‘Arrow’ 2.20 Episode Recap and Review: Seeing Red

Following the events of last episode, Roy is still knocked out on the table in the Arrow-cave with Felicity and Digg keeping an eye on him until he regains consciousness, which he does rather suddenly and somewhat violently. He scares the dickens out of Felicity, then eludes Digg and escapes through Verdant to places unknown.

Ollie and Sara arrive and head out on the hunt for Roy. They find a group of thugs that Roy’s beat the crap out of in his now-permanent rage state. The thugs aren’t the only ones that Roy’s run into, though. He has an encounter with Sin and her friends which ends up with a frightened Sin shoved to the ground and her friends scattered around her. She goes to Sara, who tells her to go home and stay away from Roy.

That would be a great plan, if Roy wasn’t heading to the clock tower himself. Ollie and Sara show up to bring him in. In the ensuing fight, Roy knocks Sara out and busts Oliver’s knee, leaving him helpless to watch as Roy escapes, killing one cop and injuring another in the process. When she wakes up, Sara takes Ollie to a vigilante-sympathetic doc who patches him up, but tells him that his knee is going to be more or less useless for a little while. When they regroup at the Arrow-cave, Ollie and Sara have an argument about what to do about Roy now. Sara thinks he’s too far gone and is ready and willing to put him down. Ollie’s not so sure, but that doesn’t stop Sara from grabbing a gun and heading out again.

We get inside Roy’s head a little while he’s out roaming the city. The mirakuru is causing him to hallucinate about Thea begging him to kill her for not helping him. Meanwhile, the real Thea has seen a news report on what’s happening with Roy and is now collaborating with Sin to see what they can do to help him.

While all of this is going on, Mo is struggling with troubles of her own (as per usual). Her relationship with Thea is disintegrating rapidly, and her campaign manager tells her that she either needs to be a mother or the mayor. Mo rather nobly chooses to be a mother first and goes to Sebastian Blood’s office to tell him that she plans to concede at her rally at Verdant. Oliver tries to talk her out of it, saying that Thea needs to see Mo doing something good for the city. Mo confesses to Oliver that she knows about him being the Arrow, telling him that she hasn’t slept a wink in a year, but she’s never been more proud of him.

Mo is mid-speech when she sees Thea in the crowd and realizes that Oliver is right. She changes her mind about her concession and delivers a rousing speech. Shortly after, Thea takes the stage, using the fact that the rally is televised to draw Roy to Verdant. Her ploy is almost too successful. Roy appears and grabs her by the throat, lifting her off the ground. Sara has Roy in her sights and takes out his knee in order to get him to let go of Thea. Roy begs her to kill him, but before she can shoot him again, Ollie tags him with three arrows full of pit viper venom, knocking him out again.

Sara has a bit of a revelatory moment about almost killing Roy. She thinks that she isn’t as healed or together as Oliver is, and she needs to get back out on her own to figure out who she is now. She breaks up with Ollie and points her bike down the road out of Starling City.

After all the drama, it’s time for the Queen family to head home. They all load into the limo to start what promises to be a super-awkward ride. Mo starts to come totally clean with both Oliver and Thea, stating that there’s something about Malcolm Merlyn that they don’t know. Just as she’s about to tell them, the limo is hit by another car.

The three wake up out in the woods. Ollie is hog-tied and prostrate on the ground, while Mo and Thea are tied and kneeling with Slade standing over them, clearly recreating the scene from the island when Ollie was forced to choose between Sara and Shado. Mo gets to her feet and volunteers, saying a tearful farewell to her children and standing up to Slade at the same time. Slade admires her bravery, so rather than shooting her, he runs her through with a sword. He lets Thea live, telling Oliver that there’s one more person who has to die before Oliver meets his own end.

For what we can only assume is the backstory behind that cryptic remark, we flash back to seven years ago. It looks like Sara isn’t the only one Ollie’s been cheating on Laurel with. He confesses to Moira that he’s gotten a random girl pregnant and asks her what he should do. Mo goes off and makes a few arrangements, then calls the girl. She gives the teen $2 million to tell Oliver that she miscarried, then disappear to Central City. The girl accepts and makes the call, meaning that it’s entirely possible and even likely that Ollie has a 6-year-old somewhere out there.

So the moral of the Arrow story: Never, ever tell a superhero that you know his secret identity. It always ends bad. I know in my heart of hearts that once Mo dropped that bomb, she wasn’t long for this world. Having the mayor of Starling City in on the secret would have made things far too easy on Oliver, and that’s just not how Arrow works. And thus, a moment of silence for Moira Queen, if you please…

Next on my list of “things I should have seen coming” this episode: the limo crash. I’m kicking myself that I wasn’t already braced for that. It had all the earmarks of an impending TV car accident: the whole family in the car, a big secret to be revealed, and the crucial “too much window in this shot.” Doesn’t matter. I still jumped about a foot. It’s possible I was distracted by the implication that John Barrowman will shortly be returning to the show (and no sorrow will live in me as long as that joy).

And last on the list, Sara’s departure from Starling. I can only assume that she’ll be back for the Final Battle of the season, since she’s been so involved. Regardless, that sounded like a pretty final breakup. I wasn’t watching the Twitterverse this episode, but I’m guessing the Ollicity fans did more than their fair share of flipping out now that Ollie’s back on the market.

Only three episodes left of this season with no hiatuses in between. By all reports, they’re going to be pretty amazing, so stay tuned!

Best Quote:

Felicity: “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Can you even get into those leather pants with that knee?”

Things to Ponder:

• Is the loss of her mother at the hands of Slade going to push Thea back to Ollie, or drive her further away?
• What was Mo going to reveal about Malcolm Merlyn??
• Yeah, the “one more person” who has to die is totally going to be Ollie’s kid that he never knew about.