Speedy Recap: CW’s Arrow: An Innocent Man (Season 1, Episode 4) Spoilers & Review! John Barrowman of Doctor Who & Torchwood, Stephen Amell & More! Deathstroke Coming!

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We’re into week 4 of CW’s Arrow starring Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen / (Green) Arrow in the title role.

However, before I get into this week’s recap, I just want to do a shout out to the East Coast of North America. I know Super Storm / Hurricane Sandy has walloped you. I hope you are getting back to some normalcy. For those who have been devastated and/or have loved ones hurt or who have passed on, my thoughts and prayers are with you.

Now, to some escapism in these troubling times. Oh, and Happy Halloween.

Spoilers follow. You have been warned. :)

No recognizable DC comics guest stars / characters in this week’s Season 1, Episode 4 called “Innocent Man”.


MAIN PLOT:

Peter Declan whom the episode is named after. He is on death row convicted of killing his wife in his daughter’s bedroom. His execution is imminent. As is the case when these things happen in the U.S. in real life, execution days get a lot of press.

Oliver Queen (Arrow’s alter ego) is watching the TV and hears that Peter’s wife Camille worked for a Jason Brodeur. Why is that significant? Well, Mr. Brodeur is on Arrow’s infamous book; the book of names that Oliver uses as a vigilante to determine who needs to get hunted down to fulfill a promise he made to his dying dad to right his and others’ wrongs done on Starling City.

Arrow asks Laurel Lance, Oliver’s ex-girlfriend and legal crusader for the down trodden, to look into the file and exonerate Declan. Through this partnership, Arrow digs up the needed evidence to prove that the reason Camille Declan was killed was because she had planned to blow the whistle on her boss Jason Brodeur’s toxic dumping. As the legal system is not perfect, the legal system even with this new evidence won’t reopen the case. That leaves Laurel, a now converted supporter of the work of Arrow, indicating that nothing short of a signed confession from Brodeur could save Declan’s life. Arrow goes to just do that.

Arrow learns that Brodeur’s goons will make an attempt to kill Declan, before his execution, and his lawyer Laurel in one fell swoop. The locale? The tactic? An instigated prison riot at… Iron Heights… where Declan is waiting for his execution. Comic book fans may know that locale as the infamous prison in Flash comics lore.

Arrow foils the riot and saves Laurel from being killed. However, he’s blinded by rage as his “love” Laurel was threatened that he is blindly beating on the goon requiring Laurel to pull Arrow off of the would-be-assassin. Laurel and Arrow’s eyes lock and he whispers her name “Laurel”. It sure looks like Laurel recognized Oliver, but not explicitly confirmed in the episode.

Brodeur’s bodyguard admits to killing Camille Declan, so Peter is saved, but Brodeur is also arrested for toxic dumping. Another happy ending. :)

This main plot starts to end with Laurel now indicating to her dad, who greets here at the prison and relieved she is safe, that she thinks Arrow is a killer and his means don’t justify the ends. Is this for her dad’s benefit or a ruse? We’ll see in future episodes I imagine.

Arrow wore a prison guard uniform and a ski mask in the prison save. This gives Detective Lance an idea to check the surveillance footage from the first episode’s inaugural Arrow caper. With that, they spy Oliver in a stairwell pulling something from a backpack. That is seemingly enough evidence to lead to Oliver’s arrest to end the episode for obstruction of justice, vigilantism and murder.

However, some images weaving around the internet seems to indicate that Laurel Lance will be defending Oliver Queen from these charges. See image to the right. This is likely from next week’s episode called “Damaged” which also is expected to include the debut of Deathstroke (pics here and here) a prescence expected to overshadow this season.

Also, an interesting factoid: while the title hero “Arrow” hasn’t been called Arrow or Green Arrow in the episode, Laurel’s dad Detective Lance refers to him as “The Hood”. Well, there a few other actual vigilante’s called “Hood” in Comic Book history. ;) Hmmm. Maybe that’s a topic for a future Demythify column, weekly on Mondays, from moi.


SUB PLOTS:

Last week’s episode ended with Oliver’s bodyguard Diggle being saved by Arrow; who also reveals to him his secret identity of Oliver Queen. Diggle quits being Oliver’s bodyguard and struggles the whole episode with Oliver’s offer to join him on his war on criminals. Also, it is revealed during his attempts to convince Diggle, that Deadshot / Floyd Lawton was responsible for Diggle’s brothers death years ago. Oliver indicates he brought him to justice; seems that Oliver thinks Deadshot is dead. In the end, Diggle comes back to Oliver just in time for him to be arrested.

In another subplot, it turns out of Oliver’s step-dad Walter Steele is a “good guy” while his wife Moira Queen, Oliver’s actual mom, is part of the criminal cabal responsible for Oliver’s shipwreck as revealed in episode 1. A suspect financial transaction of $2.6 million has come to his attention. He mentions that he’s investigating this matter in passing to his wife. She later admits she took that money to invest in a start-up company a few years ago. Steele thinks something is still up and has an employee do a further discrete dive into the matter. Turns out the money was used for something called Tempest including the purchase of a warehouse in Starling City. Steele investigates the warehouse himself and discovers that the wreck of Queen’s Gambit ship is stored there.

In addition, John Barrowman of Doctor Who and Torchwood infamy makes his un-named character debut. He’s been seen in shadow and meeting with Oliver’s mom in this season so far, but we see him fully now. He also makes the connection for Moira indicating that he’s worried about Arrow’s vigilantism since he’s not just targeting wealthy people, but those on “The List”. The mystery deepens.

Not a whole lot this week in the island flashbacks subplot with Oliver. Just a reveal that Oliver starts on the path to learning how to kill; in this case a bird for food. In addition, we learn that the Arrow-costumed Asian man on the island speaks English despite letting Oliver struggle in the first few flashbacks.

Ok, that’s it for this week.

Thanks for reading. All feedback welcome. :)


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John is a long-time pop culture fan, comics historian, and blogger. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief at Comics Nexus. Prior to being EIC he has produced several column series including DEMYTHIFY, NEAR MINT MEMORIES and the ONE FAN'S TRIALS at the Nexus plus a stint at Bleeding Cool producing the COMICS REALISM column. As BabosScribe, John is active on his twitter account, his facebook page, his instagram feed and welcomes any and all feedback. Bring it on!