Staff Writer
Season 2 of Arrow kind of begins how season 1 began, and that is back on the island where we see Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) running through the jungle where he notices a plane instead of a boat.
On this plane are Diggle (David Ramsay) and Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards), who is hilariously scared on this flight. The only way to get to Lian Yu is parachuting down. Once they touchdown, Felicity promptly throws up then walks along the beach with some pretty bad CGI of the surrounding mountains.
As they walk the jungle in search of Oliver, Felicity steps on a land mine. Diggle goes to disarm it but Oliver appears up in the trees telling the duo that he can’t. He tells Felicity to stay still, shoots an arrow in the air and then swings down to rescue Felicity and, in my first “I love Felicity” moment of the episode, she mentions how sweaty Oliver is.
Oliver takes Diggle and Felicity to the downed plane that he called home while on the island for five years. Diggle and Felicity want Oliver to come back to Starling City as his mother faces trial for her part in the Undertaking, and the destruction of the Glades. They also tell him that Stillmore Industries and its VP of acquisitions, Isabel Rochev (Summer Glau), plans on taking over Queen Consolidated.
Oliver returns home and sees that Starling City and the Glades is in shambles from the quake. Oliver notices a “Vote for Blood” on a fence and Diggle tells him that he is an alderman that wants to clean up the Glades.
Oliver wants his first stop to be home to check up on Thea (Willa Holland) but Felicity tells him that she isn’t home. We learn that since Oliver went away (Thea thinks he went to Europe to get away after Tommy died), Thea is running Verdant, the club that Oliver opened last season. We see Thea and Roy (Colton Haynes) making out but it is stopped when Thea sees that he has some bruises on his abdomen. Thea is pissed that Roy is going out at night to be a vigilante and save people just like Arrow or the Hood.
DC Comics Shout-out: A news report mentions that Central City and S.T.A.R. Labs has built a particle accelerator – this is a possible hint of the Flash’s introduction as he is from Central City and S.T.A.R. Labs is from the Superman universe.
Oliver then reunites with Thea and they have a talk about their mom and how Thea refuses to see her as she blames the quake on her; even though Oliver blames Malcolm.
Meanwhile, at a mayoral fundraiser, the mayor and the DA, Adam Donner (Orphan Black’s Dylan Bruce), have a debate over the vigilante and what seem to be his copycats. Laurel joins in the debate and makes a good point that makes Donner happy that he hired her to join the DA office. The Mayor then goes to make his speech when a man tells him that he has failed this city and blames him for not doing anything to help the Glades. Then the mayor is shot several times, resulting in his death. Four hooded men start to open fire and Laurel gets in the cross hairs and after taking one down, yields to another.
Lance (Paul Blackthorne) comes on the scene as a concerned father and not an officer of the law as Lance’s former boss, Det Frank Price (Adrian Holmes), tells him that he is not a detective anymore. Oliver also arrives out of concern for Laurel and the two have a heart to heart about Tommy and what this means to their relationship, meaning they have none. Laurel feels guilty for sleeping with Oliver and feels like she has betrayed Tommy.
Outside the fundraiser, Diggle is trying to convince Oliver to don the hood again to stop these copycats who don’t have the same restraint as him. However, Oliver reiterates that he didn’t come back to be the Hood.
Meanwhile, the Hoods, as they call themselves, learn that their assassination of the mayor didn’t make the news but the fact that Oliver Queen has returned did. The head guy is pissed at this and tells his cohorts the only way to make an impact is to go after the family responsible for the quake and that is the Queen family.
The next day, Oliver arrives at Queen Consolidated for his meeting with Isabel Rochev, a pretty hard-assed woman who belittles Oliver and calls him a dropout. She also tells him that while they both own 45% of the company, she plans on buying the remaining 10% to take full control. Oliver tells her that he will find a way to save his company but she asks who would help finance him since their name equals mass murder. Their meeting is cut short when the Hoods come and tell Oliver that he has failed this city. They open fire on the boardroom and Oliver gets everyone out and rescues himself and Felicity in another “I love Felicity” moment.
Officer Lance comes on the scene and asks if Felicity has heard from the Hood but Felicity tells him that she is still waiting.
Diggle calls Oliver on the fact that he didn’t take down the Hoods when he could of. Oliver again states that he didn’t come back to be the vigilante and that he didn’t want to kill the Hoods. Felicity asks him “so what?” since he has killed before. However, Diggle surmises that he doesn’t want to kill again because of Tommy who died thinking he was a murderer and if he kills again, it dishonors his memory. He leaves to go visit someone who can help him save Queen Consolidated.
And so he heads to Iron Heights Prison to see his mother, Moira (Susanna Thompson), who warns him against Isabel Rochev and how she can’t be trusted. She mentions how Queen Consolidated is a family business and it is up to the family to save it. She then reveals that it is not Thea to do this, but someone else (more on that later).
At Verdant, Roy (who works at the club) and Thea have an argument over her not seeing her mom and him being a vigilante at night. Thea says she will visit her mom only when he quits being a vigilante. Roy doesn’t see the connection but Thea says the connection is that it won’t happen.
However, the fight is interrupted when the Hoods come to Verdant seeking Oliver. Roy plays hero and notices that one of the Hood has one hand. But when the main guy takes Thea hostage, Roy stands down and the Hoods decide taking Thea is the next best thing.
Oliver arrives at Verdant and learns of Thea’s kidnapping. This spurs Oliver to re-don the hood and go to the Arrow Cave where Felicity tells him that she has made some improvements. And boy is the Arrow Cave decked out. Oliver notices that Felicity has kept the Salmon Ladder and tells him that she liked watching him work out (another “I love Felicity” moment). Oliver needs to find the kidnappers and uses the clue of how one of the kidnappers was missing part of his hand. Felicity tells him that he lost part of his hand during the quake. Felicity finds out that he has a made a lot of calls to a church support group that lost loved ones in the quake. Before Oliver goes to the address, Felicity shows him the custom bow she had made for him. As a parting word, Felicity tells him that there probably is a better way now to be the Hood.
At the church, Thea tells her kidnappers that is isn’t her mom’s fault but Malcolm’s and finally comes to an understanding that her actions were based on fear. Just as it looks like Thea will meet her end, the Hood comes to her rescue and manages to catch the Hoods without taking a life. When Officer Lance comes on the scene, he finds all four of them tied up to a fence. Lance tells him that when he normally catches the bad guys, they usually are dead, the Hood tells him that he is trying another way then swings away.
The next day, Oliver goes to visit Tommy’s grave. Laurel stumbles upon him and the two then come to an understanding about their relationship; they can’t be together romantically but they want to be still friends. Laurel then tells him that she is going to help her boss take down the Hood.
Thea’s ordeal leads her to visit her mom in prison and the two have a heart to heart and reunite.
Before Roy can make his plans with Thea, we see him playing hero again when a young woman is being mugged. He starts kicking butt until one of the thugs pulls a knife on him. All of a sudden a blonde masked woman in black comes on the scene and kicks ass with a staff and some kicks. Roy wonders who she is. We, of course, know that this is the Black Canary (Caity Lotz).
Back at the Arrow Cave, Oliver tells Diggle and Felicity that Team Arrow is no longer about crossing people off a list or avenging his father but instead it should be about honouring Tommy and that he wants to change his name. As Oliver is holding and looking at a green arrow, Diggle asks him what does he want to be called but the episode ends before we find out.
Island Flashback
We see Slade Wilson (Manu Bennett) and Oliver do some stick training but stop when Shado (Celina Jade), dressed in the green hood that her father sported last season, with the dinner she hunted for them. Oliver mentions to Shado that his first meal on Lian Yu was prepared by her father; hearing this Shado says that he was a bad cook but a good father. Oliver agrees and that Shado is the proof. They kiss. It seems that the five months after stopping Fyers has made them closer.
Their moment is interrupted because a device that was from Fyers detected three people on the island. They find this strange considering they have been alone for five months.
The trio go to investigate and they split up with Shado, wanting to ambush the group, when Slade and Oliver come across them. However, Shado is the one that gets kidnapped. Slade and Oliver find Shado being beaten by the kidnappers asking her the whereabouts of someone. But Shado has no clue what they are talking about. As one the men makes to slice her open, Oliver comes out of hiding and beats the crap out of the man and kills him with a rock while Slade takes care of the others.
However, their troubles aren’t over as they hear over the radio that they aren’t alone. We pull away and we see three boats approaching the island.
Season 2 definitely keeps up to how season 1 ended and I am so looking forward to what is in store for 21 more episodes.
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