gotten it. Even the assistant district attorney Donner has it, which makes for an awkward trial moment for him as he’s ready to go down hard because of it.
Unfortunately, because of the nature of the episode, the storyline involving The Count doesn’t really feel like it takes center stage here. We get Diggle down for the count for a bit and that has Felicity stepping in to prove that she can be a valued part of the team as well, which isn’t a surprise since it’s just an investigative side at the start. But it goes bad from there as The Count takes her in order to get to Oliver as he knows who he really is, having been bankrolled presumably by the League of Assassins at this point. It makes for a decent bit of action in the corporate offices for a bit, but it doesn’t really stretch things much at first. It is nice to see Oliver without the mask though since The Count knows who he is, which necessitates some drastic action because of how Felicity is threatened. Oliver protects his own and does so in a big way here, though we definitely see there is pain in doing so.
One of the things that this season has to deal with, in a very TV way unfortunately, is the trial of Moira Queen. We’ve had some pushes towards it in the episodes through the season so far, but a lot of it has been mildly interesting at best. With this episode, we finally get into the actual opening statements of the trial, abbreviated of course, to see what kind of positions people are staking out. It’s particularly amusing that Moira’s lawyer is Jean Loring, though I suspect that won’t really go anywhere in the near term. If it’s a seed to be utilized down the line, then I’m all for it. The trial doesn’t get too far overall but we get some behind the scenes wrangling going on as we get a reveal about one of the dark, personal moments that Moira was exposed to through a moment of weakness years ago. One that has Malcolm Merlyn back into the story a bit, one that provides for some difficult things for Oliver and Thea to cope with about their mother engaging in an extramarital affair. The whole trial aspect plays out far too quickly here, even for a TV show, and that really undercuts the experience considering they spent months of lead-up to it in show and six episodes of the season itself. Having it all take place in a week considering the scale of it, it doesn’t sit well. Though having some sort of manipulation sliding into it definitely makes for an interesting twist if it bears fruits.
The island arc gets some play as well as Oliver is dragged along with Ivo and his men to get what they’re after, especially since they know that Shado and Slade are still alive and need to be dealt with. The tables turn a bit here, which is a regular occurrence for this part of the series, and it’s just fun seeing Slade and Shado being proactive again. And with Shado wearing a form of what Oliver takes on when he gets back to Starling City and seeing Slade doing his half face paint gig here, it’s got some good portents to it. One that takes a fun twist as it goes on and we see Sara caught up in events even more as she has the potential to escape from Ivo at this point. Like a lot of the episodes where it’s not a main focus, the arc just teases things a bit but does offer some tantalizing bits of potential to come.
In Summary:
Like any good episode of this series, of which there are many, it’s the last couple of minutes that offer up a lot of teases and hope for the future with twists. Unfortunately, this comes at the end of an average episode and offers a twist that has you wondering just how far they’re going to go. Comics fans will wonder how much of the Ra’s al Ghul world will be utilized and the various League of Assassins material certainly lets us know they could go far. While the last two minutes are pretty engaging, the rest of the episode is just sort of there. We get Moira’s trial done in fast forward mode, Felicity gets to be a damsel in distress – real distress at least – and Oliver finds himself in a no good choice situation that forces him to kill again. But with death being not quite what it once was apparently, it’s sort of undercut pretty quickly here. I’m really mixed on this episode overall, though it’s the small moments I like. And next week we get Barry Allen? At least that leaves me pretty excited.
Grade: B
