‘Arrow’ Episode 2.16 Recap and Review: Suicide Squad

All of the fighters on the Arrow-team have non-combatants to keep an eye on since Slade came back all threatening. Sara’s on Laurel, Roy’s on Thea, and Digg is holding a rather obvious stakeout at Felicity’s. Ollie’s been running himself ragged trying to track down Slade before anyone he loves gets hurt. He finally turns to his Starling City Bratva contact to get the Russian mobsters to track down Slade’s bank account. Alexei agrees, but unhappily. Mostly because he wanted a little quid pro quo that Ollie wasn’t willing to do.

Digg gets pulled off Felicity’s place by a booty-text from ex-wife, Lyla Michaels. Their happy fun time is capped by a visit from Amanda Waller, who wants the both of them on a mission to recover an incredibly dangerous nerve agent from a “former” terrorist named Gholem Qadir. Lyla and Digg captured Qadir during their duty our in Afghanistan, so they’re pretty familiar with the way he works. Waller sends Digg and Lyla in with a team: Deadshot, Bronze Tiger, and Simon Tam Shrapnel.

The crew heads to Markovia to stage an “accidental” run-in with Qadir, who is now supposedly a humanitarian. Digg pretends to be a powerful man on the shady side of the law, then “saves” Qadir from a sniper (Deadshot) to win his trust. Qadir invites Digg to a benefit he’s hosting at his mansion, which happens to be where the nerve agent is being stored. That part of the operation runs pretty smoothly until Shrapnel decides to use the getaway car for his own getaway. Waller is unable to talk him back to the fold, and so remotely detonates a small explosive in his skull. (I’ll refrain from making a joke about how Shrapnel became shrapnel.) Digg is not happy.

At the benefit, Digg brings in Lyla as his plus-one and manages to sneak Deadshot in past the gate. Lyla and Digg distract Qadir while Deadshot heads below to find what’s supposed to be a small vial of the apocalypse-causing nerve agent. Only the vial isn’t so small. It’s more… room-sized. Upon receiving the intel, Waller tells Digg and Lyla to GTFO, but neglects to pass that info on to Deadshot. She’s ordered a drone strike on the house without regard to the innocent people still dancing inside. Digg makes a toast to Qadir that exposes his terrorist activities and warns the guests of the hidden weapon, then he heads downstairs to grab Deadshot and leave.

Once the team makes their escape, it becomes obvious that the drone isn’t heading for the house anymore. It’s zoning in on the tracking device implanted in Deadshot. Lyla removes it and throws it out into the street, which kind of blows Waller’s cover. She’s royally ticked, but at least the rest of the squad is still alive and ARGUS agents are able to recover the nerve agent. Digg basically tells Waller to go to hell, but decides to keep his relationship with Lyla, who’s been more or less supportive of Waller’s tactics up to this point.

Back in Starling, Slade has been leaving little clues for Ollie all over the city. Ollie decides that being around him is too dangerous, so he breaks up with Sara. Felicity uses the Bratva bank account number to obtain an address for Slade, but rather than calling for backup in the form of Sara or Roy, Ollie decides to check it out alone. In the now-abandoned office, he finds Alexei dead with an arrow through his eye and a video of Shado projected on the wall. Between that and a little chat with Laurel, he realizes that Sara isn’t any safer now than she was at the beginning of the episode, so he unbreaks up with her.

The two stories finally come together a little when Ollie contacts Waller about Slade being in Starling City. She’s surprised to find out that Slade is still alive, but obviously already knows quite a bit about him. She tells Ollie that ARGUS has been following a trail of bodies to Starling left by a dangerous mercenary that they’re calling Deathstroke. Cue ominous music and roll credits.

So are we thinking there’s going to be a Suicide Squad spin-off here? This episode felt like a backdoor pilot, but I didn’t see much else going on. Don’t get me wrong. Digg going all “super spy with a conscience” was definitely a fun watch. I just didn’t find anything really compelling this time around. At the end of it all, Digg is still hooking up with his ex-wife, Ollie is still hooking up with Sara, Mo is still running for mayor, and Slade is still vengeful and loose on the city. What did we actually accomplish today, guys?

That being said, I’m really looking forward to the next episode. I can’t wait to see how Arrow handles the Birds of Prey collectively. Speaking of which, do you think we’ll actually get Barbara Gordon’s Oracle, or do you think they’re just going to quietly dye Felicity’s hair red at some point?

Best Quote:

Felicity: “So I get you sitting outside my house like that lacrosse player my freshman year of college.”

Things to Ponder:

• Do you think Digg’s leaving ARGUS behind will have repercussions? They don’t exactly seem like the kind of group you walk away from.
• Did anyone else find it weird that none of the Suicide Squad had any beef with Digg being in charge? He did help send them all to prison.
• Dude! That was Tara Strong!
• And Ben Browder! Yeah, like John Crichton wouldn’t know better than to underestimate a female soldier…