ARROW Season 7×06, “Due Process” recap

23 Nov

Welcome back, Arrowheads! When last we left Oliver Queen, he got moved back to the main population of Slabside Prison after helping expose all that prisoner abuse on Level Two. Felicity and gang are still trying to capture Diaz, but he is busy in Moscow meeting his old buddy who betrayed him: Anatoly! And in those flashforwards, William and Old Roy run into Old Dinah and grown up Zoe in Star City, and learn that Felicity Smoak is probably dead. We got questions, this recap has…some answers…

Who Killed Felicity Smoak? Back in the flashforward hellscape that is Star City, Old Dinah reveals Felicity was killed several weeks ago. William wants to find out what happened, and has a clue in that holographic map of Star City, which shows a map to some secret location. Our quartet go to the location, which looks like a lair for Felicity, who ended up calling herself The Calculator, like her dear ol’ dad. After disabling a security system using an old archery trick his dad used to do, William looks into Felicity’s computers and finds a elaborate plan to annihilate Star City! Did she create this plan or was she trying to stop it? Hard to say, but there might be an answer in the last contact Felicity had: a client named “Blackstar”.

When you hear your mom might have planned to blow up a city, maybe take a few shots of hard liquor. It might help.

Russian Handiwork. In the present, Diaz is interrogating a tied up Anatoly, who has lost most of his Bratva brethren to Diaz and the Longbow Hunters. Anatoly thinks he is a dead man for betraying Diaz, but Ricardo has his own plans, at least plans to put into effect after he starts torturing Anatoly with a welding torch! Back in Star City, Evil Laurel visits Ollie in Slabside, letting him know she is going to be arguing for his release shortly. He is still thinking she is Black Siren evil, so he’s not gonna hold his breath (and also, he has his own problems this episode). Felicity stops by Evil Laurel’s office to let her know that tracker on The Silencer is now back in town, so now’s the chance to nab Diaz.

Felicity and Evil Laurel arrives at the current location of the tracker, and even Rene stops by to help (well, more like tag along without being asked to). They arrive and find the brutalized Anatoly still alive, the tracker, and then Diggle and ARGUS show up at the same time. Then they all see the same thing, which is a bomb! Everyone gets out in time before the building goes up, and we are left with a lot of explanations among everyone. You know, it’s quite a bit in this season so far.

After that occasionally heated pow-wow about what everyone has been up to, Anatoly reveals Diaz used him to get in touch with a Russian arms dealer, and Felicity suggests (well, more like “entraps”) Anatoly to go undercover and get info from the guy. And it goes fine, until it’s clear it’s not going to, but Felicity lets Anatoly believe he’ll be fine. And he is eventually after Diggle and ARGUS arrives, but not before he takes another beating for his trouble. Afterwards, Diggle is really bothered by Felicity basically letting Anatoly be lead into an unsafe situation like that, but she’s willing to do whatever it takes to stop Diaz. Diggle can only warm that he’s seen and knows those trips to the dark side change a person, and not for the better.

Appealing. Despite Ollie’s insistence to not bother and because Felicity insisted she should, Evil Laurel argues in Federal Court for releasing Oliver Queen, in lieu of exposing all the abuses going on in Level Two of Slabside. She makes a valid argument, but the judge agrees to open an inquiry into those prisoner abuses, but not to release Ollie. Evil Laurel considers attacking the judge later that night, but Dinah shows up to stop over, and tells her that her argument in the courtroom is the moment she was convinced Evil Laurel could actually be redeemable. And hey, Ollie is thankful to Evil Laurel in the end for helping expose the abuses going on in Slabside, so maybe there’s hope for her yet.

Ollie’s realizing he really sucks at picking friends in jail.

Down In The Hole. Speaking of Ollie, before we get to the rest of our Team fighting Diaz, let’s discuss what happens at Slabside. Stanley becomes a buddy to Ollie again, now that he’s back in Level One. Later on though, Stanley is taken to solitary after he’s suspected in murdering a prison guard. Stanley claims he’s innocent, and Ollie looks into it, and thinks Brick and his crew might be involved. While investigating, Ollie finds Bronze Tiger’s ship lying around the scene of the crime, and immediately fingers him as the killer. He claims he’s innocent, but he gets thrown in solitary, and Stanley is freed. So later on, when chatting with Stanley about what happened, Ollie realizes his prison buddy probably did kill the guard. Whoopsie.

Cooking With Gas. At ARGUS, Felicity is feeling a little guilty about doing that to Anatoly, and apologizes to him. He’s fine with it, but has to ask if she’s really willing to do what she has to do to stop Diaz, and she says yes (but I’m sensing “maybe”). Meanwhile, the remainder of Team Arrow has figured out Diaz purchased a few special explosive devices from that Russian arms dealer and is going to use it to destroy Star City (you know, “destroy everything Oliver Queen loves” and stuff). That plan involves strapping those bombs to the local natural gas plant, and requires all hands on deck for this one.

Felicity and Curtis are left to disarm the bombs at the factory, but Diggle and the rest have to find Diaz so that he doesn’t trigger the bombs remotely. Diaz has his Longbow Hunters with him, and it looks like all is lost…until the Faux Arrow takes out Diaz! With the Longbow Hunters fleeing and Diaz now in custody, it looks like all’s good and done. Well, almost done, because as Felicity is setting up some false IDs for Anatoly to get himself back home, he gives her a handgun so she can do what she wants to do.

What Is Necessary. Diaz is left in police custody, which I’m sure is going to be a black eye for the FBI. In the holding room, Felicity drops by to see Diaz, and point that handgun at him. He’s pretty much egging her on to kill him, but before she can, Evil Laurel shows up. She tells Felicity they need Diaz alive because she’s set up a trade with the FBI: Ollie becomes a witness against Diaz’s operation, meaning he can be released, and Diaz gets prosecuted! That sounds great, right? Well, I’m sure something will happen to mess that up next time, so let’s wait and see what that is.

Hope you enjoyed this episode of MTV’s Pimp My Ride, where we tortured someone with a blowtorch to show them how great this new paint job on their car is. Come back next week when Ricardo Diaz screams at a guest and beats him to death.

–Comic book connections: If you know the KGBeast from the comics, you’ll know that Anatoly calling himself that this episode is a clear reference to that connection.

–Old Roy tells Old Dinah about that note he found in Ollie’s bow being the “The Mark of Four”. No clue what that means, but they are concerned if William finds out about it.

–Not sure how murdering the judge would have changed the verdict in your favor, Evil Laurel, so maybe best that Dinah stepped in and talked you down from making that mistake.

–Did Ollie just get free reign of the joint to investigate, because it’s way easier for him to move around now that he’s back in Level One.

–They forgot Curtis’ birthday. Well, everyone’s been busy. Boo hoo.

–“Are you two, like, friends?”

–“I swear, if this gets me killed, I’ll murder you.”

–“Maybe the point is we need to answer our phones more often!”

That’s it for now, but come back next week for the recap of “The Slabside Redemption”…