‘Arrow’ 2.23 Episode Recap and Review: Unthinkable

Ollie, Digg, and Felicity are still holed up in the clocktower when Felicity’s proximity alarm goes off. A rather large goon squad is on its way up the stairs to take down Team Arrow. Roy wakes up from the pit viper venom just in time for the whole good-guy crew to zipline out of the top of the tower. The daring escape is observed by an ARGUS helicopter carrying Lyla Michaels, who proceeds to use some high-powered weaponry to ensure that the brute squad can’t follow.

Everyone regroups at the Arrow Cave, which has been well and truly trashed. They’re joined by Sara and some new-old friends: Nyssa al Ghul and her own little League of Assassins army. In exchange for the League’s help in saving Starling City, Sara’s agreed to return with Nyssa once the conflict’s over. Ollie says they need all the help they can get and proceeds to fully induct Roy into Team Arrow by giving him a rather snazzy red mask. Roy turns around and calls Thea, asking her to meet at his place so that he can ensure her safety.

Thea, meanwhile, has shot the bejeezus out of Malcolm Merlyn. He ain’t hurt. Didn’t even break his concentration. Merlyn is wearing Kevlar, and is mightily impressed that his daughter had the stones to actually shoot him. She still denies him when he asks her to leave with him, saying that she doesn’t trust him. She gets Roy’s call and leaves for the Glades.

The whole team heads over to Queen Consolidated in order to take back the building and ambush Slade and his crew. It goes down pretty well, now that they have a ton of highly-skilled fighters wielding injection-arrows full of Mirakuru cure. Slade takes a page from Ollie’s book and ziplines the hell out of there (after all, we’re only about 20 minutes in, and Slade can’t meet his end until much closer to the end of the show). He leaves Isabel behind, though. Nyssa, despite Oliver’s warnings, kills Isabel mid-villain speech. (Yes, I cheered. No, I’m not sorry.)

Across town, there’s one lone goon left in the Starling City Police Department. On Slade’s orders, he knocks Quentin around a bit, then kidnaps Laurel. Quentin wants Oliver to relax his no-kill rule in order to get Laurel back, but Felicity convinces Ollie to use Slade’s cleverness against him.

Meanwhile, over in the Glades, Roy and Thea have reunited at his place. Thea tells Roy that he’s the only one she can truly trust, so of course Roy immediately lies about knowing anything about the Arrow. Well done, there. They make plans to run away together, but Roy gets a 911 text from Ollie and tells Thea that he’ll be right back.

Oliver takes Felicity to Queen Manor in order to keep her safe. When she protests, he tells her that Slade took Laurel because he wanted to kill the woman that Oliver loves, but that Slade took the wrong woman. (It’s worthwhile to mention that in my notes, this scene is labeled “Ollicity is CANON, b*tches!!”)

Oliver, Sara, and the League take on the rest of Slade’s army in what honest-to-God appears to be about two high-kicks away from a scene in West Side Story. (“Deathstroke’s gonna have his wa-ay, toni-ight…”) The good guys take out Slade’s goons, but the Big Bad is still at large. Slade calls Oliver to let him know that he has Felicity and wants to meet.

While all of this is going on, Digg and Lyla are sneaking into ARGUS and breaking out the Suicide Squad. Together, they all go up to HQ and take over the bridge in an attempt to force Waller to call off the drone strike that’s mere minutes from destroying Starling City. Waller attempts to distract Digg by telling him that Lyla is pregnant. There’s going to be a wee little Diggle running about in a few months’ time.

Oliver meets with Slade, who has Felicity in a choke-hold while Laurel is held by a goon just a few feet away. There’s some posturing and threatening, all very manly. Finally Oliver tells Slade that he’s been too distracted to notice that the threat is right in front of him. Felicity has the cure, and she stabs it into Slade’s neck. The Ollicity scene back in the manor was played for Slade’s benefit, as Ollie knew he’d still be listening in. It all culminates in a double Epic Fight, with scenes from Slade and Ollie’s first battle-t-the-death on the Amazo interspersed with what’s happening now. Oliver uses a couple of cable arrows to tie Slade to a pillar to be turned over to Waller, who is now calling off the strike and ending the standoff at ARGUS.

Now that the battle is over, it’s time for Sara to leave with Nyssa. She has the chance to say her goodbyes to her family this time, hugging Quentin and giving Laurel her Canary jacket. She and Nyssa board the Nordic Pearl (which Google tells me is not a DC thing, but a legit fishing trawler based out of Canada). Once Sara is gone, Quentin collapses from what appear to be internal injuries. Laurel calls an ambulance, but things aren’t looking good.

Roy goes back to his place to get Thea, but she’s long gone. While he was out, Thea found all of his Red Arrow gear. She leaves him a note saying that she no longer trusts anyone and that she’s never coming back. The next time we see Thea, she’s getting into Merlyn’s limo.

Ollie refused to kill Slade this time, instead putting him in a jail cell that’s very, very far away. We can see from the door that the cell is run by ARGUS, and when Ollie steps back out into the open air, we learn that it’s located back on Lian Yu. Felicity is curious about how Oliver learned to fly a plane if he was on the island for five years…

Speaking of the island, a quick recap of the island flashbacks. It’s been two hours since Oliver left for the Amazo, so Anatole finally fires the torpedo. His timing is impeccable, as Slade is just about to shoot Ollie in the head. As the ship sinks, Sara is sucked back out into the ocean in much the same fashion as she was on the Queen’s Gambit. In Ollie and Slade’s epic boss battle, Slade finally gets pinned by falling debris. Oliver has the choice to either kill him or administer the cure, but Slade hurls a whole lot of threats against Oliver’s family, so Ollie goes with the more permanent solution (in theory). He stabs Slade in the eye with the arrow, leaving him for dead on the sinking ship. Ollie is tossed into the water and loses consciousness. When he wakes up, he’s not on the island anymore. He’s in Hong Kong, and Amanda Waller is waiting for him.

I don’t think I could be happier with where this season ended, really. Okay, I could, but I’ll talk about that in just a minute. Seriously, though. Laurel has (potentially) taken one more step towards becoming Black Canary. Everyone on Team Arrow survived. Roy managed to retain his super-awesome combat skillz while getting rid of the inconvenient ‘roid rage. Digg’s lady is still remarkably not-dead, despite being in a functional relationship someone on Team Arrow. All in all, I’d say our guys came out on top of this one.

Granted, the Lances kind of got the short end of the stick. Sara’s back in the clutches of the League of Assassins, but she seemed kind of happy about it. Quentin, on the other hand… Well, we knew that having Quentin reinstated was going to make things a little too easy on Oliver. I’m banking on at least a coma next season, if not outright death. Godspeed, Quentin Lance.

Alright, due to a bit of a scheduling conflict this week, I had to catch up on the finale on Hulu. That also meant that I stayed away from Twitter on Wednesday night. I have to know: just how much did the Ollicity fanbase absolutely explode? Having watched what went down, I can only assume that the writers are dirty, dirty ship-teasers. That wasn’t nice, Arrow. Not nice at all. I forgive you for this fake-out solely because it looks like we’ll be seeing a lot more of Malcolm Merlyn next season. But you have been warned…

That wraps up Arrow Season 2 for me.

See you all for Season 3!

Best Quotes:

Felicity: “I rigged the tower with sensors just in case Slade’s goons came here to kill us! <checks the monitor> …Slade’s goons are here to kill us.”

Ollie: “Do you know anyone hiring ex-billionaires with superior archery skills?”

Things to Ponder:

• Did you see that stone cold angry pout? Thea is SO coming back as a villain next season!
• Was that ARGUS prison on the island all along?
• Felicity graduated from MIT in 2009. Thank you for that reality check on how old I am, CW.
• I never knew internal bleeding manifested as an upset stomach combined with spitting lots of red-dyed corn syrup. You learn something every day.

Photo Credit: The CW