Starling City’s Most Wanted

This week picks up right where things left off with Mayor Castle dead and Maseo taking aim at Felicity.  Luckily for her Ray pushes her out of the way but ends getting hit with the arrow instead (more on that later) and Maseo quickly makes his escape.  Shortly afterward, Captain Lance calls a press conference and announces that he’s seeking a warrant for the Arrow’s arrest and reinstating the anti-vigilante task force he disbanded during the season premiere.

With every cop in the city looking for the Arrow, Oliver decides the first step is find Maseo and stop him.  He convinces Nyssa to tell him the location of a League of Assassins safe house and the team (including a surprisingly not charred to a crisp Roy) immediately  suits up with even Diggle going out into the field this time as a team sniper.  The team holds their own pretty well against Maseo and a few League goons (including Laurel surprisingly enough) and Oliver appears to be on the verge of killing Maseo when they are interrupted by Ra’s al Ghul.  He makes yet another attempt to persuade Oliver to take over his mantle by saying that if he doesn’t Oliver will “spend the rest of his days in a cage.”  At that moment a police helicopter shows up and orders them to put their hands in the air.

The cops move in to make the arrests when Team Arrow decides to jump off the building instead (though oddly enough Oliver has to swoop in save Laurel from hitting the pavement since she apparently hasn’t mastered using a zip line yet).  Once they’re on the ground an extensive chase sequence ensues.  They all manage to get away but not without some noticeable difficulty.

Secret’s Out

Afterwards, Captain Lance is on the warpath more than ever when he is suddenly abducted by the League.  When he comes to, he finds himself face to face with Ra’s.  Ra’s fans the flame of Captain Lance’s hatred for the Arrow by revealing that Oliver is the Arrow (and now everyone in the cast knows the Arrow’s “secret identity”).  Once that’s over, Laurel tries to reason with Captain Lance at the police station but he’s having none of it and tells her that he knows about Oliver being the Arrow.  Once the meeting between the two is over, Captain Lance wastes no time by calling another news conference and outs Oliver to the entire city and also issuing a warrant for his arrest (don’t you usually need to gather evidence or have probable cause to do that?).

The team gathers at Diggle’s apartment so they plan Oliver’s next move which is a bit of problem since Oliver admits he doesn’t have one.  With no other options Oliver walks into the police station to turn himself in to the police.  It turns out Oliver arranged to cut a deal with Laurel to grant the rest of the team full immunity in exchange for surrendering to the cops.  They’re not too happy with Oliver for doing this but he insists this is only way to end the war with Ra’s and the SCPD.        

Felicity and Ray

Ray naturally survives his hit from Maseo’s arrow but the doctor informs him that he’s far from out of the woods.  While Ray was in surgery, he ended up developing a blood clot that could result in a stroke if left untreated.  To make matters worse, his injuries have left him weak and the operation could end giving him brain damage or even killing him.  Ray suggests that he uses some nano robots he’s recently invented to operate inside his bloodstream and break up the clot.  The doctor refuses to perform the operation however due it’s highly experimental nature and it also doesn’t help that even Ray admits it’s a risky procedure.

As if all of that wasn’t stressful enough for Felicity, her mother pops in for another unannounced visit after hearing about Ray’s condition (how a cocktail waitress can afford airfare on such short notice is anyone’s guess).  Once the two finish catching up, Felicity is able to inject the nano robots into Ray while her mother distracts the doctor.

The experimental operation goes off without a hitch (aside from a brief seizure) and Ray makes a full recovery.  He expresses his gratitude to Felicity but things take a turn for the awkward when he casually declares his love for her.  Instead of saying it back, Felicity clumsily makes up an excuse to leave the room.  She talks to her mother about this, who doesn’t seem particularly surprised that Felicity doesn’t love Ray because she can tell that her daughter’s still not over Oliver (she doesn’t know about Oliver’s current situation since by her own admission she never watches the news).

Flashback Time

We return to Oliver’s flashback this week.  When we last left our hero, he and Akio were on the run from some A.R.G.U.S. agents when he encounters a woman who bears a striking resemblance to his deceased friend Shado.  As it turns out, she happens to be Shado’s twin sister Mei (sure why not?).  With nowhere else to turn, Oliver asks for her help in hiding from A.R.G.U.S.

Once they make it to Mei’s apartment, she asks Oliver how he knows Shado.  He claims that he knew her through medical school, though Mei is clearly skeptical of this story.  When they talk a little bit more about Shado, Mei tells Oliver that she’s had a hard time moving on with her life since both her father and Shado disappeared about three years before.  Shortly afterwards, she notices that Oliver has the same tattoo on his back as Shado and realizes that he’s hiding something.

Mei calls the police on Oliver but unsurprisingly some A.R.G.U.S. agents show up instead to shoot up the place (and here I thought A.R.G.U.S. was supposed to be covert).  Oliver does what he can to fight the agents off but one of them manages to get the drop on him.  He’s just about to kill Oliver when out of nowhere Maseo and Tatsu come to the rescue.

Now that everyone is safe for the moment, Oliver finally decides to give Mei some answers about what happened to her sister and father (though he makes sure not to tell her too much).  While she’s understandably devastated to learn that they’re both dead, she thanks Oliver for finally giving her some closure.

Cliffhanger

The police transport Oliver to lockup where he finds himself alone with Captain Lance in the back of an armored car.  Captain Lance takes this time to scold Oliver about all the pain he’s caused the city.  Admittedly, while he’s not entirely wrong to do so, the whole thing reeks of the same annoying self righteousness we got from Ray last week.  Thankfully this is interrupted by a sudden attack on the armored car.  A man in a green hood shows himself to the police and takes off his hood to reveal himself as Roy who declares that he’s the Arrow (who has apparently seen Spartacus recently).

Analysis

This was a very frustrating episode to sit through.  Since Oliver was able to bury the hatchet with Ray last week, the writers seem to have decided that Captain Lance would take over in leading the anti-Arrow charge.  Granted this was a bit of a long time coming but there are moments where the guy practically froths at the mouth trying to take him down.  As I said before this leads to most of his dialogue coming off as a bunch of self righteous bull crap.  It winds up being such a big focus on the episode that Oliver’s identity being revealed to all of Starling City almost feels like an afterthought.

I also seriously doubt that Roy’s false confession will impact the story for very long since Captain Lance already knows for a fact Roy isn’t the Arrow.  At this point though, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him keep Roy locked up out of spite since the guy seems to have given up weeks ago on doing any actual detective work as far as the Arrow is concerned.  At this rate, I have the feeling the writers are going to kill Captain Lance off before the season is over either by having his single minded hatred for Oliver get him killed or have him do a heroic sacrifice in order to redeem himself.  Either way, it won’t be greatly surprising to me.

Arrow will be taking a break next week but when we return in two weeks the war with The League will continue in ‘Broken Arrow.’