Dinah's mother, the woman formerly known to the superhero community as Black Canary, arrives in New Gotham and has a traumatic reunion with her daughter.

At last, something to actually get your teeth into. It helps that this is a whole lot closer to DC continuity than we've had to date, even if it does scream out (sorry) why Dinah has been given some random superpowers she barely uses when the canary cry is shown here to be perfectly adequate. In fact, I'd rather this had just been a series about the main three women – Oracle, Huntress and Black Canary – fighting crime. It doesn't need the baggage of little Dinah when she could have been the grown-up Canary from the start.

The reasons this works far better are simply because it doesn't rely on a random evil metahuman with a freakish power, it doesn't focus exclusively on Helena, and it throws in some welcome character drama that really does have the desired effect and is rather touching. Lori Loughlin makes a superb Black Canary, and I somehow doubt we've seen the last of her, even if the explosion she was caught in did seem pretty large. She's tough, sexy, interesting, and my only regret is that we don't get to see her in action much. Well, that and the lack of fishnets.

I like the idea of other DC heroes showing up, even if it us making things a continuity nightmare; I'm just hoping for some of the even more familiar faces. There is even hope for the Huntress/Reece relationship here, as the detective demonstrates a bit of backbone and some chemistry with Huntress which hasn't been that noticeable before. I'm not entirely convinced that Oracle can't trace a thief's hideaway, but we'll let it go just this once. We also get more surprise in the revelation of Reece's link to evildoer Hawke, which immediately makes him a more interesting character. What a shame they did away with Huntress's comics origin, as that really would have made them kindred spirits.

This episode made me feel as though things are slotting into place a little better, but I'm worried this may be merely a temporary reprieve…

****

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