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Episode 1.06
Writers: Moira Kirland and Marc Guggenheim
Director: John Behring

THE VERDICT : There’s a distinct echo of The Dark Knight in this episode’s bank job opener – the gang may not be parading around with creepy clown faces but the playing card motifs that decorate their hockey masks make for an equally striking visual. Sure, the idea of a criminal family taking on one last job is a fairly rusty old trope but it fits thematically for a story that’s out to explore the sins of the fathers – Oliver’s confronting ghosts in so many ways here, from the haunting vision on the island to the very real economic consequences of Queen Snr’s business machinations. We also see a slightly more morally flexible Oliver in this episode, one whose inherited guilt leads him to believe in the possibility of redemption (while also taking care to cover his bases, like any true vigilante badass). Some of the Tommy/Laurel/Thea material approaches the vacuous gloss of Melrose Place but director John Behring brings some genuine style to the action sequences here – he swirls the camera around Dig and Oliver in their training session and favours some effective low angles as the cops arrive at the bank. Dig’s increasingly fulfiling the Alfred role, but in a way that possibly owes more to the ‘60s TV incarnation than the Nolan version – given his portrayal here as a discreet, soft-footed early warning system it’s easy to imagine him stepping close to Adam West and murmuring that Commissioner Gordon is on the Bat-phone…

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TRIVIA : The Royal Flush Gang are established DC villains, albeit a lot more flamboyant than the hockey-masked incarnation we see here. The creation of Gardner Fox and Mike Sekowsky, they first appeared in Justice League Of America 43 in 1966.

DID YOU SPOT? : More namechecks taken direct from the DC gazetteer: Coast City is the home to Green Lantern while Keystone City is the Flash’s turf.

BEST LINES :
Felicity (to Oliver): “Guess you didn’t have Facebook on that island.”
Diggle: “Nope. Not even a MySpace account. It was a very dark time.”

Read all our Arrow reviews.

Arrow airs in the UK on Sky1

Nick Setchfield is the Editor-at-Large for SFX Magazine, writing features, reviews, interviews, and more for the monthly issues. However, he is also a freelance journalist and author with Titan Books. His original novels are called The War in the Dark, and The Spider Dance. He's also written a book on James Bond called Mission Statements.