‘Arrow’ 2.19 Episode Recap and Review: The Man Under the Hood

Team Arrow finds a way to shut down the mirakuru production right and tight: the team breaks into Queen Consolidated Applied Sciences division and blows the whole thing sky high. At least that’s one roadblock for whatever Slade is planning.

Once back in civvies, Ollie and Mo have a meeting with their lawyer to discuss what to do about Isabel and Queen Consolidated. He tells them that the only way to save the family fortune is to move all of their trust money into new accounts, but they can’t do that without Thea’s signature. Ollie offers to talk to Thea and try to get her signature, but neither he nor Mo hold out a lot of hope on that front.

Sometime later, Felicity is relaying the news about Roy (his place has been cleared out and he’s in the wind) when the gang gets a rude awakening upon their entering the Arrow-cave. Slade is already downstairs, waiting for them. He beats the living crap out of Ollie, Sarah, and Diggle, then snags the skeleton key and skedaddles.

Laurel comes to see Sarah in the hospital (don’t worry, just a sprained wrist) and walks into the room just in time to catch sight of the network of scars on her sister’s back. Laurel realizes that those scars look very similar to the ones that Ollie has. The puzzle pieces are slowly clicking into place. She tries to tell her father that she knows who the Arrow is, but he says he doesn’t want to know. His opinion is that being the vigilante must be hard enough, so Quentin is willing to do a little time to take some of that burden. With that, Laurel’s back on Team Vigilante.

Slade uses the skeleton key to break into STAR Labs so that he can steal a “bio-transfuser” and we can meet two new characters from The Flash. The bio-transfuser will allow Slade to transfer his mirakuru-laced blood to multiple patients. It takes a lot of power to run, though, so Felicity will be able to locate him as soon as he turns it on. Ollie has a plan now. Losing that much blood will make Slade weaker, and that will be his chance to put Deathstroke down.

Or at least it would have been, if Slade were using his own blood. As it turns out, Slade snagged Roy from a homeless shelter in Bludhaven and is using the kid’s blood to make his army. This, of course, leads to the Epic Battle du Jour. Ollie knocks Slade out with exploding arrows while Digg puts two bullets into Isabel. They may not have been able to destroy the bio-transfuser, but Ollie now has a sample of mirakuru, which means that he can have our new friends from Central City create an antidote. Once Slade recovers from the exploding arrows, he uses his own blood to heal/resurrect Isabel. Yeah, this is going to go swimmingly.

On the family front, Thea’s refusing to help save the family, since she says she isn’t a Queen. She’s a Merlyn. In a confrontation with Isabel, Ollie learns two important things: 1. His father was totally boning Isabel when she was an intern. Holy college clichés, Batman! 2. Robert knew that Thea was Merlyn’s daughter and didn’t care. Oliver relays that second bit of information to Thea, but to no avail. She says that it makes Robert a liar just like Mo and Ollie.

There weren’t a ton of island flashbacks this time. Ivo trades information about the mirakuru for a quick death. He tells Sarah that there’s an antidote in his quarters back on the ship, then gives her the key. Ollie fulfills Ivo’s wish and shoots him dead.

Well, I can certainly see how we’re starting to build to a season finale now. Slade is getting all of his pieces on the board, and Team Arrow is scrambling to keep up. I have to admit, I’m struggling to understand Roy’s motivations right now. I get leaving Team Arrow in a snit, because yes, Thea might have been safe from Slade had Roy still been around. How did we get from the “I was right” dance to a homeless shelter in Bludhaven? Wouldn’t you think he would have gone back to Thea?

Anyway, while Roy and Thea both may be headed down the path of the misguided and annoying, I’m glad to see that Laurel seems to be getting everything back on track. I desperately want her to be a likeable character again, and she just hasn’t been for so long now. Was anyone else afraid that she was going to try to trade her knowledge of Ollie’s secret identity for her father’s freedom?

Only four episodes left and now Slade has an army, including zombie-River Tam! (Oh God, can we please get her on the Suicide Squad? Warehouse 13 gave me Simon and Kaylee. Can we have a Tam family reunion on Arrow?) Let’s see how they start to close this season out!

Best Quote:

Felicity: “For the record, I hated her before we found out she was a super-villain.”

Things to Ponder:

• Is Laurel going to tell Oliver and Sarah that she knows, and therefore become part of Team Arrow?
• Will Thea ever, EVER stop acting like an entitled pre-teen?