Episode Report Card Tippi Blevins: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Kneel Before Tess
By Tippi Blevins | Season 9 | Episode 6 | Aired on 10.30.2009
Suddenly, we're in the middle of a dark warehouse where a crowd has assembled to watch a dark-haired young woman beat the shit out of a burly, half-naked man. Thumping electronic rock music plays. I have mental whiplash from the transition. The mystery woman somersaults and kicks and takes several punches to the face but keeps on going. She drops her opponent with hard drive of her heel into the back of his knee. When he goes down, she flips him and pins him to the floor. She delivers two hard blows to his jaw. You know what this is, don't you? Yet another fight that's cooler than last season's crummy Doomsday fight. Lady Pugilist gets to her feet, blood dripping out of her nose, and throws her arms up in victory. The extras in the background cheer her on. Or maybe they're just happy they got assigned to this cool fight scene and not one of the episode's boring rom-com scenes. A skuzzy little bearded guy in a hat grabs her wrist, cutting her celebration short. "You keep making me hunt you down, Mia," he says with a sneer. He opens his jacket to show her the gun tucked into his pants waist. "How are you supposed to pay me back if you keep running away?" he asks. She calls him Rick and starts to explain, but he drags her away from the fight. "Don't want you hurting that pretty little face," he says. "That's your moneymaker, baby!" As they leave along with two thuggish fellows, we see that Oliver Queen has been standing on the edges of the crowd, watching the whole thing.
Metropolis, red-light district. Ladies of the evening hang out on the streets, chatting with one another, waiting for Richard Gere to show up. Mia is among them, wearing a red miniskirt, tiny yellow top, and a bobbed blond wig not unlike Vivian Ward's wig. Oliver pulls up to the curb in his pretty little Aston Martin and rolls down the window. Mia walks up to him and glances over to where Pimpy Rick is standing with his thugs down the street. She displays her car knowledge by telling Oliver that nothing compares to the original Aston Martin V8 Vantage. Oliver is so impressed that he lets her drive. Hey, I know about cars! Why does no one let me drive their awesome cars? Is it because I'm not a hooker? I knew I should have gone into a different line of work. Anyway, she drives so fast that Old Man Ollie is like, "Whoa, slow down, Speedy!" He tells her he's trying to stay away from "life in the fast lane." She asks, "So why are you cruising for company?" "I was looking for you," he says. The rockin' music quiets to something more serious. He tells her he saw her fighting and thinks she's talented. She doesn't get why he would care. He says he just wants to help her fix her life: "That last guy was twice your size. He kept beating you down and you just kept coming back after him." She quietly tells him she doesn't bruise easily and he acknowledges that may be true for the outside. He goes on: "I used to fight for the same reasons you do." To work out your feelings of anger and helplessness because you were forced to sell your body? Now that's a Smallville I'd like to see. He blah-blahs about how the real battle was with himself. He offers to train her and help her overcome her fear and hate, and to help get her off the streets. "Aw, my hero," she coos with more than a little sarcasm. He just looks at her. She asks with all seriousness what this "help" will cost her. "Just time enough to prove you can trust me," Oliver says. She looks doubtful, but intrigued. The car speeds into the night.