Arrow: Identity

Last week’s episode of Arrow was a past-meets-present affair about figure out who you are and where you fit.

We confirmed that Oliver did in fact have a relationship with Shado on the island and Slade warned him it would not end well because she would cloud his judgement. Together, they all find a collection of skeletons from World War II and Oliver relieves one of them of a talisman that he later gives to Thea, which she then gives to Roy as part of an ultimatum.

In the present, he battles Alderman Sebastian Blood (Kevin Alejandro) over the Glades and a new Triad villain, Bronze Tiger (Michael Jai White, rocking some Wolverine talons) working with China White to relieve FEMA of drug shipments en route to hospitals. Oliver’s looped to all of it when Roy gets himself arrested (and hurt) trying to intervene. Thea decides she’s had enough of it so she fires him and tells him they’re done.

Oliver offers to hold a fundraiser for the Alderman after a confrontation in front of the press where Blood accuses Queen Consolidated of doing nothing to help in the aftermath of the Undertaking, but when he doesn’t show because of his Hood activities, Blood condemns him in front of the crowd. So he’ll have that PR to deal with.

The Scoobies track the next FEMA truck so Oliver can get it to the hospital and he finds himself squaring off against the Triad and shot in the ankle for his trouble. On the day job front, Felicity throws down about being an MIT grad reduced to coffee fetcher and Diggle tells her to be glad she’s not the black driver. Oliver tries to pacify both of them they need cover story jobs, and he tells Felicity that it’s easier to work together in the same office vs. having to truck down 18 floors to the basement. And he supercharged her “secretary” PC so it should all be good.

The Hood pays a visit to Roy and tells him to stop trying to be another vigilante. He offers him a job and a super secret arrow beacon and asks him to report back to him on what’s needed in the Glades. Then Roy goes back in and fudges the truth to Thea that he’s done looking for trouble and they reconcile.

After Laurel defends Oliver to Blood as one of her oldest and closest friends, she’s paid a visit by the Hood and tells him she will take him down as part of the DA’s team and not to come back to see her. Because he’s stupid like that, he does it anyway and the episode closes with him surrounded by cops.

So I liked the whole daytime persona vs. nighttime persona arc as each of our characters having to wear multiple hats and find some sort of balance. I like that the whole corporate cover story makes Oliver, Diggle, and Felicity itch, and that Felicity isn’t afraid to shout Oliver down–and that she makes Diggle man up and tell Oliver that his own relationship was torpedoed by a vengeance trip. We’re humming right along.

Tomorrow night, look for the excellent Bex Tayor-Klaus from the third season of The Killing and the always-great Michael Eklund in the new episode, “Broken Dolls.” Here’s a sneak peek:

Photo courtesy of Jack Rowand/The CW