Saturday, March 23, 2013

Arrow 1.17: "The Huntress Returns"

“Lying to the people that are closest to me is the hardest part.”
- Oliver

As the episode title reveals, Helena is back in Starling City and she’s up to her old tricks. She seeks out her father’s lawyer at a strip club and when he says he doesn’t know where the FBI is keeping her dad (he cut a deal to testify against another crime family so he’s going into WITSEC), she kills him. Meanwhile, Oli is finally opening his club named Verdant and he convinces McKenna to be his date for the evening. Meanwhile, out in the Glades, Thea and a friend are walking when she spots Roy. She offers to ask Oli if he can get Roy a job at the club. Not really sure about this Roy kid and why Thea is so interested in him.

As we saw at the end of last week’s episode, Mama Lance is back in town and Laurel gets Daddy Lance to see her at a coffee shop under the guise of apologizing over the whole using her as bait thing. Mama Lance thinks Sara is still alive because there are hundreds of deserted little islands around the one Oli was found on. And she has a photo of a girl taken by a tourist that she insists looks exactly like her missing daughter. Detective Lance doesn’t want any of this to be happening so he storms out. Laurel tries to apologize at the station but he is still too pissed and doesn’t want to talk to her about it.

Down in the man cave, Diggle is checking something on the system and looking rather sad about it (my guess was he’s trying to track Deadshot) when Oli comes down in a good mood. His happy feeling is dampened immediately when Dig shows him footage of Helena killing her father’s lawyer. Oli tasks Dig with reaching out to their Russian mob connections to see what Helena’s plan is. He heads back to the Queen mansion to find Thea and Helena chatting. So not good. Helena wants Oli to help her get to her father before the Marshal Service puts him in protection. Oliver says no but Helena promises to be more persuasive.

That afternoon, Oli warns Diggle about Helena and he tries to apologize to Tommy. Tommy isn’t upset about his feelings being hurt; he just can’t reconcile his best friend being a killer. The club opening is going pretty well, though. Tommy is a little grumpy when Laurel shows up. Too bad things go from bad to worse for the poor guy. Helena gets her hands on him and ends up almost breaking his wrist to get Oliver to help her take out her father. So much for keeping his friends safe.

On the island, Oli and Slade are trying to find a way to take out the missile launchers. Oli comes up with an idea to get all the soldiers in one place so Slade can take them out. Oli’s plan seems to work. He dresses up in full bad guy gear and drags Slade into camp and then gets the hell out of the way. They don’t have much time once Slade takes out the soldiers. They’re going to blow up the launcher with dynamite but Oli has a better plan. You can’t use the missile launcher without the computer chip to make it work. He and Slade end up ransoming the chip with the bad guy for a way off the island.

Back in Starling City, Tommy stops by the legal aid office to try and apologize to Laurel (there is a lot of apologizing going on in this episode, sheesh). She wants the truth but he can’t tell her. So she kind of loosens the ties between them. Meanwhile, Thea goes to see Roy since he didn’t show up for the valet job she got him. He doesn’t want her rich girl charity. But he is willing to save her from some Glades thugs. He takes a knife in the side for his heroics and she takes him to the hospital. Roy is a bit twitchy around needles but Thea distracts him with a kiss. I guess they’re angling for a romance between them at some point.

Meanwhile, things with Helena are getting worse. Oli tries to keep Felicity out of the mix by sending her away (even though technically her hacker skills would tell them where the FBI is keeping Helena’ dad). Oli’s plan is to take out the van transporting him to court. Only problem is there’s two vans and one is a decoy. Helena and Oli pair off with opposite vans and we get a sort of double chase scene. Oli takes out his van first and finds the back empty. So he assumes Helena has the one with her father in it. She is under that impression, too until she approaches it, demanding they release her father and the cops swarm all over her.

They take her back to the precinct and McKenna and Lance are trying to get the vigilante’s real identity out of her. She tells them Oli’s name but they don’t believe her and show goes on a little tangent about how it won’t work out between him and McKenna because he uses people. Before much else can be said, a smoke bomb of some sort goes off and Oli dashes in to get Helena out of here. Once safe, he hands her a passport and plane ticket so she can get the hell out of his city. I have to say that reminded me a little of a scene in Angel season 1 where he basically tells Buffy to get out of his city.

Oli is feeling a little lost and lonely and heads over to McKenna’s place where they hook up (sadly, no shirtless Oliver this week). Unfortunately, they have awful timing because Felicity calls and leaves him a message that a sporting goods store has just been robbed of a high powered crossbow. And as she turns around, Helena is there, looking menacing and holding said crossbow. This really isn’t Oliver’s week. After Oli finds out what Helena is planning, he takes off to stop her for good. She’s on quite the tear at the safe house and she’s chasing her father across the lawn when Oli stops her. He actually shoots at her but she blocks the shot. They get into a little hand to hand (well it was more like thr5owing each other around on the ground) until McKenna shows up. Oli starts putting his bow down and Helena takes the chance to shoot McKenna in the leg.

McKenna survives being shot but she’s got a shattered femur and needs a year of rehab. So she’s going to live with her sister. And thus ends Oliver’s current romantic relationship. Thank you Helena. At the precinct, Detective Lance is clearing out her desk when Mama Lance shows up at his request. He’s ready to listen to what she has to say now. Over at Verdant, Tommy and Oliver kind of come to terms with the secret between them. The rest of the season is going to be interesting with Tommy knowing and starting to accept the truth.

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