ARROW Season 7×17, “Inheritance” recap

26 Mar

Welcome back, Arrowheads! So Ollie has been connecting with his newly discovered step-sister, Emiko, whose past has been relatively mysterious, save her search for the man who killed her mother. But as the last few episodes have shown, Emiko is likely more screwy than the other siblings in the Queen clan. For one, we learn the super criminal Dante knows her very well; two, that she is responsible for killing Ricardo Diaz while he was in prison; and three, threatens Evil Laurel with exposing her real identity when the D.A. puts together what Emiko has done. So how did she become a agent of evil? And what will happen when Ollie and company find out the truth? Read on…

Father Figure. We get a flashback to Emiko’s childhood, as she’s heading home to find out Robert Queen is moving her and her mom away from their posh apartment to somewhere “safer”, i.e., away from being found out. Emiko is distraught by her father doing this to them, but has to help her mom make ends meet by eventually being a courier for some of the shadier people in The Glades. This leads her a few years later to Dante, who takes an interest in her, and offers to teach her in the art of being a better thief. Cut to about ten or so years ago, as Emiko is questioning her allegiance to Dante’s organization and her desire to reconnect with her father. Dante offers her something to convince her to be loyal to him, and while we don’t see what it is, we’ll discuss what it is much later.

Emiko not long after has a lunch with Robert, and offers up a very comprehensive program to help his company flourish. As amazed he is by the plan, he doesn’t accept, saying that he wants Ollie to take control of that company when he’s mature enough to, and that hiring her would raise suspicion as to her real connection to the family. He leaves, mentioning he has to take a trip on the Queen’s Gambit soon, and they’ll talk afterwards. And let’s just leave it there right now…

So this episode pretty much cements that Robert Queen is the biggest villain of ARROW, right?

Sister, Sister. In the present, Ollie is doing some sparring with Emiko in her lair, and it seems things are relatively okay between the two. As she takes off to go follow up something on her own, she notices someone is following her. Emiko fires an arrow off at the hidden figure, but loses sight of her mystery stalker. That stalker happens to be Evil Laurel, who got grazed in the arm by Emiko’s bow. By the time Ollie gets home, Evil Laurel is there looking to get patched up, and explain what she has learned about Emiko.

He doesn’t quite believe it, but she points out something he shares with the Oliver Queen of her dimension: their blind trust to family members, and he realizes she’s maybe right.So he manages to get on Emiko’s trail, finds her breaking into a Palmer Tech facility with Dante and some goons. They leave before Ollie gets inside, then gets distracted by an exploding lab and an injured technician. The technician (who we learn was forced to work for Dante under fear of having her family killed) says he needs to get what they took, because they are…The Ninth Circle! Duh duh duh!

Ninth Circle. At the Bunker, the Team meets up and Ollie lays out what he saw, and that what was taken from Palmer Tech were several military grade drones. While Felicity is pretty chill about hearing Emiko killed Diaz, the whole connection to Dante and the Ninth Circle, an organization they are discovering are seemingly far back as the 14th century and connected to civilization altering events, is a bit alarming. Ollie decides to go see Emiko himself to get some answers, and only gets an answer of her having to stay inside the Ninth Circle just to stay alive, even if she doesn’t subscribe to them anymore. And Ollie believes her because, once again, he’s got blinders on.

Somehow Felicity has managed to get her new ARCHER program to trace Dante by his DNA (which I’m sure will not be a problem in the future that Felicity will have to correct), and he is at a chemical plant. The Team arrives, and Dante attacks Emiko, suspecting she led her brother’s team there, but he gets forced to flee with the chemicals, leaving Emiko behind. Looks like Emiko is on the outs with the Ninth Circle, right?

A Queen sibling working under a evil mentor who may be manipulating her? Nope, I can’t see any familiarity with any other Arrow storyline at all.

Playing Careful. Emiko is brought by the Team to the Bunker over concern for her safety, and she thinks the chemicals are meant to be used for enriched uranium, making several dirty bombs that can be delivered via drone to specific areas. Ollie is trusting, Rene is understanding, and everyone else is really suspicious, as they should be. Meanwhile, Dinah has a chat with Evil Laurel about the handling of a big case against a major crime boss, specifically Evil Laurel’s “handling” of key witnesses in the case to make them comply. Dinah wants this crime boss busted, but would prefer it done the right way, minus any illegal antics. During a suspect interrogation, the suspect really prods Evil Laurel over dead not-really-dad Quentin, and she starts to lose it. Dinah takes her out of the interview, and that seems it’s a closed issue, until that suspect is released out of police custody and is found dead! Dinah suspects Evil Laurel killed the guy, and the way that conversation ends, I would start worrying about the former Black Siren.

Back at the Bunker, Felicity is running into problems with the ARCHER program, so she heads off to the server room across the way to figure out what is wrong. While Ollie and Emiko chat, Ollie notices a device lying around, which was left there by Emiko to block ARCHER! Yeah, she’s still working for the Ninth Circle, and Ollie is not happy with this betrayal at all. She escapes, and now the Queen family Thanksgiving get-togethers are made even more awkward, if that was possible.

Divided Loyalties. While Felicity is getting ARCHER back online, Ollie and Diggle head to Emiko’s lair, looking for any leads. Diggle reminds him that we’ve been down this road once before with ol’ Andy Diggle, and that they shouldn’t trust that Emiko might have a change of heart if she’s convinced to. Felicity calls up to find Dante is at an airfield, not making dirty bombs, but packages of nerve gas! It looks like the Ninth Circle is planning a little field test of delivering nerve gas with those drones.

The Team gets to the airfield, where they are unable to grab Dante, and only manage to take out all but one of the drones. Ollie confronts Emiko, who seems to have no problem in trying to kill her brother, but does surprisingly let Rene live in an attempt to flee. The only good news is the drone went off in an abandoned area of town, but if this is the test run for whatever the Ninth Circle has in store for Star City, Team Arrow has their work cut out for them.

“We are so gonna have to go to family therapy sessions with my other half-sister after this is over, you know that, right?”

Failing The Test. Ollie and company are left to their hollow victory, while Ollie himself swears to find out what is going on with Emiko, and save her if he can. That doesn’t seem likely based on what we see next, as Evil Laurel finds out footage of her with Ricardo Diaz has “surfaced”, obviously the work of Dante and his group. Well surprise there, because in a meeting between Dante and Emiko, we learn that Dante isn’t the one in charge of the Ninth Circle right now…Emiko is! And that leads us to another reveal we were hinted to in the flashbacks this episode: Emiko burning the envelope given to her by the Ninth Circle… which is sabotage plans for the Queen’s Gambit!

So, it seems like she knew about Malcolm Merlyn’s plan to sabotage that boat while Robert and Ollie were on it, and when Robert shut her out again, she didn’t tell him about it before. SHE LET THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT GET SUNK AT SEA. Ouch. I don’t even want to guess what Ollie will think when he finds this out.

–Comic book connections: the Ninth Circle has only made itself known in the recent run of Green Arrow, where Dante is the real leader of the group. That may not be the case in the show, but I have my own theories on that below…

–Who wants to bet the killer of Emiko’s mom is a Ninth Circle plant meant to keep Emiko aligned with them? I would be surprised if it wasn’t that.

–Alena is back, helping Felicity work on the ARCHER program, which…yay, I guess?

–Speaking of the ARCHER program, Emiko mentions seeing it and thinking it may be useful to the Ninth Circle in the future, and oh, can we guess what that means for the flashforwards story now? I think we can.

–Robert Queen is THE WORST DAD EVER. That is all.

–“I don’t think you know yourself, and that’s what scares me.”

–“Was not expecting an entrance…or that you knew my last name.”

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