Arrow Episode Guide: Season 7, Episode 22 - You Have Saved This City

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



Plot

The battle between Team Arrow and the Ninth Circle comes to a head, as old friends return to Star City to help with the coming fight. Meanwhile, over two decades later, the next generation of Star City's heroes must save their city - and the world - from a corporation intent on empowering a new police state.


Influences

The Green Arrow comics of Benjamin Percy (battle with Ninth Circle) and Judd Winick (destroying a wall that separates the rich and poor parts of Star City.)


Goofs

The Ninth Circle leadership expels Emiko from their ranks and kills her because of her vendetta against the Queen family exposing the group to the public. Yet they are perfectly willing to keep that vendetta going once Emiko is dead, because... reasons?

For that matter, even if the Ninth Circle were going after Oliver and Felicity for being thorns in their side, why not go after the whole of Team Arrow? All of whom have public identities now!


Performances

Emily Bett Rickards gives it her all one last time and steals the show in both the modern day and future segments. Somehow, Stephen Amell seems all the stronger playing against her and he's hardly a slouch. Their final moments together are Emmy-worthy.


Artistry

The fight scenes are fantastic, even for this show.

The episode's ending is absolutely perfect - both as a send-off for Felicity Smoak and as the series in general, as it seems that all of Season 8 will be devoted to Crisis on Infinite Earths.


Trivia

The female Ninth Circle member who seemingly takes over after Emiko is kicked out of the group is identified as Beatrice. In The Divine Comedy, Beatrice was the name of the poet Dante's ideal woman, who acted as his guide to the nine spheres of Heaven, just as Virgil had been his guide to the circles of Hell.

While the original Green Arrow comics introducing the Ninth Circle didn't include a member named Beatrice among the Ninth Circle's ranks, the name fits their convention of their leaders taking the names of important figures from The Divine Comedy.


Technobabble

Emiko somehow finds a way to block Felicity from tracking the Cygnus X-1 bacteria by its chemical signature.

Someone using a signal-bounced untraceable number calls in a fake bomb scare to a local shopping mall, to force people out into the open where they can be attacked by a Ninth Circle drone.

The Ninth Circle use a scrambler to make it impossible to track the detonation signal for their Cygnus X-1 bombs.

Curtis builds a number of optimized cryogenic chambers to that can be used to freeze the Cygnus X-1 bacteria.

Felicity determines all the Cygnus X-1 bombs and droves are hooked up to the same detonator. This means they only have to neutralize one target rather than over a dozen.

In Star City 2040, Penal Code Statute 10101971 governs vigilante justice.

Smoak Tech invented a line of flexible restraints, easier to store than traditional handcuffs.

The Archer program is revealed not to have a server room - its server is built into the wall that separates The Glades and Star City.

Felicity built a backdoor into the original Archer system so that anyone who had both her DNA and that of Oliver Queen would be invisible to the system. This is why Mia was able to fight the Zeta soldiers so effectively - Archer could literally not predict her next move, like all the other vigilantes.

When the wall between The Glades and Star City was built, explosives were planted in each control tower in case it ever had to be destroyed. The signal can only be activated from inside the tower.


Dialogue Triumphs

William: What are they gonna do with us?
Rene: You mean before they torture us to find out what you stole off Keven Dale's computer or after?
William: I'm gonna stop asking questions now.

Felicity: (sadly) This is not the life that Oliver and I wanted for them. They're supposed to be living happy, normal lives right now. That was the only thing that Oliver asked me to do. It was the only thing that I promised him I would do. And I failed. Some mother I turned out to be.

Oliver: You have every right to be angry. I was angry, too, because you let our father die. And that led to a ripple effect in my life of loss. I lost Tommy, my mother, Laurel, Quentin. And I wanted to kill you for all of it!

(The two struggle as Emiko tries to stab Oliver. He flips her and takes away her knife, holding it on her.)

Oliver: I know his death affected you, too. 

(Oliver releases the pin and stands up, allowing Emiko to stand.)

Oliver: Instead of finding the hero that I really believe is inside of you, you went down a dark path. And it killed your mother.

Emiko: Dante killed my mother!

Oliver: No, he didn't, Emiko. Your allegiance to the Ninth Circle killed your mother. Your hatred of our father killed your mother. His worst impulses drove you away, and it led to every terrible moment in both of our lives. I think that together, we can be better.

(Oliver holds the knife out to Emiko.)

Oliver: So if you're gonna kill me, do it.

(Emiko hesitates, as Virgil enters the room with a squad of Ninth Circle soldiers)

Virgil: Well, if you're not gonna kill him, we'll gladly oblige.

Oliver: I've spent a long time thinking about my legacy as the Green Arrow. I always hoped it would be saving the city. But now I know that my greatest legacy is this team. I started this mission alone. I was certain that I would end it alone, but the truth of the matter is that every bit of success that I've had along the way is because of all of you.

Diggle: You know, the spirit of this place will live on long after we're gone. You've inspired so many people, Oliver. They will carry on your legacy.

Oliver: Sounds like a cycle for good.

Diggle: Far better than that. A cycle of heroes. Who will fight to defend this city with every fiber of their being.

Felicity: Anyone ever told you you always know exactly what to say? 

Digg: (stone-faced) I have been told.

(Oliver and Felicity laugh ad Diggle cracks a stoic smile.)

Oliver: So what bargain have I made? What does the multiverse require? 

The Monitor: That you assist me as we seek to prevent the inevitable.

Oliver: But that sounds impossible.

The Monitor: The multiverse is more complex than you could fathom.

Oliver: What are you not telling me? 

The Monitor: I've seen your future, Oliver, inexorable and unavoidable. I have watched you die.

(Oliver just stares at The Monitor.)

Oliver: During this crisis?

The Monitor: (nods) I am truly sorry.

Felicity:No. You are not taking him!

Oliver: Felicity....

Felicity: Oliver...

The Monitor: I am not here to bring harm to you or your daughter. Trust me, the world needs her.

Felicity: You think that I'm just going to let you leave here with my husband's life? 

Oliver: This is bigger than us... Than all of us.

Felicity: Why does it always have to be you?

The Monitor: I cannot prevent his passing, but he can prevent the deaths of countless more, including you and your daughter. But he needs to come with me tonight.

(Oliver exits Mia's room to find Felicity sitting in their dining room.)

Felicity: (softly)This is why we can't have a normal life. This is why our children will never have normal lives.

Oliver: I had to make the deal.

Felicity: (holding back the tears) Oh, there's always gonna be some danger or some threat. The league of Assassins or HIVE or the Ninth Circle or the end of the friggin' universe.

Oliver: I need you to make me a promise.

Felicity: (drying her tears) Yeah, okay.

Oliver: No matter what happens to me... No matter what... You need to do everything in your power... You...You need to keep William and Mia safe.

Felicity: (standing, moving to feel Oliver's face) I will keep them safe. But wherever you go? Whatever happens to you? You'll never leave me. On our wedding day, you told me that I was the best part of you, but the truth is... we are the best parts of each other. And that is so much bigger than the friggin' universe.

Oliver: When I came back to Star City to start my mission, I didn't think that I was... capable or deserving of love.(sobbing)  But you opened up my heart in ways that I never thought were possible. My only regret is not telling you I loved you sooner.

Felicity: (hugging him tighter) No regrets.

Oliver: Would you tell Mia that I love her every day? And I know that she will grow up to be as smart and as beautiful as her mom.

Felicity:  I will find you... again. I promise.

Oliver: I love you.

Felicity: I love you so much.

(The two kiss passionately and hug each other for several seconds. Reluctantly, Oliver lets go of Felicity as she feels his face one more time before he lets go and walks back to the living room.)

(Felicity walks through the woods near Queen Manor. She stops and The Monitor approaches her.)

Felicity: I'm ready.

The Monitor: Where I'm taking you, there is no return.

Felicity: I have waited a very long time to see him. I'm ready.

(Felicity twists her wedding ring as The Monitor opens a breach. The two step forward into it as it seals behind them, with no indication they were ever there.)

Continuity

Sergeant Bingsley passes out and is in the back of am ambulance. As such, he can't confirm that Team Arrow didn't attack the police.

Team Arrow escapes from the SCPD thanks to Oliver's timely use of a smoke arrow.

The whole of Team Arrow have arrest warrants put out for their real names.

Curtis Holt and Black Siren return to help fight The Ninth Circle.

Ben "Bronze Tiger" Turner, last seen in 715, is revealed to have been paroled. He helps calm the crowds during the drone attacks.

Ben Turner agrees to help stop the Ninth Circle.

Lyla picks up John Jr., Zoe and Connor and takes them to an ARGUS safehouse.

Felicity tracks the signal to trigger the Cygnus X-1 release to the top floor of Palmer Technologies - what was Robert Queen's office when the building was still owned by Queen Consolidated.

Virgil tells Emiko that the rest of The Ninth Circle's leadership is concerned that her vendetta is bringing too much heat down upon them. He asks her to detonate the bombs now but she refuses.

Sergeant Bingsley tells Mayor Pollard that Team Arrow is innocent. He and several other cops join the team to swarm Palmer Industries.

 Oliver offers Emiko another chance for them to work beyond their father's life and be better people together. When she refuses to take it, he offers her a dagger and tells her to kill him.

Before Emiko can make a decision, Virgial arrives with a group of Ninth Circle soldiers and a woman named Beatrice, who informs Emiko she has been cast out of the Ninth Circle.

Beatrice throws the knives that fatally wound Emiko.

With her dying breath, Emiko warns Oliver that the Ninth Circle know that Felicity is pregnant an they will stop at nothing to kill him, her and their child.

Oliver escapes from Palmer Industries just before a fire bomb destroys the upper floors.

Black Siren returns to Earth 2.

Bronze Tiger is offered a place on Team Arrow by Diggle. He turns it down, saying that he wants to focus on being with his son now that he's free of prison. Diggle understands but says ARGUS may approach him about a job anyway.

Curtis announces his intention to propose to his longtime boyfriend, Officer Nick Anastas and go back to his new job in Washington D.C.

Roy says he's going to take some time to be alone and figure out a way to atone for the two guards that he killed before he joins back up with Thea Queen and Nyssa Al Ghul.

Oliver says he and Felicity are going to leave town for a while, leaving Diggle in charge of the team while they are away.

Before everyone parts ways, Oliver says he is going to design a Mark of Four based around The Four Pillars of Heroism he thought up ad that the six of them (Oliver, Felicity, Diggle, Rene, Dinah and Roy) will be able to use it as a signal if they ever need help. This symbol was first mentioned and seen in the flash-forwards of 708 when Dinah revealed she had a tattoo of the symbol to William Clayton.

Diggle helps Felicity and Oliver find a home in a rural community called Bloomfield, which is a sort of retirement community for ex CIA, ARGUS and DIA personnel who need to go into witness protection. The entire city is basically one gigantic safe-house.

Several moinths pass during which Oliver and Felicity enjoy their time together, Mia is born and Oliver and Felicity both enjoy being the parents of a young baby.

The Monitor appears in Oliver and Felicity's living room and confirms the time has come for Oliver to fufill the bargain he made in S409.

Oliver explains that he agreed to give the Monitor "whatever the Multiverse requires" to save it during the coming Crisis, in exchange for the means to save Barry and Kara during the battle with Dr. Destiny. The Monitor reveals that this means that Oliver must come with him and help him to "prevent the inevitable."

The Monitor reveals that he has seen Oliver die and that there is nothing that can be done to avert his fate. He does say, however, that it is possible to make Oliver's death mean something and that he can use it to save the uncountable lives, including those of his wife and daughter.

The Monitor also says that it is important that Mia Smoak's life be saved, but does not explain why.

Oliver is allowed a chance to hold Mia one last time and to kiss Felicity before he leaves with the Monitor.

Mia is somehow able to fight several of the Zeta droids before they focus on her and overpower her.

The rest of the Zetas are finished up by a disguised Connor Hawke.

William and Rene are saved from Galaxy One by Zoe.

Felicity reveals that Mia is able to fight the Zetas because a backdoor in Archer stops her DNA from being analyzed and her movements predicted.

This prompts William to come up with a plan to destroy Archer by using the delay caused by Mia's presence at a gate scanner to upload a virus into the system.

The virus doesn't destroy Archer but triggers a system-wide reboot which shuts it down for four minutes.

Mia volunteers to activate the self-destruct on the wall during that four minute window.

William is able to code a 60 second delay into the self-destruct so Mia can escape in time.

Rene, Dinah, Roy and Felicity agree to take the rap for the destruction of the wall.

Dinah officially makes Zoe the new head of The Canaries.

Roy thank William for getting him off of Lian Yu.

Roy says how he got on Lian Yu in the first place and a long story when William asks him how he got there.

Felicity meets with Mia and William in the woods behind what was Queen Manor at Robert Queen's gravestone.

It is revealed that there are two new gravestones there. One for Emiko Queen, who is buried on Robert's right.  The other is on Robert's left and is for Oliver Queen.

Oliver Queen's tombstone identifies him as The Green Arrow and says he died in 2019.

Felicity says that this is the last time she'll see Mia and William, as she is going on a journey of her own - one that she can take now that she is satisfied that Mia and William can take care of themselves.

The episode ends with Felicity meeting with The Monitor, who asks if she is prepared because she cannot return from where they are going. Felicity replies that she has been waiting a very long time to see him as she twists her wedding ring. The implication is that The Monitor is taking her to see Oliver, but with no indication of where or when.


The Bottom Line

The first two-thirds is a bit of a rushed mess, which has no purpose but to finish up Emiko's storyline and everything involving the Zeta soldiers. The final third, however, contains some of the best moments in Arrow history and a fantastic farewell to the character of Felicity Smoak. For once, the episode is more than the sum of its parts and the perfect finale more than makes up for the weak start.  It will be interesting to see how the show goes on in Season 8 without Emily Bett Rickards but it will be an interesting train-wreck if nothing else.

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 7, Episode 21 - Living Proof

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



Plot

Team Arrow is trapped in a collapsing building, as Smoak Technologies is raided by the police, who have a warrant for Felicity's arrest. Can Team Arrow reassemble to save their city from the Ninth Circle's efforts to frame them for their terrorist attack?


Influences

The Green Arrow comics of Benjamin Percy and the animated series The Zeta Project.


Goofs

Again, the drama of this episode in the modern day scenes is anti-climactic thanks to the future scenes revealing that Team Arrow will be fine.


Performances

Colin Donnell's cameo is blatant fan service but it's a fun bit of business that ads a new level to Oliver's struggle for survival.


Artistry

The direction on the sequence of Roy jumping into the benzene cloud is so tensely, tightly directed you honestly forget that Roy can't NOT survive it.


Trivia

Continuing the long Arrow tradition of each season's penultimate episode sharing the name of a Bruce Springsteen song, this episode is titled "Living Proof". Released on the 1992 album Lucky Town, Springsteen wrote the song about his young son and the feelings he felt as a father. This would seem to relate to Oliver's feelings regarding the pregnant Felicity, but the song makes mention of being imprisoned and a man who has lost all faith in himself - an apt description of Oliver in Season 7.

The robot soldiers Galaxy One makes that are powered by the Archer Network are designated Zeta. This seems to be a nod to Zeta - a robot assassin who first appeared in the Batman Beyond animated series, before starring in his own spin-off, The Zeta Project. Zeta developed his own independent morality system and refused to kill, going on the run to avoid being reprogrammed.


Technobabble

When Felicity arrives at Smoak Technologies, she asks Alena for an uplink gain augmenter.

Felicity's security system is programmed to generate a remote-detonated nanoelectric pulse that shorts out electronics. It also plays a stunning noise similar to the Canary Cry collar.

The chemical formula for benzene is C6H6. It is one of the most widely used industrial chemicals in the world and a known carcinogen. Exposure to large amounts can cause permanent nerve damage and a painful death.


Dialogue Triumphs

Tommy: You look shocked. Um, is it the beard? 

Oliver: (weakly) Uh-uh. You look good.

Tommy: (grinning) Yeah, I know.

Oliver: Ohh. I must have a really bad concussion.

Tommy:Yeah, man. A building just collapsed on you. It could be a little PTSD, too. That position that you're in with the rebar? It is remarkably similar to how you found me all those years ago.

Oliver: The night you died.

Tommy: Yeah. And I got to tell you, man, it looks like the same thing is gonna happen to you if you don't get out of here, like, right now.

Tommy: You know, it is insane that we both had secret half sisters.

Oliver: Well, yours didn't try to kill you, did she? 

Tommy: Well, you should give Thea some credit. I died before she had the chance to try.

Tommy: What kind of solution are you planning for her? 

Oliver: The one she deserves. She let our father die.

Tommy: He abandoned her, Oliver.

Oliver: She's been manipulating me, she's been manipulating the team for months, posing as some sort of hero. The woman's a murderer.

Tommy: So now you're gonna be one, too? And here I thought that we were done with all of that.

Oliver: I don't see another choice here, Tommy.

Tommy: It is exactly that kind of attitude that's gonna keep you stuck down here.

Oliver: I need to get out of here.

Tommy: You will. Trust me. What you really need to worry about is what happens when you do.

Oliver: Why?

Tommy: Everything you've done this year working with the cops, fighting for the city without a mask? You've got a shot at something we never had.

Oliver: What's that? 

Tommy: A clean slate. You can't shed your past, but you can keep it from hurting your kids. That's something our parents could never give us, but it is never, ever going to happen, Oliver, if you keep seeing red with Emiko.

Oliver: As long as she's still breathing, my family will never be safe. You know this, Tommy.

Tommy: Then you haven't moved past your family's mistakes, Oliver. You haven't broken the cycle of lies and hate. You're trapped. You're trapped just like you are in this room.

Oliver: But you're not here.You are a... You are a figment of my imagination that has been sent here to test my resolve. Won't work.

(Suddenly, the wall collapses, revealing a tunnel with light.)

Tommy: Looks like you found your way out.

Oliver: To stop Emiko, if I need to be as ruthless to her as she was to my father, so be it.

Tommy: Good luck finding your team, Oliver. You're gonna need them.

Oliver: Good-bye, Tommy.

(Tommy shakes his head sadly.)

Dinah: You must be a pretty big idiot, risking your life like that.

Roy: Well, we're alive, aren't we? 

Dinah: You're lucky to be. 

Roy: I'm surprised you even care if I made it out alive or not.

Dinah: Of course I care. You're our teammate.

Roy:  Maybe I shouldn't be. You lost everything to protect me, and you don't even know me. Those guards that I killed, they're innocent. They had families.

Dinah: What you did back there, it was awful, but we all know it was the bloodlust, Roy. That wasn't you.

Roy: No. That doesn't change the fact that I put everyone else around me at risk. You should have just let me go to prison.

Dinah: I was wrong. We all make mistakes. I was just pissed because we had just lost everything. That doesn't mean I want you dead.

Roy: Maybe it's best if I am six feet under.

Dinah: Dying is the coward's way out. Every day that you stay alive, you try to redeem yourself for that messed-up thing you did. Because this world is a better place with a hero like you. Now let's go.

Tommy: I know that you think that you have broken your father's cycle, but as long as you are giving in to your worst impulses, you are never going to be free.

Oliver: What am I supposed to do? Just tell me what I'm supposed to do!

Tommy: Lean in to the best parts of yourself Your loyalty, your selflessness, your courage, your compassion, and show that side to Emiko. You are living proof that people can change, and you have got to find a way to see that in her, too.

Oliver: I don't know if I can.

Tommy: That's okay. That's the risk you got to take.

Dinah: (in the distance) He should be in there! 

Roy: (in the distance) Oliver! 

Tommy: Looks like our time's up.

Oliver: You know, Tommy, I miss you every day...

Tommy: I know, but I'm always with you. It's time to wake up now.

(Cut to Oliver, still pinned under the rubble where we first saw him as the episode opened.)

Continuity

Oliver sees Tommy Merlyn, while he is pinned under rubble. The position Oliver is pinned in is exactly the same as how he found Tommy in 123.

The vision of Tommy Merlyn has a beard for no apparent reason.

The Ninth Circle sent the security footage of Roy beating the two security guards to death to Sergeant Bingsley of the SCPD.

The SCPD puts out a warrant for Felicity's arrest after they determine that the Archer program was used to send the signal that triggered the Ninth Circle's biological weapon, while Emiko still had control of the program.

Felicity and Alena evade arrest thanks to Felicity's security system.

As a teenager, Oliver taught himself how to hot-wire a car practicing on Malcolm Merlyn's car. He was grounded for an entire summer because he did it three more times.

Roy offers to turn himself in for the murders of the security guards to save the rest of Team Arrow. This idea is dismissed because with a warrant out for Felicity's arrest, there's no real way to save the rest of the team from guilt by association at this point.

Roy risks his life jumping into a benzene cloud to shut off the emergency generator that risks setting the collapsing building on fire.

Emiko breaks into the Bunker and almost kills Felicity. She relents when Felicity says that she is pregnant and begs Emiko not to kill an innocent child. She still knocks out the power inside the Bunker. 

Felicity worries about giving her child a normal life after how badly she failed to protect William.

Alena suggests that Felicity can take herself off the grid to protect herself and her child and that she can run Smoak Tech for her.

Oliver hallucinates Emiko and the Ninth Circle killing Rene, Roy, John and Dinah. 

When the hallucination of Tommy tells Oliver how to beat Emiko, he names the four virtues that Future Dinah said made up Oliver's Pillars of Heroism in 708 - Courage, Compassion, Selflessness and Loyalty.

Everything that happened with Oliver trying to free himself is revealed to have been a hallucination. He doesn't work himself free of the rubble until the rest of the team find him. 

While in the Bunker, Emiko stole several of Oliver Queen's arrows.

The Ninth Circle attack SCPD Headquarters with Emiko dressed as Green Arrow, using Oliver's arrows.

Team Arrow arrives on the scene to find several officers dead. They find Sergeant Bingsley, who dies just after he says the police thought they were being attacked by Team Arrow. He confirms that the Ninth Circle stole the Cygnus X-1 bomb.

Emiko escapes with the bomb just as the SCPD air support arrives.

Galaxy One starts marketing the robots that killed most of the Canary Network under the name Zeta.

Felicity wants to disable Archer remotely but someone is reworking it as she's trying to hack it.

William comes up with a plan to save the vigilantes by creating Archer blind spots like the one Keven Dale has. He will meet with him under his fake CEO identity and hack Dale's personal computers, getting the code to create the blind spots. Felicity is against the idea, but William decides to do it anyway without permission.

William and Rene Ramirez are intercepted at Galaxy One HQ.

Alena is confirmed to be the one who stole the code for Archer and weaponized it for Galaxy One.

Future Alena has short hair dyed blonde.

Alena agrees to help Felicity destroy Archer... after Felicity freezes her bank accounts and shreds her passport.

The rest of the vigilantes are captured at the final Canary Nest.


The Bottom Line

It says a lot that the most entertaining part of the episode are the ones where Oliver is talking to himself through a hallucination. Unfortunately, there's not much drama to the rest of Team Arrow's being imperiled since we know that everyone is going to survive this thanks to the Flash Forwards. And the Flash Forwards are rather dull since 75% of them are devoted to people watching Felicity type. Still, the pieces are set for one heck of a season finale and at least there's nothing noticeably awful. Like most of Season 7 to date, it could have been so much more.

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 7, Episode 20 - Confessions

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



Plot

Roy Harper is called in to help Team Arrow thwart The Ninth Circle's plot to attack Star City. Unfortunately, things go awry and there is massive collateral damage. Now Dinah Drake must investigate what went wrong, before the entire sanctioned vigilante program is thrown into question.


Influences

Rashomon (the same events being told from different viewpoints, despite the apparent conflicts in testimony and the fact that someone has to be lying or misinformed.)


Goofs

Emiko just goes crazy in this episode, wanting revenge on the Queen family in general (and by extension, Oliver) and plotting to destroy Star City for that reason even though it is the Ninth Circle that killed her mother - the one last good thing in her life. None of this jibes with what we've seen of the character, who honestly did seem to want to protect The Glades in earlier episodes.

How the heck did Emiko steal the security footage in the first place when she was fleeing the building before guards were killed?


Technobabble

The two dead security guards appear to have been killed by blunt force trauma.

Felicity says the only way the Ninth Circle can use the Cygnus X-1 is with a dissemination device, a.k.a. a thermal fogger.

Felicity used an algorithm to determine that the transit depot was the most likely target for the Ninth Circle to release the Cygnus X-1. She was later able to trace the bio-signature of the weapon to the same place.

The Ninth Circle hideout has some kind of thermal shielding that prevents it from being scanned by Felicity's tech to determine how many people are inside it.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Roy has just handily beaten several Ninth Circle members in front of Virgil.)
Virgil: Who the hell are you?
Arsenal: Your new worst nightmare.

Dinah: It's rather convenient, don't you think? You being unconscious at the same time two men are brutally murdered?
Roy: You think I did it? Whose side are you on?
Dinah: I am on the only side that matters - the truth.

Dinah: Two men are dead, Rene. Now, we know Team Arrow was on-site as well as Emiko, which means our two main suspects are either her or...
Rene: Me?
Dinah:  I didn't say that.
Rene: Well, that's what you were thinking, 'cause you've been looking for any excuse not to trust me this whole year.
Dinah:  That's because you have given me every reason not to. How many times have I warned you about Emiko? I told you she wasn't trustworthy. You refused to listen. Well, now she ends up on the scene of an attempted terrorist attack and a double homicide, and you were there, too.
Rene: And you what? You think I helped her?
Dinah: I just want the truth, Rene.

Rene: Doesn't any part of you think that maybe she's doing all of this because of what your father did to her, that if not for her upbringing, she'd be fighting with us instead of against us?
Oliver: A big part of me thinks about that all the time. At a certain point, Rene, people need to take responsibility for their actions. Emiko made her choice. I've made mine. You need to make yours.

Dinah: Two innocent people are dead, and we're covering it up.
Oliver: Dinah, if someone on this team goes down, this entire team goes down.
John: He's absolutely right. And if Pollard knew the truth, we would be sitting in lockup while the city rehashes whether vigilantes are a threat or not.
Felicity: Which would free Emiko up for Evil Plan B.
Rene: But Roy is not a part of this team. He's been gone for months doing who knows what.
Oliver: With due respect, you don't know what he's been through. Roy is and always will be as much a part of this team as the rest of us.
Dinah: Except the rest of us don't go around killing innocent people.
John: Dinah, as horrible as that was, let's not lose sight that we stopped an attack tonight.
Rene: (bitterly) And we framed Emiko for murder.
Oliver: Emiko is a murderer. A murderer who is the leader of the Ninth Circle. And as long as she is out there, this city will remain under threat.
John: I hope we can all agree on that.
Dinah: (quietly, clearly not happy) Yes.


Continuity

As the episode opens, the news is reporting there was an incident at the Huldin-McGuide Metro Station resulting in two fatalities.

The two fatalities are security guards who worked at the transit station.

Oliver explains to Dinah and Sergeant Bingsley that Team Arrow was stopping a terrorist attack but that the terrorists are still on the loose.

Dinah says that two green arrows were found at the scene and they were confirmed to be the kind used by the new Green Arrow.

The fact that the new Green Arrow is a woman is not common knowledge at the SCPD.

Oliver officially reveals to the police that the new Green Arrow is his half-sister Emiko Adachi and that she is part of the Ninth Circle.

Dinah was the one to tell Green Arrow that Dante's body had been discovered.

Felicity hasn't been able to find the Cygnus X-1, but she has determined there's only one way for the Ninth Circle to use it and it requires a piece of equipment only made by Aerodyne Initiatives.

John and Oliver meet with the CEO of Aerodyne to offer their help. He politely declines.

Felicity investigated Aerodyne after this and determined their CEO was getting some hefty payments from the Ninth Circle. Oliver says, on the record, that he didn't tell Dinah about this because they didn't confirm the payments until later.

Dinah says that with two green arrows on the scene, the SCPD knowing Team Arrow was at the scene, the security footage from the building having disappeared and a distress call from a security guard that was incriminating to Team Arrow for some reason, things look very bad for Oliver's team.

Oliver affirms that he did not kill the guards and doesn't know who did.

Oliver admits to the police that he called in Roy Harper so they would have an agent in the field that the Ninth Circle didn't know about.

Felicity is now at the always hungry/odd cravings stage of her pregnancy.

Felicity says she's not responsible for the missing security footage.

Felicity defends Team Arrow bringing in Roy Harper and claims they were going to get him confirmed by the SCPD as an agent once the Ninth Circle were brought down.

Dinah points out that Roy Harper has a long criminal record. Felicity counters that he's been clean for the past four years, since faking his death in prison and escaping.

Dinah says the SCPD was able to track Roy Harper's whereabouts up until March 2018. Felicity points out this coincides with the time Dinah wasn't speaking to Team Arrow and when Roy Harper was abducted by the corrupt cops in the employ of Ricardo Diaz.

Felicity says Roy Harper probably spent the last year trying to relax and recover from the kidnapping/torture when Dinah asks where he had been.

This is the first time Roy Harper and Rene Ramirez have met. Roy thanks Rene for trying to save The Glades in his absence.

Roy says that he and Thea have destroyed two Lazarus Pits since they left Star City in 616.

When Roy asks why Oliver only called him in for this mission, Oliver explains that he didn't want Thea brought in to fight the Ninth Circle because he thought she was finally free of their family drama in Star City and he wanted to quietly tell her about his other half-sister and yet another messed-up thing Robert Queen did.

Dinah confirms that the thermal fogger was found on the scene.

Felicity says the specific reason they brought Roy in was they need someone who could sneak into Aerodyne who wasn't a publicly recognized vigilante who could spy on the CEO and confirm what they suspected about him being on the take.

Roy found the CEO of Aerodyne handing the thermal fogger over to Emiko. He wasn't able to stop her from escaping with it.

Felicity explains to the police that she determined there were only two places the Ninth Circle could hope to maximize the impact of the bio weapon at the depot - the ventilation room and the ventilation shaft.

When Team Arrow went to the depot to stop the Ninth Circle, Felicity and Roy went to the switch room, Oliver went to the room and John and Rene went to the shaft.

Felicity tells the police she had no idea there were any security guards on site. This is later revealed to be a lie by the flashback, where Felicity sees the two guards and Roy leaves her locked in the switch room while he investigates to see if they are Ninth Circle agents or not.

Felicity says she was locked in the switch room until Oliver gave her the all clear.

Felicity can't account for Roy's whereabouts before the guards were killed.

The flashback shows that Felicity heard the guards firing their guns while asking the rest of Team Arrow if they'd reclaimed the fogger.

Roy's criminal record includes several counts of Breaking & Entering, Grand Theft Auto and Aggravated Assault.

Roy tells the police that after he failed to stop the Ninth Circle from stealing the fogger, Team Arrow regrouped and Felicity figured out the most likely place for the Ninth Circle to release the Cygnus X-1 was the transit depot.

Roy says that after he left Felicity locked in the switch room he encountered a group of Ninth Circle agents, got swarmed and the last thing he recalls was being hit in the face and knocked out. When he woke up, the police were there and the guards were dead. He also has no idea who killed them.

John says that he found Roy's unconscious body just before the guards fired their guns. Given that, he says he can't see any way Roy could have been the killer. He denies protecting Roy, after Dinah accuses him of putting people before him all the time. John counters that Dinah doesn't know the real Roy Harper and is presuming a lot because of his past.

John was found to have the blood of one of the guards on his sleeve.

John confirms what Felicity said about Oliver going to the vent room and John and Rene going to the vent shaft.

When John and Rene got to the vent shaft, they discovered Emiko. Rene went chasing after her while John secured the device. That was when he discovered Roy and heard the gun shots.

John claims that he discovered the guards and checked their pulses but they were already dead and this is how he got their blood on his sleeve.

John also confirms that when he entered the room with the dead guards, Rene was already there, with his mask off and a pipe in his hand.

During the fight at the depot, Rene cut his hand and lost his glove.

Rene says that Oliver specifically asked him if he was cool with going after Emiko.

Rene pleads for Emiko, saying that she can't be completely hardened since she killed Dante and that proves she cares about her family on some level. Oliver says that may be true, but she clearly doesn't consider him family and at some point you have to take responsibility for your actions.

Dinah says that Rene's fingerprints were found on the murder weapon - the pipe used to beat the two guards to death.

Rene confirm's John's story about leaving him to deal with the fogger while he chased Emiko, but she got away.

The flashback reveals that Rene lied about not catching up to Emiko.

Emiko is dressed in her new Green Arrow costume.

Emiko tells Rene that she's doing what she is doing to take away everything the Queen family has as revenge for their taking everything she ever had.

Emiko also tells Rene that Dante wasn't the leader of the Ninth Circle - she is.

Rene's hand is hurt after Emiko grazes it with an arrow. This made him remove his glove and drop it.  Rene heard the gun shots just as he was starting to chase after Emiko.

When Rene ran towards the gun shots, he found Oliver standing over the guards, holding the pipe. He dropped the pipe and Rene picked it up with his ungloved hand when John ran in.

Oliver confirms that he confronted Virgil and several Ninth Circle members in the vent room and disarmed the fogger.

Oliver says he was still in the vent room when he heard the gun shots. He followed the noise to the platform where he saw the killer standing over the downed guards. He guesses the guards got off a few shots before being killed.

Oliver identifies the killer as Emiko.

All of Team Arrow is released from custody.

When Sergeant Bingsley says the case doesn't quite add up, Dinah says there's not enough evidence to hold all of Team Arrow as accessories and their stories all match up.

Mayor Pollard accepts what Dinah has discovered and agrees to continue to let the police work with Team Arrow.


It is finally revealed that Team Arrow is lying about the details of the night at the transit depot and that Dinah was there as Black Canary. Dinah was partnered with Oliver in tackling the vent room.

Roy Harper was the real killer.

It is revealed that a Ninth Circle member attacked Roy with a pipe while he was off on his own. The two security guards stumbled across this and one called in a vigilante attack while the other attacked Roy. This resulted in Roy losing control and beating the guards to death with the pipe.

Team Arrow decided to lie to protect Roy and that framing Emiko for the murders was hardly a sin given that she was about to commit mass murder.

It is revealed that sometime in the past year, Roy died while fighting The Thanatos Guild and Thea Queen used a Lazarus Pit to bring him back. This gave Roy the bloodlust that inflicts all those resurrected by the Pit.

While Thea Queen and Nyssa Al Ghul had access to the Lotus Extract (first seen in 412) it was unable to cure Roy's bloodlust. It is presumed this is due to his body chemistry being altered by exposure to Mirakuru.

Felicity tracks Emiko to an abandoned building outside Star City.

Felicity thanks Dinah for wiping the security footage from the depot.

Dinah says that she thought Felicity took care of the security footage.

It is revealed that Emiko stole the security footage and has sent it to Sergeant Bingsley.

Emiko tells Oliver that she knew about a bomb being planted on the Queen's Gambit and did nothing, hoping that both their father and Oliver would die. Now she plans to kill Team Arrow and destroy Oliver's legacy so Star City will forever think of him as a villain.

Emiko blows up the building with Team Arrow still inside of it.


Untelevised Adventures

At some point in the last year, Roy Harper, Thea Queen and Nyssa Al Ghul fought The Thanatos Guild and Roy Harper was killed. Thea and Nyssa brought him back using a Lazarus Pit then destroyed that pit.


The Fridge Factor

Any complexity Emiko's character had earlier in the season is sacrificed to turn her into a cliche "woman scorned."


The Winick Factor

Emiko is turned into the classic invincible Winickian villain, somehow knowing to steal the security footage of the depot, despite already apparently having fled the scene and the police being on the way.


The Bottom Line

Beautifully executed up until the reveal at the end, which makes no sense and derails Emiko's character. It doesn't say a lot for our heroes that they take this particular gambit but I can't say it's out of character either since "Make Bad Choices" is a default mode for most of Team Arrow's membership. Still, the script does plant the seeds for showing why Rene turned on the team in the future and why Dinah has a grudge against Roy Harper, so it gets that much right. Unfortunately, the wasted potential of Emiko seriously hampers what this episode does right.

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 7, Episode 19 - Spartan

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




Plot

Armed with new information on the killer of Emkio's mother, Oliver hopes to turn his sister away from the Ninth Circle. Unfortunately, a sudden setback will leave Team Arrow at a disadvantage and send Diggle looking for help from an old military contact he has a bad history with. Meanwhile, Felicity is approached with an interesting offer regarding her company, only to have the Ninth Circle steal her latest invention for their own purposes.



Influences

The Green Arrow comics of Benjamin Percy (The Ninth Circle and Emiko Queen) and Chuck Dixon (the Cygnus X-1 weapon)


Performances

Ernie Hudson is a fun presence as General Stewart.


Trivia

Alena makes reference to a Dr. Will Magnus wanting to buy Smoak Technologies. Felicity describes him as the world's greatest expert on robotics. First appearing in Showcase #37 in April 1962, Dr. Will Magnus was the scientist who created the super-powered robots known as the Metal Men.

Diggle's stepfather is revealed to be a Marine General named Roy Stewart. It is worth mentioning that there is a long-running fan theory that John Diggle is the Arrowverse equivalent of John Stewart - a career soldier who became a Green Lantern. This would seem to confirm the idea, as it was suggested that John Diggle, on Earth-90, had become Green Lantern.

Diggle makes mention of his father dying during a secret mission to Vlatava. In the DC Comics Universe, Vlatava is an Eastern European nation with a long history of religious and sectarian turmoil. The entire country, with the exception of its president and Count Vertigo (the last surviving member of its royal family) was killed by The Spectre.

The Ninth Circle is after a biological weapon dubbed Cygnus X-1, which is said to be a bacteria that can eat through anything. This sounds similar to Mutajek 9-9 - a self-replicating biological weapon from the Green Arrow comics which could eat through any form of plastic and destroy a city in minutes. In the Where Angels Fear To Tread storyline, Oliver Queen died trigger an explosion that prevented a Mutajek 9-9 bomb from being detonated over Metropolis.


Technobabble

The item Virgil and his men were sent to purchase was an ARGUS vault drive, triple-level encryption or eyes-only documents

Felicity says the vault drive contains a security failsafe protocol to prevent it from being hacked that isn't the same as the ones used by ARGUS. She recognizes them as belonging to the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The Galaxy One helmet is powered by a module made of an alloy proprietary to Galaxy One. In order to access its workings, Felicity must get one of that exact make of module.

With enough pressure at a steady pace, a shoelace can saw through hard plastic.

Cygnus X-1 was meant to genetically engineer a bacteria that could consume the byproducts of nuclear fission. Instead, it created a bacteria that would eat through nearly anything.


Dialogue Triumphs

Virgil: (eying Alena as she wields a keyboard like a club) Pistol beats keyboard, darling.

(General Stewart enters into the Bunker)
Stewart: So this is where you people work? Impressive.
Oliver: How did your men end up at Smoak Tech, General?
Stewart: Several months ago, the DIA  got wind of a Ninth Circle mole inside ARGUS. Since then, we've made it a point of tracking their activity, including the theft of that drive, which led us to your friend Virgil.
John: Wait. Wait. Wait. I thought you said you didn't know anything?
Stewart: I said I couldn't -tell- you anything.

Alena: What happened to Archer putting Smoak Tech on the map?
Felicity: Well, that was before I realized all the bad that she could do. I wanted to invent something that would help save the city, and instead I made something that can destroy it.
(Felicity freezes up in horrified realization.)
Felicity: Oh, my God. I'm a mad scientist. Oh, my God, no. It's so much worse than that. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I'm my dad!
Alena: I am your friend who has some real-life experience working with evil geniuses, and you need to trust me on this one - you are not one of them, okay?

John: Oliver told me the truth about Vlatava... about my father. Why did you let me believe a lie? You let me hate you.
Stewart: Every child deserves to believe that his father is a hero. And believing it, you became one. If he could see you today, I know he would be so proud of you.
John: If I'm a hero It was all because of you, Sir.


Continuity

Virgil appears for the first time since 714, leading the group of Ninth Circle soldiers trying to buy a high-security ARGUS vault drive.

When Felicity accidentally fries the drive before they can figure out what the Ninth Circle was after, John Diggle says he has a contact with the Defense Intelligence Agency - the DOD department who encrypted the vault drive.

John's contact is revealed to be General Roy Stewart - John's step-father.

General Stewart denies knowing anything about the Ninth Circle and says he can't tell them anything about what is on the drive since John lost his security clearance after he quit ARGUS.

Felicity is still trying to get Archer rebooted.

Robotics expert Dr. Will Magnus is apparently interested in buying Smoak Technologies because of Archer. Apparently it sounds similar to an AI he's been working on for years.

Smoak Technologies is attacked by the Ninth Circle and Virgil.

Felicity and Alena are saved by General Stewart's men, but the tablet holding Archer is stolen.

General Stewart lied about not knowing about the Ninth Circle and reveals the drive contained a list of DIA Special Agents in the field.

John has never gotten along with his step-father. He later tells Oliver this is due to Stewart being his father's commanding officer on a Vlatava, where he died and the report of the mission making it sound like Stewart left his men to die while escaping himself

John also says that Stewart was a harsh man, who had him and his brother run through the same Spartan-style training drills that he did as a marine in a bid to make them tougher. He said he didn't care if he was liked, so long as they were strong.

Only one of the DIA agents is unaccounted for. When Team Arrow goes after him General Stewart and Diggle are ambushed and abducted by the Ninth Circle.

General Roy Stewart has been, over the course of his career, the thrice-decorated Commander of the 1st Recon Battalion, Commandant of the USMC, the head of DARPA and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

According to Felicity, the botched mission where Diggle's dad died was actually a huge success and part of why General Stewart was asked to head DARPA.

The Ninth Circle wanted General Stewart for his knowledge of a project called Cygnus X-1. It becomes clear they intend to use Archer to find the DIA personnel who have access to it and follow them to steal it.

Oliver gives John the unredacted files describing his father's death. According to them, John's dad was negligent, got two other Marines killed and the only reason anyone survived was because of General Stewart's leadership.

Felicity deletes Archer rather than let it be used by the Ninth Circle.

Oliver tries to tell Emiko about Dante's setting up her mother's assassination, but she doesn't believe him.

The Ninth Circle gets away with the Cygnus X-1.

John makes his peace with General Stewart.

Alena makes a back-up of the root files of Archer. She says they can rebuild but Felicity argues against it. Judging by the way Alena looks at her flash-drive, she disagrees.

Emiko kills Dante, saying she learned the truth about how he arranged for her mom ti die.  He says it was to make her stronger by destroying the final piece of her old life.

Mia gives Felicity the helmet she took from the Galaxy One soldier in 718.

The bombs The Canaries stole are secure and William is making sure they can't be exploded remotely.

Roy and Dinah are setting up a perimeter around the last Canary Nest.

Felicity needs a unique power module to access the helmet. Connor and Mia go to retrieve one.

The Deathstrokes are a gang that control part of the marketplace in Central City. Only certain people can get into their territory.

Connor has a UV tattoo that allows him to go into Deathstroke territory.

John Diggle Jr. is revealed to be the leader of The Deathstrokes. Connor says that he rebelled against their parents teachings.

Before their off-camera encounter, Connor hadn't seen JJ in over a year. They used to be best friends before JJ rebelled against their father.

Mia forgives JJ for lying to her while working in his deep-cover identity.

Mia and JJ have to evade the Deathstrokes that JJ apparently sent after him.

Felicity determines the helmet connects its wearer to Archer, effectively giving them an AI-driven sixth sense. An army of soldiers with tech-enhanced armor could easily destroy the Canaries, according to Felicity.


Untelevised Adventures

Connor Hawke's meeting with JJ takes place off camera.


The Bottom Line

A lackluster and largely forgettable episode, that does nothing to advance the plot until the final two minutes. Even then it doesn't really change much beyond letting us know WHY the soldiers killing The Canaries are so awesome and Dante dying... though it is unclear if Emiko is going to turn on the whole organization or use the Ninth Circle to make the whole world burn. Alas, thinking on next week's episode is more entertaining than this one.

Arrow Episode Guide: Season 7, Episode 17 - Inheritance

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




Plot

Black Siren is out to prove Emiko Queen is no good and convinces Oliver and the newly reforged Team Arrow to start investigating a lead that winds up leading them to Dante and his organization, The Ninth Circle! Oliver and Rene want to believe Emiko's story about being recruited at a young age and forced into their service but can she be trusted?  Meanwhile, Dinah takes Black Siren to task for her losing her temper and nearly attacking the criminals she is meant to be convincing to plea-bargain.


Influences

The Green Arrow comics of Benjamin Percy (Ninth Circle, plotline regarding Emiko Queen not being trustworthy)


Goofs

While it is certainly the most in character Black Siren has been in the last few episodes of Season 7, her sudden temper tantrums while interviewing suspects and threatening to kill people while trying to secure confessions has come out of nowhere. (Perhaps she's feeling new pressure now that Mayor Pollard isn't as focused on trying to catch Star City's vigilantes?)


Artistry

The fight between Emiko and Oliver in the bunker is well blocked.


Trivia

Dante's organization is finally confirmed to be called the Ninth Circle. First appearing in Green Arrow: Rebirth #1, the Ninth Circle are a sinister financial cabal with connections to numerous captains of industry and illegal enterprises. Deep believers in lasszie-faire capitalism, the Ninth Circle will back any business that can turn a profit, even if it involves unsavory things like slavery, terrorism or illegal medical experiments.

The Arrowverse version of the Ninth Circle seems to be cut from the same cloth as the organization in the comics. The key difference so far is that the Arrowverse version is not as flamboyant in their costuming, with their henchmen preferring black robes, hoods and masks to scarred, burned flesh. It remains to be seen if the leadership of the group meet in formal robes and masks, ala Eyes Wide Shut.


Technobabble

Felicity says that Archer has progressed from being a home security system to being a DNA-tracking surveillance system.

Oliver finds a jammer in the med bay of the Bunker that seems to be stopping Archer from rebooting. It is later revealed this also wiped the memory card which means Felicity has to rebuild the entire infrastructure.

Alena says they could reprogram Archer to scan for the DNA of people they don't have a record of, but that would require their hacking a medical or criminal database.


Dialogue Triumphs

Ollie: So you were never under duress.
Emiko: Sorry to disappoint you, but that's what family does, right?

Ollie: You've been lying this entire time, everything about our father, your debt to Dante?
Emiko: It was all true, but I never needed you to put me back together. I just knew you'd try. Can't resist playing the hero, can you?

Ollie: You went looking for a family, and you chose the Ninth Circle?
Emiko: Better than living as a Queen.

Ollie: You don't have to be a part of this. You have a choice!
Emiko: I've made it!

(Diggle finds Oliver brooding in a corner of The Bunker)
Digg: You want to talk? Not even to the guy who found out his long lost sibling was secretly an evil double agent?
Ollie: Being reminded that this has happened before is not really making things better.
Digg: I get that, but I also know that despite what Emiko's done, you're not quite ready to give up on her.
Ollie: That obvious, huh?
Digg: Only to someone who knows you and who's been there. All I wanted was to bring Andy back over to the light. I don't have to remind you what having that blind spot cost us.
Ollie: No, you don't. But please, John, trust me when I tell you that I am seeing Emiko more clearly than I ever have.
Digg: Oliver, you're still trying to save her.
Ollie: John, my family is to blame for her current situation. My my father abandoned her and her mother. She was 11! She was 11 years old, and no one's gonna convince me that... that her life wouldn't be different now if that had never happened.
Digg: Andy tried to convince me that I was the reason for his bad choices, too. He made me feel so guilty that I was willing to trust him again even after knowing he worked for Damien Darhk. I held out hope, Oliver, so much hope that I put you, my family, my team at risk.
Ollie: John, if I abandon her now I'm no better than my father. If I can help redeem her, selfishly I feel like I... I help redeem my family, just a little.

Emiko: (To Black Siren) I thought I was punishing you for following me. Maybe I just set you free?


Dialogue Disasters

(Dinah tells Black Siren about the murder of Gustavo Hernandez)
Black Siren: You think I did this.
Dinah: I'm not exactly hearing a denial.
Black Siren: I shouldn't have to give you one! I think I've done more than enough to have earned the benefit of the doubt from you!
Dinah: I saw how you looked at that man, and it was the same look that you gave Vinnie right before you executed him.
Black Siren: I have busted my ass being a good DA, trying to play by the rules, but no matter what I do, you always just see me as the Black Siren!

(Yes, I killed your boyfriend, but have you ever stopped to think about how hard it is for me not to kill people who annoy me and get in my way?)


Continuity

It is revealed that Emiko Queen did know her father and that he had been keeping her and her mother in a nice house before Moira threatened to take him to the cleaners if he didn't abandon his second family.

Oliver learned Taekwondo from Talia while he was in Russia.

Emiko says she has a good teacher who taught her how to defend herself, but does not elaborate.

Oliver says that Thea always wanted a sister. Emikio says she wanted the same thing.

Emikio catches Black Siren spying on her.  Black Siren is able to get away after being grazed by one arrow.

Alena - Felicity's hacker friend from Helix, makes her first appearance since 613. She is given the full name of Alena Whitlock.

Alena has been in hiding since her on-line hacker identity was a known associate of Cayden James. She's currently working at Tech Village - the big box computer/tech support story Felicity was working at as Season 3 opened.

Alena never told Felicity her full name or gave her a DNA sample when they worked together previously.

Felicity offers Alena a job as CTO of Smoak Technologies. She accepts.

A wounded Black Siren shows up at Ollie and Felicity's apartment, looking for Felicity. When her bandage starts bleeding through, Ollie offers to help take care of it.

Black Siren tells Ollie his sister is not the hero he thinks she is. Oliver, unsurprisingly, does not believe her.

Black Siren says there's no records of Emiko's existence from after she was 15.

Oliver says that Emiko is good enough that if she wanted to kill Black Siren, she'd be dead, so the wounding shot was a warning to back off.

Oliver makes reference to actually shooting Barry Allen (F108) and Roy Harper (208) to make a point.

Oliver finally says he will look into it if Black Siren will promise to back off.

Oliver follows Emiko that night and finds her in the company of Dante and some hooded men who are breaking into Palmer Technologies.

The group meets a scientist who offers Dante and Emiko 8 military-grade drones in exchange for her family's safety.

The lab is blown up with C4 as Oliver is entering the building. He finds the scientist who tells him he must stop The Ninth Circle.

The Ninth Circle are a group so secret that even Felicity could barely find out anything about them on the Dark Web. Despite this, they have an insignia, which was stamped on all the weapons used by Virgil's goons in 714.

Digg confirms that neither he nor Lyla had heard the name The Ninth Circle in everything they did to investigate Dante.

The Ninth Circle has existed since the 14th century - the era of the original Dante.

The Ninth Circle's symbol has popped up on a number of artifacts connected to times of historical upheaval and regime change, including The War of the Roses, The Russian Revolution and the colonization of The Americas.

Black Siren botches a case by illegally coercing a confession out of the Halcones Kingpin Ramiro Gonzales.

Dinah Drake informs Black Siren she has a second chance with Gustavo Hernandez - one of the Halcones' lieutenants. She reminds her once again that she's supposed to follow the rules as District Attorney and that she's going to get fired if she keeps this sort of thing up.

Emiko claims she's been training with her fighting teacher since she was 11.

When Oliver confronts Emiko over seeing her with Dante, she admits that Dante was her teacher and that she was taken under his wing after Robert Queen abandoned her and her mother. She says she had no idea who he was as a child but now knows what a bad person he is.

Oliver offers to help Emiko get out of the Ninth Circle. Emiko says he will only make it worse for her if he tries and there is no way out of the Ninth Circle once you are in.

In a flashback, it is revealed that Dante first encountered Emiko when she was being employed as a runner by Frank Bertinelli. She tried to steal his watch. He noticed, but it was a good lift. He agrees to teach her how to fight but warns her that if she steals from him again he will slit her throat.

Digg is able to get a DNA sample of Dante from the dagger Dante used to kill ARGUS Deputy Director Bell.

Felicity is able to use the sample to track Dante to Szrek Chemicals' plant in Star City. This is the same company whose Central City branch employs Orlin Dwyer (aka Cicada) in The Flash.

Team Arrow is able to stop Dante from robbing the chemical factory and abducting Emiko after he accuses her of betraying him, but he manages to escape.

Emiko says that Dante was trying to steal enriched uranium. There are only two other places in Star City that have it - Dunkirk Power and Global Energy.

Rene tells Emiko he doesn't regret their partnership and he'll still help her take down Dante.

In the flashbacks, an older Emiko has some sort of plan to win Robert Queen's approval that causes her to skip combat practice. Dante admonishes her for abandoning the Ninth Circle, saying they are her family now. He gives her an envelope that he says contains their gift to her.

Black Siren nearly blows the interview with Gustavo Hernandez after he starts taunting her about how Quentin Lance was never able to convict him either.

Emiko reveals herself as a willing Ninth Circle agent rather than having been blackmailed into service.

Digg discovers a break-in at the waste-treatment site in Orchard Bay. The materials stolen there give Dante everything they need to make sarin gas.

Gustavo Hernandez is found dead one hour after being released by the DA's office. Luckily, this scares another Halcones' lieutenant into testifying.

Dinah accuses Black Siren of killing Gustavo Hernandez, though she admits she has no proof other than the fact that she came close to killing him during their earlier interview.

Dante has found who hired Andrew Thornton to make the gun that killed Emiko's mother.

Dante says Emiko can go and deal with her mother's killer but expects her to return and complete her mission once that is done.

In the flashback, Emiko approaches Robert Queen with a business proposal for a new business she calls Queen Materials Inc. She projects that it will be profitable in 6 months with a growth of 14% on the initial investment. Robert says he wishes Oliver showed this sort of interest in business, let alone an aptitude for it, but unfortunately says he has to give his company to Oliver and can't support Emiko in any way. This meeting is revealed to take place just before Robert and Oliver Queen's fateful trip on The Queen's Gambit.

Diggle makes reference to his brother Andy having been a secret double agent like Emiko.

Emiko is confronted by Rene at the drone release site. She uses an explosive arrow to knock him out of her way but doesn't target him directly.

Emiko refuses another chance to let Oliver help her escape the Ninth Circle.

Oliver is able to shoot down 7 of the 8 droves. Emiko shoots his eighth arrow.

Felicity was unable to stop the last drone from releasing its gas. Thankfully, it turns out its target was an abandoned building, as were the missed targets. It seems that this was the test for an eventual real terrorist attack to make sure the drones could release the gas as planned.

Someone releases photos of Black Siren with Ricardo Diaz to the press.

Emiko meets Black Siren in her office and admits to releasing the photos to the press and killing Gustavo Hernandez. She says that she had intended for it to punish Black Siren for stalking her, but confesses that maybe she set her free instead.

Alena is an opera buff and compares Feliicty's coding to a rondo finale. Felicity doesn't get the reference.

Emiko Queen is revealed to be the leader of The Ninth Circle and Dante her trusted right-hand.

The final flashback, to the night of the Queen's Gambit's sinking, reveals that what Emiko found in the envelope Dante gave her was an invoice from Malcolm Merlyn and a blue-print of the Queen's Gambit showing where the explosives were planted.


The Bottom Line

A game-changing episode that might be perfect if it weren't for how haphazardly karma has started to catch up with Black Siren. The stakes also seem remarkably low now that the Ninth Circle has finally been unveiled and one has to wonder why Dante is suddenly wandering around crime scenes in a suit. Still, at least the season seems to finally be going somewhere in the modern day.

Green Arrow #23 - A Review

The Ninth Circle's Four Horseman continue to reign chaos down on Seattle. As Black Canary hits the books to find the method to their madness, Roy Harper and Emiko Queen will join forces to save the city's water supply from being fouled by Cheshire as Oliver fights to save what remains of his secret base from Eddie Fyers.


Is there any superhero scenario more tried and true than stopping the town reservoir from being poisoned? I can think of three Batman stories alone based around that concept. Thankfully, while the set-up of Green Arrow #23 may seem somewhat familiar, Benjamin Percy offers more than simple action and adventure. His command of the characters and dialogue make everything old seem new again and it's a real treat to see the interaction between Red Arrow and Arsenal. Roy Harper fans will also be glad to know there is confirmation that he has some kind of history with Cheshire in the Rebirth reality but no details are given here. Hopefully that tale will be told sometime in the near future.


Juan Ferreyra's artwork continues to amaze. I'm particularly impressed by his use of negative space and color. The above page is a fine example of this, with the muted background colors serving to make the reds seem all the stronger while further enhancing the aura of sorrow blanketing the scene.

Final Analysis: 8 out of 10.

Green Arrow #22 - A Review

With Seattle suffering on multiple fronts and the corrupt Mayor Domini doing nothing to help, the city is more in need of its heroes than ever. Yet even as Green Arrow does what he can to undo the damage wrought by The Four Horsemen, he can't help but wonder about the secret room he discovered in The Queen Family mausoleum and the revelation that his father was part of The Ninth Circle syndicate that seeks to destroy everything Oliver Queen has ever fought to protect.


At this point, I think you can safely assume I'm going to love anything Benjamin Percy and Juan Ferreyra do together. Theirs is one of the greatest partnerships in modern comics. And this issue of Green Arrow is a near-perfect symphony of art and script working together in perfect unison.

There's only one false note in that symphony and that is the scene between Black Canary and Green Arrow near the end of the issue. While I'm relieved to see Oliver reject the notion that Dinah is his conscience (a concern I voiced nearly a year ago), this whole conversation seems forced. I can't see Dinah holding the belief that the need for people to be free to make their own mistakes absolves Oliver of the need to do something about the evil being done in his family's name. Particularly given that her pre-Rebirth solo series (is that still canon?) was based around Dinah trying to learn about her mother and uphold her legacy.


The irony is this conversation does a fantastic job of showcasing one of the classic conflicts of Oliver Queen's character,and modern liberalism in general. Oliver Queen honestly does want to help people but Dinah rightly points out that drive is somewhat inspired by a belief in Noblesse oblige - that the rich and powerful are obligated to look after their sociological "lessers". The problem is it's difficult to be a man of the people when you're mentally placing yourself above the people you're trying to help.

As Terry Pratchett noted, the root of all evil lies in viewing people as things, As Dinah points out here, that attitude can come just as easily to a humanist who views "the people" as something to be saved as to a fascist who views people as property. Regardless of where you stand on this discussion, I think it is impressive that Green Arrow has once again become so thought-provoking even as I decry how awkwardly the ideas are presented.

Final Analysis: 8 Out of 10. Great action and artwork with some honest-to-goodness social commentary. It could be handled more smoothly, though.

Green Arrow #21 - A Review

As Oliver Queen ponders his life and the father he never really knew while visiting the Queen family tomb, a sinister plot unfolds. Four villains - all in the employ of Queen Enterprises CEO Cyrus Broderick - have set about bringing Hell to Seattle in one form or another. Soon Green Arrow and his allies will find themselves tested as never before...


It's difficult for me to show any scans of Green Arrow #21, given the unique way in which Juan Ferreyra illustrated this issue. Up until the final three pages, the top third of each page depicts Oliver Queen's as he visits his father's grave. The bottom two-thirds depict the various villains in action and the story spans across both pages, splash-page style. It's a bold breakage of the standard comic-book format but Ferreyra pulls it off beautifully, taking advantage of the extra space in some truly unique ways.

Benjamin Percy's script is more concerned with the practicalities of reestablishing several members of Green Arrow's rogues gallery than any fancy aesthetics. More, the story attempts to reconcile the new origin for Robert Queen presented in Jeff Lemire's Green Arrow with something somewhat closer to the Arrow TV series character. Far from being overly expository, Percy balances this set-up and some thrilling action sequences like a master plate-spinner.

Personally, I regret the necessity of needing to stick with the story where Shado is Oliver Queen's weird step-mom. But what do I know? I'm one of the three people who miss Mia Dearden and Felicity Smoak from The Kingdom story arc!

Final Analysis: 9 out of 10.