ARROW Season 6×20, “Shifting Allegiances” recap

29 Apr

Welcome back, Arrowheads! While Ricardo Diaz is consolidating power for himself in Star City and aligning himself with the criminal cadre known as The Quadrant, Team Arrow is splintered all over the place. Diggle is now working at ARGUS, the noobs are waiting for Rene to return to duty, and Oliver is on his own, waging a one man war against crime once again! Good thing for Ollie that he’s currently out of a job as a mayor right now, because he’s got a lot of work to do in taking down Diaz.

Hunting Parties. We start up in Moscow, as Ollie is taking down some random drug dealer, but we discover it’s in service of the Bratva for something he wants from them. Diggle is chatting with his crew of guys at ARGUS about some kind of big meeting over guns that Diaz is involved in. Dinah and Curtis welcome Rene back home from his time in physical therapy, and tell him what has happened since he got laid out and that they got a lot of work to do. Meantime, Diaz let’s Evil Laurel know that it’s time to meet the new mayor, Mr. Quentin Lance.

Our old buddy Anatoly is just chilling with his men when they end up unconscious, and Anatoly realizes his unexpected visitor is Ollie. Ollie lets Anatoly know that he has cleared up any issues with the Bratva, and now Anatoly can return to their ranks. And Anatoly’s thank you is? Tasing Ollie! A simple handshake would have sufficed.

“I should have called ahead to see if you were home or knocked. I see that now.”

Stalking Prey. Ollie comes to, all chained up, and wondering why his old frenemy is upset with him. Well, Anatoly is still upset about being betrayed by Ollie last season, and thinks siding with Diaz would be better for him. And guess who Ollie will be meeting soon enough? Meanwhile, Evil Laurel is having lunch with Quentin at a Chinese food joint, when Diaz pops in. He’s got one thing he wants done: sign away a piece of property in the city to Diaz, or else. And then he taunts Quentin by letting him know how Evil Laurel has been working for him all this time. Quentin refuses to sign the paper, but Diaz will give him some time to change his mind or else.

Later that day, our newbies find out about a meeting with Diaz and a gang in the Glades to get weapons, and decide to break it up. But it’s really Diaz making a move to wipe out his competition in taking out this gang, and they things get messy, and all of this is before Diggle and ARGUS drop in. During this, Rene freezes up in battle and they all get out of there before the cops show up.

Errors. Evil Laurel pays a visit to Mayor Quentin’s office to try convincing him to sign that lease because she doesn’t want to see him get hurt, how afraid she is of Diaz, but he’s hearing none of it. He’s so pissed off he blames himself for thinking there was any worth in saving her, and tells her to get out of his place. This makes what happens next annoying, as later he heads to his apartment to find Laurel finishing up packing. He tells her about his mistake in working for Damien Darhk and how that ended up with his Laurel’s death. So they both realize they need to keep each other safe, and I start vomiting.

Back at the newbies lair, both them and Diggle learn from each other about Diaz being affiliated with the Quadrant, and that they plan on making the city a massive way station for advanced weapons sales. While they find out where that place is, Rene expresses how his several near death experiences (yeah, more than one this season) have messed him up in the field to Diggle. A lot of it’s just nerves, but Rene decides to sit out the mission to take out the arms depot just in case. Whatever, because you got ARGUS backup for this one!

“So I suppose I was missed, huh, hoss?” “Not really. I thought you were dead, or hoped you were.”

Tagging Trucks. Ollie is being brought into some place by Anatoly, who tells him that Diaz is not someone honorable to be associating with, and he knows Anatoly does have some honor in him, no matter what he’s doing. We’ll see how that sticks. At the arms depot, ARGUS and the newbies arrive to stop the first big shipment of weapons. That involves Curtis tagging the trucks for a drone strike, and eventually, those trucks go boom. You think Diaz will be happy about this?

Fighting Fair. At that little lair they are holding Ollie, Diaz arrives to see his new prisoner, really pissed he just lost millions in arms to his ex-teammates. Diaz starts beating on the chained Ollie, and Anatoly convinces Diaz that beating up an unarmed man is not cool at all. So Ollie is unchained and given a proposition: fight Diaz, and whoever wins, leaves town for good. Ollie accepts and the two beat the crap out of each other. Ollie eventually gets Diaz in a sleeper hold and looks like he’s going to win, until Diaz pulls a knife and stabs Ollie in the side to finish the fight. Anatoly sees that and is clearly not cool with this unfair fighting move.

Later as Ollie is recuperating in a cell, Anatoly visits him and is impressed. You see, he realizes Ollie allowed himself to be caught and brought to Diaz so he could see how dishonorable and untrustworthy his new business partner is. I’m sure Ollie wishes he didn’t have to get stabbed to do that, but hey, whatever you gotta do to make your point.

Without Honor. The newbies meet at Rene’s place, where he says it might be better if he just quits being a vigilante to stay with his daughter. Then his daughter, who can overhear things better than most, tells her dad if he can help fight these bad guys, he should. So, that settles that. At Diaz’s office, Evil Laurel brings him the lease signed by Quentin, which was more as a message that no one was above him in authority, not even the mayor. Then he has Ollie brought in, and says, “Hey, I changed my mind about that deal in that fight, and am gonna let you stay in town…in prison!”.

He has his corrupt cops take Ollie into custody, with no bail, because he has that pesky trial moved up to, say next episode. So grab your popcorn for that.

Really, nothing in the news about why did their former mayor look like he lost a fight with a giant while he was being lead away in cuffs?

–Comic book connections: Ollie is on trial, which has happened in the comics too, of course that was for actual murder of a bad guy.

–Oh, by the way, yes we do see Felicity in the montage of people watching Ollie being given the perp walk at the end. And William’s there too, in case you asked or care.

–The nuts on Curtis to ask Diggle if he wanted to join their team after the crap he pulled regarding that chip in Diggle’s arm. Diggle declines, and good on him.

–Man, Ollie gives off a “you failed this city” to Diaz, as he’s lying on his back from that knife wound, all bloodied up. Yeah sure, Ollie, like you’re in a position to deliver on that threat right now.

–“Handcuffs would’ve been fine.”

–“How does next week sound for you?”

That’s it for now, but come back next week for the recap of “Docket No. 11-19-41-73″…