ARROW Season 1 rewatch, Ep. 16, “Dead to Rights” / Ep. 17, “The Huntress Returns”

11 Aug

Welcome back to the rewatch, Arrowheads! When last we left the rewatch, Ollie and Diggle had to bring tech girl Felicity into their vigilante party, when her information on the still disappeared Walter leads them to a suspect: Walter’s wife and Ollie’s mom, Moira. Moira herself is not cool with this kidnapping engineered by Malcolm Merlyn, so she makes the most rational decision she can: hire the Chinese Triad via China White to kill Malcolm! Also, Thea meets some boy named Roy, but that go anywhere, mark my words. Anyhoo, let’s get back to it…

Yeah, he’ll be doing salmon ladder pull-ups shirtless in no time.

“Dead To Rights”

In the flashback this episode, Ollie decides to not sit around and wait for another chance to get off the island, so he starts working on a busted radio in Slade’s plane wreckage. After a while, he manages to get the radio working, but unable to send out a message. Slade however realizes they have a way to listen into Fyers’ activities, specifically something called “Scylla”, which Ollie recognizes from Homer’s The Odyssey as a monster. The two scout out what “Scylla” is and find an advanced missile launcher platform there. Whatever could that be for?

Right now, Ollie takes down an assassin that has arrived in Starling City, but doesn’t learn who the assassin is there to kill. Coincidentally, Ollie is bringing McKenna to see Laurel and Tommy for Tommy’s birthday party, when Malcolm visits to invite his son to an awards gala for Malcolm’s humanitarian efforts. Meantime, China White is visiting the somehow still alive Floyd Lawton, aka Deadshot, who has been drinking himself into a stupor since he lost his eye to Ollie. But China brings an offer for an assassination job, along with a cybernetic eyepiece for Deadshot. Later on, Ollie learns from Felicity and Diggle that the assassin they killed was contacted at a restaurant run by the Chinese Triad. Ollie uses a dinner chat about regret with fathers with Tommy as an excuse to go to the restaurant and find out more about the target. He does learn about another assassin, but not that it’s Deadshot.

At the award presentation for Malcolm, Moira is playing things cool, especially since she expects him to be killed there. Once Felicity cracks the info that Malcolm is the target, he informs Quentin and heads to the gala. With a little warning, Malcolm leaves with Tommy to his office, where he says there’s a panic room there. During the trip, Malcolm kills one of the attackers, which concerns Tommy, and once they both end up in Malcolm’s penthouse, he almost reveals his whole Dark Archer thing. Then Deadshot manages to pierce the supposedly impregnable room and shoot Malcolm full of bullets!

Ollie arrives to find Malcolm alive, but infected with the poison that Deadshot got him with during their first encounter. He arrives to tell Tommy that Malcolm needs a transfusion to survive the poisoning, but Tommy doesn’t believe “The Hood” at his word. So Ollie takes a risk and reveals himself to earn Tommy’s trust! Turns out the transfusion is successful, and Tommy stays quiet about knowing who The Hood is. Ollie heads back to his lair to let Diggle know Deadshot is still alive, which he doesn’t take all that well.

At the hospital, Malcolm awakens to talk to Tommy, and briefly discusses his brief absence from his son’s life after Tommy’s mom died, mentioning he was learning something about how to save his city. But Tommy is interrupted by Moira visiting, and has a chat outside Malcolm’s room with Ollie, who isn’t forthcoming about everything involving The Hood. Moira is asked by Malcolm to find the traitor in the group who endangered his life, so whoops there. On another end, Laurel receives a visit from her estranged mother, with a surprising bit of news: she thinks Sara, Laurel’s sister, is alive!

EYE see you.

–Comic book connections: Nanda Parbat is a reference to the League of Assassins, a significant part of the DCU, and would be a frequent enemy for Team Arrow so far in the show’s run. Also, Dinah Lance was one of the people in the DCU who took up the mantle of Black Canary.

–Fall Out Boy was broken up when this episode came out, but not anymore. Just one of those anachronisms that happens when a show is on the air for a while.

–Malcolm’s two year absence comes back to be explored in season three, and mentioning that alone makes me shudder in how wrong that plot goes.

–Alex Kingston as Dinah has quite a few noteworthy shows on her belt, like ER and Doctor Who (the latter of which also guest starred John Barrowman). Also, like Paul Blackthorne, another British actor playing American.

–“You look beautiful.” “I don’t try, but it keeps happening.”

–“So you’re thinking that aircraft maintenance is genetic?”

–“Oh thank god she didn’t cook.” “Amen.”

I’m sure Tommy has paid a woman to do that to him at least once.

“The Huntress Returns”

In this episode’s flashbacks, Ollie and Slade check out that missile platform and realize they got to get the half dozen or so soldiers away from it in order to try and destroy it. So Ollie leads Slade into the camp making Slade look like his prisoner, and Slade kills the soldiers. While placing explosives on the missile platform, Ollie comes up with an idea: he steals the circuit board for the missile platform, thinking they can use it as leverage to get Fyers to help them leave the island.

Remember Helena Bertinelli from some episodes back? Well she’s returned to Starling City, and she’s looking for her missing crime boss dad. Speaking of people looking for relatives, Quentin unknowingly meets with his ex-wife, Dinah, and Laurel to hear about Dinah maybe finding Sara alive. That rattles Quentin to no end, which is nothing in comparison to when Ollie finds out Helena is back in town. Well, he doesn’t have to wait long to find out why she’s here when she shows up at his family manor, asking for help. She has learned her dad has cut a deal with the Feds that will put him in Witness Protection, but she needs an extra hand like Ollie to help her kill her dad. Then she offhandedly mentions to Ollie if he won’t help, she can make him help.

It’s the day of the opening of Ollie and Tommy’s new club, Verdant, and Tommy is still disturbed that his best friend is also a murderous vigilante. The night of the opening, it looks like the opening is going well, until he receives a note from Helena to meet her below in his lair. She has Tommy hostage, and threatens to hurt him if Ollie doesn’t help him kill her father. He agrees, thinking he might be able to contain this situation if he is nearby her. The plan is to hit the two vans (one a decoy, one with Frank in it) going to federal court with Frank. Only problem is, both don’t have Frank, and the van the Huntress hits is swarmed by Quentin, McKenna, and the cops.

At the police station, Helena is offered a chance to make things easy if she reveals who The Hood is. She does say “Oliver Queen”, but Quentin and McKenna don’t believe that, but have no time to question her further, because Ollie breaks into the station to free her. Afterwards, Ollie offers Helena a plane ticket out of town, making clear there’s no way to get to Frank now that the cops are aware Helena is out there. Well, her response to that is to make Felicity find where Frank is under duress. Ollie rushes to the safe house where Frank is, and ends up fighting Helena, until she makes her escape by injuring McKenna.

The next day, Ollie visits McKenna in the hospital to learn she is moving away to get rehab for her injuries. Ollie is a little bummed that his balancing love and his vigilante job has not worked out so well. I’m sure he’ll figure it out eventually.

Well, at least she hasn’t ended up like Ollie’s previous love interests: dead, resurrected, replaced by a parallel universe doppleganger, made less interesting.

–Comic book connections: Helena’s outfit at that strip club is a clear reference to one of the Huntress outfits from the DCU. She got better outfits to wear…eventually.

–In weird Arrow connections, Steve Aoki’s sister (referenced by Ollie as being one of his dates years ago) was almost Katana in the third season.

–One subplot not mentioned: Thea reaching out to Roy Harper there, offering to give him a job at Verdant and helping him get medical help when he gets stabbed defending her from some muggers. Also, he’s really nervous around needles, and for good reason as we’ll learn next season.

–Laurel and Tommy’s relationship is hitting some rough patches, because of her dealing with her mom and him lying about Ollie to her.

–“Yeah, I had second thoughts about parking your brother’s Bentley.”

–“You want me to kill her?” “I think you would have a long time ago if she looked more like me than the T-Mobile girl.”

That’s it for now, but come back for the rewatch of “Salvation” and “Unfinished Business”…