Violet recaps Season 2 Episode 17 of Arrow, titled Birds of Prey, where The Huntress returns to Starling City to finish off her father! Following the recap, both Violet and Josh share their thoughts about the episode.
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Episode Recap of Arrow, Season 2 Episode 17: Birds of Prey
- Arrow and Black Canary help Lance and the SCPD capture Frank Bertinelli. The Arrow team knows it’s just a matter of time before Helena Bertinelli returns for revenge on her father. In a flashback to the freighter, Slade discovers that the engine needs to be fixed.
- Laurel attends an AA meeting. Adam asks Laurel to come back to work to try the Bertinelli case. At Verdant, Roy gives Thea a silver bracelet. The Arrow team figures out that Helena is heading straight for Starling City by tracking the GPS on a rental car in the name of her dead fiance.
- Arrow, Black Canary, and Roy intercept the car they think Helena is in, but there’s a guy inside, who shoots Roy’s hand. Roy gets angry and starts to go after the guy, but Oliver snaps him out of it by yelling Thea’s nickname, “Speedy.” Turns out Helena just paid the guy to take the car for a joyride. Meanwhile, Helena is laying in the backseat of a car with her gun to the back of the seat, ordering a guy to shut up and drive.
- Oliver asks Roy to stay away from Thea to protect her from his rage. Sara expresses her concern to Laurel about returning to work. In the flashback, Slade radios Sara and asks for Mr. Hendrick to repair the freighter in exchange for Oliver. Back in the present, Oliver tells Sara to stay put while he goes to the courthouse.
- Oliver goes to the courthouse as himself, not Arrow, and the Huntress and her men attack as her father is brought in and the police sting to catch her fails. Oliver runs out the back with Bertinelli, while Laurel is still inside, and the Huntress takes hostages. Oliver calls Felicity to have Diggle bring him his “work clothes” and finds out that Sara went to the courthouse after all. We see Black Canary show up to save Laurel.
- Roy tells Thea they need to break up, but she says no. After a heart-to-heart, Black Canary tries to get Laurel to safety, but Laurel insists on staying. In the flashback, Sara tells Slade that Hendrick’s not there, but Slade doesn’t believe her, and tortures Oliver. Hendrick pulls a gun on her and says he’s not going back.
- Black Canary and the Huntress fight, and the Huntress tosses Black Canary out the window. The Huntress proposes a trade to Arrow: her father for Laurel. Thea walks in on Roy kissing another girl. Lance helps Arrow and Black Canary get Bertinelli for the trade. Helena dresses as a police officer and leads Laurel out as the SWAT team gets to the hostages and find that the Huntress is gone.
- In the flashback, Sara knocks Hendrick out. Back in the present, Arrow and Black Canary meet up with the Huntress to make the trade. Arrow tries to talk Helena out of killing her father, but it doesn’t work. Just then, the SWAT team leader shows up and start shooting. Black Canary and the Huntress fight again. Lance knocks out the SWAT team guy. Black Canary begins to strangle Helena to death, but Laurel talks her out of it.
- Helena notices that her father has already been shot dead. Lance arrests Helena, while Arrow and Black Canary run away. Oliver visits Helena in jail, and she admits that Oliver was right. In the flashback, Oliver awakens and finds out he has been tattooed on his back with the same tattoo Shado had on her back.
- Laurel discovers that Adam has been fired for his part in the plan to capture Helena, and wasn’t authorized to offer Laurel her job back. However, Laurel blackmails her boss, Kate, into getting her job back. A broken-hearted Thea talks to Oliver and wonders why no one can tell the truth. She comments that Oliver is the only one who doesn’t lie to her. As Thea walks home, Slade offers her a ride.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 2 Episode 17 of Arrow: Birds of Prey
Finally, Roy is back in the mix with the Arrow team. It’s about time. It was just really random how they brought him in as part of the team, and then he’s virtually absent for the next several episodes. Even so, he only was really much help in the beginning, and was not involved at all in retrieving Laurel. Guess they don’t want to tip off Lance and the SCPD abut yet another vigilante in the city. Besides, Roy needs to get a better disguise.
Speaking of disguises, how could Laurel not recognize her own sister, especially being in such close proximity to her?! Really, the mask and the wig throw you off that much? I could maybe understand if the wig Sara used was a different hair color than her own, but it’s pretty much the same as her normal hair, except brighter, longer, and without slightly dark roots. Most people probably don’t even realize that she’s wearing a wig. But oh well, I guess we’ve pretty much grown accustomed to people not recognizing superheroes just because they put on a pair of glasses, or a black mask over their eyes. Although, it seems like nobody had any trouble recognizing Helena as the Huntress, but maybe that’s because they already knew her secret identity?
All in all, a pretty good episode. A good amount of action, and we got the much anticipated showdown between Black Canary and the Huntress. On a personal preference note, one thing I really liked was the fact that Sara used a voice modulator to talk to Laurel as Black Canary. Can she please use that all the time? Because her real voice is really annoying! But when she was about to strangle the Huntress, she did use her real voice. Wouldn’t Laurel have figured out her true identity then? As for the Huntress, I’m sure that’s not the last we’ve seen of her. As we’ve seen several times, even the incarcerated criminals on this show always seem to find a way to pop up again down the road.
Looks like Laurel is back in full force, and now we know why: she goes to not one, but two AA meetings per day. She was also able to blackmail her way into getting her old job back pretty easily. For someone who’s so intelligent, why can’t she recognize her own sister or her ex-boyfriend?? Or maybe she does know and is playing dumb?
Regarding Thea, I don’t think it was all that necessary for Roy to break up with her. If Oliver used Thea’s nickname to snap him out of his rage (nice nod to the fact that Roy’s nickname in the comics is Speedy, not Thea’s), wouldn’t Thea herself be enough to prevent him from hurting her? For example, what if Shado were still alive — Slade loves her, I don’t think he would hurt her, even with the Mirakuru in him. But I guess we don’t really know for sure. They could get into an argument over one little thing, and that might set him off to unintentionally hurt her. So maybe it is for the best. But I think they should just tell Thea the truth. Everyone else knows, why not her too? It would protect her more if she knew the truth. Case in point, if she had known the truth about Slade, she wouldn’t have gotten in the car with him, nor would she have been walking by herself in the middle of the night. Speaking of which, why was there such round the clock surveillance on Thea and others in the last episode in order to protect them from Slade, but now not so much? Oliver, knowing what happened between Thea and Roy, didn’t seem to care that Thea went off on her own like that, without any of the Arrow team looking after her.
Anyway, looks like next episode there’ll be a big confrontation with Slade, who has captured Thea! They’re going to need Roy, since he has the Mirakura in him, so if they want to continue to keep his identity secret from Thea, they need to come up with a better costume for him, and quick!
Josh’s Thoughts: Arrow, Season 2 Episode 17: Birds of Prey
The week’s episode of Arrow was surprisingly good. I say surprising because most of the Huntress involved episodes turn out to be rather boring to me. This one actually worked for me.
Laurel being played to re-join the firm to be used as bait for drawing out the Huntress was kind of a cool move plot-wise I thought. And how Laurel was able to turn the situation around at the end to make her actually get her job back gave a glint of a dark side to Laurel. I am curious to see if she plans on going darker.
Roy is having a tough time lately in the show. His newfound powers certainly seem to be more of a curse than a gift despite his super strength. We have seen how the serum has affected Slade, so I have a feeling it is only a matter time before Roy turns to the dark side.
As the Huntress is holding all of the courthouse hostage, Sara (barely) disguised has some conversations with her sister Laurel, and manages to convince her to hold off on the drinking. But I am not sure Laurel actually learned anything the way she decided to blackmail her way back into a job…
As for the Huntress, it was interesting seeing Oliver try to pull her back from the dark side, yet Sara is basically set on killing her. Shockingly in agreement with Sara is the entire Arrow team except for Oliver. No redemption for the Huntress it looks like unless Oliver has some say in the matter.
In the end, the Huntress learns that Oliver was right. Despite the cold heartedness of her father, vengeance didn’t solve any problems. I have a feeling that she doesn’t plan on reforming, and I have a feeling Oliver will have to deal with her again at some point in time.
All in all, I will say this episode wasn’t great, but better than expected. While I was able to tolerate the Huntress this episode, I really do not enjoy that character as a whole. What I am excited for is the showdown between Slade and Oliver that seems to be happening next week–or at least a confrontation.
Scenes from Arrow, Season 2 Episode 18: Deathstroke
Here are scenes from the next Arrow episode, titled Deathstroke:
Is this show good? I have not seen it yet
This show certainly seems to have included more characters from the comics since I last watched. I stopped watching midway through the first season, and at that point there was really only the main character and the bodyguard dude. Might pick this back up at some point.