Summary: Slabside becomes more dangerous after a guard is murdered. Felicity seeks help from an unexpected source. Laurel flexes her muscles as DA.
Overall, I would say that this episode was one of those buildup episodes where we get more background about things than the actual storyline. Though the Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) storyline has been pretty consistent with each episode this season, and something well deserved seeing as for so long we haven’t had the consistency of her character that was deserved for being such a major character. The only drawback is that she has to supposedly go dark to get there. Not that it is much darker than the line she was going over last season. In fact, this darkness she is going through is more in character to who she is because she is out to settle a score for the people she loves.
Spoilers ahead – be warned…
The show starts again with Ricardo Diaz (Kirk Acevedo) and Anatoly (David Nykl), the two we ended the last episode with. Only now we know that Diaz has killed the Bratva and is now torturing Anatoly. But, instead of killing Anatoly, Diaz seems to have other plans in mind for the other man. And it involves Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell). My main question with that scene is we see Diaz with a torch that lights up Anatoly’s eyes and has him crying out in pain but there is really nothing shown later as to what exactly he did to Anatoly, other than the torture, that resulted from that.
Back in jail, Oliver is surprised when Stan (Brendan Fletcher) is taken down to the hole for killing a guard. The smaller man protests that he has been set up and begs Oliver for help in proving his innocence. Which leads to the question is Stan more than he seems?
Felicity and Laurel get excited when the tracker tracks the Silencer back in Star City. Enlisting the help of Rene (Rick Gonzalez), who seems to be the sidekick to this pairing, they go and find Anatoly in a warehouse about the same time that Dinah (Juliana Harkavy), heading up the police, and Diggle (David Ramsey), leading in A.R.G.U.S, arrive. While there seems to be fall back on Felicity and Laurel doing this on their own by the other two people, my main question was about Anatoly. Hello. He was placed there by Diaz. Sure they don’t know that, but what did Diaz have planned? Seems like Anatoly is supposed to fall in that double agent role again. Why does anyone trust this man at all at this point, while they quickly dismiss Black Siren who has actually been helping out with no actual give back to her? She wants Diaz, but c’mon, she seems much more trustworthy at this point, even if not truly one to trust.
As for the flashforwards, what is with William (Ben Lewis)? He thinks Felicity owes him? For what? What did she supposedly do to him? There is no real background to let us know exactly when he last saw her. At first it seemed like it was when she sent him to England during this time with Diaz, but I am beginning to question that seeing as he seems to have a lot of knowledge of things that Felicity does and I honestly don’t believe he learned all of that just in the short time that he lived with her, especially with them hiding out and Felicity not being able to do all the things that she truly loves because it might put them in jeopardy.
Meanwhile back at the present A.R.G.U.S., Diggle and Felicity plan to have Anatoly go to one of his old KGB buddies in order to obtain information from the man’s computer about Diaz. So, why are we trusting Anatoly again? Oh, wait, we aren’t supposed to ask these questions. Even Anatoly is shocked that Felicity is willing to put him out there in danger. She shoots him down saying that Diaz wasn’t out there then she would not have had to change because she needed to turn this way with Oliver in jail. And because all her friends have basically turned their back on her. Let’s not forget that.
So, when Anatoly is found out, he is shocked by just how much Felicity has changed. She is willing to see him dead than sacrifice the information that they sought out. Much to Diggle’s dismay. Or it could be that Felicity knows more about Anatoly than Diggle does. This is the man who has changed sides so often it can almost be a drinking game. So, his death (despite the popularity of the character) would not be that detrimental to the cause. Of course, she later does go to him and apologize. He only shrugs it off. Anatoly respected her more when she didn’t put parameters on her actions. It more reminded him of Oliver back in the day. The man who would do whatever it took to see to it that things were taken care of despite what it might have cost to his soul. This later leads to Anatoly handing Felicity a gun to take down Diaz. This is something neither Oliver or Diggle ever did. He handed her the means and gave her permission to do the thing that she was so determined to do for the sake of her family.
Oliver in prison finds the weapon that Stan tells him about. Funny how the man seemed to know exactly where it might be. Not exactly the thing that an innocent man would be aware of. This sets up Oliver to getting Bronze Tiger (Michael Jai White) taken into custody seeing as his prints are on the weapon. So, one of Brick’s guys have gone down? Seems to me like something Stan dreamed of, or dreamed up, seeing as Brick (Vinnie Jones) and his crew were the ones who were willing to take Stan out to get to Oliver.
Dinah finds Black Siren right as she is about to confront the judge with her Canary Cry. She reminds Laurel that being a hero is the hard way, something Laurel mentioned in her speech to the judge. And that it would be so easy to turn bad. When the next thing is a flash forward with Dinah front and center and explosions happening, it makes you wonder if she might be more of a villain in the future than we could even imagine. An interesting theory seeing as the Black Canary is supposed to be one of the good guys along with the Green Arrow.
Diggle calls to Curtis to assemble the team to take down Diaz at the building. Question is, who is this team he refers to? Team Arrow? Oliver is in jail. New Team Arrow? Not everyone seems to want to be onboard this team anymore. Team Felicity? A.R.G.U.S.? Seems likely seeing as they would have the resources to be able to take care of something like this. However, it seems like everyone is ensembled from New Team Arrow is there without extra resources with the addition of Diggle and Felicity. Honestly, there are so many teams anymore on this show it is hard to determine which one will show up at any given time.
While the team finds the bombs easy enough, it is almost the end of the show after all and so much still needs to be resolved. We can’t waste time determining where in the whole building the bombs would be. The team discovers there are more than one and they are linked. Felicity takes this in stride. Why wouldn’t she? She has dealt with things like this before with Team Flash. However, there is a catch Diaz also has a way to activate them from his phone.
This finds us at the fight scene. We can’t have one episode of Arrow without the requisite fight scene and this one takes place in silence. Why? Because the Silencer (Miranda Edwards) is involved, of course. This would cause problems as Curtis and Felicity are trying to reach out to the team to tell them of the extra problem of Diaz’s phone. It takes a full fight scene to take down the enemy, but it is the new Green Arrow (because we need a new one to compete with the New Team Arrow, not) that takes down Diaz for them to get the phone and bring Diaz to justice. This causes the whole city to question the anti-vigilante law that they established. Funny, because unless the team talked there would be no way that the city would even know that this new Green Arrow was even involved. Sounds like the team needs this new law finally brought down.
Felicity makes her way into where Diaz is being held in an interview room. He is only in one handcuff, which is strange seeing as to what this man is capable of. You would honestly think that Dinah would have had this man more locked down than this. And how did Felicity make her way in without anyone questioning this or standing up for her? Oh wait, her friends don’t give a crap as to what she does anymore just so long as she isn’t in their way.
In there, Felicity confronts Diaz. And while she holds up the gun that Anatoly gave her to him, Diaz laughs at her and tells her to kill him. Felicity is completely ready to do it. She wants this whole thing to be over even if it pushes her over an edge that even she did not see herself going over. But, she is stopped when Laurel (yes, Laurel, unlike all the other supposed friends that Felicity has) tells her that Oliver is getting out of prison, but they need to exchange Diaz to do it. You can see Felicity hesitate before she turns and lowers the weapon. Relief on her features because this whole thing might finally be over. She might get her family back. Only, this is Diaz. He has had a long game this whole time. Are we not supposed to question just how easy it was to get this man? Are we supposed to forget that he set Anatoly up in the beginning of the episode so something could happen with Oliver? Sounds to me like Diaz wants to be in just the same prison as his objective.
While back in prison we end with Stan being released and sitting with Oliver while he eats. He thanks Oliver extensively for helping him. He knew that the Green Arrow would not let him down. But in all his excitement, Stan admits that he knew it was Bronze Tiger’s weapon in the wall, something that he should not know since he was in the Hole. Oliver now is questioning just who this man is. Okay, Stan. You have let us all down. Would it be so hard for Oliver and Felicity to have just one friend? Just one, writers. Someone who could be consistent. Someone who can actually be there for them. Nope. No such luck. This married couple only has each other to lean on. Let’s just hope that they can at least hold onto that once Oliver gets released. He will be released, won’t he? Diaz is coming.
Photo Credit: The CW
