‘Arrow’ episode 11 review: An introduction to Vertigo

When we saw the promos at first for Wednesday night’s new “Arrow” episode, we were a little bit nervous that this was going to be a procedural episode that served only to give us a little bit more backstory to Diggle while teaching the man a valuable lesson in the process: the List is already right. It did provide this, but the good news here is that at the same time it also worked to set up what is going to be the most exciting hour of the season thus far next week: “Vertigo.”

As you likely know already, the show’s version if the DC Comics villain Count Vertigo is going to be a little bit different, especially since the character (played by Seth Gabel) will not be sporting this moniker at all; instead, this is simply the name of the drug that he is passing around. We haven’t met Gabel yet, and this week his drug was talked about as something that is causing trouble throughout Starling City.

It also turned out that Vertigo played an enormous role in Oliver’s life this week, as we saw Thea get arrested after driving while under the influence of it following her own birthday party. As for why she took it, let’s just say that she saw her mother get a little too handsy with the Tommy’s father while at the party, and at that point she really had nothing to lose (except of course her dignity and a chance at having a future career in something other than the family business).

Now that Oliver has managed to take down some folks who Diggle, his sights are clearly going to be set next on meeting the man responsible for distributing the drug to begin with … and this is going to get interesting.

What did you think about this episode? Be sure to share your thoughts below, and you can watch a video from this episode over at the link here.

Photo: The CW