Episode Summary: In this episode, mysterious murders are found all across Starling City, and the only thing they have in common is that they all seem to tie back to Wildcat somehow. Laurel, who is now training regularly with Wildcat and has become friends with him, corroborates his alibis and maintains his innocence, but Oliver Queen and Captain Lance are unconvinced. It turns out that Wildcat used to be a vigilante several years back, and his former sidekick is framing him for murder. Wildcat, Laurel, and the Arrow all must work together to take down this threat to Starling and put him away for good. At the end of the episode, a new archer calling herself “Cupid” makes a brief appearance.
Meanwhile, Roy is shaken by his vivid dream of killing Sara and pleads with Felicity to test his blood for traces of mirikuru. He is both relieved and baffled when the tests come back clean, and explains his dreams to Felicity. She reveals that she has recreated a virtual crime scene, and unfortunately Roy’s description of how Sara died provides circumstantial evidence that he COULD be the killer. But then, it is revealed that Roy’s dream was actually just part fantasy, part repressed memory and he didn’t actually kill Sara after all, but instead killed a police officer while out with Oliver and Sara one night.
In Hong Kong, Oliver pursues a target carrying important information, but when the target dies the information goes missing. Oliver receives some special meditation training to help him clarify his thoughts so he can replay the scene in his mind and see where the target may have stashed the info. In the present, Oliver passes on his meditation techniques to Roy so that Roy can better understand his behavior under the influence of mirakuru.
Episode Review: This episode was so blah! I feel like the side plot with Roy was a lot more interesting and relevant than the main plot. While I understand the whole story with Wildcat’s ex-sidekick was supposed to be relevant to what Oliver and Roy are going through, instead it just didn’t tie together well enough and Roy’s struggle felt like more of an afterthought to me. It was interesting to get some backstory on Wildcat, though, and I think his character is a nice change of pace.
And just when I thought we’d FINALLY closed the book on Sara’s murder mystery…we are back to square one! With a new suspect! $20 says it’s Malcolm Merlyn all along. Just sayin’. But seriously guys, mirakuru is a hell of a drug and I didn’t like this whole red herring situation with Roy having a vision of killing Sara. It just…didn’t do anything for me. I just sit here asking myself (or yelling at the TV) “why?” Why can’t we just close the book on mirakuru? Sure there’d be side effects, so shouldn’t Roy just quit the field and see a shrink? Why is it being used as a weird plot device to confuse us? Because that’s what Arrow does best, I suppose.
It’s also kind of weird how spotty and inconsistent character appearances have been this season. Diggle has mostly faded into the background with the birth of his daughter and all, but was out in full force this episode. There was zero Ray Palmer in this episode, and also there was no Thea, which is surprising considering that she and Oliver have been trying to get closer in the last few episodes. Was every season like this?
I will leave you on one final note: it’s stupid for Black Canary to be studying BOXING of all things, because it’s pretty much the least useful martial art for street fighting and damn it, Wildcat, you should know this. Oh hey, a thug is coming after me with a lead pipe, I think I will try to PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE. Real useful if you’re Mister Fantastic and have super-long reach, otherwise you’ll be on the ground by mid-swing. Laurel should be studying Brazilian Ju-Jitsu! Muay Thai! Krav Maga! Other useful martial arts that will allow her to do things other than punch, cuz it’s kind of hard for me to see Black Canary with boxing gloves on the street taking jabs at people. Ugh. Moving on.
Character Corner
There are actually several important characters sneaking their way in to Arrow episodes, so expect to see new introductions every week!
Cupid
I won’t spend too much time talking about Cupid today, since she only appears briefly in this episode, but she is worth mentioning, at least. Cupid is known as a villainess in the Green Arrow comics in the DC universe. She was a special ops soldier who underwent a behavior modification program and obtained super strength, with side effects being powerful feelings of romantic obsession and loss of sanity. She tends to turn her romantic feelings to Green Arrow. She stalks him and tries to win his heart, but ultimately becomes his enemy because he doesn’t return her feelings and she makes insane gestures that cause trouble for people, angering Green Arrow and Black Canary and ultimately turning them against her. It’s unclear how she’ll be used, but I guess it’s one more line on the “Suspect for Sara Lance’s murder” list, to say the least.
Cheesiest moment of the episode: I love today’s cheesy moment. It epitomizes everything I love about Arrow. It is when Oliver shoots an arrow with a boxing glove on the end of it at Wildcat, knocking him down.
Overall Episode Score: D