Arrow - Legacies

DC's favorite all-purpose C-List bad guys, the Royal Flush Gang (Currie Graham, Kyle Schmid, Tom Stevens, Sarah-Jane Redmond), show up in Starling City and kill an off-duty police officer during their latest bank robbery. Diggle (David Ramsey) seizes the opportunity to try to convince Oliver (Stephen Amell) to widen his focus beyond his father's list and protect everyone who needs Green Arrow's help.

Once convinced, Oliver calls on the help of Queen IT guru Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) to track down the family of thieves and give the father a chance to walk away and "make things right." When that fails, the vigilante does what he does best and declares war on the robbers (who certainly aren't going to win any costume contests with the weakest super-villain outfits the show has provided yet).


Meanwhile back at Arrow Manor, Oliver and Thea (Willa Holland) suffer through a lunch with their mother (Susanna Thompson), her old friend, and the woman's "perfect son" (Warren Christie). Oliver's abrupt exit to tend to his vigilante duties only widens the gulf between mother and son. Without realizing it Thea gives Merlyn (Colin Donnell) advice on how to win Laurel's (Katie Cassidy) heart by offering to throw a fundraiser to help save her struggling legal practice.

I like Diggle trying to guide Oliver to become more of a hero, but the need to tie the family's misfortunes to the Queen family really undercuts the point he was trying to make. The episode also spends an awful lot of time on the Merlyn/Laurel/Thea story without managing to provide anything more than the most obvious payoff possible. And finally, in the weakest episode of the series yet, "Legacies" gives us the worst flashbacks we've seen so far as Oliver hits rock bottom on the island only to be visited by the spirit of his father who, as hamfistedly as humanly (or ghostly, for that manner) possible puts his son back on the right course. Hopefully the arrival of the Huntress in two weeks will help get the show back on track.