Welcome back from the holidays, Arrowheads! As you know, Team Arrow started their Christmas in disarray as a lot of stuff came out into the open, like Dinah still seeing her not dead murderous boyfriend, and Rene being revealed as the informant in the FBI case against Oliver Queen. This causes the newbies to walk away from the Team, only leaving our original flavor Team Arrow to handle the sinister Cayden James. And they have quite a fight on their hands, as James has put together a legion of baddies to deal with things, like Black Siren, Anatoly, Ricardo “Dragon”, and Dinah’s not dead murderous boyfriend! So, welcome to the new year!
Patching Open Wounds. It’s been a few weeks and at the Arrow HQ, we learn Ollie has been running some all-nighters with Felicity, trying to find Cayden James. As for Diggle, Felicity and Curtis are still are friendly terms, and still try to help Diggle with his nerve injury. The chip implant for his wrist doesn’t work this time, and for some reason, there’s a weird reverb coming from using it. It happens enough, that Felicity texts Diggle even though she’s right in front of him, and tells him, “I think we’ve been bugged”. Yeah, we know.
As for the rest of the non-Team Arrow members now, Thea offers to be Quentin’s assistant since Rene got fired, Rene himself thinks Curtis can help him get the evidence against him erased, and Dinah is still very chummy with Vince, who yes, is still using her without her knowledge. The original Team Arrow meets up outside the HQ, and Felicity puts together that the HQ has been bugged since Black Siren went in there earlier this season. Before they can sit and really start putting things together, Ollie responds to a break-in at an office complex. He arrives to find Jerry Bertinelli, the crime boss of the Star City port and one of the only Bertinellis still active, who used this break-in to talk to the Green Arrow. Cayden James and his crew visited Jerry earlier and wanted control of his port, or they would murder his college-age daughter, so clearly getting the Green Arrow to help stop this is worth a shot. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?
Shut it, Black Siren!
Buy Out. Ollie goes to the ARGUS complex, which the Team is temporarily using as a base of operations, and he tells them about what is going on. He also provides tons of surveillance footage of Cayden James at the docks, hoping Felicity can locate the cars James arrived in. Later on, Ollie sees Thea at the mayor’s office and she laments she can’t help out on account of her still recovering from that coma. But hey, Felicity gets a bead on James’ car and he heads out alone, even though the rest of his teammates think that is a mistake. It’s only after he finds and confronts James at that location after knocking out his goons that he finds out how big a mistake he made. Well, he sees all of James’ allies, and wisely, gets out of there super fast.
Odds Stacked. At ARGUS, the Team is trying to figure out how bad this situation is, with the Vigilante and basically two crime organizations behind James. They figure they need help, but Ollie really does not trust bringing his old partners back in. On the other hand, he does agree with Diggle and Felicity that they need to tell them what is going on. So Curtis, Dinah, and Rene are called over to Felicity’s flat and given the news as to what’s happening. A lot of things get figured out, like maybe the evidence against Rene was likely taken from that surveillance on the HQ, but all that talk breaks down when the accusations everyone has on each other come out. These guys really need forced mediation to work through this.
Reeling. Dinah takes this news about Vince pretty bad and confronts him, realizing Ollie is not wrong. She tries to take him in, but he knocks her out and escapes. She wakes up to see Rene at his place, where he learns from Curtis there may be no way to delete all the evidence against him. They start thinking about what will happen when Ollie takes down James, but Dinah suggests maybe they not wait for Ollie to solve this Cayden James problem.
Ollie meets with Jerry and offers up a way to take down James and his whole crew, and then meets with Diggle to set up some things at a warehouse. Diggle suggests Ollie tries to reach out to his former teammates, but he’s not quite there yet, and is also plagued with other questions, like Cayden James’ plan, being as how he has known about their identities for months and hasn’t done anything with it (yet?). The Team meets back at the HQ, and says Jerry has brought in a deadly death squad to handle things, which James sees through his surveillance…just as the Team wanted.
Yeah, set up a headquarters your Big Bad knows the location of. Noobs.
Bait and Switch. That “squad” is meeting at the same warehouse Ollie was wiring for explosives earlier, and of course it’s all a ruse for getting James and all his conspirators into one place. Ollie manages to do okay (with the brief help of Diggle remote control flying some T-spheres for backup), until he doesn’t. Jerry is confronted by James and offers him a chance to atone for his betrayal, and unfortunately, Jerry takes that offer to kill Ollie. But Ollie sets off the charges and uses the confusion to escape. And Jerry does get to know his daughter won’t be killed just as James has “Dragon” shoot him in the head.
The Team(s). After talking to the Team about how unmanageable it is for the three of them to take on all of James’ group, he decides to reach out to his former teammates again. Ollie tries to patch things up and bring them back in, but they say they are going to go their own way in defending the city against James. Ollie offers them the best of luck, but kind of in that way where you say, “well, you think you can fight all those bad guys, go ahead, we’ll leave your lockers open for you when you come back”. And they got a new base of operations, being that old Helix lair where we all first saw Cayden James! Um, that seems like a bad move, newbies.
James does confront Vincent about not killing Dinah earlier, and that’s left a bit open ended to where that is going. On the other hand, Curtis does provide a refined chip for Diggle’s nerve injury, and…it works! Everything’s coming back together, slowly but surely.
Hey Internet, get a freeze frame like this and put some sitcom music and credits over it!
–Comic book connections: Jerry wants to name one of his illicit ships The Huntress, a clear nod to his crazy niece. Where is she, by the way?
–Thea does get to chat with Quentin about all the Black Siren stuff, and, I’m getting a bad feeling from this. Are we looking to redeem Evil Laurel at the cost of Quentin, because I don’t know if I’m cool with that.
–Not a surprise to see the team quoting Bull Durham for life lessons here. It’s a pretty good movie.
–Jerry’s suggesting of an “Arrow signal”. Just going all in with the Batman references this season, huh?
–Crogurts? Um, okay.
–“I’m so sick of everyone not killing him when we get the chance!” I understand your frustration, Evil Laurel.
–“John Diggle: savior of souls and bringer of Java.”
–Curtis: “I like your new haircut.” Ollie: “I didn’t get a new haircut.”
–“A photo album? Oh, you definitely just hit rock bottom.”
–“It’s all about the reveal.”
That’s it for now, but come back next week for the recap of “We Fall”…
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