ARROW Season 2×10, “Blast Radius” recap

15 Jan

Welcome to 2014, Arrow-heads! Here’s a quick recap of things that happened last time: that super drug from the island is still around, thanks to Slade being revealed as the architect of the troubles in Starling City. That super-drug has also made its way into Roy, and Ollie’s keeping an eye on him while hunting down Brother Blood. Too bad he doesn’t know Mr. Blood is running for mayor of the city. Felicity gets a boyfriend, who ends up comatose thanks to a freak accident. And Ollie gets a mask. How does the new year start for everyone? With a bang!

Five Weeks Later. Ollie’s had a few weeks to break in that new mask of his, interrogating drug dealers for leads to Brother Blood. After a stopover in the Arrow-cave to go to a pressing engagement (and to acknowledge Felicity is out of town for a few days visiting a comatose Barry in the hospital after that freak accident involving the particle accelerator), Diggle notes how worried Ollie is about the Mirakuru drug being remade and out on the streets. You have no idea, Dig. He heads off to a fundraiser for Sebastian Blood’s mayoral campaign, where we find out a few things. One, Roy seems to be normal so far after getting shot up with Mirakuru, although a shard of glass going into his arm later seems to be met with some concern from Roy not related to stitches. Two, Laurel is getting to know Mr. Blood, but suspects something is wrong with him. We’ll get to both those developments soon enough, but first.

” (gasping) I didn’t say anything about the homoerotic undertones of Spartacus, I swear!”

The New Slade, Not Quite the Old Slade. In the island flashbacks, Ollie, Sara, and Slade bury Shado in the steadily growing makeshift graveyard of theirs. Slade gives Shado’s hood to Ollie, and Ollie’s about ready to tell him exactly what happened to Shado before Sara stops him. Sara mentions how survivors of the Mirakuru drug tend to suffer from some kind of abnormality besides physical changes, like psychological. We get to see that when Ollie keeps Slade from lashing out at Sara, only to almost be choked to death by an unnaturally angry Slade. Slade comes to his senses to realize what he did wrong in time, and later that night, takes off with the remainder of the Mirakuru. Oh, and Ivo calls Sara on the radio and Ollie hears his offer to give them safe passage off the island for the Mirakuru, or they’ll be caught and experimented on to his content. Oh, what variety of options to choose from.

Shrapnel. A government building is blown up, and the culprit is a mad bomber who posts a anti-government manifesto online, claiming responsibility for the bombing. Felicity arrives back in town to help, and just in time to help Ollie track down the bomber as a second building is hit. The bomber escapes thanks to being all crafty, and thanks to Ollie being a bit under pressure, lashes out at Felicity for not being all there. She leaves for a breather, while Diggle says to Ollie that he has never questioned her skills until Barry entered the picture. Jealous, I think, Ollie?

Quentin: “What was that?” Ollie: “Oh, yeah. The stove. Forgot to turn that off.”

Tinker Toys. Thanks to Felicity’s hacking, we find out the bomber is an antique store owner named Mark Scheffer, and Ollie heads over to his store to intercept him before a rally Blood is holding becomes another site of destruction. Not hedging his cards on taking down Scheffer there, Ollie sends Diggle to the rally. Unfortunately for Ollie, he walks into the store and arms a motion sensitive booby trap (along with a nice automated message from Scheffer) that if he moves, the whole store goes off. While Ollie contacts Diggle about where Scheffer said the bombs are, Felicity helps Ollie disable the bomb-laden store. Ollie gets to the rally in time to knock out Scheffer before he causes any more deaths. While Diggle is given the night off to mend that in-and-out bullet wound Scheffer gives him at the rally, Ollie takes time to apologize for his behavior to Felicity, reassuring her Barry will wake up and that she’s important as “(Ollie’s) partner”. Awww…

The Strange Case of Roy Harper. Besides that shattered glass in the arm he gets after a failed make-out session with Thea, Roy hasn’t been getting much sleep recently. Thea knows something is wrong, but Roy reassures her that isn’t the case. Then at the rally, Moira is saved by Roy, when he covers her from being hit by a falling support beam…and he’s not even injured. More to the point, Thea sees that Roy’s nasty arm wound has healed up miraculously. On the matter of questionable boyfriends, we go to…

“You can’t trust Sebastian Blood.” Laurel has been quietly looking into Sebastian since that connection with Cyrus popped up, and asks him about his past. He talks about how he was put in an orphanage after his parents were killed by an unknown assailant, and after leaving his office for a bit, Laurel notes a name on a bank balance: a payment to a woman named Maya. She asks for info on Maya from Quentin (while he’s looking into who set his team up to be ambushed by Cyrus), and later, he tells her that Maya is Sebastian’s aunt, and is currently locked away in a mental institution, where he’s paying for her stay. Quentin tries to veer her away from looking into it any further, and she goes to see Maya anyway. She doesn’t seem all that lucid, until Laurel talks a bit about Sebastian, and Maya warns her how dangerous Sebastian is. Then Maya says she saw him murder his father, and by that process of elimination, we and Laurel discover Maya is Sebastian’s imprisoned mother! And just when it seemed Arrow and the prospective mayor were getting along so well.

“Great. Surrounded by lasers. AGAIN.”

–Comic book connections: Shrapnel is another Green Arrow related baddie who like this episode, has a thing for stuff exploding. The Movement also may be connected to current DC lore, but still too early to tell that.

–Speaking of Shrapnel, yes, that’s Sean Maher from Firefly, marking another visit from that show’s repertoire here. But sadly, no Tam sibling reunion here.

–Seriously, Diggle, you got shot in the shoulder. Take a few DAYS off.

–I don’t want to seem spoilery as I haven’t seen any future episodes, but I’m sure Laurel’s continued usage of happy drugs is going to be a problem, especially if she brings up that a mayoral candidate killed his dad and locked up his mom. Yeah sure, druggie. Pop a few more pills.

–You know there’s trouble when it takes Sara cracking Slade in the back of the head with a tree trunk to take him out of his blood rage and from killing Ollie.

–Felicity’s thoughts on a “deadman’s switch”: “That’s a thoroughly depressing term. And a little sexist.”

–A nice exchange between Ollie and Quentin about the new mask, respectively: “(It’s a) Gift from a friend.” “You have friends?”

–“How did I ever end up with someone like you?” “You…stole my purse?”

So what do you think? Leave your comments and theories below, and come back next week for “Blind Spot”…