Episode Title: Star City 2046
Original Airdate: 2-25-16
It’s finally time to get our first look at the future aside from the very beginning of the pilot episode, and not only that, but there’s no sign of Vandal Savage in the episode which is a first. Instead, their little unexpected romp into the future takes them to a Star City where things have become a bit of a dystopia to put it mildly. This is also the first episode where there isn’t any significant team strengthening, at least not in any major way. And in fact, there’s the first signs of a team that won’t last through the entire season, something that I may have heard has already happened in currently aired shows. But I’ll get to that when I get to that.
As for Star City in the future, Oliver Queen’s Arrow has been retired after losing his arm to the new crime lord in the city who also happens to be Deadshot’s son. And yet another son has taken up the mantle of Green Arrow after his parents John Diggle and… his wife, sorry I haven’t been keeping up with Arrow. But instead of keeping the name that his dead parents have given him, he has chosen his own name of Connor Hawk. One thing that was rather annoying about the future Star City is the overabundance of random fires everywhere. And they don’t appear to be random bum trash fires or arson related home or business fires, they look like pure set dressing propane torch fires placed everywhere to give it that Hollywood dystopian feel to it. They’re in the future, not the dark ages. I seriously doubt that when crime takes over a major city that they can’t maintain the already present electrical infrastructure, or at least extort/use stolen funds to bankroll it.
Aside from the look of the future Star City, there’s also a bit of the lighter side going on inside the damaged ship where Jackson has an obvious crush on Kendra while Ray just randomly happens to have some friendly/flirty chemistry with her and Dr. Stein tries to help but only messes things up in a very sitcom-esque way that only works because Victor Garber is so endearing. There’s also a bit of a clash between Rip Hunter and White Canary, as he believes that the current future they are in is only a temporary one and will essentially be erased from existence once the timeline normalizes, so his goal is just to get out of the timeline as quickly as possible. But White Canary won’t leave until she gives this future the best chance possible. And of course, Rip finally sees reason near the very end and sends the entire team to help things out in the climactic battle.
Aside from that, there is one other notable rift within the team and that is between Cold and Heat Wave. They are the two with the longest history of anyone else in the group, and while Snart has always been the villain with the heart of gold, so to speak, Heat Wave is and has always been a typical criminal. And that really starts to come to a head here, where Heat Wave is in criminal heaven regardless of the fact that he may ultimately get wiped from existence if he stays. Meanwhile Snart is actually starting to care about the fate of the team and the mission to save the world. And while the solution is made through sheer force by Snart, it leaves their partnership in a very tenuous position that will likely play out just a very short while from now.
Channel: Superhero 