Vaness Ho
Staff Writer
In tonight’s episode, we are introduced to Roy Harper (Teen Wolf’s Colton Hayes). If you are a fan of the Green Arrow comics, you then will know that Roy is known as Speedy, the Emerald Archer’s sidekick. But more on him later.
Remember spoilers ahead.
The Arrow Gang versus Dodger
The main crux of this episode is the Arrow Gang of Oliver, Diggle, and Felicity out to get a thief called the Dodger (James Callis) as he avoids doing any of the dirty work by getting hostages to cooperate by threatening to blow their heads off with a bomb collar.
The episode opens with a museum security guard stealing the Sherwood Ruby for Dodger. And hearing the news of this thief, the gang works on a way to try and get him.
It so happens that McKenna Hall, the detective we met in “Vertigo” is working the Dodger case for Major Crimes and Oliver manages to get a piece of tracking technology on McKenna’s phone (thanks to Felicity) to get more information on Dodger.
After some narrow changes of catching Dodger, the Arrow Gang lure him to a fund raising auction that the Queen family has donated a brooch to, which Felicity has planted a GPS signal in it. Dodger does steal the brooch and Felicity confronts him, but ends up with a bomb collar around her neck for her troubles.
Using the GPS signal, Felicity helps Oliver navigate the streets of Starling City to catch Dodger. And after a motorcycle/car chase, Oliver flechettes one of Dodger’s car tires and he flips and crashes. With his identity hidden underneath the motorcycle helmet, Oliver goes and confronts Dodger but he threatens to blow Felicity up if he tries to capture him. But Oliver ends up incapacitating him and disarms the bomb collar and Felicity breathes a sigh of relief (And so do we but really her fate was never in doubt considering her portrayer, Emily Bett Rickards was recently named a series regular for Arrow’s second season).
Speedy Meet Speedy
Laurel takes Thea to the Glades to meet a former client so she can see the work the CNRI does. While there, Thea’s purse is stolen by a red hoodie wearing purse snatcher and even though he gets away, he leaves behind a clue that helps Thea track him down and gets Detective Lance to arrest him. This thief turns out to be the aforementioned Roy Harper. As I said above, in the comics, Roy becomes Green Arrow’s sidekick and aside from being nicknamed Speedy, he is also known as Red Arrow so maybe he will take on that moniker since Speedy is already being used by Thea. Anyways, after Roy tells Lance a sob story on how he is forced to live a life a crime to help pay for his mother medical expenses because of the after effects of Vertigo, Thea drops the charges. Afterward, Thea goes to visit Roy at his home in the Glades. He thinks Thea dropping the charges was an act of charity, but Thea says he knows nothing about her and the stuff that he thinks he knows doesn’t account for the dead dad, missing step-dad, damaged brother and her near jail time. Roy gives her props for coming to the Glades in the middle of the night. He returns her purse minus her cigarettes. Before Thea leaves, Roy gives her two pieces of advice 1) stay out of the Glades and 2) don’t fall for every sob story a guy like him tells the police. And Thea’s story line gets interesting.
Oliver and Diggle go out on dates but not with each other
After episodes of crushing on each other, Diggle finally gets up the nerve to ask his former sister-in-law, Carly (Christie Laing) out on a date. While the date started off strong, it quickly goes down hill when Diggle won’t stop talking about his late brother Andy, who happened to have been married to Carly. This is a dating no-no and their date ends abruptly.
A couple of days later, Diggle explains why he kept on talking about Andy on their date and how he worries what he would think and how he worries of hurting Carly. He says that fighting a war is easier than dating. Carly tells Diggle to stop over thinking everything and just feel. He takes her advice and plants a kiss on her.
Oliver also goes on a date with McKenna. This date also started off strong until McKenna kept on questioning Oliver about his time on the island and when Oliver wouldn’t go any deeper, McKenna leaves.
But after Oliver catches Dodger, he visits McKenna back at the police station and explains his reluctance to talk about his time on the island. It seems his explanation has satisfied McKenna and she forgives him with a kiss. Lance interrupts them to ask McKenna to work on the vigilante case, McKenna vows to Lance that they will catch Arrow and she seems to be happy to have this case. Oliver looks on and plasters on a fake smile as they go on their second date.
Moira and the Undertaking
Moira meets with Frank (Chin Ha), who is also a part of the Undertaking. She wants out and wants Frank help in getting out. This involves a meeting with China White (Kelly Hu), pretty much the new leader of the Chinese Triad. Moira wants China White to kill Malcolm Merlyn.
Island Flashback
In the last episode, Slade Wilson was shot in the arm and Oliver took out the bullet with a dull blade. Well, now his arm is infected and to stop the spreading, Oliver tells Slade that he will journey to the cave where we was with Yao Fei to get some herbs that have healing powers.
When he arrives at the cave and gets the herbs, he encounters a beat-up bloody young man, Alan Durand (Jarod Joseph) who claims that he was a teacher on a fishing expedition and his boat caught fire and became shipwrecked two days ago. He claims that he is the only survivor amongst his students and boat crew and was found by masked men who beat him up and left him in the cave.
Durand wants Oliver to untie him but Oliver is reluctant, but Durand assures him that this is no trap. Oliver is about to, but changes his mind and leaves the cave. Durand asks why he won’t help, Oliver replies that he doesn’t know him. This decision still haunts present day Oliver.
Oliver brings back the herbs to Slade and it heals him and Oliver lies to Slade saying he encountered no problems getting the herbs.
For a more detailed review of this episode, can be found over at my blog: The World Goes Pop.
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