Now, ARROW isn't a show that dwells too much on the details. Before Christmas Oliver outed Darhk as the leader of the Ghosts and architect of the terrorist attacks against Star City. I presume he also had evidence to back up that claim? Ruvé Adams, Darhk's wife, has entered the race for mayor, a woman Oliver and co. know to literally be in bed with Darhk. Can they not just out her as a bad guy too?
Team Arrow decide to follow her one evening, hoping that she'll lead them to Darhk. What plays out next was possibly the most non-sensical tailing scene I've ever seen. At one point Green Arrow leaps Adams' car with a motorcycle. How can they possibly hope to not be spotted? Felicity even calls it “textbook?” It what universe does doing motorcycle stunts qualify as an effective tailing tactic? When they find her in an old parking lot, she sicks some Ghosts on them, leaving me thinking if only one of them had a camera on them to document this...
For having betrayed them, HIVE makes its move on Lance this week. Faking a call of a breaking in at an abandoned building to draw him out, Lance nearly ends up the victim of HIVE’s latest heavies, dubbed the Demolition Team, who try to bring a building down on him. I feel a more conventional hit would have made more sense, but this is ARROW and it does make sense that they could have made it look like an accident.
Barely avoiding being entombed in the collapsing building and fearing that HIVE will come for him again, Lance decides to break things off with Felicity's mum, Donna. Donna can tell he's not telling her the truth when he gives her a story about getting in over his head with some disreputable bookie, giving him an ultimatum of telling her the truth or she walks. I already knew what he was going to do before he opened his mouth as the ARROW writers love their characters keeping secrets from each other. In a scene that nearly had me throwing something at the screen, yelling “Just TELL HER,” Lance decides to keep her in the dark, leading to a teary Donna storming out on him.
Team Arrow track the fake call put in to Lance to the Demolition Team's hideout, leading them to discover their next target, the theatre where Oliver Queen and Ruvé Adams are due to have their mayoral debate. Quickly figuring out that the plan, to simultaneously take out Oliver whilst leaving Ms “Oh I'm not married” Adams as the survivor of a heinous terror plot with a strong sympathy vote on her side. Team Arrow defeat the Demo Team and disarm the bombs, leaving them with the laughable situation of still having the debate in the same venue on the night it was nearly blown up! Now, perhaps stupidly, I was looking forward to seeing the debate, but alas details and we never see the thing, only being told Oliver won it.
Five year earlier.... On the island, Taiana, a woman whose name I have to google each week without fail to ensure I spell it right, tries to convince their fellow prisoners that Oliver doesn't deserve to die, not even for killing her brother. She points out in fact that he may be their only way to escape the island. But the only way Oliver is going to convince them that he's on the up and up is to kill the only other one of Reiter's men they hate more than him, Conklin. Considering the animosity between Conklin and Oliver, I'm astounded Reiter left them in a room alone together, but he does, giving Oliver the perfect chance to kill him. Farewell Conklin, it's been a good eight episodes. You weren't the most fleshed out antagonist, but you were good at seeing through the b.s. most of the time.
Back in present: Thea discovered that her mother wrote a cheque to one of Oliver's exes for $1 million, a cheque that was never cashed. Digging a little further to see if this could lead to something Adams' campaign could use on Oliver, she finds out about William, Oliver's secret son. This is where I gave up on Oliver. He confesses the truth to Thea, that he indeed does have a son, but that his ex has asked him to not tell anyone, to keep William safe from people looking to pry into Oliver's life. Thea understands and agrees it needs to stay secret. At no point does Oliver realise he could just tell Felicity this secret and ask her to keep it with him. Not long now before his lies blow up in his face.
At Oliver and Felicity's engagement party, Lance finally tells Donna the truth (thank the Lord) and Curtis Holt presents Felicity with the secret gift he's been working on for her, a bio stimulator implant, which could potentially help her to walk again. Curtis' husband points out that he only cracked the implant once he had invented a power supply that could last a lifetime supporting it. Meaning that the super cell battery that was unveiled two weeks ago was actually part of a larger plan, a byproduct of a very personal endeavour by Curtis to help his boss and friend. Now I feel bad for ragging on the battery so much. As Oliver says, Curtis is pretty terrific.
This weeks epilogue shows Darhk setting up a play date for his daughter Nora, with none other than William. What happened to William's mother? What's Oliver going to do once he finds out? Is Darhk's daughter evil too? (I kind of hope she is.) I'll guess we'll find out next week as Oliver looks to go Liam Neeson on us in next week's episode appropriately titled “Taken.”
Written by Nick Whitney, ARROW Beat Writer -- Click here to read Nick's posts.
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