Jessie Robertson reviews the 21st episode of Arrow season 2….
Moira Queen is dead. Oliver Queen is Missing. Jason Blood has just been elected Mayor of Starling City. Haunting music plays over the opening scenes of this week’s episode as Walter returns, embracing Thea as she stares off, still obviously shell-shocked.
Let’s start with Thea this week; she vents to Walter about Slade’s menacing words last week; but i still don’t think she’s put it fully together what Oliver’s secret is. She gets more bad news as Isabel (back from the dead) is shutting down Verdant (and as she mentions, the steel factory underneath). So Thea’s plan is to pack up and leave; Roy has gone missing and her mother is dead so what does she have left? A poignant moment when we see Walter calling her cell phone, an olive branch of hope no doubt, but she simply ignores the call. She is ready to move on.
With Ollie and Sara both missing and Roy incapacitated, the Arrow crew is down to two: Diggle and Felicity and they are desperate to find their leader. Isabel makes a spooky appearance at Moira’s wake and Diggle knows she’s been injected with the Mirakuru. Felicity’s methods aren’t working to he turns to the only card he can pull at this juncture: Amanda Waller. They do in fact get her help and find out Oliver had a backup headquarters that he instead turned into a place he can be alone. At this point, Oliver looks beaten and the gang beg him to regroup and find a way to take out Slade; but he has other ideas.
At this point, Oliver admits defeat; Slade wanted to break him, take everything from him and he’s won; he tells his friends Slade said there’s one more person left to die and then it will be over; Oliver knows it’s him (I think Slade meant Sara) so he’s going to turn himself over to him. But the group has other plans; Oliver’s drugged and dragged back to Arrow HQ where he finds of all people, Laurel.
Laurel has been busy; she’s put her deductive skills to good use (even bugging Blood’s palatial mayoral office) and found out that Blood has been working for Slade this whole time. There’s no shock even that she knows the Arrow’s identity; they get to work. When Oliver hears the news he confronts Blood in a public restaurant (and flat out tells him who he is, which the number of people in Starling that know is growing weekly). Oliver tries to sway Blood’s allegiance but he gives a look that says he’s too far gone to do anything drastic so he’s sticking with Slade. He dons the creepy mask once again and heralds an army of Mirakuru-laced Deathstroke army (including Isabel donning the mask) as the takeover begins. It’s very Following-like too, as they have people set up in the police station, the train station, all over town. They set the stage at the end of the episode with Oliver, Laurel, Diggle and Felicity detonating some charges that trap the majority of this group underground trapped.
On the island meanwhile, Oliver learns another lesson (which is always cool when it comes up) about being a hero from one of his allies trying to commandeer the sub. He was one of Ivo’s experimental subjects who is already half dead from radiation poisoning; he volunteers to guide a missile into the rock that could free the sub to escape. The sequence at the end is tense, with quick cuts that really leaves you wanting more at the end of the episode.
Two episodes left and there are a lot of things to wrap up but this show handles piles of storylines so damn well. How exactly is this war between Oliver and Slade going to wrap up? Is this the beginning of Laurel’s journey into becoming her bird-namesake? Stoked to find out next week.
Jessie Robertson
Originally published May 1, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
