Arrow, Season 3 Episode 6: Guilty
It's a bit of a slower episode, but thankfully the Roy-killing-Sara thing wasn't left on the backburner. On the other hand, it is a cop-out, which irritates me a shit-ton. On the other hand, the explanation for the cop-out isn't entirely bullshit and still opens up opportunities for Roy's characterization, so yeah. The episode's pretty well crafted, with all the multiple plot threads running throughout the episode interweaving seamlessly even though it is supposed to be a bit of a filler episode.
Let's talk about the flashback plot first, because there's less of it. Maseo and Oliver are still looking for China White (or Chien Na Wei, as Maseo insists on calling her). Granted it's phenomenally stupid to send the white guy to stealthily take out a dude in the middle of Hong Kong instead of the more oriental-looking Maseo, but these are the super-spies, so what can I say? That, of course, got Wei's courier killed. Anyway, Oliver and Maseo need to find out what the message that was supposed to be delivered, and after a game of memory with Maseo's kid, Katana (who makes it clear multiple times that she hates the gaijin bastard who's causing Amanda Waller to put a target on her family's heads) then shows up and grudgingly trains Oliver in some zen candle shit to get him to focus and wade through his subconscious memories and see what he missed.
The dead drop is a postcard that after some
Of course, Oliver later breaks free from Hong Kong and returns to the island, and we know for certain that China White shows up alive and well in Starling City... they evidently failed, so what happens to Katana and her family? Will we ever see Katana cut people apart with a katana? Food for thought. It's these oddities that make the flashback scenes even worth watching, which is a good thing since all the Slade background stuff has been pretty much easy to pick out around halfway through the season, making a huge chunk of the flashback just showing and not really telling.
Anyway, the present-day sequences of the episode focuses jointly on Roy and Laurel, with Ted Grant being the guest star. With the flashbacks focusing on Oliver, and Oliver himself taking a relatively larger role this time around, it's not quite a spotlight the way Felicity and Thea were in the two previous episodes, but it's all well and good.
Anyway, Roy is still dealing with his PTSD dreams and he keeps thinking about whether he killed Sara because his memories are so vivid. Oliver takes notice of his lack of sleep and tells him to stay put while they investigate a group of murdered Culebra gangsters doing a drug deal and a serial killer that likes to write the word 'GUILTY' in blood. Roy takes advantage of this downtime to ask Felicity to test him for any remnants of Mirakuru, which comes out negative... and it's not brought up anywhere, but considering how afraid Roy is of needles, I thought it was nice that he's so bothered with it that he's willing to submit to a blood test and even pressures Felicity into doing it.
After some time while Oliver is out dealing with Laurel and Wildcat (more on them later) the tests come back negative, but... Felicity brings up this virtual autopsy program which she hooked up for Sara's body, and the angle and force and whatnot of the arrows that went into Sara was completely wrong for arrows shot from a bow... but would be consistent if they were thrown from a superpowered man like Roy. Felicity kind of has figurative balls, or trust, to break the news to Roy so calmly, I must say, because if Roy did still have Mirakuru in his blood he might snap and hurt Felicity. They rationalize it as Roy having one last episode of Mirakuru.
And after a bit of the serial killer plot, Roy immediately confronts Oliver and Laurel (who conveniently is around) and goes "I killed Sara". Granted Felicity claims the blood tests from the arrows are inconclusive, but the angle and whatnot does get explained by Roy doing it, and after the explanation of the dreams and the possible Mirakuru stuff, practically everyone buys it. To her credit Laurel doesn't slap Roy right in the face, but Roy heads off to cool himself before showing up at the climax. I thought it was a rather interesting decision, and it's relatively uncomfortable situation if Roy did kill Sara in a fit of Mirakuru-powered rage. Does he go on trial? Granted Roy does seem ready to stand trial for Sara's murder but it's still not quite fair... to either Laurel or Roy whichever choice is chosen. Of course that turns out not to be the case, sadly.
Roy shortly afterwards shows up in a motorcycle pursuing Isaac Stanzler after Oliver gets knocked down. Presumably either Diggle or Felicity contacts him? Roy comes to the rescue and engages Isaac mano a mano while the others rescue Laurel and Wildcat. Roy finally, finally makes that crazy air flip work after it failed so miserably against Nyssa. And we get some nice hand to hand combat between Roy and Isaac, who himself is also pretty conveniently (but pretty nicely, thematic-wise) a sidekick who was abandoned. Isaac wants to get into Roy's head by saying stuff like how Oliver will abandon him, and how Roy's just a weapon in Oliver's arsenal. But Roy does this awesome judo flip thing, knocks Isaac down for the count and asks Oliver not to abandon him.
All that said, though, Roy is still ready to hang that awesome red costume and turn himself in. As Roy repeats that 'weapon in your arsenal' quote, Oliver suggests that Roy adopt the Arsenal name... which is oh god yes. I'm actually honestly fine with either Speedy, Arsenal or Red Arrow, all three of Roy Harper's comic-book codenames in order of which he adopts them... Red Arrow makes a lot more sense considering the situation, and Speedy sort of does since he could be doing it in honor of Thea... except Thea isn't dead yet, and she's likelier to claim the Speedy mantle. But Arsenal, well, I do like that name as well so I can't really complain.
ARSENAL
Anyway, Oliver tells Roy to do this candle meditation thing, which nicely ties in with the flashback which seems to just be a Chekov's Gun to lead to this thing while slowly slugging on the Hong Kong plot. But I do like how both the flashback had themes about the subconscious, about memories and stuff, which fits nicely with Roy's situation at the moment. Roy finally flashes back to that time when he stabs an arrow through a police officer's chest back when he's still an angry Mirakuru-powered guy, which he doesn't remember... and Sara was present when he did so, and his memory kind of jumbled everything up.
So Roy didn't kill Sara... but he did kill another man. We won't have to deal with the big convoluted situation if Roy was responsible for Sara's murder, sadly, but it seems that our newly-christened Arsenal will need to deal with having murdered someone before, which is a trade-off I'll grudgingly accept.
The Roy stuff interests me a shit-ton more than the others, but there's still the main plot to talk about. Basically Team Arrow is hunting down a serial killer who's framing Ted Grant, and all clues initially lead to Ted Grant. Oliver is also inherently suspicious and possibly a little jealous of Ted Grant, and all signs point to him as the murderer... except any comic-book fan knows Ted Grant as the extremely not-evil superhero Wildcat, so I never believed for a second he's the one behind it.
We get a bunch of these Culebra gangsters hung up like punching bags, and as Oliver tracks down the trail of bodies, he finds one of them in Wildcat's gym and he gets into a bit of a scuffle with Wildcat (who seems to break out a couple of nice moves himself), at which point he sticks an arrow into a boxing glove and does the Boxing Glove Arrow straight into Wildcat's face.
I cannot believe it. I simply cannot believe this show, where two seasons ago it was afraid to even call Oliver Queen 'Green Arrow', would actually show the boxing glove arrow being used on-screen. I would've been happy with them just showing it and dismissing it as a joke or a failed idea. Or, hell, even just mention it in-dialogue. But no, we actually get to see the freaking Boxing Glove Arrow shot at someone's face.
Best episode award goes to this one.
But prior to this, Wildcat has been training with Laurel, and showing that Wildcat isn't just a boxer but knows a bunch of other less orthodox fighting methods as well. Laurel is extremely defensive about Wildcat, though in her defense this time it's for a good reason. She's still a bit annoying, but as she's working off her rage and bitchiness she's... she's actually becoming a bit more like late season-two Thea where her rage comes from an understandable place.
Oliver doesn't think so, though, and confronts Laurel. Oliver doesn't like Wildcat, nor the fact that Laurel is training (or letting off steam, as she justifies it) with this fellow. Oliver, like, really doesn't like him. Especially since later on Diggle and Felicity find out that Ted "Wildcat" Grant, who really has the name Wildcat in-universe which is cool as hell, seems to have been involved with a murder of a drug dealer using a brass knuckle and a left-handed punch, similar to the M.O. of the Culebran drug dealers.
Oliver catches Wildcat in his lair, and apparently Wildcat was Starling's vigilante long before Oliver Queen was. Granted Wildcat's actor doesn't look that much older than Oliver, but hey, I don't really mind. Wildcat is kind of supposed to be quite old and experienced, though this time around he's retired. I do hope he suits up. With an actual cat mask, of course. Wildcat's inclusion in the show has been extremely welcome, mostly because he's one of the last characters I'd expect to be included in Arrow. But he's been pretty fun, and the fact that he's already a vigilante opens up ways that he could show up and kick ass in a future episode.
We get a bit of a fun dialogue where Wildcat assumes that the Arrow has a hideout just like him, and Oliver, already feeling a bit jealous thanks to Laurel sticking with Wildcat, goes 'mine's bigger'. Who says Felicity has a monopoly on these kind of jokes?
Laurel, Oliver and Wildcat decide to work together, but Oliver doesn't want Laurel anywhere near the dangerous stuff. Laurel, being Laurel, of course isn't happy, but seems like the training with Wildcat has burnt away her bitchiness because she isn't that much of one this time around. Laurel gets completely rattled when Roy confesses as apparently the one behind Sara's murder, but to her credit she doesn't, like, try to put a bullet in Roy's head the way she did Komodo. Wildcat eventually gets captured by the police right after they meet the actual murderer, and he kind of just goes with the flow.
Laurel manages to use her DA powers to get the innocent Wildcat out, and they pry the information that the man responsible is Wildcat's once-protege, Isaac Stanzler, who was responsible for the murder attributed to Ted Grant years ago. Wildcat even makes the comparison to Roy extremely clear, calling Isaac 'something like the red dude'. And like Roy, Isaac did a murder at which point Wildcat cut him loose... which certainly didn't bode well for stuff because Isaac's going around killing people and stringing them up like punching bags.
Isaac manages to get Wildcat and Laurel at gunpoint and holds them hostage in a car, and to her credit Laurel manages to stealthily contact Team Arrow... without the villain finding out as is common in these kind of situations. Isaac shares the backstory that the Culebran drug dealers caught up to him and tortured him for years, but before he can put a bullet through Wildcat's head, Diggle, Oliver and Roy show up. Roy beats Isaac as described above.
Oliver tells Wildcat to stay away from Laurel, and Wildcat gives Oliver the advice to retire and not really make the same mistakes with Isaac that he did. Oliver, on the other hand, retorts that Wildcat's mistake was not trusting his own sidekick and abandoning him. Granted the moral sort of frays apart upon closer inspection, since Roy didn't kill Sara, committed the murder on the cop without really knowing what he did, whereas Isaac most certainly doesn't have the excuse of a rage steroid. But the point still stands to not abandon your friends.
Diggle finally gets a bit more screentime, which is awesome since he's been absolutely shafted for the past few episodes. He's involved in the initial raid on the drug deal, he's patrolling with Oliver when Roy's told to stay put, and he totally drove around that van that tried to block the car that Isaac's forcing Laurel to drive. There's also the scene where he talks to Oliver about accountability, about how they can't have two rules, one for the bad guys and one for their team. It's a nice little sentiment, about justice versus abandoning a friend... one that sadly won't get explored since Roy is, y'know, innocent.
Also, Laurel is finally getting less and less irritating. She, of course, refuses to be this thing that's protected which is great, and with an actual trainer like Wildcat training her instead of running around in a ski mask like she did a couple episodes back is certainly a way to do so. We also get a little tender scene where Oliver and Laurel do this hug in the hospital and how Oliver is so 'I care for you and I'll protect you', and added to all the seemingly jealousy-inspired hostility which seems to hint that with Laurel adopting the mantle of Black Canary in the near future, maybe we're finally getting that Season One OTP with Oliver and Laurel? If so, that seems extremely harsh considering Oliver just told Felicity to piss off and that he can't have relationships.
Either way.
Quentin kind of shows up and does police commissioner stuff, I guess. He's becoming a lot less important compared to his season one and two days where he's actually a main character.
And the final scene shows this lady archer with a midriff who shoots Isaac and the two cops dead. She introduces herself as Cupid, who in the comics is a stalker with a huge, huge lady-boner for Green Arrow. This does give her a motivation to kill Sara, who would be easily perceived as a love rival, and she does shoot arrows... but then there's the whole can of worms about the arrows not exactly coming from a bow. Kind of curious to see how they deal with Cupid, since she's not a character I'm inherently familiar with from the comics. I just know she sort of exists.
Also in a nice move which I didn't notice at all, apparently the stalkery Cupid has shown up a couple of times in the backgrounds in this episode, implying that she's been stalking Arrow. Which I thought is a nice touch, even if I'm completely confused by her entrance, thinking that she's Nyssa or Laurel-with-a-wig until the camera really zooms in quite close onto her face.
So I suppose next episode's going to deal with Cupid, and paint her as one of the possible suspects for Sara's murder. It seems that Sara's murder and the whole League of Assassins thing is going to be the big plot for season three, and with more allies showing up for Team Arrow (so far we've got Diggle; Arsenal; Wildcat, who can very well suit up; a future Black Canary in the works; Merlyn and maybe Speedy as grudging allies... ) it seems to be shaping out as quite a large battle. There's going to be Ra's and Nyssa, and maybe we'll get a couple other League of Assassins characters... oh, Talia or Lady Shiva or whatever, and maybe they can spring Slade? I'm certainly quite excited for what's to come in the future.
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