‘Arrow’ 2.21 Episode Recap and Review: City of Blood

This week’s Arrow opens on the fallout of Moira’s death last week. Blood is taking his oath of office, as Ollie is conspicuously absent from his mother’s funeral. Blood comes to the reception at the Queen mansion, but Ollie is still nowhere to be found. Thea’s not taking it well, either. She’s angry that Ollie’s been MIA for four days and blames him for not warning his family about his connection with Slade.

Thea’s downward spiral isn’t over quite yet. When she retreats to her life back at Verdant, her solitude is interrupted by the arrival of Isabel, who has an eviction notice in hand. The building which houses Verdant properly belongs to Queen Consolidated, which means that it now belongs to Isabel.

Across town, Laurel is having a chat with her father about the new mayor. She still doesn’t trust him and believes that she can prove a connection between Blood and Slade. Quentin agrees to help her out and sends Laurel to Blood’s office with a bug for his computer. The connection allows them to find a press release about Moira’s death dated the day before she was killed.

Meanwhile, Felicity’s efforts to track Ollie have all been in vain, so she and Digg outsource the search, bringing Amanda Waller and her team in. Waller tells Team Arrow that their fearless leader is in his “other lair.” Ollie’s had a backup Arrow-cave, just in case the Foundry should ever be compromised. He’s been hiding out there for the last few days, stewing in his guilt. He’s come to the conclusion that the only way to keep Slade from destroying the city and what’s left of the Queen family is to turn himself in.

Felicity and Digg, of course, aren’t so much on board with that whole plan. Oliver calls Isabel to arrange a meeting on the dock where the Queen’s Gambit used to be moored. Once there, he gets knocked out before he ever sees his new captor. It works out alright, though, seeing as the ones who tranqed him were Digg and Felicity. They’ve brought him back to the Arrow-cave so that Laurel can share her news.

Oliver shows his hand to Blood over dinner later that night in hopes that he can convince the new mayor of his business partner’s utter insanity. Blood is shocked to learn that Oliie is the Arrow, but remains unswayed. He tells Oliver that Slade is going to take him down, etc., etc. (usual upper-minion talk). At any rate, Blood’s monologuing buys the rest of Team Arrow enough time to find out the location of Slade’s army from one of Blood’s upper management-types.

Slade’s mirakuru men are hiding in the sewers (for the most part). Ollie decides that the best way to take them out is to detonate the nearby support structures and drop a building on them. Oliver gets into a fight with one of Slade’s sentries as Digg lays the charges. The badguy is winning until Laurel (who was supposed to stay behind in the Arrow-cave) distracts him, giving Ollie the chance to get the upper hand.

Digg has the charges set, but he’s confronted by Isabel in a really unflattering version of the Deathstroke mask that the rest of the army is wearing. (Seriously, Summer Glau is a lovely woman, but that just wasn’t pretty at all.) Down below, Laurel and Ollie are cornered by a whole lot of juiced-up badguys. Oliver detonates the charges just as a bunch of Slade’s sleeper agents go into action all over Starling City, leaving most of our good guys in a bunch of trouble as the credits roll.

Can I get several more episodes of Felicity being a badass interrogator? ‘Cause that scene was a metric ton of fun, in my own humble opinion. God bless Digg and Felicity for keeping Ollie from playing the martyr for too long. I get the broodiness. I understand blaming himself for Mo’s death. Turning himself over to Slade is a much overused trope that Arrow did well to avoid.

So it looks like Laurel is now part of Team Arrow, at least in some regards. Do you think that this is the first step in her eventually becoming the Black Canary, or have we given up on that concept entirely? I’d love to see Laurel step into the role, if only because she trends far too much into damsel territory otherwise.

Just two episodes left in the season, and I’m told they follow one on top of the other. Can’t wait to see how they wrap this all up!

 

Best Quote:

Digg: “Any luck finding him?”

Felicity: “Tons. All of it bad.”

 

(in fairness, I also loved the “b*tch with Wi-Fi” exchange, but thought it required too much setup to be included here)

 

Things to Ponder:

  • Does Isabel know about the Arrow-cave? Maybe that’s why she’s evicting Thea.
  • Speaking of Isabel, wouldn’t there have been some kind of repercussion for Ollie not showing up to the meet?
  • Now that Blood knows that Ollie’s the Arrow, I’m guessing he won’t be mayor for much longer.

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