A whole lot of story comes to a head this week, with Vigilante, Team Arrow and the deserters coming together to take down Cayden James. But things don’t go according to plan and the hacktavist terrorist takes one of his opponents out – permanently.
Previously, on ARROW…
As if things weren’t tense enough in Star City, I imagine things are going to get a lot worse after this episode. The issues between Team Arrow and the offshoot team of Mr. Terrific, Black Canary and Wild Dog aren’t improving. And honestly, the trio – who I’m just going to refer to as the Outsiders until I hear a better name – are getting really annoying in their hypocritical reaction to Oliver’s surveillance.
Despite agreeing to share intel with Team Arrow, the Outsiders hide their partnership with Vigilante, Dinah’s boyfriend, until Green Arrow has an arrow pointed at him. Their continued indignation towards Oliver would be poignant if they weren’t so full of crap.
The heroes come up with a plan to steal info from Cayden James’ hard drive to find out where his bomb is hidden, and Vigilante, already embedded, volunteers, despite Oliver trying to talk him out of it. He gets the information, but gets caught before he can escape and Anatoly tortures him. The heroes hear all of it through Vigilante’s comms, and Dinah is determined to save him, though Oliver makes the call to leave him and go take out the bomb. The Outsiders, of course, choose to save Vigilante, leaving Oliver and Diggle to take the bomb out.
It doesn’t go well.
Of course, things don’t go much better for Canary, Terrific and Wild Dog. James’ team set them up and has Black Siren kill Vigilante right in front of Dinah. The rift between the heroes grows as Dinah is angry that Oliver failed and is determined to kill the Earth-2 Laurel as retribution. As Quentin is now on a mission to SAVE Laurel and get through to her in some way, we have an added layer of drama to the back end of the season.
As long as the action continues to move things along, I can deal with the annoying Outsiders, but hopefully someone puts them in their place soon.
Show Notes
• As they attempt to block James’ takeover of the city, ARGUS agents come in through the waterfront at the start of the episode to try and stay under the radar. But the greatest spy agency in the ARROWVERSE doesn’t think to take out the comm links, and James electrifies a whole bunch of ARGUS agents in the water. He’s building up quite the body count this season.
• In the info dump Felicity and Helix operative Elena received from Vigilante, we discover the photo that fueled James’ vendetta against Oliver, which of course was faked and likely sent from the same source that got Oliver in trouble with the FBI. With less than half a season left, we apparently haven’t been introduced to the real Big Bad for the season. Or have we? There are surely revelations to come.
• Speaking of the FBI investigation, it has been oddly quiet on that front the last few episodes, though it obviously continues to be a part of the larger seasonal arc. Now that we know someone is manipulating everyone, we’ll likely get some movement soon.
There’s going to be some serious repercussions next week. Let’s take a look at the trailer:
What did you think of this week’s episode? Let us know in the comments!