'Arrow' Review - 1.03 Lone Gunman

        On the newest episode of The CW's Arrow, Oliver searches for Deadshot (Michael Rowe), a criminal who has been taking out businessman scheduled to bid at an auction on an energy company - one of whom is one of Oliver's targets and another is Walter; Olivia calls on Detective Lance's help which could have dire consequences; and Laurel and Tommy get caught in an awkward situation.

        I like this show but this episode just wasn't as well-crafted as the first two episodes were. The episode was purely about the episodic plot with no teases of the ongoing serial stories. It featured most of the main cast acting on their own or hitting the exact same character beats as before. A show definitely has the ability to produce a more self-contained episode like this but this hour didn't show off anything new or really hit the best aspects of each character. Also, this episode used Oliver's voice-over in a much more exposition-type of way and it got really old and comical really fast.
        I really liked the first two episodes of this series as they were able to craft many intriguing and interconnecting relationships. The most exciting of which where Oliver and Laurel, Oliver and his family, and Laurel and her father. None of these dynamics were featured in episode three - or were really limiting. Character relationships are really what engage the viewer to keep watching a show week-to-week. In the beginning, shows can experiment to figure out which angles work the best and tonight's episode was a test to see if they could properly execute a stand-alone episode like this one.
        The relationship between Tommy and Laurel had really been propped up as super secretive throughout the first two episodes. This episode revealed that aspect to Oliver and it felt just like a small brush on the shoulder. The show revealed them and then did nothing with it. Sure, Tommy and Laurel had that one scene at the courthouse which promised a more committing relationship between the two but so far I just don't see enough substance from this dynamic.
        Every week now, Thea has gotten into some kind of illegal trouble and each week she acts the exact same way to how the people around her want to help her. After three straight weeks of the same thing, it has become quite tiresome. I hoping that the great scene between her and her mother will help kick her out of this story funk but I'm not super confident at the moment that we'll see anything different from her as a character.
        The stuff on the island intrigues me so much. I love the aesthetic and cinematography of those sequences and wish that there were more of them in this episode. We pretty much know the same amount of information about that time in Oliver's life as we did at the end of the second episode. The point of flashbacks is to help enhance the character traits that we see in that main character and tonight's use of them didn't really add anything to the overall narrative.

So what did everyone think of the episode? Do you wish their was a bigger explanation on how Oliver can always get away at the right time? Share your thoughts in the comments.