It’s Cupid Stupid
Cupid has returned to Star City and we open with her standing over a newlywed couple. The couple beg Cupid to let them go but first Cupid demands to know just how they feel about each other. They both declare their undying love which prompts Cupid to kill them both with arrows.
The next day, the boxes have all been packed for Oliver to move out of Felicity’s apartment and she can’t seem to get rid of him fast enough. Oliver makes a point of noting how fast Felicity has recovered from her paralysis and I have to agree. It’s almost like it never happened and that little subplot ended up being entirely pointless. Anyway, now that their relationship is history, Felicity asks Oliver to cancel their wedding venue while she’ll uninvite the guests. Oh, and if you love Felicity passive aggressively whining at/about Oliver then this is definitely the episode for you.
Team Arrow goes out on patrol but they come back early because things have been unusually quiet since Damien was arrested. Their reprieve doesn’t last long though when they get a call from Captain Lance. Captain Lance takes him through his latest crime scene where the couple from earlier are found dead with their corpses arranged to shape a heart and Cupid’s special heart shaped arrows found on the bodies. She has also left a note behind saying “Love is dead.”
Back at Arrow HQ, Diggle says that Cupid had apparently worked off her sentence with A.R.G.U.S. and had been released by Waller some time ago, thus somewhat explaining why she’s back in Star City. Unfortunately, this still doesn’t explain Cupid’s sudden change in M.O. but Thea is able to identify the victims as a famous tabloid couple.
Felicity is able to determine Cupid’s next targets and Team Arrow suits up to stop her. Unfortunately, Thea gets injured along the way so Oliver orders Diggle to stay behind and help her while he faces Cupid alone. Oliver saves the married couple but Cupid gets away.
Back at Arrow HQ, the team comes to the conclusion the double whammy of the Arrow and Deadshot’s supposed deaths sent her over the edge and turned her crazy up to 11. However, since both of those things happened a year ago, why she waited until now to start her rampage is beyond me. The good news is that Felicity is able to trace Cupid’s hideout to a wedding dress storage building in the city. When they investigate the building, Cupid is no where to be found they do find more of her creepy shrines and some evidence that shows Cupid is considering making Oliver and Felicity her next targets.
Oliver decides the best course of action now is use himself and Felicity as bait and stage a secret wedding and tip Cupid off about it by having Thea leak it to the tabloids. Luckily for them, Oliver still hasn’t quite gotten around to cancelling their wedding venue, so they can organize it right away.
Team Arrow starts the “wedding” and Oliver uses the vow portion to give Felicity a heartfelt apology for lying to her and reiterate how much he loves her. Once Oliver has said his peace, Cupid picks that moment to attack and shoots Oliver with an arrow and threatens to blow up the building. Fortunately, Oliver had the foresight to wear kevlar underneath his tux and Felicity gives a speech of her own telling Cupid that love is still something worth believing in, which distracts her long enough for Diggle and Thea to take her down and Cupid is arrested shortly afterward.
Oliver hopes that Felicity’s speech means she’s open to the possibility of getting back together. Unfortunately, Felicity quashes those hopes pretty quickly saying there will always be a part of Oliver that will feel the need to keep secrets from her and that they both need to move on from each other. To make that part easier Felicity decides to quit Team Arrow (for the umpteenth flipping time)
Damien
Damien’s criminal trial has now begun with Laurel acting as the prosecutor. Damien’s lawyer comes out swinging asking for a motion to dismiss saying there’s very little evidence to prove that he’s even Damien Darhk, let alone that he’s actually guilty of anything. The judge then tells Laurel to present the evidence she does have to show that there’s enough for Damien to stand trial.
Laurel relays the bad news to Team Arrow and confirms that her case against Damien is indeed pretty weak because she has nobody willing to testify against him. Diggle and Thea volunteer to take the stand since they were both kidnapped by him but that ends up doing more harm than good. Damien’s lawyer is able to poke some pretty big holes in Diggle’s testimony by first asking how Oliver can continue to afford paying him as a bodyguard when he supposedly went broke a couple years ago and also presents a sworn affidavit from the drug dealer Diggle and Thea bought that huge drug stash from a few months back calling both of their credibilities into question.
Noticing how bleak the case is looking, Captain Lance volunteers to take the stand despite knowing that he’ll end up incriminating himself in the process. Laurel tries talking Lance out of it but he refuses because working with Damien has been taking a toll on his conscience so he feels the time has come for him to face the music and take Damien down once and for all (to be fair he has no way of knowing there’s still seven more episodes to go this season).
Laurel has Captain Lance give his testimony (conflict of interest, what’s that?) and gives a detailed account of all the things he did on Damien’s orders. Damien’s lawyer tries to tear the testimony apart but Captain Lance points out that his testimony will probably at the very least ruin his career and maybe even mark him for death, so there’s no reason for him to lie about any of this. His testimony is enough to convince the judge to make Damien stand trial but sure enough Captain Lance has been suspended from duty pending an Internal Affairs investigation.
Damien is escorted back to his jail cell and puts on a ring he had hidden in his mouth and smiles evilly to the camera.
Flashback Time
Reiter marches Oliver, Taiana and some other laborers through the newly discovered cave and finally come across a massive idol not unlike the one that previously belonged to Damien.
Now that Reiter has finally found what he’s looking for, he gives a little backstory about himself. He says he grew up in an African village until one day bandits came and destroyed it and he vowed from that day forward to never feel that helpless again.
Oliver points out that there’s not much separating him from the bandits anymore and Reiter responds by shooting one of the laborers. Reiter then uses his unexplained powers to suck the life force out of the dying laborer in what appears to be some kind of sacrifice to the idol. He gets ready to shoot the others but Oliver and Taiana fight back and escape with the idol. They then later knock out a couple of Reiter’s henchmen and steal their guns.
Analysis
Oh boy, this is easily the worst episode for me this season. I had hoped Felicity would be more tolerable than she had been a month ago but if anything she’s become even more irritating even by Felicity standards. As I said before most of her dialogue consists of her taking passive aggressive jabs at Oliver. I’d like to think that she is actually leaving Team Arrow for good but the writers aren’t that merciful plus she’s also their favorite source of dues ex machinas.
Cupid’s presence didn’t exactly help matters either. It was like she was written into the episode to give Oliver and Felicity an excuse to be even more angsty about their broken relationship even though Cupid’s motivations make no sense to how her character behaved before now. Also, the fact that she doesn’t notice that Green Arrow has the exact same height, build, posture and fighting skills as the “Arrow” really goes to show how stupid she is.
The only real saving grace here was Captain Lance. While it’s looking more and more like he’s the one going into that grave soon it at least seems like he’ll be going that way heroically and not in some tacked on way like they did with Roy last year.
Tune in next week as Team Arrow faces off against the Bug-Eyed Bandit in ‘Beacon of Hope.’
