Arrow S3x02 “Sara”

WARNING! MAJOR SPOILERS!

Who else hasn’t yet recovered from last week’s ending of Arrow? Surely I’m not the only one, right? Well it was great to see that the appropriately titled “Sara”, gave us little room to breathe as the show continued its excellent momentum. There were some great action sequences as we saw the characters band together in the attempt to hunt down Sara’s killer, which was just one of the many strong elements about another awesome episode.

First off, let’s talk about the villain of the week, Komodo, who is the initial suspect for the killer of Sara. It was kind of interesting to see Komodo feature this quickly after his introduction to the comics only happening with Jeff Lemire’s recently concluded run on Green Arrow, but as I was a massive fan of that series it was great to see Komodo get attention here. He was incredibly effective and served as one of the most memorable single-episode Arrow villains yet, and with the fact that he wasn’t killed at the end of the episode means that there’s always time for another appearance. Also, more Komodo gives the series a lot of potential to include stuff like the Arrow Clan and even a possible appearance by Emiko, which would be incredibly awesome to see although sadly is probably very unlikely indeed. Matt Ward handled the role well though and I personally can’t wait to see him back in the series.

The actions sequences of this episode were great to watch. We got a spectacular motorcycle jousting sequence between Komodo and Ollie with their bows and arrows, and it was handled very well. The two fight scenes that the characters got were more than satisfactory, and this is just one of the many reasons why I’d love to have Komodo back. Archer vs. archer fights are always cool on this show and this was great to see here, even if the lack of colour in his costume made it sometimes hard to follow who was who, especially with the dark atmosphere.

The flashback scenes were great this week and we got to see Colin Donnell return for a role as Tommy Merlyn, who was scene killed off at the end of Season 1. It was interesting to see that the writers did not go for the approach where it turned out that Tommy did in fact meet Ollie after the Island, but the alternative approach was handled a lot more effectively with a simple and effective resolution to what could have been a lot more complicated.

This episode packed several punches when it came to emotional moments and it really didn’t disappoint in that regard. The episode, although titled “Sara”, didn’t actually feature Caity Lotz herself aside from the characters’ corpse, but the emotional element and how it affected all the team members (not just Ollie & Laurel, but Diggle, Roy and Felicity too) was handled well. The burial scene at the end was pulled off well indeed, and it’s good to see that Laurel is starting to hold her own a lot more as a character, as I’ve found her far less annoying so far this season.

It also served as a great way to set up the transition for Laurel to becoming the new Black Canary. Whilst she may not have the training yet it’ll be interesting to see where this story takes us, much like Thea’s training under Merlyn which is no doubt something that we’ll be seeing more of in the episodes to come.

With some mostly great acting this week, Sara shows just how well the series has improved. Amell’s acting was great this week and the mystery of who killed Sara is still open for plenty of questions. I assumed it was Komodo but this episode has proven otherwise. Also, given that it can’t be Thea/Malcolm due to their time in Corto Maltese and it can’t be Ra’s or Nyssa or anybody else in the League of Shadows as it’s been stated that they don’t kill their own, it narrows down the list of potential suspects massively (It can’t be Slade, can it? Surely not?). So again, it’ll be great to see where this takes us going forward and this mystery should be very interesting to follow indeed over the course of the season.

Who do you think killed Sara? Are you enjoying the season so far? Let me know in the comments below.