The Mark: ‘Arrow’ Season 01 Episode 04 “An Innocent Man”

We pick up this week’s episode where we left off. Oliver has revealed the truth about how he spends his nights to Diggle and it’s not very welcomed knowledge. So, how was the fourth episode of Arrow? Is the show still “hitting the mark”? I can definitely say that it is. This series is becoming more interesting with each episode and this week the character development definitely went up a notch.

The main plot focuses on Peter Declan, whom the episode is named after, a man on death row convicted of killing his wife in his daughter’s bedroom. His execution is imminent. And just like in reality, executions these days get a lot of press. While watching television Oliver Queen hears that Peter’s wife Camille worked for a certain Jason Brodeur. Why is that significant? Well, Mr. Brodeur’s name is on the list of course.

But there’s plenty of sub-plots as well in this episode as well that’s really giving it that comic book feel. They do an excellent job this episode jumping between the numerous sub-plots without getting us lost or confused. This episode was quite possibly the best for the series. We saw it develop the romance sub-plot, develop some of the supporting characters, contain plenty of action as well as ending with one hell of a cliffhanger. We also got some of the best flashbacks to the island as we learned even more about what really happened on that island. Or do we have no idea at all yet? Guess we’re going to have wait until next week to find out.

Something I particularly enjoyed about “An Innocent Man” is that the episode had a feeling of the 1970’s Green Arrow where his stories often centered on social issues instead of supervillains. In this era we saw Oliver Queen fighting crime to aid the people who needed it. He would come to the aid of the poor, the disenfranchised, and ethnic minorities. I’m glad that the team behind this show is really looking to bring in elements from each era of Oliver Queen.

Another thing that I am glad is that we weren’t given another DC villain in this episode. Rather than over saturate us and constantly remind us that this is a DC Comics show we are allowed to focus on the central and core plot of the series, the list. This “case of the week” format fits just right for this episode and offers up plenty of plot twists along the way.

With the introduction, and no we still don’t know who he is, John Barrowman’s character (we’re all hoping it’s Maxwell Lord) as well as promo at the end showing Deathstroke…we should definitely expect next week to kick things up a notch.

The comic book references &  easter eggs that you may have missed:

– “The 10:15 to Blüdhaven.”: Blüdhaven is a fictional city that served as a backdrop for the first Nightwing series. The city is both south of and located close to or adjacent to Gotham City, home to Batman.

– Iron Heights: Iron Heights Penitentiary is a maximum-security prison which houses the many Flash rogues and superhuman criminals of Keystone City and Central City when captured. Iron Heights first appeared in Flash: Iron Heights (2001).