ARROW Season 5×04, “Penance” recap

27 Oct

Welcome back, Arrowheads! Last we left John Diggle, his return to the military hit a sizable end when he was framed for a crime he did not commit. And add to that, he’s still feeling guilt over killing his corrupt baby brother, so he’s not gonna really put up much of a fight to prove his innocence. But Lyla would not like their daughter /son to grow up without a father, so she goes to Ollie to get help breaking Dig out. Will he help her? Obviously the answer is “probably”, but what about his new team and all that trouble with Tobias Church? And hey, what’s up with the Patrick Batman-esque D.A.? Some of those answers are coming up…

Jail Visit. In the Russia flashbacks, Ollie is taken by Anatoly to a nearby prison, and told inside that there is a courier for Kovar currently in holding, but not for very long. So Ollie has to find a way in to get info on Kovar, and that involves pretending to be drunk and disorderly to get arrested. Inside the jail, Ollie talks to the courier, Pyotr, who is not up for discussing Konstantin Kovar. Its only after Ollie tries the threat of “if you don’t tell me, I’ll kill your family” that Pyotr reveals where the dead drop is where he collects Kovar’s packages. And for spilling his guts, Ollie breaks his neck. After getting carted out of jail (because the Bratva look after their own), Ollie admits to Anatoly he’s having doubts about where this is going if he has to be laying waste to low level guys like Pyotr. But he’s Bratva now, so he has that.

Best Laid Plans. Today though, Ollie is getting his team set up to catch a guy robbing a Kord Industries lab. Of course, he has to intervene when Wild Dog jumps the gun, Evelyn is unable to get a clear shot, and Curtis almost gets beaten up. Ollie is not happy, but he gives the team a few days off, for some reason. That reason being when he gets back to the Arrow Cave, where Lyla is waiting to talk to him about the plan to break Diggle out. A plan that Felicity has discovered (because Ollie was stealing tech from her old company, Palmer Tech) and is not into, especially since Diggle doesn’t want out. There’s a good reason he tells DA Adrian he’s going on vacation to handle gout, and leaving Quentin to handle the deposit of the stolen Kord equipment.

Speaking of, Curtis points out the guy, a henchman for Church, stole a basic computer chip that is pretty easy to get. I wonder why would Church want that?

“Sorry, Felicity, but I fear Lyla’s wrath more than yours.”

Deadly Deposit. Ollie is given another piece of news with Rory the Ragman quitting the team, on account of feeling uncomfortable working with Felicity because of what happened to Havenrock. He says he understands Rory’s decision, but tells Felicity to try and talk things through with him. So after that, he drives off to meet Lyla for the big prison break when his teammates show up, knowing what Ollie’s going to do (thanks for snitching, Felicity!) and saying they’re not going to let him. BIG mistake, because Ollie puts them on their ass right quick and takes off anyway.

While Team Arrow 2.0 is failing to confront their leader, Quentin is with Adrian, helping to deposit that stolen stuff from earlier into the police lock-up. There’s reason to suspect that weapons are being stolen from the lock-up, and technically, that’s true. “Technically” meaning that Church had that chip stolen so he could get it put in the lock-up, and use it to break in right then! So Church breaks in and its like Black Friday for him in stealing weapons. Quentin and Adrian survive this, and without Ollie or even all of the Team, it seems Ollie has picked a bad time to leave town.

Prison Break-In. Lyla manages to get Ollie into the prison, and he is sneaking through looking for Diggle, only to find he’s not in his cell, but in general population. This is a real problem because the schedule of their plan is tight enough as it is, and the longer Ollie stays inside, the odds of him being seen by the soldiers inside get worse. At the Arrow Cave, Felicity is getting the bad news from the Team and Quentin, and realizes with Ollie out, maybe its a good idea to try and bring Rory back into the fold. We get a little speech to Felicity to Rory about the hardship of making impossible decisions, and…look, just to cut past this, he comes back in time to help the Team. And guess where Church seems to be striking next? The headquarters of the Anti-Crime Unit!

“DON’T WORRY, I’M USED TO THISSSSSSSSSS…”

Lockdown. At the ACU headquarters, Adrian is interrogating the Church goon who robbed Kord Industries, and he seems extremely interested in something called The Trust. Really interested. But that gets interrupted as Church and a big gang of baddies start attacking the place. With Rory returning, the Team decides they can’t let the people inside the ACU get slaughtered, and go in without their leader.

While we’re awaiting Team Arrow 2.0’s big baptism by fire, Ollie thanks he can get Diggle back to his cell by doing the thing he shouldn’t do: get the prison security to lock down the prison. So after causing a little commotion, Ollie hides in Diggle’s cell until he’s brought back in. Dig feels he has to find some penance for what happened to Andy, but Ollie says better to do that as Spartan that rot in jail as an innocent man. And Ollie pulls out what he stole from Palmer Tech: a super corrosive that eats through the floor into the prison sewers. Hopefully those corrosive fumes aren’t dangerous or anything.

Escape. Ollie and Diggle make their way out of the prison sewers into the prison yard, and Ollie specifically tells Diggle to put on a safety harness. Then, like a scene out of The Dark Knight, Lyla flies in with a cargo plane and skyhooks them from the yard into the plane! Wow!

Meantime at the ACU, the Team arrives and does their best to get the overwhelmed cops and Adrian out. In the ensuing mess, Curtis takes a knife to the back, and in order to hold off Church, Wild Dog volunteers to stay behind to buy some time. He fights Church, but ultimately he gets knocked out and taken away by Church’s men. The rest of the Team gets picked up by Quentin, and even with Felicity’s insistence, are reluctant to go, but they have no choice.

“Alas, poor Crossfit Jason Voorhees, I knew him well…because I kicked his ass.”

Lost Man. Ollie brings Diggle and Lyla to a safe house, where they can rest until they find out how to clear Diggle’s name. He gets back to the Arrow Cave to get the bad news about Wild Dog, and promises they will find their comrade. And that better be soon, because we see Wild Dog strung up, and Church is planning to really HURT him. So will Team Arrow 2.0 recover their friend, even if maybe they’re better off without his impulsive behavior? I guess we’ll find out.

–Comic book connections: Evelyn picked the code name Artemis, who is a character in the DCU. But instead of being a vigilante, Artemis in the comics is an Amazonian warrior, who at one point took the mantle of Wonder Woman.

–I haven’t talked about the whole Quentin and Thea thing, which is her being the surrogate daughter/counsel for Quentin. And he’s been a week sober, so good on him!

–So how do you explain getting knifed in the back, Curtis, to your hubby? At least Ollie explained his “vacation” to everyone was for treating gout.

–“How do we deliver this guy to the ACU? Do we call an Uber?”

–“The ever-expanding clubhouse.”

–“If you wanted to make your own decisions, you wouldn’t have gotten married.”

–“Please make sure no one destroys the city while I’m away.”

–“Was he waiting for an entrance line?” “No, he’s just that cool.”

That’s it for now, but comment below and come back next week for the recap of “Human Target”…