Josh recaps Season 2 Episode 18 of Arrow, titled Deathstroke, where the Arrow team works to find Thea and save her from Slade! Following the recap, both Josh and Violet share their thoughts on the episode.
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Episode Recap of Arrow, Season 2 Episode 18: Deathstroke
- The episode opens with Slade driving Thea home, or so she thought. Slade decides to kidnap her instead, and Sebastian Blood then grabs Thea. Back at the “Arrow Cave”, Oliver attempts to train Roy. Oliver tries to calm Roy down about his break up with Thea. Felicity gets Oliver to attend his board meeting at Queen Consolidated, despite his protests.
- Oliver begins searching for Thea, and becomes more concerned when she hasn’t made it to the debate. Sebastian Blood tells Oliver it is his fault–because he tied up traffic. After, Laurel apologizes to Sebastian Blood for her past accusations.
- The debate begins, and Moira and Blood exchange some words. A video is then played in the debate room, which is Thea with a threat to her life written in text across the screen.
- Roy and Diggle talk with Felicity for suspects, as the police question Moira for possible suspects. Speaking with Isabel again, she says an officer voting must take place in 24 hours. Isabel hesitantly offers to be CEO temporarily until Thea is found. Oliver is more than happy to pass the torch for now.
- Felicity interrupts, telling Oliver that she has found a car registered to Slade Wilson. Oliver has his Arrow Crew move in. They confront Slade, and Roy begins wailing on him. Oliver then decides to have Slade Wilson arrested for the kidnapping, and calls Officer Lance.
- Being brought in, Slade is able to provide an alibi, and Lance is in big trouble for helping the Vigilante. Oliver decides to have a conversation with Slade, and we learn how Slade got off the island–he swam. Upon Slade’s release, the Arrow crew moves in to follow Slade, but they all end up losing Slade in the end.
- Slade returns to Thea, and lets her go–but before she leaves, Slade tells her Oliver’s secret. Turns out, it is not the secret you’d think–he tells her about her real father. Meanwhile, Roy gets really angry with the group for turning in Slade rather than interrogating Slade themselves.
- Meanwhile, Isabel informs Oliver that she has been able to permanently take over the company, as Oliver then realizes that she is working with Slade and knows his alter ego. We also learn she has some fighting ability. Oliver threatens her with death if she doesn’t tell him where Thea is.
- Oliver meets with Deathstroke. He first fights some of Slade’s henchmen. We then see Slade stopping a Department of Corrections bus–and Oliver learns he was duped. Slade then offers the criminals a “job”. Felicity then tells Oliver that Thea has been let go, and is at the police precinct. Meanwhile, Roy leaves town.
- Oliver and Moira meet Thea at the precinct, and Thea is furious with both Oliver and Moira about the lie. Officer Lance is arrested for not cooperating in the finding of the Vigilante. Meanwhile, Sebastian Blood is upset with Slade for not making him mayor. We also learn that Isabel is working on replicating the serum Slade took–using Queen Consolidated’s Applied Science division.
- Returning to the Arrow Cave, Oliver feels defeated, in that he made many wrong decisions. Diggle and Felicity attempt to get him back on the right path, and Oliver resolves to “fight back”. Slade then decides to tell Oliver’s secret to Laurel–the real one. Laurel looks distraught and confused as the episode ends.
- Meanwhile, back on the island, Sara attempts to force Hendrick back to the boat to fix it in exchange for Oliver. There is debate with what to do with the tied up man, and Sara seems to come up with a plan. Sara and one of the men on her side decide to remove a mine’s explosive. She plans to rig Hendrick with the explosives, and take out Slade as a suicide bomber.
- Sarah and Slade work on making the trade. Slade takes Hendrick, but realizes something is wrong–He is able to smell the explosives, and removes the bomb. Slade then hallucinates Shado, who tells Slade they deserve to be stranded on the island, and Slade leaves them, and threatens Oliver’s family.
Josh’s Thoughts on Season 2 Episode 18 of Arrow: Deathstroke
I have to say, the biggest surprise for me this episode was Isabel’s alliance with Slade. I knew she wasn’t a friend to Oliver, but for some reason I did not put the Slade/Isabel connection together. I was also surprised by her moves she had, although no match for Oliver’s.
This episode was a pretty good one, I thought, overall though. It certainly showed that Slade not only has the brawn, but the brains to back it up, to outsmart Oliver. I guess my main question is why Slade chose to inform Laurel of Oliver’s secret. What will she do with this information that she now has? Prosecute Oliver? I can’t imagine that being the case, unless the show decides to have a big trial, only for Oliver to be found “not guilty”. Furthermore, why would she believe Slade? I guess maybe someone else saying it might make it feel more real when it comes down to it, but I still find it odd she would believe it so readily.
Poor Thea, finding out about Malcolm being her father–from her kidnapper of all people. That certainly has to hurt. I wonder if this means we will be seeing more of Malcolm this season. We haven’t seen him a whole lot, and I have enjoyed John Borrowman since Doctor Who.
Then we have Roy, who is fed up with Oliver. We see him leave town, and I wonder what his plans are. I have to imagine he will be back, but it seems strange he would up and leave before Thea can be saved. He probably has heard it on the news by now, but still–why would he just give up on her?
All in all, I really liked this episode. We had a few good scenes of the “Arrow Crew” working together, that were filmed creatively, and now we have a broke Oliver that seems to be more determined than ever to take down Slade. I have a feeling Slade is in for some trouble soon.
Violet’s Thoughts: Arrow, Season 2 Episode 18: Deathstroke
Summer Glau is finally back! I had been wondering what happened to her. I think the last time was saw Isabel was the Russia episode maybe? I loved her as River Tam in Firefly and Serenity, so I was excited to hear that she was being brought into the Arrow cast this season. Unfortunately, she hasn’t been around very much. That’s one thing I don’t like about this show, is how they have characters that seem pretty key to the show, but then they randomly disappear for several episodes, with little to no explanation, like the show thinks you forgot about them or something. Roy is a good example of this. But I digress. Anyway, so not only was Summer back, but in this episode we got to see her do some killer River moves on Oliver when she revealed that she is working for Slade. Did not see that coming! Who knew Isabel would bust out those moves? I guess the lesson we’ve learned from the superhero genre is that all Russian women can fight. (See: Natasha Romanov in the Marvel movies, Mother Russia in Kick-Ass 2.)
As for Officer Lance getting in trouble with the police department yet again, I’m not sure what SCPD’s big problem is with “The Arrow” and Lance getting info from him. Sure, it seemed to the SCPD like Lance initially brought in the wrong guy when he arrested Slade based on information from the Vigilante because of Slade’s pre-arranged doctored alibi, but then guess what? It turned out he was right! But they still went ahead and arrested Lance anyway! It’s not Lance’s fault that he doesn’t know the identity of the Vigilante (though really, he should, considering his daughter is Black Canary, and he knows she and Oliver are an item, and Arrow just happens to have the same facial hair and build as Oliver). The SCPD should know by now that Arrow is just trying to help them. Also, how many times does the police department act on an “anonymous tip” to bring someone to justice? But when that tip comes from the Vigilante, that somehow means that Lance has to be arrested for following that tip, even though that tip turned out to be right. I feel bad for Lance that he keeps getting in trouble over nothing.
Alright, so now Slade Wilson has succeeded in taking more and more away from Oliver. Queen Consolidated is gone, thanks to Isabel, who it was pretty dumb of Oliver to trust and was pretty obvious that she was going to abuse the power that he gave her, even though she seemed sincere at the time with her discouraging Oliver from giving her that power at first. (What’s been happening at Queen Consolidated anyway? When’s the last time Oliver was in the office? Felicity is supposed to be his assistant, has she been showing up to the office even if he wasn’t there, or has she been absent too?) It looks like Oliver may have lost Thea now too, with Slade revealing to her that Malcolm Merlyn is her father, and that Moira and Oliver kept it from her. If I were Oliver, I would have tried to explain things to her then and there, like, “Um, hello, remember when you could tell that mom and I weren’t on speaking terms very recently? That’s why!” It’s not like he knew about it all her life, he barely just found out about it, and he wasn’t very happy with his mother about it, to the point that he basically disowned her. But no, he doesn’t try to explain anything, he just lets it go, kind of like he just lets it go when people say that he made the choice of Sara over Shado, when that’s not exactly how it happened.
So then there’s the final scene where Slade reveals to Laurel that Oliver is the Arrow. Does he somehow think that this will turn Laurel against Oliver? She might be a little upset that he kept it from her at first (honestly, she really should have figured it out on her own by now, as much interaction she has with both Oliver and the Arrow), but I’m thinking she’s going to put the pieces together with her sister being Black Canary, and want in on their little Vigilante club. Also, Laurel is the one who’s Black Canary in the comics, so maybe Sara dies at some point and Laurel takes her place? The only problem with that is Laurel doesn’t know how to fight, so that wouldn’t really work. If things go as Slade plans though, now that Laurel has been reinstated to the bar, her next move might be to build up a case against the Arrow and prosecute him.
Guess I’m curious to see what Thea’s and Laurel’s reactions will be to this new information. Also, where did Roy go? Is he ever coming back? I feel like they kind of need him in what looks to be a showdown with Deathstroke next week…
Scenes from Arrow, Season 2 Episode 19: The Man Under the Hood
Here are scenes from next week’s Arrow episode, titled The Man Under the Hood:
A very solid episode. Nice to see Slade make some moves.