ARROW Season 3×19, “Broken Arrow” recap

15 Apr

Welcome back, Arrowheads! Previously: things went galactically bad for Team Arrow as Quentin decided to hammer out his betrayal issues by hunting them down. Then he found out from Ra’s (a reliable source, I guess) that Ollie’s the Arrow, and things got not remotely better. To save everyone else, he turns himself in in a plea deal. But the rest of the Team didn’t like that, and so, Roy appears in front of the convoy transporting Ollie…as the Arrow! Way to go, Roy, with lifetime imprisonment?

Through The Front Door. In the flashback, the Yamashiras and Ollie (um, where’s Shado’s sister?) are in hiding in an apartment in Hong Kong. Desperate to stop this running, Ollie decides to raid the local ARGUS field office to confront Waller. When he gets there, he finds Waller, beaten, shot, and claiming she was imprisoned for days. Her captors was General Shrieve, who seems to be desperate to hurt China, so much so that he’s willing to destroy Hong Kong with the Alpha Omega virus to start a war with them (and hey, Shrieve has a vaccine for the virus, so its not a total suicide plan). She tells him to just go and get out of the city as fast as he can, which would be fine, except Shrieve has way more men than Waller to keep that from happening.

Ollie realizes the vaccine might be the key to stopping Shrieve’s plan, so him, Maseo, and Tatsu break into Shrieve’s army base to steal it. They get enough of the stuff for themselves, but Ollie discovers Shrieve’s plan to release the virus, and volunteers to go it alone to stop it. But Tatsu refuses to let that happen, and after convincing Maseo, all three are off to save Hong Kong.

“Maseo, this is where binge-watching seasons of 24 pays off!”

A Surge. Now, as the news is reporting Roy Harper has been arrested as the Arrow, at a local bank, some guards hear a noise. They find a guy in there, but before they can do anything, the guy has laser blasts come out of his eyes that cut through them. Back at the precinct house, Ollie is more than willing to confess to being the Arrow to Quentin just to save Roy, but Laurel drops by with papers to release him, seeing as how the “real Arrow” is now in custody. I suppose now would be a good time to tell Quentin about that meta-human robbing banks that the police have no chance in fighting, huh? No? Okay.

It’s morning, and Ollie goes to see chained up Roy in the interrogation room. Ollie asks why he would do this, and Roy talks about his Mirakuru-fueled murder of a cop, and needing to save the man who saved him. Also, Ray is at his office telling Felicity that whole “love you” thing in the hospital earlier was said in delirium. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Raiding the Basement. What’s left of Team Arrow and Thea meet at Verdant to discuss what to do about Roy, when killjoy Quentin comes in with a warrant to search the place…and the basement. The basement is deserted of some of the more sensitive stuff, but Quentin gets some glee in finally being able to pin Ollie on this secret lair. Wait, what’s that? Only Roy’s fingerprints are in Arrow HQ? Quentin’s pissed (and still, not suffering any heart seizures), and still not accepting Ollie’s answer of not knowing what is happening. I’m starting to very slowly dislike sober, angry Quentin.

It’s a bit afterwards that Felicity tells Ollie this was Roy’s plan to have only his fingerprints there (along with hiding some more useful gear from the cops). He’s upset, but he figures he needs a distraction, like stopping “death ray guy”. Well since the cops will be following him, Ollie can’t be the Arrow. But Felicity says someone can do it, namely her sorta-kinda-maybe boyfriend Ray. Not surprisingly, Ray’s really happy about this team-up!

Imprisoned. Roy’s in Iron Heights (which can’t be fun for him, as the many criminals in there got out in there because of Team Arrow), and gets a visitor in Thea. He really didn’t want to see her, and really can’t assure her things will be okay. During this, Malcolm comes to see Ollie to warn him Ra’s won’t stop just because Team Arrow is in effect grounded. In case you forgot, ALL OF WHAT HAPPENED THIS SEASON IS BECAUSE OF MALCOLM MERLYN, AND HE’S STILL NOT DEAD. Why not pull your weight instead of lecturing, huh, Malcolm?

Burned. So we discover the death beam guy is Jake Simmons, and that he works for the power company. Ray goes over (hey, Ollie’s still being followed, so no backup) to Simmons’ workplace in his ATOM suit and despite a pre-fight speech from Ollie about having to use more than his mind to fight this guy, gets almost trashed. At Iron Heights, Roy runs into some angry inmates and outside of a slash to the back from a homemade shiv, he hands them their asses. At Thea’s loft, Quentin is having the place tossed, because Ahab’s gotta get his white whale (literally, his old detective buddy warns him that and that his overreach is not going over well with the higher-ups). And he gets to break to break the news to Thea about Roy’s prison attack.

Never drink and fly an exo-suit.

Who Can You Save? Thea arrives at Ray’s lab (and how did she know he was there again?) to tell Ollie what’s happening with Roy, but Diggle and Felicity are advising him not to try and break Roy out of prison. Felicity talks to him about needing to let his loved ones take care of him than the other way around right now, but in the meantime, hang back while she goes to hook up some tracking system to find Simmons. At the prison, Quentin arrives to talk to Roy about confessing he’s not the Arrow to save his life. For a guy who was hard up to throw them all in prison a day earlier, this seems odd. Maybe he needs a vacation.

Anyway, Felicity is setting up that tracker in a power plant, and it seems to be working already, because he pops up in front of Felicity! At his lab, Ray discovers his tracker has found Simmons where Felicity is, and he calls to warn her. Simmons answers that call, readying to kill Felicity. She manages to escape, and Ollie’s ready to go after her, but Ray knows he’s the only one who can get there in time. But since Ollie’s the better fighter, what is there to do?

The Fine Art of Puppeteering. Ray flies over to find Felicity, but there’s a twist: Ollie is back at the lab, wearing a suit that allows him to control Ray in fighting Simmons. But when that system goes bad, Ray has to channel his inner Oliver and beats down Simmons. Good news for Ray, really bad news for Roy when during a moving of prisoners, a guard shivs him. Ollie gets back to Thea’s place to hear from Quentin, who’s already there to tell Thea, Roy’s dead. WHAT WHA?! Then Quentin makes some remark about knowing who put Roy there. Yeah, Quentin, IT WAS YOU! You’re really starting to lose your sympathy card with me, man.

RIP Roy Harper. Ollie’s back at the tossed Arrow HQ, moping about Roy when Diggle and Felicity show up with…Roy? So, the reason why they wanted to keep Ollie from breaking Roy out is because the rest of the Team already planned to do the same. An ARGUS agent as the guard, a stabbing that was non-fatal, some doctored medical records, and BOOM!–Roy Harper’s dead. This means of course Roy has to skip town for who knows how long, but Ollie is cleared as the Arrow. Roy makes sure to remind the Team to let Thea know he’s alive before taking off to, well, next season, spin-off, season finale, who knows? Anyhoo, everything’s great, except…

“Well, as long as nothing horrible happens to Thea, I think I can deal with the way this is going.”

Sufficient Motivation. At STAR Labs in Central City, Cisco (welcome back, Cisco!) and Ray are putting Simmons, I mean, Deathbolt, into the super-prison. Cisco notices a glaring concern from Simmons’ record: he was in jail in Opal City the night of the particle accelerator accident in Central City, yet he’s a meta-human. What is going on with that? At Thea’s loft, she’s looking at some photos of her and Roy, crying (you think she got the good news at this point?), and gets a surprise visitor: Ra’s al Ghul. She tells him Ollie won’t take control of the League, but Ra’s assures her he’ll beg to once he’s done with her. After a pretty nasty fight, Ra’s runs Thea through with his sword and leaves her for dead! Oh crap!

–Comic book connections: Deathbolt is a DC villain (natch), and Opal City happens to be the home of DC hero Starman (which is one of my favorite comics of the 90’s, BTW).

–So yeah, this is last we’ll regularly see Roy Harper, aka Arsenal, for the foreseeable future (baring the occasional guest appearance I would hope), and man, I’m gonna miss his parkour flipping.

–I feel bad I watched the promo for next episode, because I got one theory as to Thea’s fate answered right there.

–Seriously, where is Shado’s sister in the flashbacks this episode? Buying groceries for that secret hideout?

–Hey, it’s Doug Jones as Deathbolt, who’s known more for roles in makeup (like Abe Sapien in Hellboy) than out, but does a great job here.

–I got a bad feeling if he doesn’t get a heart attack by season’s end, Quentin may be facing unemployment thanks to his handling of this Arrow manhunt and the only suspect being “killed” in custody.

–“Plasma death beam guy”: Felicity’s right in Cisco being better with villain names.

–“I’ll run. Fly, probably.”

–“I’ll miss you most of all, Scarecrow.”

That’s it for now, but leave your thoughts and theories below, and come back next week for the recap of “The Fallen”…