After last week’s episode the question on everyone’s mind was “what will Laurel do with the shocking information Slade Wilson gave her?”. With her father in prison protecting the Arrow and her feelings about the hero on a constant roller coaster, would she betray her long time friend? The straight answer is “no”, but not after a lot of internal debate. Laurel also FINALLY realizes that her sister is Black Canary, something made no sense to me that she didn’t figure that out before. I mean it’s not like Sarah does her hair any different, Laurel’s a smart girl and you’re telling me that she can’t recognize her own sister in a leather get-up, come on. Nonetheless this week’s episode gets the show back on track as the team takes the fight to Slade Wilson.

ARROWTeam Arrow decides to take out one of the Queen Consolidated buildings to stop Slade from getting his hands on any equipment that could help him build his army of Mirakuru thugs. Remember that Isabel Rochev revealed herself to be working with Slade last week when she took over Queen Consolidated in Oliver’s absence. Slade strikes back by ambushing the team in their own hideout, kicking their butts and stealing Tockman’s device that opens any lock. Both Sarah and Oliver are at the hospital and Laurel goes to check up on them. They lie about being in a motorcycle crash, and when Laurel asks if they are going to press charges they tell her no, something Laurel finds suspicious. The nurse tells Laurel about the scars on Sarah’s body and compares them to ones that she has seen on military vets, Laurel then remembers the scars on Oliver’s body and starts to put things together. By the end of the episode, and some wisdom from her father who says that he would sit in jail to protect the identity of the Arrow and doesn’t want to ever know who he is, is finally convinced that Oliver’s secret can never be told. It’s funny to see the change of position that Lance has on the Arrow, so much so that he takes a beat down from an inmate and still stands true to his belief in the hero. Laurel doesn’t actually ever tell Oliver that she knows, but gives him a hug and tells him that she’s there for him. As much as people say that this show is too “CW” for them, I have to say that the dramatic “heartfelt” scenes connect us more to the characters. Last night’s episode was a perfect example of how to balance that with action.

ARROWBUT back to the action. Slade takes matters into his own hands and heads to STAR Labs to steal a device that will allow him to transfer blood into his soldiers. Here we meet two DC Comics characters that will play a major part in the upcoming Flash TV show, Caitlin Snow and Cisco Ramon. I won’t get too much into who they eventually become, you can check that out here. It is great that the Arrow is introducing these characters on its show and that they talk about Barry and even mention the name of Iris West, which Felicity gets jealous over. Originally the next episode was going to feature the Flash but now that he will have his own show this won’t be happening, but it is nice that the show’s writers gave us at least this tie-in. It is exciting to consider that next year we will have the two shows that exist in the same universe and can share characters and crossover. Slade assaults the lab and is about to take out the duo but they set a trap for him. Cisco uses a device, all the while name dropping (as Arrow is so good at) Arthur Light, you know Doctor Light the DC villain, Cisco even refers to him as a psycho. Maybe Light will make an appearance somewhere down the road. Caitlin and Cisco are able to escape with their lives after dropping Slade with the device. Slade decides it’s time to get out of there and escapes with what he came for.

Arrow Man under the hood 02So how is Slade going transfer his blood into the soldiers without compromising himself? Well he’s not. By this point most people are wondering where Roy is, after Oliver told him to break things off with Thea last week, Roy leaves town and heads to Bludhaven. The Arrow heads in to stop Slade and sees that Roy has been captured! Isabel is there with Slade and they explain how they found Roy and he didn’t put up a fight, putting the blame on Oliver and how he always abandons the ones he cares about. Battle ensues and just when Isabel is about to shoot Oliver, Diggle takes her out with a few shots to the chest! We know this isn’t the end of her character, especially since as viewers we have seen the effects of the Mirakuru, but the beginning of something bigger for her character. Oliver only has enough time to get Roy out of there safely, but is not able to destroy the blood machine. Slade now has no other choice than to use his own blood to generate the soldiers, including saving Isabel’s life with it!

Arrow Man under the hood 04We have to talk a little about Thea and her knowledge that Malcolm Merlyn is her real father. You see the only way for the Queen’s to salvage whats left of their company is to get Thea to sign some papers. She basically refuses throughout the episode as each time Oliver goes to talk to her he gets drawn away by the events of the show. This only infuriates Thea even more. It is revealed the Isabel was an intern working for Robert Queen back in the day and that they were having an affair. She reveals to Oliver that Robert knew about Thea the entire time, which Oliver thinks will make Thea know better. Of course she only gets angrier because she now realizes that her entire family has been lying to her. I guess you can’t win that one Oliver.

Arrow Man under the hood 01On the Island we learn through Dr Ivo that there is a cure for the Mirakuru, but it is on the AMAZO. Sarah agrees to end his life but Oliver does it instead, telling her that once you take a life there’s no going back. Fast forward to the present Oliver reveals to the tea, that there is a cure but he didn’t want to tell anyone because he had the option to cure Slade before but decided to kill him. This is something that has caused Oliver a lot of grief, and he totally blames himself for Slade’s campaign of terror. So will we see a cure? Felicity takes the Mirakuru sample to Cisco and Caitlin and tells them that this will be their little secret and asks them to synthesize a cure to the substance. The cure will be a major plot point in the upcoming last few episodes, especially now that Slade has a gang of Mirakuru thugs at his disposal. But first team Arrow will have to deal with an out of control Roy!

Arrow Episode 20 “Seeing Red

[box_light]ROY SPINS OUT OF CONTROL — The mirakuru sends Roy into an uncontrollable rage and he unleashes on the city. After Roy’s deadly fight with a police officer, Oliver realizes the mirakuru has taken over Roy completely and must figure out a way to stop him. Things get more complicated after Sara declares that Roy is too far gone and the only way to stop him is to kill him. Meanwhile, Thea believes she can breakthrough to Roy so she goes on camera at Moira’s campaign rally to lure him to Verdant. Her ploy works but after Roy attacks Thea, Team Arrow unleashes on him. [/box_light]

Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8pmEST on The CW

~CynicNerd

Arrow Season 2 Poster CW