Aww, it seems Oliver found his true love after all. No, not Helena. She was a psycho bitch. I’m talking about John Diggle!
Bromance is in the air this holiday season, as Oliver’s quick infatuation with Helena is deflated by Dig’s nagging voice of reason. And the fact she was a psycho bitch. Dig was right of course, and Oliver had to learn the hard way through a broken heart. He got over it pretty quick though. After all, it’s bros before hoes (I’ve been using that a lot in my reviews lately. Bromance is the new fad!)
To be honest, I had many issues with “Vendetta.” I call this one the most poorly written episode of the series so far. I’m still breaking into convulsions of hysteria over that very uncomfortable, very contrived dinner between our new ill fated superhero pairing and Laurel and Tommy. Talk about forcing unwanted and unneeded tension. I had to double check that I wasn’t watching Saved by the Bell. Talk about a teenage love triangle. The only thing missing was Laurel’s hair in pigtails and faces pockmarked by acne. Tommy gets jealous? Helena goes ballistic? All because they were talking? Ugh, ugh, that whole mess was a two TV brick worthy moment.
Still, that didn’t make me throw up in my mouth a little, unlike Helena in full new Huntress costume declaring to the bad guys, “You failed this city.” Ugh, you fail at fashion girlfriend. Don’t let your vigilante male lover ever design your superhero signature costume unless he’s so flamboyant he lights up a city block. Forget the TV brick. I was just ready to chuck my set out the window. Of course I was watching on the first floor, so it would have lived. And we would have made up, because I can never stay mad at dear TV long.
Looking past those two moments which will never be etched into my brain again (serenity now, serenity now), the rest of it was…a clunky mess. How stupid is Moira? What is it about her and keeping items that completely reveal her part in a gross conspiracy of evil within plain sight? She probably didn’t think, “Oh, maybe Walter will find this and take it to the tech savvy awkward chick in IT so they can figure out it has a list names in invisible ink.” Don’t get me wrong, I adore Felicity, and Walter being an ass to her earlier was completely out of left field, but she’s in IT right, not the secret service?
Also, that was a real short mob war and take down of Frank Bertinelli, don’t you think? Couldn’t Helena have killed off bad guys triggering a mob war shortly after her boyfriend was killed, thus saving her a lot of trouble and wasted revenge time? It was all too easy, and I sincerely doubt she did it now because she had a cool new bow weapon that a woman of her stature could easily manage. Also, what sort of a sick bastard is her father, willing to kill his own daughter as soon as he got the chance? I know she started it by almost killing him first, but the man should have taken Oliver’s interference as a gift and ran! Instead he gets caught and goes to prison – because he just happened to have on his person a laptop that had full details of his entire criminal organization? The very laptop that Helena’s lover was killed over? He kept it? Laptops are pretty easy to destroy last a looked. He could have just dropped it in the parking lot and he would have been good. This guy is stupider than Moira. How did he manage to keep a syndicate going all those years? Why didn’t Helena just find the laptop and turn it in? She kind of did things the hard way, don’t you think? Oh, right, because she was unbalanced.
I won’t even get into the contradictions between Oliver’s new found philosophy that he only kills people when it’s absolutely necessary. Right, like the defenseless bad guy he took out a few weeks ago in “Damaged” because the guy didn’t take Oliver’s warning to stop being evil the first time. Or all those people he killed in the Pilot because they couldn’t know his secret. Yep, all necessary. They were meanies and deserved it. Dig spent most of the episode being his voice of reason (like he always does in perfect fashion), but he failed to bring that one up. No, Dig was having a tizzy about the girl, like he and Ollie were having a lover’s spat.
Also, while I’m on a roll, two episodes now with no flashbacks to the island? Sad face. 🙁
Yep, just a lot of “Vendetta” didn’t add up. Not that it was a total waste though. Any conversation between Dig and Oliver while Ollie is doing his strength training shirtless is fine by me. Granted I can’t recall a single bit of the conversation, but the pull ups on the bar looked nice, no? They haven’t done that since the pilot. I also did love the final scene, when Oliver chose to drown his sorrows with jalapeno fries. Trust me when I say that’s paying a big penance right there. Dig came over to console, so at least they’re still on good terms. Even Dig’s sister-in-law is starting to warm up to our millionaire playboy. Who better start actually opening that nightclub now since he has a manager. Coming up next time, “Tommy Merlyn gets a job.” He better not fail the city, or he’s in for a big hurting.
