PopSyndicate.com

Tonight from Metropolis, it’s the GREEN ARROW SHOW starring Oliver Queen and Tess Mercer…co-starring Clark Kent, Lois Lane and Chloe Sullivan…Tonight’s special guest: the ambulance dude who’s going to go very bad, very soon…

Okay, so it wasn’t quite that obvious, but most of this episode did concern the origin story of Green Arrow, as well as that of new villainness/replacement Luthor Tess Mercer. Apparently, Ollie and Tess go way back—all the way back to when Ollie was stuck on an island honing his archery skills and she was a marine biologist captured by pirates. They saved each other’s lives back then, but something made them enemies in the interim. From the looks of things, Ollie left without saying goodbye, and she’s mad that he never kept his promise to try to save the world (at least to her knowledge, since she doesn’t know he’s Green Arrow). The pirate leader they left for dead is back. He’s poisoned Ollie, and Tess is next. Luckily Clark gets a hold of the antidote thanks the Chloe’s new superbrain and they save him.

This episode wasn’t bad, even if it was a backdoor pilot with way too many coincidences. It seems Tess was originally going to be the big bad when they proposed the Green Arrow show, and when that didn’t pan out, they added Ollie as a regular on this show and moved her over as Lex’s replacement. This could be bad news for Tom Welling, since he seemed to be shoved in the background and relegated to just reacting to what was going on around him already, so with the addition of another hero as a regular, is it going to become even more pronounced? I was hoping they would get away from that this season and make him proactive, but they still seem determined to have him on hold in that limbo between being a young man figuring out his powers and becoming a full-fledged costume super-hero. And to make matters worse, they seem to be starting the Lois and Clark relationship (they’re obviously on the road to coupleville, with even Chloe noticing at this point), but at the same time are afraid to let it get too far.  Maybe Superman just can’t be a main character because he’s too powerful and anything he does has too much of an effect.

I’ve been avoiding spoilers, but I think it’s pretty obvious what’s going on with Chloe. First Brainiac gets into her mind and tries to kill her, and now her brain is better than a supercomputer. You do the math.

I loved Lois’ mention of the Clark/Lana roller coaster relationship, not just because they seemed to be avoiding any mention of Lana this season, but also because it’s exactly what I’ve been calling it in my reviews for years now.

It was good to see Oliver’s character fleshed out a little more, and with his discovery that Lionel killed his parents and Clark knew about it, there’s a new source of conflict between them, which always makes for a better show. It’s also more in line with their relationship in the comics, including in the alternate Dark Knight Returns future where Superman tears off Green Arrow’s arm to prevent him from continuously breaking the ban on vigilantism.

The question of the week is: Where’s Jimmy? Now that he’s a regular and in the opening credits, he’s MIA. I guess they had to make room for Davis the ambulance guy (who I heard a rumor about, but won’t say what it is so I don’t spoil it if you haven’t heard). Now let’s just hope it’s worth it.

3