ARROW Season 4×04 recap, “Beyond Redemption”

29 Oct

Welcome back, Arrowheads! Hey, great news, everyone! Sara’s alive! Sure, she’s been dead for months and thanks to the Lazarus Pit has to be chained up to avoid her attacking everyone, but, she’s alive! Also, Oliver’s running for mayor of Star City! And Felicity has problems with her cell phone! Granted that last part doesn’t seem important, but…SARA’S ALIVE! Daddy Lance is gonna be so happy to hear this!

An Alibi. In the flashbacks this episode, Ollie and the lady prisoner he saved are hiding in a cave, and he strategizes about how to explain the other soldier getting blown up and ensure her safety. So he comes up with a bold idea: he heads back to the camp to explain how his soldier buddy died trying to catch the escaping prisoner, and how Ollie killed her! But Conklin wants proof, so its off into the woods, where Conklin lays a whole spiel about being as dark as he is, and once they get to the cave, they find her slumped over, appearing dead. Of course, she’s not, thanks to some fancy stuff he learned on the island, but that seems like a moot point when Conklin stumbles upon Ollie’s communication gear from ARGUS. Whoopsie.

Hideout(s) Hunting. In the present, some drug dealers are getting ready to move some product when heavily armed SCPD people burst in and shoot them. Then, some plain clothes cops rush in, and they’re like, “wait, we didn’t call for backup”, and get shot by the cops in tactical gear, who then take the drugs for themselves.

The next day, Ollie has his team meet up in a familiar office: the one Alderman Blood used in season two, where he announces some big news. One, he’s running for mayor, which is met with a “are you sure?” look from everyone. The second is in a hidden compartment in his office: an elevator, leading everyone down to an all-new, STAR Labs approved Arrow Cave! Well it used to be Blood’s secret lair, but now, besides a glitch in the computers, is all theirs now!

First item of business: check out who killed those plain clothes cops from last night, so Ollie visits Quentin, who’s flustered his undermanned police force is moving so slow on these killings. Despite his “joy” in hearing Ollie’s running for mayor, he gives Ollie a lead in a cell phone chip found at the scene. That leads the team to a secret armory where they find SCPD issue stuff. We got crooked cops on our hands!

“Hey, sis! It’s me, the person you stole my boyfriend away from years ago! But that’s okay since I kinda stole your superhero identity, so we’re even there, I guess.”

Who/What Is In The Basement. At Palmer Tech, Felicity asks Curtis about this weird glitch with her phone and he recognizes it as part of Ray Palmer’s old OS code. What we discover later on is its an audio message from Ray, taken the day of the explosion that killed him. Felicity is not up to reliving the last moments of Ray’s life, but after some prodding from Curtis, decides to hear it. In the message, she apologizes to Felicity, and she gets all teary. Whether that’s everything he said is something for another time…

Meantime, Laurel has a surprise for dad in the boiler room of her apartment building: its a chained up Sara! “Isn’t this great, dad?”, Laurel says, while Quentin looks like he’s about to puke. Laurel has some old family photos around to help jog Sara’s memory, but Sara really just wants to escape, and almost chokes out Laurel to do it. Awww, family reunions are so much fun!

Party Favors. Team Arrow plans an elaborate trap for these crooked cops by having Thea (playing the party girl role she was good at years ago) use a drug dealer she knows to supply her with a significant amount of drugs for a “party”. Ollie asks Quentin for help leaking the place where the drugs will be into the police force, but once he hears corrupt cops are involved in this, he wants in on busting them. So at the warehouse where the drugs are, our corrupt cops show up, and they seem to have some of that anti-vigilante task force gear. The cops escape just barely, and Quentin seems to recognize one of them. But he keeps that to himself as we hear him explain (along with being the first visitor to the Arrow Cave) these cops have to be former members of the task force he had last season, and gives the Team unfettered access to the police camera feeds. Big mistake, as we’re about to see.

“Felicity, as interesting this is, I hope you didn’t erase that Supergirl pilot off my DVR because of this!”

Darhk Advice. Quentin grudgingly decides to meet with Damien Darhk on the road, and tell him about Sara being alive. Darhk’s advice once hearing she came out of the Lazarus Pit: best to kill her out of mercy. At the Arrow Cave, Ollie is told about the leader of this crew, a sergeant Warner, who is at the same time, discussing with her comrades how to deal with Quentin, but we’ll get to that. As Ollie sees all the police camera feeds complied over the day, he sees that meeting between Quentin and Darhk. Nuts.

What We Do For Family. Quentin gets home to find Ollie there, wanting to know how he knows Darhk (you know, the guy who’s been killing his fellow civil servants). Quentin needed his help when he thought the city was in real trouble and Ollie was gone, but Ollie is just disappointed in him, because he looked up to Quentin in his plan to be mayor, and surprise, another parental figure has betrayed that trust. Even Ollie’s not sure what he should do about this, and leaves. Quentin decides to head back to where Sara is, and comes close to putting down his daughter, but with some talking down by Laurel, can’t bring himself to do it. Poor guy.

But as he’s leaving, he gets nabbed by Warner and her friends, and incapacitate Laurel. That’s bad timing there.

Man, daddy Lance needs a vacation. You know, a month or two out of town to figure things out.

Retirement Planning. At Arrow Cave Deluxe, Laurel’s already there waiting to get a lead from Felicity (if only those computers would stop glitching!), and finds one in Quentin opening the depository for seized contraband. Warner and her buddies are planning to leave town and make off with as much as they can to support them, just like they have been with their entire plan. The Team arrives and starts beating the rogue cops, and Ollie fights Warner (and her nifty wrist blades), freeing Quentin along the way. She gets Ollie in a position where she can kill him, but Quentin argues that she won’t do it. She didn’t plan on killing those cops anymore than she was going to avoid killing him for finding them out. He appeals to her sense of honor, but it somehow works, and she gives herself up. Makes sense?

Path to Redemption. Back at Quentin’s apartment, Ollie’s waiting again, and asks him if he meant what he said about being a good cop. He means it enough that he’s planning to turn himself in, but Ollie has a better idea: since Quentin is within Darhk’s circle, he can be helpful in stopping HIVE. Well, its a start.

At Ollie’s new campaign headquarters, he got lots of new interns ready to work (compliments of Thea stubbing for her big brother) and a speech from Thea that sounds like she remembers a lot of his big speeches to his team. So he announces publicly he’s running for mayor…

Oh, and Laurel finds Sara has disappeared. When you lock a woman in a bustier in the boiler room of your apartment complex, that’s gonna be problematic.

–Comic book connections: Neal Adams (“Neal Adams is not the Green Arrow!”) is known for being half the duo responsible for teaming Green Arrow with Green Lantern for an influential run of comics in the 70’s (like where Speedy is revealed to be a junkie, a controversial subject in its day).

–What’s in the box Damien Darhk has at the end of this episode? Could it be related to next episode’s guest?

–Really, couldn’t get your sister some less confining clothes while she’s chained up in the boiler room, Laurel? I don’t think those clothes are fused to her, are they?

–Some great action sequences here as always, and directed by Lexi Alexander, who did my favorite Punisher movie, Punisher War Zone. It at least earns points for that hilarious parkour mid air death.

–Turns out Thea’s murder of those League of Assassins goons really helped! She’s as chipper as she’s ever been. I think she actually squeed when seeing the secret Arrow Cave elevator!

–The salmon ladder returns, much to the relief of Felicity and female Arrow fans everywhere.

–“Do you have a key to my apartment?”

–“Sure, I got enough here to bust you all for the next 25 years. (Pause) Just kidding.”

–“Something about the drugs and the club makes me feel like I’m in high school all over again.”

–“Oh my god, this must be what talking to me feels like.”

–“Don’t everyone congratulate me at once.”

–“Considering what happened with the last few mayors, I hope you win in a landslide.”

That’s it for now, but leave your comments below and come back next week for the recap of “Haunted”…