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NOC Recaps Arrow: The Frustration of Justice

Constance Gibbs

Well. That happened. This week’s Arrow threatens to turn the show in a whole new direction. I can’t even begin to guess where they take things next.

Getting to the episode itself, after watching it, I (and trusty Flarrow sidekick Christelle) went back to see a Facebook post Stephen Amell put up earlier in the week to describe the episode.

With this template, let’s break down the episode using the Captain’s own words.

Wait… What?

First off, IS THAT A LAZARUS PIT I SEE? Or some version of it?! R’as is just taking a casual soak when Nyssa comes barging in furious that Oliver is still alive. I guess Nanda Parbat gets Starling City local news. R’as is pretty chill about it, but Nyssa isn’t having it.

Back in Starling, Oliver, Malcolm, and Thea are having an AWESOME triple fight.

Reasons Diggle is The Best #1:

“My friends call me Dig. You shouldn’t even speak to me.”

Thea is still furious with Malcolm and refuses to listen to him more than Oliver says she should. But even that bond is fraying. Thea is having trouble looking Laurel in the eye now that she knows she killed Sara. Roy tries to help, telling her about the cop he killed and the guilt he endures.

People like the scruff.

Over at Palmer Tech, Ray Palmer seems to have gone missing! Felicity comes to find him in his amazingly spacious billionaire apartment. He’s been holed up working on the ATOM suit, but something’s just not right yet. He hasn’t slept, showered, or eaten in days. He dismisses Felicity, saying he needs to focus on getting the suit to work. She leaves, shaking her head. Once again, people don’t listen to Felicity.

Laurel tries to call her dad, but he’s (RIGHTFULLY) dodging her calls. Thea comes by and proves that broodily keeping secrets doesn’t run in the family. She actually tells Laurel that she killed Sara! Wait… What!?

Laurel is actually pretty understanding about it. She recognizes that Thea wasn’t herself, but rages at the fact that they still choose to work with Malcolm, knowing what he did! Laurel’s words make Thea consider another way.

The Table Setter*

*I have the least idea of what this one meant. I’m thinking the literal definition of this act preparing the table that is the rest of the episode, but could it be this obscure (to me, as I know nothing about it) baseball definition: “an unexpected event early in a ball game, such as a defensive error or a hit batsmen, can be called a “tablesetter” for the outcome of the game.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_baseball_(T)

Laurel confronts Oliver about what she just learned. Oliver once again lies to her face about it and now she sees how much he does it. Oliver continues to lose the support of the people around him as Laurel declares:

“You know it’s hard to remember a time when I was actually in love with you.”

Unlike Laurel forgetting Sara’s smile, she doesn’t remember this feeling by the end of the episode. While the anti-Oliver/Laurel shipper in me rejoiced at the finality of this moment, it must sting for Oliver considering his heart is still shredded from the similar statement Felicity made a few weeks ago. He’s losing his grasp on all his friends and those who love him. While I don’t think Laurel loves him in that way presently, and I doubt Oliver believes that she does either, she is burning away the time when she did. With Sara also gone, the three biggest loves of his life have all removed their love from his life. Hard to go on like that. (The shot of Oliver reacting as they spin around to the suit is great. Because that suit is the reason why people keep stomping on his heart.)

Meanwhile, Thea has made a decision. She’s called the League and they come calling. But first, Laurel proves why no one tells her things.

I try to root for her, especially this season, I do. She’s on a journey and is still learning, but man are her mistakes STUPID! She tries to go after Malcolm, ALONE, and is getting trounced before the League of Assassins arrive and show her how it’s done.

Sounds Sorta Interesting

Oliver and Laurel make angry faces at each other for about two minutes while Oliver makes the team prep to rescue Malcolm from the League. Felicity tries to reason with Oliver, but he continues being an idiot. We see what THAT sets in motion. Oliver claims that he needs to rescue Malcolm so that Thea doesn’t face guilt down the road for having her own father killed. Oliver tries to stop the League from escaping with Malcolm, but he just ends up with Nyssa in a Box.

The team is worried Oliver is going to torture Nyssa to get the information he needs. Interestingly, no one seems to stop him. I guess they just figure, nothing we’ve said to dissuade him from another so far has gotten through, why try now?

Reasons Diggle is the Best #2:

“You can’t save Thea’s soul at the cost of your own.”

Thankfully, Oliver didn’t plan on torturing her. (I loved her line, “your every action has been aimed towards the frustration of justice” so much that i used it for the subtitle.) She offers the location of Nanda Parbat pretty immediately, basically hoping Oliver will die there because of how much he’s been annoying her and not letting her get justice. No one wants Oliver to go, but he really doesn’t listen (Malcolm is right about a few things: #1 being that he’s STUBBORN). Dig tries to make Oliver see that he’s not just doing this for Thea, but he takes offense anytime someone suggests different.

Felicity checks on Ray again. Since Oliver “has his head shoved so far up his colon, that… he’s literally going to get himself killed,” Felicity takes it upon herself to save someone who will actually listen to her. She locks Ray out of the ATOM mainframe (or something techy like that) and makes him eat, take a shower, and head straight to bed. Himself. Alone. Not her TAKING him to bed. Although… maybe?

The best moment of this episode for me?

DIGLETTE!!

Baby Sara and Lyla make an appearance! Lyla gives Diggle advice so he can give better advice to Oliver. Or something like that. Lyla speaks for us all when she encourages John to get back in the field and really help Oliver like he should be. She and we the audience know he should be out there. So Go!

Reasons Diggle is the Best #3:

“You think we could borrow the ARGUS jet?”

Leading us to:

That Coulda Gone WAY WORSE

WOW is this symbolic! With Oliver being the one who will “be with Me in paradise?” hmm

Oliver and Diggle infiltrate League grounds, while Ray infiltrates… something else. (Too much?) While Oliver and Diggle get themselves caught, knocked out, and chained together, Ray and Felicity connect in a whole new way.

https://twitter.com/christellexoxo/status/570809684967317505

I don’t like Raylicity, but I can’t even be mad. (I loved how she literally couldn’t look at him shirtless, she kept turning around when he faced her.) Well, I’m a little concerned, but more on that later. After Felicity opens up with brainwaves (there are too many innuendos to go with here, choose your own), Ray UNLOCKS THE SECRET TO COMPLETING THE ATOM SUIT.

He flies around Starling City, leaving a thoroughly knocked out Felicity snuggled in a billion dollar apartment.

Over in Nanda Parbat, Oliver seems to have belatedly realized that he’s not after R’as just for Thea. He can’t live knowing someone out there beat him. (He has no problem with Malcolm running around, someone who beat him TWICE, but okay buddy). He actually acknowledges this is “egotistical and insane.” The first step is recognizing you have a problem, right? Diggle and Oliver pretend like they aren’t about to die and Diggle asks Oliver a favor. In a moment that is no surprise, but was still AAAAAWWWWWWWWWW worthy, Diggle asks Oliver to be his best man.

Reasons Diggle is The Best #974:

“When I lost my brother, I never thought I’d get another one.”

Yeah, I definitely teared up a little a lot at that line. Oliver accepts, making me wonder what kind of bachelor parties Arrow!Ollie throws these days.

Huh.

“No, Mr. Queen. I don’t want to kill you. I want you to take my place. I want you to become the next Ra’s al Ghul.”

That’s what TV Tropes would call a Wham Line!

When Stephen said the last moment would be a “huh” moment — not a question, but a slow nod — he really meant it. While it wasn’t hard to see Oliver becoming a pupil of Ra’s in the future (they’re so alike, as I think I mentioned in the midseason finale), I never imagined Ra’s  would offer the position itself to Oliver.

I have so many questions and so few theories as to where the writers are going to take things. I know only one sure thing about the rest of this season: There will be a wedding (if behind the scenes vids of the cast in formal wear is any indication).

Oliver can’t (maybe more like shouldn’t?) actually become Ra’s al Ghul. There are SO many reasons why, you don’t need me to explicate them, but here are a few things that immediately come to mind

Just like Oliver actually dying would never actually happen, Oliver becoming Ra’s would of course negate the title and premise, but the offer itself is interesting. Will Oliver seriously consider it? (I’m sure he’s realized by now that Ra’s is like 100 years old — does Ollie want long life like that?) Is it just a way to learn from the master and then beat him? This definitely will make Oliver consider who he wants to be, since apparently death did little to make him self-evaluate.

Also a “Huh” moment? Thea offering Nyssa the chance to kill her for her role in Sara’s death. WATER YOU THINKING THEA? Not that I think Nyssa will kill her. I think she will appreciate the honesty and maybe give a half-hearted fight, but what will this moment do for the relationship between the two? But Thea is bold. She may not be a killer (well, she’s got it in her, remember what I said last week about her shooting Malcolm at the train station, then Slade on Lian Yu), but she’s earnest in her desire for transparency. We’ll see how her method, so very different from Oliver’s, will treat her going forward.

Quick Flashback Recap: ARGUS lied to Ollie and Maseo’s family about letting them go home. The end. Okay, but actually we need to talk about the kid, because we assume he’s dead in the present since he is with neither of his parents and their grief seems to have separated them, but what is about to happen to him while in Oliver’s care? I doubt that Maseo and Tatsu would come to his aid the way they did if he died under Oliver’s protection (unless it wasn’t his fault), so what happened? That’s the one thing at all interesting me about the flashbacks these days.

Flechettes:

No new Arrow until mid-March…! How will we cope?!

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