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Arrow: Season 3, Episode 3, Corto Maltese Review

By Chris Murray

Warning this article contains Spoilers for this episode.

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Arrow - Series 03.Episode 03 "Corto Maltese"..David Ramsey as John Diggle, Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen and Colton Haynes as Roy Harper...© Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.
Team Arrow head to South America this week but unfortunately the change of city wasn't enough to make this episode stand out from the others.

There were some good character moments like the office scene with Felicity and Ray Palmer and one between Roy and Oliver during a shoot out. A little more character development for Laurel lance too that confirms what we said last week about going down a certain path. But other than that and the somewhat bleak action scene in the middle, there wasn't much else to the episode.

In the last episode we learned that Thea was in a place called Corto Maltese and not where she said she was to the rest of the Arrow squad. So this week most of the episode revolves around this with both Oliver and Roy taking a little break from the action Starling City to go find her. John Diggle features in the majority of this episode too, but his mission is a little different as he is tasked with finding an A.R.G.U.S. agent thats gone quiet. Or potentially rouge I guess depending how you look at it.
Like always, flashback scenes are apparent in this episode but this week detail the relationship between Thea and her father Malcolm Merlin. A pretty strange one to say the least. A particular scene comes to mind where Malcolm is teaching Thea that pain is inevitable but feeling it is optional by pouring boiling wax over her hand, and another where he is beating her up a bit I presume for the same reason. Its pretty dark.

Hopefully more of this will come out later in the season and Thea will show her true colours at some point. Mind you I’m not sure what a few months of training will amount to compared to the the 5 years Oliver had.

Compared to the previous two episodes the pace of this one seemed much slower and just genuinely boring. Last weeks episode had a different pace too but for what happened it was justifiable. This one however was just slow throughout and didn't do much to make me go “wow” or “holy crap!” unlike the others. Maybe the final scene that sees the return of perhaps a major player in this season; Nyssa al Ghul but unfortunately not much else. 
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Arrow - Series 03.Episode 03 "Corto Maltese"..Katie Cassidy as Laurel Lance...© Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.
In doing these write ups. I’ve not had any trouble in writing them. I’ve always had enough to say about each episode from both Arrow and The Flash and how good they've been. But this episode I’ve really struggled to find something that's worth talking about.

It's unfortunate because the first two episode in this season have been so great and have had solid action scenes and character development throughout. 

By the looks of it though, from what I've seen on the inter webs next weeks episode looks like it will take the show back to normal. Who knows, I may even have a write up for you thats multiple pages long!

All Images © Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.

If you need a little help Chris can help you catch up with The Flash & Arrow

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The Flash - Series 01.Gallery.Grant Gustin as Barry Allen/The Flash..© Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.

The Flash: Season 1

Episode 1, Pilot/City of Heroes Review

Episode 2, Fastest Man Alive Review

Episode 3, Things you can't out run

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Arrow- Series 01.Gallery Images.Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen..©2012 Warner Bros Entertainment Inc.

Arrow: Season 3,

Episode 1, The Calm Review

Episode 2, Sara Review

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