Green Arrow And The Canaries: Why I Hated It

This week, during quarantine I honestly didn’t know what to write about…until I saw the penultimate episode of Arrow and let me tell you right now, it holds a special place in my heart as the first episode of the Arrowverse that I couldn’t finish in one go. That’s right, I could finish all the episodes with Beebo, I could even tolerate The Thinkers stupid plan to make everyone stupid but, I couldn’t do this in one go. Now this was going to be a full scale review but I thought I’d breakdown and try to pinpoint why I hated this episode of such a great show.

 

Mia Queen Isn’t A Good Character

I hate the character of Mia Queen because of the same reason why I hated the first episode of Bat-Woman. She’s just good at everything, when Barry Allen was first introduced he had to learn how to become The Flash and all the responsibilities that came with it. Barry’s moment of maturity is the day before he’s going to get married and he gives Oliver some advice, with that, Barry becomes a fully fledged hero. Mia on the other hand gets trained in a montage and then is a badass female warrior that has no time for emotions. We haven’t had time to connect with the character of Mia Queen because the show hasn’t give us time take take Mia in. She even says, “thank you for letting me be part of your story…even if it was for a little while”. You have all these rich characters fro Arrow, why give a show to the newest one?

 

What The Fuck Happened To Laurel

Earth-2’s version of Laurel had a really good arc in the later seasons, as she was a villain who was reformed. Laurel slowly learnt to care for the family that she had lost and the friends that she ultimately deserved. So, why the hell is she such an asshole in this back door pilot. She literally walks in, ruins someone’s (who she’s supposed to care for) life and then gives no shits about anyone after. She honestly shows no emotion for most of the episode and it feels like whoever wrote it just pissed on her arc for the later seasons. If this series is getting picked up regularly then fix her…quick.

 

Why Was This Not Called Bird’s Of Prey?

This may have just been me but if I had a show with Black Canary in it and it was a team of female heroes there’s only one title to call it…Bird’s of Prey. This would give DC a chance to have their female led show and also widen out their universe. The film version of the well known comic book team bombed at the box office, so you could have this and be able to have characters like Killer Frost, Katana and Star-Girl join the ranks in the future. Not to mention that they actually say Huntress’ name in the show, meaning that the character could pop in from time to time.

 

You Shouldn’t Have Called It Green Arrow

Saying goodbye to something/someone is hard, everybody knows that. With a show like Arrow which has been around for eight years, there will be many sad to see it leave or television screens because a lot can happen in a decade. With this in mind, you shouldn’t call a separate show the name of the titular hero it’s predecessor is based on, I would’ve been fine with Mia keeping the name “Black-Star” because for nearly 80 years there has only been one Green Arrow…Oliver Queen.

 

The Show Doesn’t Understand Martian Manhunter’s Powers 

“A Martain called J’onn J’onzz could reinstall the memories and Cisco put it into a piece of tech”. What? That’s not how it works. No one is aware of what happened in Crisis so if Cisco did create something that could give the memories back to a pre crisis world then they’re all idiots. Why wouldn’t you inform everyone that the world’s were erased? It would be quite handy because Supergirl’s “Bottle Episode” informs us that some people have doppelgangers. Can everyone’s powers be replicated? They should’ve just gave David Harewood a guest role in the episode because this line puts the whole Arrowverse in jeopardy.

 

The 2040 Problem

Lastly, I’m calling this the 2040 problem. In season 7, (which is in my opinion the best series of the show) instead of flashing back the show flashed forward. This allowed the show to tell a story of Star City being in a distopian future of where Oliver Queen fails his mission. It was a good story and all but the flash forwards suffered greatly as I personally was too engrossed in the present day story. None of these characters were introduced properly as children, the show forgot about the children and then tried to make a show about them.

I’ve been extremely hard on DC lately but I do it because I care. This is meant to be a back door pilot and maybe I should give this more of a chance. However, it’s not like DC are having a perfect track record (what with cancelling Krypton and Swamp thing, whilst their flagship show is coming to an end). All this is general worry, I hope they come up trumps with a general win. They’re DC for heavens sake, the company that Marvel copied from all those years ago.