ARROW Season 6×13, “The Devil’s Greatest Trick” recap

10 Feb

Welcome back, Arrowheads! Star City is still being held for ransom by super hacker/vengeful dad Cayden James, and Team Arrow could not be worse off to deal with this. The Original Flavor Team can barely keep up with James’ machinations, and the B-Team is doing less well. They botch the chance to grab the bomb that threatens to city to save their source, Vince, from James’ custody. All that amounted to was Vince getting killed by Black Siren in front of Dinah. Now you got no bomb, no money to pay that ransom, and Dinah ready to kill everyone, but especially Evil Laurel first!

A Father’s Pride. We get a flashback to a few years ago, as Cayden James was still the head of HELIX, and falling short of being a responsible dad. He is late to see his teenage son, and feeling the kid might be getting sold short by him and his mom, says he will show up for his son’s big basketball game the next day. Against all advice to not do that by Alena no less, Cayden goes to watch the game, but is arrested by ARGUS agents. He asks to see how the game goes before he’s taken away, but is denied that. Later in an ARGUS holding cell, he is told about his son being killed (possibly as collateral damage) by the Green Arrow. Now we know that can’t be the case, but Cayden is now destroyed and filled with vengeance. Speaking of…

4 Hours To Midnight. Ollie and Diggle start searching Cayden’s base of operations, and run into its control room, where a live feed of James is waiting for them. He’s not happy about Ollie turning one of his associates against him like that, and decides that in a few hours, at midnight, he’s going to detonate the bomb over Star City. Ollie tries to tell Cayden about the doctored footage of his son’s death, but that falls on deaf ears. Meantime, Dinah is beating up bad guys to find out where Evil Laurel is, and her teammates find her, trying to steer her off this crazy course. That doesn’t work.

At the Arrow HQ, Felicity and Alena have figured out what’s wrong with that footage: the assassin used to sub in for Green Arrow is one they recognize as being killed by James’ team earlier. So how do they show this to Cayden, anyway? Well, they can finally trace Cayden now (and especially after he’s let his associates go with plans to leave the city), and with little time, call up good ol’ speedster Barry Allen for a lift to intercept Cayden. There, Ollie shows him the doctored evidence, and James recognizes that someone in his organization had to have doctored it. So he offers a trade: he’ll disarm the bomb if Team Arrow will collect his associates Anatoly, Ricardo Diaz, and Evil Laurel alive so he can “chat” with them. Obviously escorting criminals to be killed by another criminal is not cool for Ollie, but what other choice does the Team have?

Ollie: “Here’s proof of who really killed your son?” Cayden: “An Amazon search for My Little Pony toys?” Diggle: “Wrong tab! I was searching for toys for my son. (Pause) SERIOUSLY!”

Pick Up Some Friends. Thea brings William to the HQ, already helping get whoever could fit into those emergency bomb shelters. William is scared by what’s going on, and Ollie being honest about the bomb doesn’t help things. The B-Team of Curtis and Rene arrive to help (albeit reluctantly), and they agree to grab Evil Laure first, as Dinah is on the warpath for her. They are right, as Evil Laurel arrives at a safe house to grab some things, a safe house that Dinah learned about from Vince, because Dinah is waiting there for Evil Laurel to show up. Quentin arrives somehow knowing about the place too, and Dinah gets him out of the way with a sonic blast (NOT. COOL!). The two ladies fight, but get separated by Ollie and some bolo arrows holding them against a wall.

After explaining why the Team needs Evil Laurel alive, Dinah’s willing to put off her revenge until that’s over. The Team has to break up into several groups: Quentin stays with Dinah and Evil Laurel, Ollie and Diggle go to snatch up Anatoly, and the rest grab Ricardo. Once they have all three captured, they contact Cayden for a location to meet, and unfortunately William overhears where that meet is and sneaks out of the HQ. So, he vanishes from an underground location with THREE people inside who can clearly stop him? You can’t hear it, but that’s the sound of my palm hitting my face in disbelief.

Forced Invitation. As they are transporting Evil Laurel with a Siren control collar, Dinah tells Quentin she is gonna kill Evil Laurel and Quentin asks Evil Laurel why she did what she did to Vince. She says his attempts to make her into the daughter he lost is sick, and that she enjoys being evil. But, something makes me think she protests a bit too much. They arrive at Cayden’s meet, an empty auditorium where he has the bomb waiting. Cayden is getting emotional about this betrayal but more about the loss of his son, and then William appears! Ollie is shocked by this, learning William is scared by his dad leaving him alone, and this is the first time the girls in the HQ find this out! REALLY?

Ollie reassures William everything will be fine, but Cayden is tempted to just detonate the bomb now, knowing the killer of his son is probably in that room. Then Evil Laurel claims she set up the hit on his son, but he doesn’t believe it because he saw her hesitation in killing Vince. Unfortunately, the transmitter on the trigger Cayden has is messing with Evil Laurel’s control collar, and once that collar malfunctions, all bets are off.

Talk about clearing a room!

A Father’s Grief. Evil Laurel sonic screams everyone across the empty auditorium, leaving the Team scrambling to retrieve Anatoly, Ricardo, and Evil Laurel. Anatoly And Ricardo escape, but Evil Laurel runs into Dinah and Quentin. During a rough fight, Dinah ends up shooting Laurel in the gut, and Dinah gets knocked out by a sonic scream. We’ll come back to Quentin checking on Evil Laurel later.

Back in the auditorium, Cayden has the trigger and is convinced to blow up the bomb, the blast likely to kill the escaping killer of his son in the process. Ollie cradles William and tells him everything will be fine because they are together. Cayden gets distracted by this affection long enough for Ollie to get the trigger out of his hand. Looks like the threat to the city is over!

The Dragon In Waiting. At the HQ, things are not as cheery as you would believe. The B-Team aren’t looking to rejoin Team Arrow anytime soon, and James’ associates are still on the run. Well, not Evil Laurel, who awakens to find herself patched up in a car, being driven somewhere by Quentin in his mad attempt to make her good again. Ollie visits James in jail, and James basically offers him all the money he stole and all the intel on his missing associates, in exchange for one thing he’s been denied for so long: a visit to his son’s grave.

That turns out to be a grave omen as James gets another visitor after that: Ricardo Diaz. Diaz reveals he’s been making his own moves to put key people in the city (like say, the police captain of the precinct house they are in) under his thumb, wanting to not destroy the city like so many villains before him, but to take control of it. And he admits to killing Cayden’s son just as he fatally stabs Cayden in the neck!

“Yeah, I’m the real bad guy of this season. I’m shocked too.”

Well, Richard “Dragon” Diaz is our Big Bad now? Maybe. We’ll see after we come back from another hiatus!

–Comic book connections: Richard Dragon here is clearly influenced by the New 52 version in the DCU that is after Green Arrow when John Diggle as Green Arrow kills his dad. Richard Diaz Jr. has another connection that is best left undiscussed, because of what it implies for the rest of the season. Ironically, Diggle in the DCU comes from his creation in this show.

–No one is bothering to ask where Quentin went, and with Evil Laurel, huh? Well, except Dinah, but clearly not for some happy reunion time.

–How did William get to that auditorium anyway? I mean, that’s a bit more believable than three grown people just forgetting a kid in the HQ, but it’s a question.

–The B-Team can’t even catch Anatoly. Anatoly, people. Noobs.

–Ollie’s pause when realizing he’d have to call Barry Allen for a quick assist. Yeah,

–“Hi, daddy. I missed you.”

–“I assume it would be foolish to think this was a rescue operation.”

–“You want to put me in prison? Fine. Just out of town, please.”

That’s it for now, but come back in a few weeks for the recap of “Collision Course”…