ARROW Season 7×13, “Star City Slayer” recap

13 Feb

Welcome back, Arrowheads! When last we left our heroes, the Team got officially deputized as cops, which solves a lot of that pesky anti-vigilante stuff, right? Well we still got issues to deal with, like William being all sulky after coming home from boarding school, which we discover he got expelled from. And we also have someone stalking our heroes, leaving them threatening notes, but nothing truly horrifying happening…yet. In the future, Mia (the woman also known as “Blackstar”) takes a friend, Connor Hawke (also known as John Diggle’s son) to find the old Arrow Bunker for some reason. Now that we got that catch-up out the way, let’s get to the recap proper…

Stalker. It’s morning at the Queen loft, and before William can dig into breakfast pancakes, Ollie has to ask his son what is going on that he would get expelled from boarding school. William is just upset about all the stuff his dad has done, like voluntarily going to prison instead of staying with his family. It’s obvious this argument isn’t going to be solved immediately, and besides, we got other problems. One is that Curtis lets Diggle know he is leaving ARGUS to take on a tech-related job in Washington D.C., because clearly this whole Ghost Initiative stuff has become untenable for him.

The other is that pesky stalker that is leaving threatening notes to all of Team Arrow (except Curtis, oddly enough). The Team meets at the police station to discuss their next move, but the stalker makes one of his own later that day as he appears in the house of Councilman Kullens, the corrupt councilman who pushed Ollie out of being mayor, while he is asleep. The stalker injects Kullens with something that immobilizes him, which leads to the stalker slitting Kullens’ throat. Payback’s a B, but it’s clear there’s a connection between the Kullens murder and the Team, but what?

Probably for the best Curtis is leaving Team Arrow. These serial killer type episodes tend to not work out so well for nerds.

Guardians. Ollie goes home and finally has a real chat with William about what is wrong. Well, William is just flustered about not really having a normal life, what with his mom being killed by a vengeful supervillain on a mysterious island, being kidnapped, being shipped overseas over the whole Diaz mess, and dad going to prison. That conversation gets heated, because it’s clear all of their points have merit, which leads that talk nowhere. Then things get worse when William’s grandparents show up, saying William called them earlier, and based on that talk, decided to ask for guardianship of him! Damn it, William!

Well, Ollie is caught off guard in the worst way, saying he won’t give up custody of his son.Later on, he decides to chat with Felicity about this whole thing, and it’s obvious there’s a point to all of this. William isn’t going to have a normal life living with his father right now, and that may not change for awhile. But best to chat about later as a family, because they are going to sit down for a chili dinner. As for what the rest of Team Arrow is up to?

Haunted House. The Team has discovered the drug used to immobilize Kullens is so rare, it had only been purchased by someone living in the Glades in an abandoned house. Diggle, Dinah, Curtis, and Rene head over there to search for clues, and find quite a number of them as they split up. Well, they find a Slabside Penitentiary jumpsuit lying around, and Dinah finds a lot of clippings of the Team and a scrapbook following Ollie from his return from Lian Yu and on. Well surprise, we learn that the stalker is none other than Ollie’s escapes homicidal cell mate friend, Stanley, and Dinah finds out too late as Stanley slashes her throat!

Leaving her for dead, Stanley wanders off, as the rest of the Team arrive to find Dinah still clinging to life. Curtis has some high tech lasers that could seal the neck wound, but hasn’t tested it yet. Seeing as how she is bleeding to death, they have no choice but to use it, and it seems to save her, at least long enough to point to Stanley’s work bench of stalking. It’s obvious they are the targets, but this is all circled around Ollie. How is he doing, anyway?

“Okay, I got some great Olicity fan fiction I want to pitch you on, so just hear me out…”

Dinner In The Dark. Ollie, Felicity, and William are sitting down to have some of Ollie’s homemade chili for dinner, as the power fluxes on and off. The conversation is a little tense, but then they all start noticing they are having trouble moving. Somehow Stanley has been pumping a gas version of that immobilizing drug into the loft’s vents, and Stanley shows up once the gas dissipates. He thinks that he is doing Ollie a favor by killing those like Kullens who hurt him, and that the Team itself is doing the same thing.

Suffice to say, Stanley reveals he is really damaged, having been abused as a kid and ultimately murdering his whole family, and is on the fence as to whether to “correct” Ollie and his family. While Stanley explains his life story, the trio silently help move with what little mobility they have a bottle to Ollie. When they intentionally instigate Stanley to attack them, Ollie is able to move enough to break the bottle on Stanley’s head, rendering the psycho unconscious. The rest of the Team shows up afterwards to take Stanley back to prison.

Scarring. At the hospital, Ollie and family are getting checked out for that drugging, and learn that Dinah is in surgery, but are unsure about her voice (well, we know in the future she still can, despite a scar from what was clearly Stanley’s attack). Curtis knows it’s not the best time to tell everyone, but he’s going to be taking the job in Washington, and leaving HELIX in Felicity’s hands. Speaking of awkward goodbyes, this whole experience has made Ollie ask William if he wants to stay with him or not. William knows Ollie will be who he is and right now William needs some normalcy right now, so Ollie agrees to let him live with his grandparents for now.

While Ollie and Felicity are wishing William off with his grandparents, Felicity gets a personal call from the hospital, and while we don’t hear what she is being told on the other end of that conversation, it seems to be shocking to her. Why, you may ask? Let’s see if the flashforwards can answer that…

This Old Bunker. Grown up William, Roy, Dinah, and Zoe seem to be getting nowhere finding out about the Star City bombing plot, even with hacking that Archer surveillance program. They talk and figure out that maybe the bombs needed for the plan aren’t in place yet, and there’s one place they could be: the old Arrow Bunker. They go there and realize they aren’t alone before getting tranquilizer darts in them, thanks to Mia and Connor! Roy and Dinah are taken to another part of the Bunker, where they realize Connor is Diggle’s son.

As this is going on, Mia is threatening William and Zoe for access to Archer, because she wants to find Felicity, who she says is very much not dead. When in the middle of this interrogation William drops Felicity is his mom, this catches Mia off guard, almost as much as Dinah and Roy escaping to take down Mia! The fight hits a stalemate, when William threatens to stop Mia from hurting anyone else, and she drops a bombshell: her full name is Mia Smoak, and she’s the daughter of Ollie and Felicity!

Well, you fans wanted Ollie and Felicity to have kids, so…you’re welcome?

Um, well congratulations, Felicity and Ollie, your daughter is a bit of a jerk. I don’t even want to guess what made Mia that way, but we’ll probably find out next time!

–Comic book connections: Stanley is known as the Star City Slayer here and in the comics, who also was part of a Green Arrow plotline years ago. Ollie’s famous homemade chili is a callback to Green Arrow lore, being he knows how to make great chili. The neck injury to Dinah is not dissimilar from another Green Arrow arc where Dinah Lance suffered the same injury.

–So, we learn that Curtis is leaving Team Arrow, as Echo Kellum is leaving as a regular actor on the show to spend more time with family. Here’s hoping we see Echo and Curtis again sooner than later. He’ll be missed.

–We get a Captain Singh cameo from The Flash, which becomes a omen, like the chat with young Zoe earlier than Dinah is due for some tragedy before the episode’s over. Of course, we see her voice is healed in the future, but what about her Canary Cry?

–Personally I’m more amazed the grandparents didn’t show up around the time their daughter mysteriously died, but okay sure, now they’re convinced to seek custody of William.

–NEVER. SPLIT. UP. First big rule of horror movies.

–“After pancakes?”

–“‘The Green Arrow has entered through the front door.'”

–“Split up? Haven’t you guys seen a horror movie before?”

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