‘Arrow’ 1.5 Review And Recap: Damaged

John Barrowman, Black Canary smoochies, and the triumphant return of Ollie’s abs, all in this week’s episode of Arrow!

Recap time! In the island flashbacks, Ollie’s being particularly whiny about his latest lesson in survival on an impossibly dangerous, semi-deserted island when he’s suddenly kidnapped by the same scary military figures we’ve been seeing the last few episodes. He’s brought before the head of the encampment, Edward Fyres, who wants everything Ollie can tell him about our jungle survival buddy. To be fair, given the picture that Fyres had, I would have had trouble linking the neatly-groomed man in the picture with Robin Hood of the Island. Fyres brings in Deathstroke to give Ollie a handful of the oft-referenced scars. When that stops being fun, the kill order is given, but interrupted by a fantastic rescue/fight sequence with our Mandarin friend. Jungle Friend, impressed by Ollie’s loyalty, takes him back to the cave, gives Ollie a medicine bag and all the advice that can be contained in songs by Anna Nalick or Michelle Branch, and then blows the hell out of the mouth of the cave, possibly disappearing for the last time.

Back in Starling City, Ollie’s been arrested by Papa Lance who is managing to make all of this look like a personal vendetta while still managing to be totally correct in his accusations. Ollie, on the other hand, is running his own Batman Gambit. He wanted to be arrested so that he can clear himself quickly and throw off any lingering suspicions that he might be this crazy vigilante character. He hires Laurel as his counsel, purportedly for reasons other than screwing with Papa Lance’s head. Laurel, of course, manages to get the charges cleared thanks to her fantastic legal skills and Ollie’s ability to talk Dig into wearing a green hood and attacking street thugs in the middle of an arms deal.

On the family front, Walter’s been getting more and more suspicious about his wife secretly salvaging the Queen’s Gambit. The plot thickens when the Head of Security sent to move the boat is suddenly killed in a conveniently sinister car accident. Walter, in a particularly stunning character moment, confronts his wife about the whole business. She tells him to drop it, and he does. All the way to Australia. Indefinitely. So there.

Laurel starts realizing that Ollie’s time on the island was a little less Gilligan than Ollie’s wants everyone to believe. While this leads to Ollie/Laurel smoochies, it also allows Laurel to give some credibility to the thought that Oliver’s come back a much different person. One who can lie with a straight face during a polygraph test about the identity of The Hood. Future trust issues abound.

I pretty thoroughly enjoyed this episode. I love that more and more characters seem to be waking up to what’s been going on since Ollie came back into town. Thea and Laurel are both starting to shrug off their Clark Kent blinders, Dig is figuring out how far down the rabbit hole he’s really willing to go, and Walter… Walter possibly just expanded my favorite characters list. Granted, I only see Walter’s character arc going in two possible directions after this. Either he’s going to don the black hat, or he’s going to be spectacularly killed by John Barrowman. Time will tell…

Best Quotes:

Oliver: “Well, you know us billionaire vigilantes. We do love our toys.”

Laurel: “Ah, yes. I wore those horrible fishnets.”

Things to Ponder:

• With Thea obviously starting to pick up on things and having the nickname of Ollie’s comic-book sidekick, do you think she’ll be doing some crusading of her own soon?
• Hey comic book fans: Wasn’t Edward Fyres one of Ollie’s allies in the books? What’s with the maiming and the torturing?