Arrow Episode Guide: Season 7, Episode 15 - Training Day

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

With tensions high between the newly deputized Team Arrow and the Star City Police Department once charged with bringing them to justice, Oliver Queen hopes a training day for himself and his teammates will help bring people together. Unfortunately, things go wrong almost immediately and Dinah gets some life-altering news.

Meanwhile, in the future of Star City 2038, William and Mia - now aware of what they are to each other - continue their search for Felicity, but can they find a way to mesh street-smarts and tech-smarts to get what they need to play Felicity's latest message?


Influences

The 2001 film Training Day. (title, base idea of rookie cops first day at work going awry) and Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters (Dinah losing her powers after having her throat slit)



Goofs

Why didn't Mayor Pollard just scrap the whole Deputized Vigilante program immediately after Oliver threatened a CEO with an acid swirly? It was just the excuse she'd been waiting for and there's no reason for her no to have thrown the book at Oliver then and there apart from there still being half an hour of episode to pad out.

There's very little about Black Siren's attempt to blackmail Emiko that makes sense. First, how did she learn that Emiko is the new Green Arrow in the first place? Next, why on Earth does she think Oliver and Team Arrow would disapprove of Emiko killing Diaz enough for it to ruin their relationships, when she was helping Felicity to plot Diaz's murder just last week? Finally, there's no apparent purpose to said blackmail and no apparent reason Black Siren would need leverage over Emiko.

Oliver's attitude is all over the place in this episode. He starts off being determined to give the new SCPD partnership a chance. Then he gets sick of the bureaucracy after one batched raid. Then he's threatening to dunk crooked CEOs into acid vats. Then he's ready to break the law and go back to being an unlicensed vigilante even if he can't keep it up forever. Then he's willing to give the partnership thing a try again. And then by the end of the episode the team is back in their old base with their own costumes and gear and it hasn't mattered in the slightest because the mayor was finally embarrassed into striking down the anti-vigilante law.


Performances

Once again, Juliana Harkavy steals the show, giving a powerful performance as Dinah Drake faces an identity crisis. Denied her powers, she throws herself into her role as a police Captain and finds herself butting heads with her teammates as she struggles with her own sense of identity and self-worth. It's deep stuff and well-handled.


Trivia

The plot-point of Dinah losing her Canary Cry after having her throat slit is taken directly from the Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters mini-series, where Black Canary lost her powers after having her throat cut.


Technobabble

Autopsy results on the four Los Halcones gang members  revealed traces of an unidentified substance, which caused a chemical reaction with the blood that resulted in toxic epidermal necrolysis - i.e. their skin melting off.

Chlormethine is a cytotoxic agent derived from mustard gas. It's illegal to manufacture except for medicinal purposes, like chemotherapy.

Felicity is able to alter her security system algorithm to track DNA anywhere in Star City.


Dialogue Triumphs

(The SCPD rookies are being addressed by Sergeant Bingsley and Captain Dinah Drake.)
Sergeant Bingsley: Wearing the uniform of an SCPD officer is an honor. It isn't just a uniform. It's a symbol of the law, of justice, of transparency.
Dinah: Thank you, Sergeant Bingsley. Any questions?
(Rene raises his hand.)
Dinah: Rene?
Rene: He does know we have our own uniforms, right?

Oliver: Have I told you lately how smart you are?
Felicity: Well, I never get tired of hearing it.

Dinah: There is no more vigilante way, okay? There is only the SCPD way. It's my job to enforce it.
Rene: Look, I get it. You're the captain, but you're also the Black Canary. I thought that came first?
Dinah:  It doesn't.
Rene:  Since when?
Dinah:  Since I stuck my neck out to make this partnership work. Vigilantes cannot operate without SCPD sanction. The sooner all of us understand that, the better it's gonna be for all of us.
Rene: Everyone's got something at stake here, D.
Dinah:  But if this fails, I'm the one who loses my job. It's my ass on the line. I don't understand why this is so hard for all of you to understand.

Rene: I've know you a long time, D, and I've never seen you roll over the way you just did with Pollard.
Dinah: She's the mayor, Rene. And she can put an end to this whole operation anytime she wants.
Rene: That's not the point. You've been yelling at me, been yelling at Oliver, and pretty much acting weird ever since the weapons buy. So what's up, D? What's going on?
Dinah: At the weapons buy, I tried to use my cry, but something went wrong. It didn't work right. It It hurt like someone was scraping knives along the inside of my throat.
Rene: I'm sorry.
Dinah: Being captain is the only thing I have left. I can't be the symbol of being on both sides, both SCPD and vigilante, because I am I'm not the Black Canary. Not anymore.
Rene: That's a bunch of crap, and you know it. Your cry doesn't make you the Canary. Did you know that the pin you gave Zoe, she wears to school every day? You think she wears that pin because of your cry? No. She looks up to you because you're the person who will go above and beyond to do what is right no matter the personal consequences. That's who you are no matter what.
Dinah: Even if that's true, it doesn't matter anymore.
Rene: Of course it does. You say you can't be the symbol of being on both sides. That's exactly what you are.

Felicity (on tape): William and Mia... you know, this is the first time I've ever said your names together? 20 years and I avoid ever saying your names in the same sentence. It feels like the work of a paranoid, overprotective mother. I guess we really do turn into our parents. I'm rambling. Sorry. Not just for the rambling. For everything. But mostly for keeping the two of you apart. I'm not asking for your forgiveness but just know that your father and I did it to protect you. We did it because we love you. Now that you've found each other, I just have one request. Give these coordinates to the team: 47. 6119 North, 122. 3301 West. And then get the hell out of Star City. And whatever you do, don't come looking for me.
Mia: So we're ignoring her?
William: Definitely.


Continuity

Oliver, Felicity, John and Rene are all going through SCPD basic training to learn basic police procedure so they can all work as deputized vigilantes.

Los Halcones are the arch rival gang of the Blackout Gang - a new gang that showed up in Star City after Oliver Queen went to prison.

Four Los Halcones were found dead in a warehouse, killed by strange new bullets that melted their skin.

Black Siren is contacted at the DA's office by Bronze Tiger, who was last seen in 707.

Bronze Tiger tells Black Siren that Ricardo Diaz was killed but that the Slabside Penitentiary staff are trying to cover up just how it happened, saying he was shived. He says he can give Black Siren the truth in exchange for having his the work on his pardon stepped up.

When Black Siren says she is already working as fast as possible to get him released, Bronze Tiger agrees to trade his information in exchange for a chance to see his son without a window in between them.

During the raid on the Blackout Gang's weapons buy, the police overhear that Midas Medical made the bullets.

Felicity determines that the melting-bullets used by the Blackout Gang make use of chlormethine.

Midas Medical is one of four firms on Star City who make chlormethine.

Oliver scares a confession out of James Midas - the owner of Midas Medical. It is ruled inadmissible and Midas is released, getting a personal apology form Mayor Pollard on the way out of the police station.

Black Siren makes good on her deal and Bronze Tiger is allowed to see his son, whose first name is Connor, and whom he calls "my little Hawk." The suggestion here is that Connor will become Connor Hawke and be adopted by John Diggle in the future.

Bronze Tiger tells Black Siren that he was confined in solitary across from Diaz and saw the person who set him on fire was dressed like Green Arrow but wasn't Oliver Queen through his open meal slot.

Felicity fixed up the old Team Arrow bunker on the sly. She and Oliver decide they are going to operate outside the law again.

They ask Diggle to join them, but he urges them to give working with the police another chance.

Diggle finds out that Felicity is pregnant.

Dinah and Rene are brought to the bunker and agree to try and work with the police protocols, using their old costumes and gear. This time, they catch James Midas in the act without issues.

Thanks To Mayor Pollard's relationship with Midas, Dinah is able to get her to not only allow Team Arrow to be established as a special SCPD task force but gets permission for them to operate from the bunker.

The anti-vigilante law is also repealed.

John gives Felicity a bag of ginger candy chews, saying that Lyla swore by them during her own pregnancy.

Black Siren summons Emiko Queen to her office and says she knows that she killed Ricardo Diaz and is the new Green Arrow.

Emiko Queen, in turn, reveals that she knows Black Siren isn't the real Laurel Lance. She also says that Team Arrow wouldn't believe Black Siren if she tried to tell them about her.

Felicity says that if they have a boy she wants to name him Lucas.

Oliver says that if they have a daughter, they should name it Mia - short for Moira.

William finds a mini-cassette player in the black market, being sold by a man named Felix. He bargains Felix down to $500, only to have the player pick-pocketed by a young girl in Felix's employ.

When Mia learns of this, she threatens Felix, only for him to respond that he's bribed the local SCPD officers to come running if he needs help.

William is able to hack the SCPD comms and fake a Black Canary sighting. This distracts Felix's back-up long enough for Mia to smack him down and William to take what they need.

Felicity apologies to Mia and William for ruining their lives and gives them a set of coordinates to pass on to the vigilantes. She then tells them to get out of Star City and not to look for her.

The coordinates lead to somewhere inside The Glades. Both William and Mia agree to ignore Felicity's instruction to abandon her or Star City.


The Bottom Line

A disjointed and rushed piece of filler that exists only to restore the status quo of early Season 6 as quickly as possible. Team Arrow is back. Long live Team Arrow. At least until everything that is due to go south in the immediate future happens.

That being said, Dinah's subplot is well-handled and well-acted and the show handles her depowerment as well as could be hoped. Unfortunately, the rest of the episode seems to be a distraction from what should be a much bigger deal. Still, the good parts of the episode far outweigh the bad and it's rather enjoyable even if the character arcs make no sense at all.

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 7, Episode 4 - Level 2

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here. 




Plot

As Oliver is transferred to Level 2 (the worst part of The Slab) and Felicity considers how to handle her prisoner - the Longbow Hunter she's dubbed The Silencer - both will find themselves tested as never before.

Meanwhile, an arsonist targets Rene's community center, injuring Zoe. The new Green Arrow saves her, but the new mayor is more concerned about him than the arsonist, ordering Dinah to focus on bringing the vigilante to justice.


Influences

The Green Arrow comics of Judd Winick (One Year Later and The Glades being sealed off from the rest of Star City), the Green Arrow comics of Benjamin Percy (the idea of a rich elite creating their own city within a city is taken from his Rise of Star City arc), The Silencer comics of Dan Abnett (character of The Silencer), Supermax (David Goyer's unproduced "Green Arrow in prison" movie) and the film and novel The Princess Bride (hero is strapped down and tortured by a device called The Machine).


Goofs

Felicity says that the assassin she captured calls herself The Silencer. In the last episode, it was said that was the name Felicity gave her.

 Black Siren's talk about going bad because she lost her father and her Ollie doesn't quite work. She should have still had a mother when her Quentin died and we have no idea if there was a Sara on Earth 2 or not. Point being - Black Siren should have had at least one other loved one to stop her from going over the edge, as far as we know.


Performances

This episode may be Rick Gonzalez's finest turn yet as Rene Ramirez. Who would have thought that Wild Dog would somehow wind up simultaneously being the voice of reason regarding not using torture because it makes you as evil as the villains you are trying to fight while still arguing in favor of vigilantism and breaking the law for the right reasons and having both nuanced arguments work? Not me, and Gonzalez nails Rene in his low key intensity as he tries to balance multiple hats in this episode.

Juliana Harkavy likewise pulls off a similar balancing act. Her frustration over the new Mayor's clear indifference to the string of arson crimes outside of it being a means to boosting her profile by going after the city's sole remaining vigilante is clear, but she's still throwing everything into trying to restore people's faith in the law and, in a way, trying to restore her own faith after so many years as a vigilante working outside the system. This adds a whole other level to her fight with Rene, which is also born of her own desires to avoid seeing her friends and herself thrown in jail. It's subtle yet complex and well played.


Trivia

Oliver reveals that the man his father killed on the life-raft to save Oliver's life was Robert Queen's bodyguard, Hackett. In Green Arrow: Year One, Hackett was the name of Oliver Queen's treacherous survival skills teacher and guide, who shared several adventures with Oliver before trying to leave him for dead in the South Seas. He was later revealed to be an employee of the drug lord China White, who had been using Oliver's bank accounts to launder drug money on the sly. Ironically, it was Hackett's teachings that enabled Oliver Queen to survive on the jungle island China White used as a base/poppy farm, giving him his first taste of heroism as he began to become The Green Arrow.

The Rubik's cube inside of Felicity's vault is also a holographic projector. In the original comics, technology based around Rubik's cubes were a favorite toy of The Calculator, whose Arrowverse equivalent is Felicity Smoak's father.

The movie showing at the Starling Palladium when Rene and Dinah show up looking for Jon Cortez and his crew is The Invincible Armor - a 1977 kung fu film famous for a line that seems an appropriate sentiment for Oliver Queen and most of Arrow's heroes - "I've made a vow not to kill, but it seems I must."

The canary emblem on the pin that Dinah gives Zoe is the Black Canary symbol used during the Gail Simone run of Birds of Prey.

The revelation that The Glades were sealed off from the rest of Star City and are now some kind of gated community for rich elites seems to borrow from two different storylines from the  Green Arrow comics. The first was One Year Later, in which a corrupt mayor of Star City had a wall built to separate The Glades from the rest of Star City following a super-villain attack that devastated the city, hoping to find private investors to gentrify the neighborhood. The second was The Rise of Star City, which was based around a fiendish banking group called The Ninth Circle turning Seattle into the first of their Star Cities - a municipality totally run by Randian capitalism, with no social services or public works save what privately-owned business were willing to invest in. The end result was a gated community in the middle of the city, with the working class forced out of the city and into the ghettos that sprung up on the outskirts of town.


Technobabble

Dinah determines Diaz isn't involved in the arson in The Glades because the attack on the community center used an accelerate that was used in a number of other suspected arson cases including one that occurred on the same day Diaz broke into the CDC.

The acceptance rate to MIT is 6.7%.

The children of the incarcerated are three times more likely to wind up in the justice system as the children of non-offenders.

The vault in Felicity's office in 2038 is based on a system Felicity was working on when he was a kid. All it takes to fix it is a simple recursive algorithm followed by "a Felicity special."

The Machine is a new form of electrical therapy that targets the areas of the brain that store memories tied to a person's greatest fears.


Dialogue Triumphs

Rene: Felicity, you don't know what you're saying. Torturing someone is a line you do not want to cross.When The Navy discharged me for what I did to a prisoner, I learned a lesson about the cost of my humanity. Because I still have nightmares of what I did. Even though it saved lives. So when Tobias Church tortured me for over 20 hours, itwas the universe paying me back. That's evil for evil!

Rene: I'm became a vigilante for her. Because I wanted her to be able to walk the streets and not get attacked, not have her purse stolen and not be offered drugs, because her mother died on these streets already. I just want a better life for her.
Dinah: I care about Zoe too. And I promise I will find out who set that fire. But you saw what happened at that town hall, Rene. These people have completely lost faith in law enforcement, because Diaz corrupted it! My job is to catch whoever did this and restore that faith. All I'm asking is that you have faith in me.

(Felicity walks into the DA's office.)
Felicity: Wow. So you are actually practicing law?
Black Siren: Why does everybody find that so hard to believe?
Felicity: Well, probably because you're not the real Laurel. Or a real lawyer. (beat) Trying saying that three times fast. What a tongue twister.
Black Siren: (testily) Okay. Listen. I am doing this for Quentin. So if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to work now.
Felicity: Yeah, I get it. I mean, prosecuting criminals must be a lot harder than being one.

(Zoe is trying to get Rene to leave her in her hospital room to save people at an apartment fire.)
Zoe: You taught me only punks forget about their community.
Rene: (smiling) Why you always got to listen to everything I say?

Oliver: Everything that I've done, I've- I've done for my son.
Dr. Parker: I don't doubt that. But it is my duty to point out uncomfortable truths, so that you can reform yourself so that you can become the man you want to be for your son. You created your vigilante persona so that you could avenge your father's wrongs. Isn't any part of you concerned that William will take your lead and become a murderer just like you?
(Oliver nods)
Dr. Parker: Then listen to me.That promise to your father was made when you were vulnerable and desperate. It tainted your mission from the start, affecting you and your son. It wasn't fair of your father to ask what he did of you. You must let go of the past! Only then can you spare your family from paying for your sins.
Oliver: (breathing heavily, speaking quietly and grinning) Go to Hell.
Dr. Parker: He's not responding. Prepare the machine.

Diggle: Dinah, you're under pressure. A lot of pressure. I get.that. Are you sure it's not something more?
(Dinah just looks at him evenly)
Diggle: You know what helps me? Spending time with JJ. Family, Dinah. That helps us through.
Dinah: John - Living in the shadows is when all the worst things happen. Oliver going to prison. Vince - first undercover, and then... (pauses) That's the real reason. Because as much as I believed in Team Arrow, I had to move on. I had to be a different kind of hero for this city.
Diggle: Yeah. You know, sometimes I wonder if there's any form of justice that's 100% on the level, even at ARGUS. I think sometimes you need vigilantes and law enforcement working together to get results. Quentin Lance - he did things by the book. But Dinah? Lance was willing to work with anyone who could hep him.
Dinah: This Green Arrow isn't Oliver. I can't risk everything for a stranger.
Diggle: A stranger with good intel.

Dinah: Look, right now the SCPD is on its own. We just - we can't get justice for The Glades. So I am willing to give working together a shot - if - you do it my way.
Rene: If? I've been trying to make this happen for weeks!

(Black Siren tries to talk Felicity out of torturing The Silencer with a rusty screwdriver.)
Black Siren: This isn't you.
Felicity: (cooly) This is the new me. This is the me who doesn't wait around to get murdered. And this is the me - this is the me who fights back!


Continuity

Oliver is kept in a cell, chained sitting-up, without food and water, in a cell with erratic lights and a continual high-pitched droning.

Dr. Jarrett Parker is the chief psychiatrist on Level 2 of The Slab.

The Silencer is kept in a hot boiler room with no food or water.

Rene advises against torturing The Silencer, citing his own experiences in the Navy, which got him dishonorably discharged.

Rene and Dinah attend a town hall meeting at Rene's community center.

The public in The Glades seem to be of the opinion the city was better off with the vigilantes, as the police are overwhelmed.

Police response time in The Glades is two hours.

Zoe is saved from the fire by the new Green Arrow.

The new mayor of Star City is a woman named Pollard. She immediately blames Green Arrow for the fire and orders the police to focus their inquiries in that direction.

Curtis buys Zoe a Beebo doll as a get-well present.

Oliver is able to keep track of the passage of time despite any frame of reference in his cell.

Oliver is injected with something to make him more agreeable to talking.

Oliver tells Dr. Parker about how his father killed his bodyguard, Hackett, and himself to save Oliver's life and how he asked Oliver to fix his mistakes, inspiring Oliver to become The Star City Vigilante.

Felicity approaches Black Siren about torturing The Silencer.

Zoe likes strawberries and cantaloupes.

The next fire is started at The Lofts - an low-income housing complex in The Glades.

The new Green Arrow tells Rene that the arsonist is a man named Jon Cortez.

The new Green Arrow does a flip as he escapes.

Rene blocks Dinah from being able to shoot the new Green Arrow.

Dinah arrests Rene for interfering in a police investigation.

Oliver is meditating while locked in his cell to avoid suffering as much from the efforts to break him.

Oliver tells Dr. Parker that a woman named Tatsu Yamashiro taught him how to meditate.

Rene uses his one phone call to contact Digg and ask him to look up Jon Cortez.

Diggle looks up Jon Cortez and finds that he's a merc arsonist with his own crew. He leaves Dinah a copy of ARGUS' file on him.

Cortez has been getting payments from Patbane Holdings - a shell company that has been buying up the burnt-up properties in The Glades.

Dinah agrees to work with Rene to catch Cortez.

Like, Rene, Black Siren also warns Felicity against trying to torture The Silencer.

Oliver hallucinates being on the life raft with William while locked in The Machine. He asks William to forget about him before killing himself.

Oliver says that William is the most important thing in the world to him.

The man behind Patbane Holdings is a real-estate investor named Marcus Fish.

Rene and Dinah figure out that Cortez's next target is The Starling Palladium - an old movie house on 8th Street.

Rene is recognized by Cortez's men, suggesting that his identity as Wild Dog is public knowledge even outside of his students and the people of The Glades.

The new Green Arrow helps Rene and Dinah catch Cortez and his men. Neither show any sign of recognizing who he is under the hood.

Dinah gives Zoe a pin shaped like the Black Canary emblem.

After going through The Machine, Oliver says that his name is Inmate 4587 instead of Oliver Queen.

Felicity plants an RFID chip in The Silencer's belt, enabling them to track her when she makes her escape.

Black Siren says that the Felicity Smoak of Earth 2 runs a criminal empire and is known for being ruthless.

Both Roy and William swore they'd never return to Star City.

Graffiti of an X-ed out Deathstroke mask is visible in the background at one point as Roy and William are walking through Star City. The graffiti also reads "The Glades Forgot Us."

The coordinates on the Queen Family hozen change, leading William and Roy to the ruins of Smoak Technologies and Felicity's office.

William asks outright why Felicity would be playing games with him instead of just contacting him outright.

William says Felicity was the one who influenced him to go into the tech field.

Roy says William is more forgiving than he is.

William finds a vault that can only be opened by completing a code that Felicity showed him once.

William and Roy meet with Dinah - who is a vigilante once again.

Dinah tells Roy he never should have come back to Star City, implying that he does return to Star City at some point between 2018 and 2038.

Dinah explains that Star City fell when The Glades rose. They built a wall around The Glades and sealed it off from the rest of Star City, not allowing anyone else to enter.

The SCPD are essentially a private army protecting The Glades from everything outside its borders.

The bag inside the vault contains a Rubik's Cube.

Dinah says Roy used to be much more patient in the past. This suggests that Roy got to know Dinah pretty well, as the two never interacted that we know of.

William says that making a pattern on a Rubik's cube is like running an algorithm. His favorite was "cube within a cube."

When William makes the pattern, the cube projects a holographic map of The Glades, showing secret passages in and out.

Zoe has become Dinah's protege and apparently the new Black Canary. She says she's part of a Vigilante Resistance - one of the few left fighting to save Star City.

Zoe says her dad wouldn't be caught dead in Star City, when asked about what happened to Wild Dog.

Dinah says that Felicity is dead.


Location

Slabside Maximum Security Prison.
Star City - 2038


The Bottom Line

A solid episode, despite Stephen Amell being largely wasted giving a "drunk" performance that doesn't hold the interest of his conflicted storyline from earlier episodes and Emily Bett Rickards barely being involved in things. The Dinah/Rene stuff is golden however and the future storyline is kicked into overdrive with some major reveals. Good stuff, all around.

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 6, Episode 22 - The Ties That Bind

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here. 


Plot

With his plan to put Oliver Queen in prison thwarted, Ricardo Diaz decides to just kill Green Arrow and all of his former allies. The heroes of Star City must put aside their differences to finally join forces against their common enemy.


Influences

The Green Arrow comics of Judd Winick. (Invincible bad guys who are far more clever than the heroes.)


Goofs

Lyla says that she can't bring in ARGUS to help with the fight in Star City because what Diaz is doing is a law enforcement matter outside of their jurisdiction. While this does make sense from a legal and logistical standpoint (The CIA is not allowed to get involved in affairs on American Soil, to give a real world example), surely Ricardo Diaz is a person of interest as a known associate of the cyber-terrorist who recently threatened Star City - a matter which ARGUS could act on?

For that matter, surely as the Director of ARGUS, Lyla knows who to contact at the FBI, the DEA, the ATF or countless other government agencies that would be empowered to arrest Diaz legally? (It might have been easier for Lyla to say she'd have to coordinate with the FBI to operate and it would take too long or for Oliver to point out there's no way to know Diaz didn't have connections in the local FBI as well.)

Kirk Acevedo goes full Shatner with his pauses and line breaks in this episode. (Why would she tip off Queen (pauses) and then DRAAAAG OUR AAAAAASES (pause) out of the fire?)

Diaz surviving the explosion at point-blank range and going flying down a staircase into a stone wall is complete and total bullshit.

Lyla doesn't have authority to bring ARGUS agents in force to deal with Diaz yet somehow orders a forensics team to investigate the ruins of Helix?

Why do The Quadrant leaders agree to a meeting with Diaz on his own turf with none of their own bodyguards close at hand?


Performances

Honestly, the whole heroic ensemble is on point this week, but we'll given an MVP shout-out to Juliana Harkavy, who gets the first chance in far too long to show how awesome Black Canary is and should be played.


Artistry

All the opening action sequences are amazing.


Trivia

As is tradition for the penultimate episode of every season of Arrow, the title is taken from a Bruce Springsteen song. As usual, the song ties into the theme of the episode, as The Ties That Bind is about someone who has been trying to stand tough on their own because they're afraid of the pain that relationships with other people can cause.

The Arrow logo card at the end of the first segment once again only shows Ollie's arrowhead symbol and not the rest of the Team Arrow symbols.


Technobabble

According to Dr. Schwartz, all signs of the nerve damage, loss of arm strength and loss of motor control that John had in his injured arm are gone.

Helix Dynamics now owns a polyrase inhibitor. Felicity and Curtis had to take out three loans to get it.

Diaz's "necklace" is a GRV-657 Solid State Drive. Felicity describes it as a military grade data storage device with dynamic encryption.

Felicity reprograms her sniffer to specifically couple with the digital signature of Diaz's drive.

Felicity determines that the encryption on Diaz's drive is Corto Maltesian in origin. She guesses the drive is carrying Diaz's books.

The SCPD use a tricelic gas in order to drive Team Arrow out of the Helix hideout.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Open on a thug urinating in an alleyway. Black Canary comes up behind him.)
Black Canary: I'll give you the courtesy of putting that back in before we start this. 
Thug: (smirking) Does it have to be in that order?
(He starts to turn around, but Black Canary kicks him in the stomach, knocking the wind from him.)
Black Canary: You work for Ricardo Diaz.
Thug: (still smirking through the pain) Who?
Black Canary: You want to play that game? Good.
(Black Canary grabs the thug by his shirt.)
Black Canary: I need to blow off some steam.

(John runs into the hallway towards the sounds of the shots. He sees Lyla with her guns drawn, one aimed toward each end of the hallway.)
John: Lyla!
(John runs towards her, and grabs her, spinning around as he shoots a man who was coming from the other direction.)
Lyla: I had him!
John: I know you did, honey.

(Three of Diaz's men have their guns trained on Black Canary's back. She has her hands up.)
Thug: One bullet. Back of the head. You won't even feel it.
Black Canary: (smirking) You know the cool thing about sound waves?  They bounce.
(Black Canary lets out a Canary Cry against the wall in front of her. It echos and knocks her and the thugs back, but she's able to roll with the force and comes up in a roll as the thugs are sent flying and knocked out on the other side of the alley wall.)

Oliver: If we just press ahead like this.. we are going to die out there.
Felicity: We haven't worked together in months.  You know Diaz isn't expecting that, at least.
Oliver: But he's planned for everything. Us getting back together? Working as a team? It's a start, but this guy's got an army.He's got the officials. He's got the police.  He's got everything.
Curtis: Please tell me there's a "but" coming at the end of this pep-talk.
Oliver: Anatoly Knyazev.
Rene: I thought he hated your guts?
Oliver: I think we've come to an understanding. I also think he might be the one move Diaz does not see coming.
John: Well, Oliver, if that's our tactical advantage, we need to press it.
Oliver: Let me set a meet with him, ok? Let us make a move off of his intel. But until we have it, I want you guys to stand down, and... I'm asking you to trust me. I know that that trust does not come easy after everything that has happened. Let's put all of that aside... and get this done.

Anatoly: "You cannot wage revolution in white gloves." Lenin had his faults, but he was right about that.

(Felicity has just asked Lyla for advice on how to cope with Oliver being nervous about her going into the field.)
Lyla: We always knew our lives would be high risk. Eventually, we got to a point where worrying about that seemed less important than enjoying the time we had together. Even if it was on a battlefield.
(Felicity closes her eyes as if savoring the romantic thought.)
Lyla: (pauses) Also, getting divorced helps.
(Felicity's face drops.)

Oliver: You promised me you would stay put.
Felicity:Well, I didn't exactly promise -
Oliver: Fine. You promised me you wouldn't do anything stupid. You charged into a fire-fight.
Felicity:Which was a calculated risk.
Oliver:  Calculated - (stammers) Did you calculate how close Ricardo Diaz came to shooting you in the back of the head?!
Felicity: We got what we wanted.
Oliver:  That's not - (bites his lip)
Felicity:And if I'm right, what we wanted has the list of everyone in the city that Diaz controls.This could help us get our home back from Diaz, Oliver. We could actually save our city this time around. I think that's a little more important than "what ifs."
Oliver:  This is why I started working alone again.
Felicity:Yeah. You know what? I tried convincing myself that that was the right move too. But it's not. Because we're married and we're supposed to be each other's strength. So there is no "alone" for us anymore.
Oliver:  It's not that simple and you know it.
Felicity: God, I'm really going to need you to start seeing it that way.

(Dinah is trying to talk Curtis into resting.)
Curtis: He almost killed my man! What do you expect my reaction to be?
Dinah: Exactly the same as mine.
Curtis:... I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking about Vincent. I'm so sorry, Dinah.
Dinah: You shouldn't be thinking about Vincent. You need to be thinking about Nick. (sighs) Just please don't go about this the same way that I did, Curtis - blind with rage. (pauses) Remember how you had to talk me down?
Curtis: I remember my advice not really taking.
Dinah: (chuckles) Yeah. Well, you're a lot smarter than me.

(Oliver is trying to justify his keeping Felicity out of the field.)
John: The truth is you were there for her tonight. The same way she's been there for you as Overwatch. (sighs) And, look, when I said that your focus was split, I didn't mean throwing away everything and everyone that gives you strength.

(Lyla and John are moving down a corridor, Suddenly, Lyla, grabs John, throws him down and spins to shoot one of Diaz's men who was approaching them in the same way John did earlier at the hospital.)
John: I had him, honey. (kisses her cheek)

Oliver: I shouldn't have pushed you away. I should have trusted you to keep yourself safe. And I should have trusted my abilities to help keep you safe.
Felicity: Thank you.
Oliver: Yeah.
Felicity: It's good to know that after all these years, you can still learn something. (kisses his shoulder)
Oliver: Well, I still have a ways to go.
Felicity: That's true.


Dialogue Disasters

Diaz: Should've done this months ago. (The sentence that pretty much sums up everything about his "plans".)


Continuity

As the episode opens, Felicity, Oliver and William are cooking dinner together, John and Lyla are meeting with Dr. Schwartz before their date night, Curtis has taken Nick to Helix Dynamics office, Rene is watching a hockey game with Zoe and Dinah is questioning one of Diaz's men alone.

Anatoly sends Oliver a text warning him of Diaz's attack.

Nick is wounded trying to save Curtis from Diaz's men. Lyla has them sent to ARGUS Med-Bay so he can get surgery.

Nick and Curtis are officially boyfriends.

Lyla has Zoe, William, Raisa amd John Jr. sent to the NORAD bunker in Colorado.

Diaz's men are seen trashing The Bunker before setting it on fire.

The ARGUS Charter does not cover law enforcement.  What resources John has were provided by Lyla stretching the rules as far as she could.

Anatoly tells Oliver that the the SCPD has "kill on sight" orders regarding him and the rest of Star City's vigilantes and their family members.

The Quadrant is not happy with Diaz's turning Star City into a war zone in a bid to take out the vigilantes.

Curtis is stabbed by Diaz after trying to fight him one-on-one. Somehow, the team is able to get away from the SCPD and Quadrant forces carrying him.

Felicity says she can use her data sniffer - last seen in 612 - to get the information from Diaz's necklace.

Diaz's "tech kid" is a younger man named Crosby, whose grandmother is being held hostage in exchange for his cooperation.

Anatoly convinces Diaz that the spy in their organization is Lydia Cassamento, after Diaz accuses him of slipping information to Oliver.

Dinah refers to Curtis talking her down during her fight with Black Siren in 614.

Crosby is able to trace Felicity's system to the former Helix hideout used by New Team Arrow.

Diaz kills Lydia Cassamento.

Curtis had the entire Helix hideout rigged to explode. Rene gives Oliver the trigger to activate it.

Oliver blows up the Helix hideout when confronted by Diaz.

Lyla sent a forensics team into The Helix hideout. They did not find Diaz's body.

Felicity did not finish the decryption in time. There was nothing salvageable after the Helix hideout blew up.

Diaz kills another of the Quadrant leaders. The last one swears loyalty to him.

FBI Agent Samandra Watson last appeared in 607.

Watson agrees to help Oliver retake Star City in exchange for two things. The first is his saying "I am The Green Arrow." The second one is unrevealed at the end of the episode.


The Winick Factor

Averted, but this episode only goes to prove that had it not been for all the forced drama making all the various heroes fight with each other for most of the second-half of the season, Diaz would have been easily dealt with in two or three episodes, tops.


The Bottom Line

The best episode in recent memory and not just because there's no Black Siren Redemption Arc nonsense weighing it down. The only downside of the episode is the forced stupidity of The Quadrant Leaders in the final segment, the plot contrivance that prevents ARGUS from being brought in gangbusters and that most of this episode proves how easily Diaz would have gone down if it weren't for all the forced drama that drove the heroes apart and kept them from working against a common enemy. The damnable thing is I'm actually excited for the finale, though I suspect I'll wind up not liking the direction of the show as we go into Season 7.

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 6, Episode 14 - Collision Course

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

The conflict between Original Team Arrow and Black Canary, Wild Dog and Mister Terrific finally comes to blows when the two teams disagree about how to handle the murderous Black Siren.


Influences

The Green Arrow comics of Judd Winick. (Superheroes fighting each other while the villains give them the run around.)


Goofs

The entire episode is built around a faulty premise. Original Team Arrow is desperate to find Black Siren because of the footage that shows her withdrawing Cayden James' ransom from a bank in Corto Maltese. Black Siren couldn't have gone to get the money on a day's notice because there was no way out of the city thanks to Cayden James sealing every way out of the city, including the airport. Even if she did manage this to escape the city, why on Earth One would she have come back to Star City, even if she could have made it back in a day or two? And how did she accomplish this in the first place when she's been in Quentin's cabin since the end of the last episode?

Somehow, Rene is written as the smart one on "New Team Arrow", spotting tire-tracks that can be analyzed and being the one to come up with a plan to spy on Team Arrow. While the character is less of an idiot and more of a hothead depending on the writer, it's just out of character for him to be a strategist. Then again, since Dinah has been derailed into the team hot-head, someone had to be the strategist and it can't be Curtis because he's too busy being the comic relief.

Why does Dinah stomp on the listening device after they find it in the street once John ditched it?  They can reuse it again!

Oliver and John stopping Curtis and Dinah from chasing after Black Siren - who just proved she's fit enough to use her powers and run - doesn't make a damn bit of sense. They should have been close enough to hear Black Siren use her sonic scream.

How the frell does Black Siren - wounded and hobbled and tired - escape from Green Arrow, apart from Ollie being more concerned about taking down Curtis and Dinah than dealing with the escaping murderer who is holding the city funds hostage?  It's not like all of them were needed to get Rene to the hospital and it's not like Curtis and Dinah would have taken his help with an evac anyway.


Performances

The only reason Dinah's transformation is at all credible is because Juliana Harkavy treats the script with far more respect than it deserves.


Trivia

The alias "Siu Jerk Jai" is a reference to Gail Simone's run on Birds of Prey. It was the pet name given to Dinah Lance by one of her martial arts instructors. It means "little bird" in Japanese.


Technobabble

Cayden James died from a severed subclavian artery.

Mr. Terrific's Supersonic Spectrograph is a new function Curtis built into his T-Spheres. It uses Earth-2 sonic frequencies emitted by Black Siren's sonic scream and combines them with light imaging to create a holographic replication of her position during her fight with Dinah. This is able to determine that someone dragged her from the crime scene while she was unconscious.

Team Arrow uses a luminol to follow Black Siren's blood trail.

Felicity performs a triple-worm blue-cobalt IP hack on Curtis' system.

Curtis hack's John's implant to use it as a tracking device.

John identifies one of Ollie's trick arrows as the Sonic Dampener Arrow.

Rene suffered a traumatic hemothorax.


Dialogue Triumphs

Dinah: I'm guessing Felicity had something to do with this?
Oliver: Yes. She did. Thank you for inserting yourself into this, by the way.
Dinah: Oh, yeah. Sure. Well, you never would have shared the information otherwise.
Oliver: No, I wouldn't have. Because I don't trust you to do the right thing.
Dinah: And what is that? Politely ask Laurel to give the money back?
Oliver: Not kill her.

Oliver: Dinah, I understand that you're hurting. I also know that I don't have the most credibility when it comes to telling people not to commit murder. But the city is on the verge of economic collapse, and we just found the key to fixing that!
Dinah: Laurel is never giving you that money.
Oliver: You don't know that.
Dinah: Yeah. I actually do. Because I know that when you look at her, you see the Laurel that you lost. And that's why you'll never be able to do what is necessary to get that money back.
Oliver: And you will?
(Dinah just glares at him.)
Oliver: Understand something. I will never let you cross that line.
Dinah: If you're going to threaten me, Oliver, you'd better be damn sure that you can deliver.

Oliver: Having second thoughts?
John: Best case scenario, man - Laurel avoids punishment for what she's done. And we put a hurting on the people who used to be our friends.
Oliver: But we keep the city from dying!
John: But at what cost?
Oliver: (pauses) If the people going after her didn't look like Curtis, Dinah and Rene, would you even be asking this question?
John: No. No. (bites lip) But I can't help but wonder - would we be doing this is the person they were after didn't look like Laurel?

(Black Canary is in the middle of strangling Black Siren.)
Mister Terrific: Dinah! We lose her, we lose the money. But even if we had the money, you can't do this.
Black Canary: Oh God... I have to, Curtis! You know I have to! I have to get justice for Vince!
Mister Terrific: Dinah, look around! Look at what we're doing to each other! Does this look like justice?
Black Canary: It's nobody's fault but theirs.
(There is a long pause as Mister Terrific just stares at her.)
Mister Terrific: Then you sound just like Oliver. We formed this team so we wouldn't be like that! Like him! (quietly) Dinah, I don't want to start today.
(Black Canary hesitates before releasing her grip on Black Siren.)


Dialogue Disasters

The entire exchange when Team Arrow storms the other team's bunker.


Continuity

Black Siren cleaned out Cayden James' account and withdrew all the money as bearer bonds.

Dinah and Sara Lance both loved noodle cups.

Black Siren also likes hot and sour noodle soup.

Thea immediately senses something is up with Quentin and follows him to the cabin, making her the first to see him with Black Siren.

Rene's wound from five months earlier reopens during the fight between the two teams and he has to be hospitalized.

The new D.A. of Star City is a man named Sam Armand. He is also in the employ of Ricardo Diaz.

The wedge between the two teams is officially confirmed with no more communication or cooperation between them.

The episode ends with Black Siren, still wounded, going to a trucker playing that she's confused and claiming that she has been a captive somewhere for two years.


The Fridge Factor

It is incredibly glib and disrespectful to Black Siren as a villain (such as she is) to suggest that all of her villainous tendencies are due to her daddy issues and need to have a man tell her what to do.

Dinah becomes an unthinking, overly emotional nightmare until Curtis gives her a pep-talk about how she needs to be better than that.


The Winick Factor

The entire plot is based around heroes fighting heroes while being totally oblivious to the villain's scheming until it is too late. Classic Winickian plotting.


The Bottom Line

Somehow manages to be even worse than the previous episode. Everyone is written as an idiot and completely out of character so that Black Siren can suddenly turn into some criminal mastermind despite never having been portrayed as that smart. More than likely she's in Diaz's employ and this is all part of is scheme but we''ll have another three episode of our heroes fighting each other in filler episodes before they reveal that.

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 6, Episode 12 - All For Nothing

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here. 

 
Plot

With Cayden James holding all of Star City hostage, things are more dire than ever. The conflict between Star City's two superhero teams comes to a head, as a disagreement between Oliver and Dinah regarding Vigilante's trustworthiness endangers one of their own.


Influences

The Green Arrow comics of Judd Winick. (Oliver Queen balancing being mayor and a superhero, a city under siege by super-villains storyline, the heroes being portrayed as dumber than the villains.)


Goofs

As good as a job as Paul Blackthorne does of selling Quentin's torment, his subplot of trying to convince Black Siren that there is a hero in her is idiotic even before the end of the episode ruins any chance the viewers might have of Black Siren achieving redemption.

Why do Black Siren and Cayden James not kill Black Canary while she's helpless? James may want Oliver Queen to suffer but he has no reason to spare the other heroes of Star City. And since when has Black Siren ever shown restraint when given a chance to kill, much less a chance to take out her arch-rival?


Performances

The only thing redeeming Quentin's subplot is Paul Blackthorne's excellent performance.

Juliana Harkavy continues to slay as Dinah Drake. I know we're probably supposed to be sad that she's returning to violence but her declaration at the end that she's killing Black Siren had me cheering because of the strength of Harkavy's performance.


Artistry

The flashbacks in the script do a good job alternating between the scenes of Dinah and Victor undercover in the past and Vigilante working undercover in the present and maintaining the tension of both.


Technobabble

Felicity suggests using a sniffer device -which pulls electronic data from any hard drive or devices close by - to track Cayden James.

Cayden James' server has 80 terabytes of data on it.

Felicity helps Vigilante to bluff past Cayden James by telling him to say that just because he knows how to handle a gun doesn't mean he can't tell the difference between a trans-polymer hybrid and a fiber-optic cable. He also asks how James maximized the data throughput.


Dialogue Triumphs

Vigilante: You believe me, right? About not knowing about the ARGUS divers?
Dinah: I already told you I do.
Vigilante: I guess what I'm asking is... do you trust me?
(Dinah kisses him passionately for a moment before breaking it.)
Dinah: Does that answer your question?

Cayden James: I don't like surprises. And I like even less the feeling that I can't trust my comrades.
Vigilante: It sounds like it's just me you don't trust.
Cayden James: If I didn't, you wouldn't be drawing breath right now, Mr. Sobel,

Cayden James: You were always the enigma, Mr. Sobel. The vigilante willing to ally himself with criminals to take out other vigilantes. I must confess I never totally bought into it. Given your background as an undercover operative, I would have been a fool to. (pauses) I don't strike you as a fool, do I?
Vigilante: No, but you are coming off a little crazy, though.

(Dinah has announced her intention to save Vigilante on her own.)
Oliver: Dinah, Vincent would not want you to it this way...
Dinah: Don't you dare! You know damn well that if it was Felicity out there... (throws a side-glance to John) If it was Lyla, this wouldn't even be up for debate. Vince is my family! And I'm not letting him die. Not again.
(Oliver says nothing but glares at Dinah as he steps out of her way.)
Curtis: Dinah?
Dinah: You're not talking me out of this, Curtis.
Rene: We know. That's why we're coming with you.
Curtis: You're our family too.
(Dinah looks surprised.)
Curtis: We'll save Vince. (looks to Oliver) You save the city.

(Green Arrow enters into a room in the warehouse. He finds several hostages, tied up around a bomb with a ticking timer and a walkie-talkie. Anatoly's voice comes through the radio.)
Anatoly: Hello, Kapiushon. No need for me to explain choice here, yes?
Green Arrow: I thought you were an honorable man?!
Anatoly: I am. Why else I give you choice?

(Dinah hears a knock at her door. She grabs her pistol and draws it as she pulls aside the curtain. It' Oliver. She lowers the gun and opens the door.)
Dinah: You shouldn't be here.
Oliver: Dinah, please give me a chance to explain-
Dinah: You lost that right when you decided to leave Vince on his own to die.
Oliver: I'm truly sorry about what happened to Vince. Because I know what he meant to you. But this was his call. And he knew what he signed on for.
Dinah: (scoffs) Wow. You are really bad at apologies.
(closes the door)
Oliver: I'm not hear to apologize.
Dinah: Of course you're not.
Oliver: I'm here to explain that... this wasn't all for nothing. Felicity's been going through the data that Vince pulled out and for the first time... Dinah, for the first time, we have some viable options.
Dinah: Viable options? You know, I used to tell Vince his way of seeking justice wasn't viable. I convinced him to change. Just how you convinced me. But you know what, Oliver? Vince was right. The only way to bring justice to this city is with a bullet.
Oliver: No, Dinah. I need you to listen to me-
Dinah: I'm going to make sure Vince didn't die for nothing. I am going to kill every last one of them. Starting with Laurel.


Dialogue Disasters

Black Siren: This isn't me! (screams)


Continuity

Captain Hill is the new acting head of the Star City Police Department.

Cayden James kills an entire ARGUS dive team that attempts to sneak into Star City amphibiously by setting their comms system to electrocute them.

As the episode opens, Oliver has sent $70 to Cayden James. He guesses they have a day or tow before the money runs out.

William is hidden in an ARGUS safehouse.

Quentin catches Black Siren stalking him.

Vincent Sobel and Dinah Drake were first partnered five years ago in Central City. Captain Singh - who is Barry Allen's superior on The Flash - was also their boss.

Cayden James' war council believe that some unknown factor was responsible for killing Sheck in 611 - an ARGUS agent, probably - since none of Team Arrow would use lethal force and the cops weren't capable of fighting back at the time.

Oliver promises to take Felicity to Aruba for their honeymoon once Cayden James is caught. Aruba was also the preferred vacation destination of Mick "Heatwave" Rory in L301.

Felicity refers to the sniffer device she used to get information from Prometheus' mother in 514.

Quentin tells Thea about Black Siren stalking him.

06/14/1998 is the birthday of Owen Post - Cayden James' son. It's also the code to get into his server room.

Alena makes her first physical appearance on the show in several episodes.

Quentin confronts Black Siren with a video/photo slideshow of his Laurel She screams that that isn't her and destroys the equipment before fleeing.

The flashback scenes with Vince and Dinah lead up to the footage from 511 showing how Dinah got her powers.

Black Siren kills Vigilante with an extended point-blank sonic blast right through his ear.

Rene says it took him days to react to anything after his wife was murdered.

Alena finds the video that made Cayden James think The Green Arrow killed his son. It was digitally doctored using the same techniques used to make the faked photo of Oliver Queen as Green Arrow that was leaked to the press in 601. This means that whoever faked the photo is someone working with Cayden James who would know how he would react and that there is another traitor in his team.

Thea tells Quentin that Black Siren killed Vigilante.


Location

The flashbacks to when Dinah and Vincent Sobel first teamed up take place in Central City.


The Fridge Factor

It's kind of disturbing how everyone refers to Black Siren as Laurel instead of Black Siren now. I'm sure this is a writing note to push Quentin's conflict but it just seems like most of the characters would be very strict about making it clear that this woman is Not Their Laurel given how much Laurel is supposed to mean to everyone.

It's also disturbing how much Quentin is investing in trying to save Black Siren given the daughter he still has (though Sara is probably not that great about writing home) and is ignoring the foster daughter he has in Thea, who is supporting him despite her better judgement. Hopefully this will be setting up Quentin realizing the family he has vs. the family he's lost by season's end.


The Winnick Factor

Between heroes who can't put their personal drama aside for the sake of the greater good, villains who are three steps ahead of the heroes at all times and whatever victories the heroes win being Pyrrhic, this whole episode feels like a vintage Judd Winick comic.


The Bottom Line

If it weren't for the Quentin subplot, this would be a harmless piece of filler typical of mid-season CW shows. Paul Blackthorne does a fantastic job of selling Quentin Lance's conflict but it seems like this subplot is only there to give him and Willa Holland something to do because the Black Siren redemption arc seemed stupid even before she killed a helpless hero who honestly was trying to find redemption. All I can say is Viva Black Canary and her efforts to kill Black Siren next week. I know we won't be so lucky as see that happen, but we can dream for another week, at least.

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 6, Episode 5 - Deathstroke Returns

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

Slade Wilson returns to ask for Oliver's help in rescuing his long-lost son, Joe, from a Kasnian prison. And for once he needs the help of Oliver Queen - not the Green Arrow. Meanwhile, Vigilante returns to Star City and is apparently out for the head of the councilwoman leading the push against masked crime-fighters. And Agent Watson begins questioning the other members of Team Arrow in her bid to bring down Mayor Queen.


Influences

The Teen Titans comics of Marv Wolfman and George Perez.


Performances

Manu Bennett is as amazing as ever as Slade Wilson.

Juliana Harkavy blows away her naysayers with her performance here. This is the Black Canary we've been waiting for for six years.


Artistry

The scene of Slade fighting the Jackals works rather well, despite making use of the famous sped-up/slow-down editing trick.


Trivia

The leather jacket Dinah wears in the opening scene is the same style worn by The Black Canary in the comics.

The main plot of the episode follows Slade Wilson's efforts to find his son, Joseph. In the comics, Joseph Wilson was the superhero and Teen Titans member Jericho, who had the power to take control of the body of anyone he made eye-contact with. He was rendered mute as a child after having his throat cut while being taken hostage by a terrorist called The Jackal.

Joseph "Jericho" Wilson was reportedly the first comic book character George Perez designed entirely by himself.  The codename Jericho and the fact that he was Deathstroke's son apparently came from Marv Wolfman, but Perez came up with his real name, personality, powers and came up with the idea of Jericho being mute.

Slade says that his son, Joseph, was now using his wife's maiden name - Kane. In the original comics, Slade Wilson's wife was a woman named Adeline Kane.

The idea of Slade Wilson being devoted to his work and putting his job over his family is taken directly from the classic Teen Titans comics. His wife left him after Joseph was rendered mute - an action that occurred because Slade put his professional code of ethics regarding his work ahead of everything else - and took all of their children with her, going into hiding.

Slade says that Joseph is being held in a prison in Kasnia. The nation of Kasnia (or Kazina) first appeared in the DC Animated Universe. It was located somewhere in the Balkans or Eastern Europe and its history was loosely based upon the nation of Yugoslavia, suffering from a number of civil wars through its long history.

One Justice League episode - Maid of Honor - focused upon the nation of Kasnia and involved Vandal Savage and his attempts to take control of the country (and then the world!) through an arranged marriage to the country's princess.

Nylander addresses Slade as "The Terminator". This was indeed Slade Wilson's nickname in the comics, given to him before the name became synonymous with a certain murderous brand of time-traveling robot.

Joe Wilson refers to a friend whose dad is a pilot for Ferris Air. In the comics, Ferris Air is the company owned by Carol Ferris - a.k.a. Star Sapphire. An aeronautics company in the original comics, Ferris Air is an airline in the DCTVU.

We find out later that Joe Wilson's full alias is Kane Wolfman. This is a nod to Marv Wolfman - the writer responsible for creating Slade Wilson in the original Teen Titans comics.

The mercenary group that Joe Wilson was investigating was called The Jackals. This is a nod to The Jackal - the terrorist in the original comics who was responsible for slashing Joe Wilson's throat and leaving him mute.


Technobabble

Vigilante either hacked his visor so Team Arrow couldn't track him through it or switched to a new visor technology unlike the one he'd used the last time he fought them.

Bullets can become magnetic if they are stored in an environment with a strong magnetic field.


Dialogue Triumphs

Agent Watson: Excuse me! What are you doing here? You are not SCPD.
Dinah: No. He's not. And this is not a federal case.
Agent Watson: Still doesn't explain what John Diggle, who works personal security for the mayor, is doing at a crime scene.
John: I have relevant experience. And the mayor thought this could use a fresh set of eyes.
Agent Watson: What type of experience?
John: Sniper.
Agent Watson: I don't recall reading that in your military file.
John: I'm sorry. Tell me again why you're reviewing my service jacket?
Agent Watson: Mayor Queen didn't mention he's under investigation?
John: Of course he did. It has nothing to do with -
Agent Watson: But you've been working with him for the past six years. Which makes us overdue for a chat.

(Nylander gives Slade the information he asked for.)
Slade: This should work. Thank you.
Nylander: That's it? Just thank you? No extravagant dinner? No pints?
Slade: Maybe next time. When my son isn't rotting in a third-world prison.
Nylander: He is lucky to have you as a father.
(Slade stops in mid-step.)
Slade: My son wouldn't be in this mess if anybody else was his father.
Nylander: Just be careful, Kamrat. Your boy was snooping around some private-ops mercenaries. Some... not so nice guys.
(Slade turns around and gives Nylander an honest smile.)
Slade: Under certain circumstances, I'm not so nice a guy.

(Slade says that he doesn't intend to see his son once Oliver gets him out of prison.)
Slade: It's better this way.
Oliver: For him or for you? (pauses) Are you... are you afraid that he's going to see you as Deathstroke and not the man you were? The man I think you are now?
Slade: I gave up my right to be his father when I stepped out of the light, into the shadows and became this monster.
Oliver: Your son will forgive you. The way that my son forgave me.
Slade: Joe knew that I was coming to look for him. So he contacted his mother. And she sent me a message to stay away. You got your second chance, kid. And I'm happy for you. Some fathers aren't that lucky.

John: Are you having as much trouble with Oliver working with Slade as I am?
Felicity: No. I'm having a lot more.

(Oliver is protesting Slade planning to take on The Jackals alone.)
Oliver: I am not letting you do this.. alone...
(Oliver passes out, collapsing into his chair. Slade looks at him and then to the water Oliver had been drinking as he moves to stand over Oliver.)
Slade: Alone is what I do best, kid.

(Vigilante pulls off his mask to reveal the bullet he took for Black Canary stuck in his forehead. He pulls it out.)
Black Canary: How?
Vigilante: You're not the only one dark matter did something to. Everything heals now.
Black Canary: I thought you were dead!  You let me believe it for four years!
Vigilante: I'm sorry. I couldn't let myself be-
Black Canary: Human?
Vigilante: Distracted.
Black Canary: Distracted?! From what?!
Vigilante: My mission. We were cops for 10 years. What did we ever accomplish?
Black Canary: A lot.
Vigilante: Not enough. Not nearly enough. (pauses) This is the only way.
Black Canary: You've lost your mind.
Vigilante: I'm not the only one wearing a mask.


Continuity

Vigilante appears for the first time since 515, apparently having survived being thrown off a roof by Prometheus.

Slade says that his son, Joseph, is now using his wife's surname - Kane. He followed in Slade's footsteps and joined The Australian Intelligence Service.

Slade says that he tracked Joe from Calgary to Ibiza (an island off the eastern coast of Spain) then to Mombasa - the second largest city in Kenya.

Slade says that Joe is being held in a prison in Kasnia - the same country John Diggle led The Suicide Squad into in 317. It is also where most of L110 took place, in the year 2147. On Earth 38, John Corben - the man who became Metallo - was said to have ties to Kasnian terrorists in S201.

Felicity makes reference to the events of F405 and a metahuman criminal crashing Iris West's bachlorette party.

Aruba is Oliver and Felicity's special vacation spot. It's also the favored vacation spot of Mick Rory, as seen in L301.

Vigilante is revealed to be Vincent Sobel - Dinah Drake's former partner, last seen in the flashbacks of 511.

Nylander was an associate of Slade's when he was in the AIS. Slade describes him as a jackass who was never on time.

Agent Watson interviews John Diggle, Felicty Smoak and Rene Ramirez.

Joe Wilson was investigating a mercenary gang known as The Jackals.

Vincent Sobel used to make matchbox art.

John refers to Vigilante attacking Oliver's limo in 515 and how he had a chance to kill Dinah but didn't take it.

Vincent Sobel developed a metahuman healing factor from the STAR Labs particle accelerator explosion. It allowed him to heal being shot in the head when Dinah first saw him die and allows him to survive taking a bullet for her when a rookie cop tries to shoot Black Canary.

Nylander turns out to be part of The Jackals and Joe Wilson is revealed to be their leader.

Agent Watson noticed that Dinah was missing during the blackout when Black Canary showed up.

Vigilante leaves a matchbox with a rose inside it for Dinah on the dash of her car.


Location

Milford Sound, New Zeland - Sometime in 2004.
A prison in the nation of Kasnia.
A hidden bunker in the nation of Kasnia.


The Bottom Line

The title of this episode may be lazy but its execution is anything but. Manu Bennett returns in style and it's like he never left. While most audiences could happily spend an entire hour watching Deathstroke be awesome, the Black Canary subplot more than equals it. Easily the best episode of the season to date and another contender for one of the best Arrow episodes of all time. Can we have a Deathstroke series in 2018, please?

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 6, Episode 3 - Next Of Kin

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here. 




Plot

Determined to devote his life towards his new son, Oliver asks John to take over as The Green Arrow, unaware that John is suffering from nerve damage that leaves him unable to draw a gun reliably much less fire a bow! As Oliver seeks help from an unlikely source in connecting with William, the rest of Team Arrow must contend with a rogue convert ops team and the deadly weapon they've stolen from Kord Industries.


Influence

The novels of Tom Clancy (plot based around a covert ops team going rogue) and the Green Arrow comics of Benjamin Percy (Oliver tries to balance work and parenthood.)


Performances

With every passing episode, Juliana Harkavy proves herself the Black Canary this series deserves and has needed since Caity Lotz' departure in Season Two. She captures the tough-as-nails essence of Dinah Drake from the comics and her chemistry with David Ramsey continues to be one of the best aspects of the show.

Talking of chemistry, Stephen Amell and Emily Bett Rickards continue to be adorable as Oliver and Felicity.

The episode MVP, however, has got to be David Ramsey. He's often had a thankless job playing John Diggle but episodes like this one allow him the chance to show why he's been an essential part of Team Arrow since the series began.


Artistry

The action sequence with John Diggle fighting Onyx Adams in the car is a fantastic one, from the camera-work to the blocking of the fight.


Trivia

The episode opens with a new introductory voice-over by Oliver Queen, reflecting his retirement as Green Arrow.

We see Dinah using her sonic scream to direct and cushion the landing of a falling John Diggle. In the recent Batgirl And The Birds of Prey comics, Black Canary was shown using her sonic scream to propel herself upward, creating a degree of limited flight, in a similar manner.

Past stories have also shown Black Canary having the fine control to obliterate an ivory billiard ball into powder without hurting the hand of the person holding it. Given that, her using the Canary Cry to disperse a toxic gas cloud as she does in this episode is potentially possible.

The Arrow stinger at the start of the episode no longer has the symbol for Spartan among the symbols for Black Canary, Wild Dog, Mister Terrific, Overwatch and Green Arrow.

Once again, mention is made of Kord Industries. In the comics, Kord Industries is owned by industrialist/inventor Ted Kord, a.k.a. the second Blue Beetle.

The terrible song the Kord Industries driver is listening to is Children of Aquarius by Marcus.

Onyx Adams first appeared in Detective Comics #546 (January 1985) and was created by Joey Cavalieri and Jerome Moore. A former member of The League of Assassins who abandoned her life of murder for a life of peaceful contemplation, she joined the order of Buddhist monks who ran the ashram where Oliver Queen lived for a time following his retiring from the world after mistakenly killing a young man. She was sent from the ashram to find Green Arrow and secure his help in defeating a renegade monk named Lars, who sought an ancient artifact of great power.

Onyx Adams would appear sporadically in other comics following her adventure with Green Arrow. She appeared as part of a team of female superheroes lead by Wonder Woman to fight Circe and her followers. She would later be recruited by Batman to serve as a bodyguard for one of his agents - a vigilante named Orpheus who had assumed the role of a crime-boss in Gotham City. Onyx would later take over Orpheus' gang herself and turn them into a peace-keeping force. She also served as one of Oracle's agents in the Birds of Prey.

The DCTVU version of Onyx Adams is a CIA agent who led a black-ops squadron working undercover in Syria. They disappeared in 2015 with $100 million in Syria government gold.

The CIA dossier on Onyx Adams which Felicity pulls up lists her as being 5'8 and 140 pounds. She's single and has an IQ of 120. She's described as being an art history enthusiast whose favorite style is surrealism and her favorite artist is Rene Magritte. It says that she holds a black belt in multiple Martial Arts but specializes in Dambe - a form of boxing developed by the Hausa people of west Africa. A trained gymnast, she is also a master of disguise and is specially trained in stealth and spy-craft.

At one point, Oliver makes William a  Monte Cristo sandwich using waffles instead of bread. This is a nod to Oliver's enthusiastic if unorthodox cooking skills in the comics, where Oliver is depicted as being the sort of person who likes experimenting in the kitchen but few people enjoy the results of his experiments.


Technobabble

All of the people killed by Onyx at Kord Industries died of broken vertebrea or blunt force trauma. 

Onyx uses a unique flash-bang weapon to blind people. Curtis develops glasses that resist the effect.

Felicity and Curtis build a weapon for John which they dub The Green Monster - a modified crossbow that shoots arrows instead of crossbow bolts. It has a 260 pound draw weight and the arrows exit the gate at 400 feet per second. It has an integrated recoil energy dissipation system, adjustable mount scope, quick detach quivers, a pistol grip, finger guards and a non-slip rubber insert. The Green Monster does not have stabilizers.

Chapter Nine of the Star City charter allows the mayor to convert a city council bill into a city-wide referendum, allowing the people to vote on a measure.


Dialogue Triumphs

Oliver Queen: (voice-over) My name is Oliver Queen. After five years in hell, I returned home with only one goal - to save my city. But I couldn't honor that commitment and honor the promise I made ti the mother of my son. So I asked the best man I know to help. His name is John Diggle and he is The Green Arrow.

(Dinah looks at John with a smirk on her lips.)
John: Maybe in another week I'll get used to that judgmental stare you keep giving me.
Dinah: This isn't judgement. It's amusement.
John: Hmm.
Dinah: (in imitation of John) Sooner or later someone's gonna find out The Green Arrow isn't shooting any arrows.
John: Dinah, I'm not an archer.
Dinah: No. It's not about the arrows, John. It's about the injury. I thought you were going to talk to Oliver?
John: I was. Until he asked me to put this on.
Dinah: Which he never would have done if he knew the truth.
John: Dinah, what do you want from me? The man's under an FBI microscope. He's worried about his son!
Dinah: Imagine how worried he'd be if he knew you were out there compromised.
John: Did you see me tonight? Did I look compromised? Dinah, I have this handled. The tremor's gone
Dinah: (sarcastically) Well, I guess I worried for nothing then.

Felicity: So the man who took down Damien Darhk is bested by arithmetic?
Oliver: It wasn't my strongest subject in school.
Felicity: No? What was? Truancy?
Oliver: (smiling) Charm.
Felicity: (smiling back) Yeah, no doubt.

(John, in The Green Arrow suit, sits in the cab of the delivery truck with the security guard and driver. Terrible music plays as the three men sit in silence.)
Radio: Children of Aquarius, Your dream is my dream.
The Green Arrow: You have horrible taste in music.

John: Every time I've hard to give orders... in the Army? On this team? There was always someone there backing my plays. I'm not used to making the hard calls alone. No one is more disappointed in me than me.
Dinah: Well, next time get it right. Our lives depend on it.

Oliver: This is weird.
John: Being back down here?
Oliver: How many times have you come down here to find me brooding?
John: I'm not brooding, Oliver. I'm thinking.
Oliver: Yeah.
(A long pause passes as the two regard each other.)
John: Okay, maybe I'm brooding a little bit.
Oliver: Well, if you haven't figured it out already, that expression is a much a part of the uniform as the green hood.
John: Every time you were down here brooding it was because you made a mistake. (pauses and sighs) I think you made another one, man.
Oliver: No. Not even close.
John: Who came to you? Rene?
Oliver: I needed to come and ask Felicity a favor. And then of course I saw that very familiar expression. It makes me wonder if maybe I asked too much of you.
John: What do you mean?
Oliver: I gave up being Green Arrow for William. But... you have J.J. You have Lyla. That doesn't exactly seem fair...
John: That's not the issue at all, Oliver. I made my peace with this whole life a long time ago.
Oliver: So what's the problem?
John: I don't know how you did it. You never hesitated to make the call. You were always sure. I'm not.
Oliver: I was never sure! Not one time! I'm very flattered that it looked that way on the outside, John. But on the inside, it was... it was instinct. It was instinct and it was fear.
John: Yeah, but you worked past it.
Oliver: Well, you'll work past it too. Now, I'm not going to sit here and say that you won't make mistakes. That you won't lose people along the way. You know... most... most will be strangers, but some.... some won't be. Because John? You're one of the main reasons that The Green Arrow even exists.
John: What are you talking about?
Oliver: The Restons.
John: The bank robbers?
Oliver: The bank robbers, yeah. You were the first person to convince me to look past just the names on my father's list. You helped me discover that The Hood - that persona - he wasn't a hero. You helped me find one. All of this - The Green Arrow, the idea of it - it exists because you had faith in me. Now you've got to have the same kind of faith in yourself. Because if you do, you can be a better leader... you can be a better hero... than I ever was.

(John walks to the end of the shooting range, looking at the tennis balls he shot to the wall.)
Dinah: Nice going. Steady.
John: See? Told you. Tremor's gone.
Dinah: Well, I'm convinced. (smiles) You were wrong about one thing, though.
John: What's that?
(Dinah takes one of the arrows from the wall and offers it to John.)
Dinah: You can make the hard calls on your own just fine.
(Dinah walks off, leaving John to look at the skewered tennis ball with a sense of satisfaction.)

(Felicity opens the gift box Oliver gave her. It contains a key. She looks to him, confused.)
Oliver: It's a key to my apartment.
Felicity: Okay. Umm... won't that be confusing? For William?  I mean, it sure as hell is confusing for me?
Oliver: I know that when I took William in, we agreed that we would keep our distance because... he was going to have a lot to process.
Felicity: He still has a lot to process.
Oliver: Yes he does. Every day... there's a new challenge.
Felicity: I sense a "but" coming. There is a "but" coming, right?
Oliver: But... then I saw you with him. And I became 100% sure that, if you want, his life will be better with you in it. (smiles) Just like mine.
Felicity: Are you sure?  That's what you want?
Oliver: I'm sure.
(Oliver leans forward and kisses Felicity, pulling her into his arms.)


Continuity

Dinah now has such fine control of her powers that she can use her sonic scream to slow the velocity of a falling John Diggle and direct him to a ledge.

Alex Faust, the explosives expert working with Black Siren, is seen for the first time since 601.

William likes his eggs scrambled.

Quentin tries to negotiate a deal with Councilor Pollard (last seen in 515) to try and get some toothless anti-vigilante legislation passed to make Oliver appear tough on Team Arrow. Oliver refuses to go along with the plan.

Felicity's apartment is six blocks from Star City Hall.

Kord Industries invented a military grade nerve gas called ZX.

For the first time, John Diggle freezes up in the heat of battle.

Dinah is still keeping John's secret but only because she fears revealing his injury will hurt the chain of command.

Reme approaches Oliver with his concerns about John, saying Oliver needs to come back because John is in over his head.

Felicity was Nevada's three-time state Mathletics champion. She would probably have made it the fourth year, but Freshmen weren't allowed to compete.

Oliver recruits Felicity as a math tutor for William.

Oliver refers to the events of 106 and how John Diggle was the first person to convince him that he could be a hero. He says there wouldn't be a Green Arrow if it wasn't for John.

Oliver makes Monte Cristo sandwiches using waffles instead of bread.

Dinah's Canary Cry is capable of keeping a gas cloud from spreading.

Team Arrow does not have a team victory dance. According to John, it never will.

Felicity and Curtis build a special crossbow for John that fires arrows instead of bolts.

John's tremor is now gone.

Oliver uses Chapter Nine of the city charter to put Councilor Pollard's anti-vigilante bill to a public vote of the people of Star City, rather than limiting it to a vote on the city council.

Agent Watson of the FBI is shown assembling a board of people around Oliver Queen. It includes pictures of Felicity Smoak, Quentin Lance and Rene Ramirez. It has a picture of Thea Queen, which is marked out with a red X. She ads a picture of John Diggle to it.

William gets an A on his math test.

Oliver gives Felicity a key to his apartment. The two agree to start dating again.

The final scene shows John Diggle meeting with a mysterious man in an alley, purchasing some kind of drug in a syringe from him. We see John's hand shaking as he injects himself, apparently treating his nerve damage.


The Bottom Line

A solid episode in most respects, though it seems a shame to take a cool character from the comics like Onyx Adams and use her name in place of a generic mercenary character. Then again, the series is already thick with ex-League of Assassins members. Still, what sells this episode is the performances of the ensemble cast, particularly Juliana Harkavy as Black Canary and David Ramsey as John Diggle.

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 6, Episode 2 - Tribute

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here. 


Plot

As the FBI launches an investigation into the ties between Green Arrow and Star City's mayor, Ollie's former ally - Bratva Captain Anatoly Knyazev - returns to Star City with revenge on his mind. Does Anatoly have something to do with Oliver's identity being outed in the media? Or is another enemy responsible?


Influences

The Green Arrow comics of Judd Winick (Oliver tries to balance being mayor and a vigilante as various forces try to expose his identity and/or bring him down.) and Mike Grell's The Longbow Hunters (Oliver's talk with Rene is reminiscent of the "I won't make orphans" conversation he has with Dinah Lance in this story.)


Goofs

Oliver setting a Russian thug on fire using a stove top doesn't seem to fit with the team's non-lethal force policy.

Oliver says that he's never lied to his kid before. He seems to be forgetting that he lied to William about just being a friend of his mom during the few times they met and played before William was abducted by Damien Darhk.

Oliver asks John Diggle to replace him as Green Arrow because he can't afford to risk William's only parent. This still seems like a dick move on Oliver's part given that John Diggle is also a father with a young son, even if John Jr's mother is still alive.


Performances

Juliana Harkavy and David Ramsey do a great job playing off each other as Dinah confronts John about the secret he is keeping from the team.

If you had told me that the best scene of this episode would involve Oliver Queen and Rene Ramirez talking about fatherhood, I wouldn't have believed it. Yet Stephen Amell and Rick Gonzalez rock that moment.


Artistry

The top-down view of Oliver as he enters City Hall and faces the mob of reporters is a nice arty shot.

Intentionally awkward as it is, the lampshade-hanging dialogue between Felicity and Curtis as to just how the heck they are paying their bills is hilarious and a nice "take that" to the pedantic fans who like to know these details.

Good cinematography and fight choreography on Team Arrow's storming the Russian restaurant hideout.

There's a nice dramatic shot as Green Arrow and Spartan look over the entire shipyard they have one hour to search.


Trivia

The episode opens with the same introduction as in Season Five, with Oliver explaining that he is Mayor of Star City as well as The Green Arrow.

When holding a press conference to address the photos that show him in Green Arrow's costume, Oliver glibly remarks that they could have doctored Bruce Wayne's head onto that body and jokingly asks if Bruce Wayne left Gotham to come to Star City recently. Bruce Wayne, of course, is the secret identity of The Batman - probably the most famous billionaire playboy vigilante in all of comics. This is the first direct reference made to Bruce Wayne existing in The Arrowverse with a character talking about him directly. Previous props have suggested the existence of Bruce Wayne and Batman, such as a future newspaper from The Flash mentioning a Wayne Tech/Queen Inc. merger in 2024.

Quentin refers to Oliver having been caught "in flagrante de-Arrow." This is a paraphrase of the Latin phrase "in flagrante delicto" - literally, "in blazing offense".  Legally, it is used to refer to a criminal who has been caught in the act of committing a crime. An equivalent idiom in English would be "caught red-handed". The phrase is also referred to use to someone being caught in the middle of sexual activity, usually in an embarrassing fashion, such as being found to be cheating on a spouse or being discovered having sex in a public place.

Oliver says he can't leave town because of a meeting with a delegation from Markovia. In the comics, Markovia is located in Western Europe between France, Belgium and Luxembourg. It is home to the hero Geo-Force, who is its hereditary king.

The episode stinger features a new logo, which incorporates logos for all the members of Team Arrow. This includes a bird (Black Canary), an angry cartoon dog's face (Wild Dog), a stylized T (Mr. Terrific), an eye (Overwatch),  a Spartan-style helmet (Spartan) and an arrowhead (Arrow)

Tetrodotoxin is a real-world neurotoxin, mainly found in the liver and gonads of certain fish, amphibians, shellfish and octopi.


Technobabble

Channel 52 uses bar-codes to track internal traffic. The envelope containing the photo of an unmasked Green Arrow came from inside their offices. It was not mailed, delivered or otherwise sent.

Felicity created an image analysis algorithm. Curtis later recodes it to make it more efficient.

The photo of Oliver was taken digitally, printed on a standard ink-jet printer on stock paper.

Curtis is coding in SQL and Java, plus a little Swift, in his new job.

Tetrodotoxin is a neurotoxin that inhibits the firing of action potentials, preventing the nervous from carrying messages and muscles from flexing in response to nervous stimulation. The antidote begins working immediately, but an infected subject typically takes 72 hours to recover fully.

Felicity knows how to code in Python.

Oliver makes use of a trick arrow with a hypodermic needle on the tip to inject Tarkov with the antidote to the terodotoxin.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Oliver walks in through the front door of City Hall. A small army of reporters is waiting there.)
Oliver: Anything interesting on the news last night?
(The reporters begin to shout questions as Oliver makes his way to the top of the stairs.)
Oliver: (raising his voice) Please! If you want to know what I have to say, it would probably help if you could hear me.
(The reporters go silent. Oliver smiles.)
Oliver: Thank you. I'm going to tell you two things. Both of which you probably already know. First, and this is important...I am not The Green Arrow!
Female Reporter: If you're not The Green Arrow, then who is?!
Oliver: (raising his voice again) Number two! Photos can be doctored! They could have put Bruce Wayne's head on that body! (aside to Rene, who is standing to his left) Has Bruce Wayne left Gotham to hang out in Star City recently?  No! (tone growing more sarcastic) Now, if I was running around the city during the day and managing it as mayor while running around at night frightening criminals as a vigilante, that really would make me a superhero. But I'm not. I'm just the mayor. Thank you very much.
(Oliver turns away from the reporters, followed by Rene and Quentin.)
Quentin: You seem to be taking this in your stride.
Oliver: I've been here before with you.
Quentin: (sighs) Yeah, but I didn't have a photograph of you in flagrante de-Arrow.

(Felicity and Curtis are discussing how they are making ends meet since leaving Palmer Tech and how Curtis had been doing freelance coding in his spare time.)
Felicity: So you just had a secret job this whole time and you didn't tell anyone about it?!
Curtis: I thought we all had secret jobs?
Felicity: No!
Curtis: Except for John. Maybe. What does he do for money? That's something that's been perplexing me.
Felicity: He's - he's married to the Director of ARGUS.
Curtis: Oh yeah. That's right. She does make a lot of money. Heh.
(Felicity gives Curtis a death glare.)

Anatoly: Don't worry. We are not here for you. We have business with our Markovian cousins.
Oliver: These are legitimate businessmen.
Anatoly: I never said my business was not legitimate. Unless you know something maybe a mayor should not know?

William: You wouldn't understand...
Oliver: I do understand. I lost my mom. And I lost my dad. And I was a lot older than you are now, but I remember exactly how it feels. It's sad and it's scary and it's lonely. And I swear to God I will never let that happen to you.
William: It's not up to you.

(Oliver answers his phone. It is Anatoly.)
Anatoly: Hello, Oliver.
Oliver: Anatoly. Why are you doing this?
Anatoly: I need money. And from what I understand, your city recently came into possession of twenty million dollars.
Oliver: There are plenty of cities in Russia.
Anatoly: Hmm - true. Beautiful ones. But you see, I have been exiled. Apparently Bratva thinks I am too weak due to my friendship with you. So now, I show everyone. (harshly) I am not weak. And you and I? No longer friends. (mock friendly) I know sometimes you need persuasion to do right thing, so I help you (turns his camera phone to reveal his hostage) This nice man? Has paralysis of muscles. Soon, will have lung collapse and not be able to breathe. This happens in maybe... three hours?  Now, I have cure for his problems. Do you have cure for mine?

Rene: Lance told me about what happened at school. Kids are mean.
Oliver: He's not worried about bullies. He's worried about me. He thinks I'm going to make him an orphan.
Rene: Damn.
Oliver: I told him... I said, "That will not happen. I will always come back." (pause)  I've never lied to my kid before.
(There's a long pause as Rene seems to struggle of something to think to say.)
Rene: You know... I'm not exactly Father Of The Year, but... white lies are kind of an important parental tool. I remember telling Zoe that she came from a cloud. I really hope her mom set her straight on that one.
Oliver: So help me with this. How do I reconcile... that he's right? Because every time that I'm in the field, there's a chance I don't come back. And that he's alone. And now you're telling me that he's gonna have to lie to an FBI agent so he doesn't lose his father to prison?

(Green Arrow finds Anatoly standing behind a seated, comatose Tarkov.)
Anatoly: I ask for twenty million specifically because I knew you had it. You trade this man's life for new police station?
Green Arrow: Not exactly.
(Green Arrow draws an arrow and shoots Tarkov in the shoulder.)
Anatoly: I do not think you understand how this whole rescue thing works.
Green Arrow: No, I think I do.
(Tarkov suddenly gasps. Anatoly looks down and sees the needle-tip on the arrowhead.)
Anatoly: Some sort of antidote. Very clever.
Green Arrow: Now step away from him Anatoly. He's not part of this.
Anatoly: I made him part of this.
(A bullet suddenly flies through Tarkov's other shoulder. Anatoly reveals the gun he had trained on his back with his hidden hand.)
Anatoly: And I never got my money.
Green Arrow: What the hell has happened to you? Not even Gregor would have done that!
Anatoly: Yes, he would have. You never saw because you were too naive. You still are.
Green Arrow: We were friends.
Anatoly: Yes. But I see how you treat your friends.
Green Arrow: No, Anatoly. No. This is on you. You used to be an honorable man!
Anatoly: I -am- an honorable man. Did I have bomb planted in your son's school? Did I have him kidnapped? Tortured? No. Because even though we stand apart, I am still good man. I wonder... what would happen to William if he ran afoul of someone who is not good?
(Anatoly turns to leave. Green Arrow reaches up to draw an arrow.)
Green Arrow: Anatoly! Don't you move!
Anatoly: Don't bluff. We have been here before. We both know you will not kill me.
(Green Arrow stares at him... then slowly lowers his drawing hand.)
Green Arrow: Why did you leak that picture of me?
Anatoly: As Kapiushon? (shakes his head) I did not. I told you. I am honorable man.


Continuity

Quentin refers to his own efforts to prove that Oliver Queen was a vigilante in Season One and Season Three, back when he was a police officer.

Star City is being visited by a delegation from Markovia -a country which has been mentioned several times on the show and was visited by John Diggle and The Suicide Squad in 216.

Smandra Watson is the FBI agent in charge of the investigation into Oliver Queen's ties to Green Arrow.

Oliver refers to having been cleared of being a vigilante five years earlier in 105 . Agent Watson replies that he was cleared of being The Hood - not Green Arrow.

Oliver passed a polygraph test regarding his being a vigilante in 105.

Felicity refers to the events of 105 and John Diggle posing as The Hood to ruin the case against Oliver while he was under house arrest.

Curtis refers to Christopher Chance and the events of 505. It is explained that The Human Target is out of the country so he can't help them out at this moment.

568 people work at Channel 52's Star City office.

Felicity is still unemployed and has almost burned through all of her severance pay from Palmer Tech. She refers to her nightmare job from the start of Season 3 (working at Tech Village) and says she'd rather go to Iron Heights than back to working there.

Curtis has been paying the bills by doing freelance coding in his spare time. He did not take a dime from his husband after they got divorced.

John Diggle, we are told, is unemployed but that Lyla makes enough money as the Director of ARGUS to support them both.

Vortex Industries is a Markovian company who wish to build a factory in Star City. Oliver has offered them a subsidized lease which will bring 800 jobs, minimum, to Star City. Their CEO is named Alec Tarkov.

Curtis finds a way to trace cryptocurrency.

Oliver advises that the best way to deal with a gang of bullies is to go for the nose of the leader.

Once again, Spartan freezes up drawing a gun on someone.

Arrangements were made to say that Samantha Clayton died in a car accident. No body or wrecked car was provided. The only "proof" is an autopsy and an accident report - both likely faked by Felicity.

William is seen punching something covered with Flash logos. Oliver says that it was a gift from a very good friend - likely Barry Allen.

Dr. Schwartz - Team Arrow's secret Doctor - provides Dinah and John with a tetrodotoxin antidote.

John was caught by some shrapnel in the explosion we saw in the flashback of 601. He is on a prescription for pain-killers relating to his injuries. He reveals to Dinah that he has degenerative nerve damage which is why he's been hesitating when drawing his gun.

John freezes up a second time while Black Canary is being strangled.

Anatoly denies having sent out the picture of Oliver as Green Arrow.

Curtis' algorithm confirms the picture of Oliver as Green Arrow was doctored. This does not slow Smandra Watson's determination to continue her investigation.

Felicity asks Curtis to go into business with her. He agrees.

John agrees to tell Oliver about his nerve damage. He changes his mind after Oliver asks him to take over being The Green Arrow for him.


The Bottom Line

A surprisingly solid episode with great performances from the entire ensemble and a smart script that firms up the status quo before blowing it out of the water in the final moment.