Previously on ARROW

The last episode before the ELSEWORLDS crossover revealed the identity of the new Green Arrow – and the mantle has stayed in the family. Emiko Queen, Oliver’s half-sister, has been hunting people in Star City while Oliver was in prison.

Now that Oliver is out, and working with the Star City Police Department as a consultant, he’s on the trail of the new Arrow’s identity, too. With Felicity’s hacking expertise, they discover who she is and how Oliver’s father abandoned them. But that’s only part of the story.

The rest gets filled in through Emiko’s perspective – she’s hunting the man she believes killed her mother, working up a chain and crossing out names in her book until she gets to the main culprit. But a bad night leads Emiko to seek out Rene’s help, much the same way Oliver brought in Diggle and Felicity. Rene brings in Curtis and the new Team Arrow gets to the man Emiko has been hunting, but she finds out he didn’t kill her mother.

Vengeance is never easy. And it probably won’t get easier after Oliver confronts her at their father’s grave.

While Emiko, Rene and Curtis have their mission, Diggle and Lyla are trying to get Ricardo Diaz to squeal on the identity of the man who settled the Dragon’s debts with the Longbow Hunters. When Diaz proves to be uncooperative, Diggle decides to make him a deal: the name for Diaz’s freedom. Kind of. Diggle reinstates the Ghost Protocol that Lyla shut down when she took over ARGUS. So now, Diaz has a bomb in his head and is the main man in a new Suicide Squad.

And in the future, Rene is mayor of the Glades and is in an alliance with the guys who killed Felicity and are planning to blow up Star City in order to further build the Glades up. The flash forwards have lost a lot of the intrigue since the season’s opening episodes. Hopefully it doesn’t end up as bad as some of the previous seasons’ flashbacks.

Future Rene’s hair, by the way, looks ridiculous. But that’s besides the point.

ARROW had a really strong first part of the season, so I hope they can keep it up going forward. I’m happy to see Kirk Acevedo sticking around, and forcing him to work with Diggle and Lyla should be interesting – and will set up some serious bad vibes when Oliver finds out.