Violet recaps Season 2 Episode 19 of Arrow, titled The Man Under the Hood, where the Arrow team comes up with a plan to prevent Slade getting access to technology to make his army, but he comes up with a different way to get it! Meanwhile, Oliver is dealing with the fallout of Thea finding out the truth about her real father and Isabel taking over Queen Consolidated, and Laurel starts to put the pieces together of the true identities of the Arrow and Black Canary. Following the recap, both Violet and Josh share their thoughts on the episode.
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Episode Recap of Arrow, Season 2 Episode 19: The Man Under the Hood
- The Arrow team, including Felicity, breaks into the Applied Sciences Division using Tockman’s skeleton key, and blow it up (after making sure everyone is out) so that Slade no longer has access to Queen Consolidated’s technology through Isabel.
- Laurel begins creating a conspiracy board, then visits her father in jail, but he says he doesn’t know the identity of the Arrow or the woman in black. Oliver and Moira meet with their lawyer in an effort to protect their remaining assets, but they need Thea’s signature. Moira reveals to Oliver that his father worked with Isabel, and that they had an affair.
- The Arrow team returns to the Arrow Cave to find Deathstroke, who begins shooting at them. They take turns trying to shoot and fight him, but Deathstroke easily beats them, then suddenly leaves. Laurel goes to visit Sara in the hospital, and she learns from her doctor about Sara’s previous injuries, then sees Sara’s scars. Oliver and Sara’s cover story is that they were in a motorcycle accident.
- Oliver brings the papers to Thea to sign, but she’s still working through her issues of finding out Merlyn is her father. Felicity reveals that Slade stole the skeleton key from them. He uses it to break into the Star Labs warehouse. The two people working there, Cisco and Caitlin, use a special gun to knock Deathstroke down, and run away. But he finds what he needs and takes it. Arrow and Black Canary drive up to Star Labs to find out they’re too late. Laurel seems to be following them.
- Felicity and Diggle show up to Star Labs, but the Cisco and Caitlin won’t reveal what Slade took. But they do tell her that “Iris” visits Barry a lot, who is still in a coma. Felicity does some hacking and figures out that Slade took a bio-tranfuser, which can deliver blood from one patient into multiple patients at once. They realize Slade is going to use it to build his army.
- Oliver confronts Isabel at Queen Consolidated. She reveals that Oliver’s father knew Thea wasn’t his, but loved her anyway. Oliver figures out that her vendetta is because his father chose his children over her. In jail, an inmate gets into Lance’s cell and starts beating him for putting him in jail, until officers pull him off. Laurel meets with Arrow and implies that she knows who he is. But they’re interrupted by a phone call from Sara about their dad.
- Laurel visits her father, and tells him that she knows who the Arrow is. However, he says he doesn’t want to know. Laurel blackmails the DA into dropping charges against her father and reinstating him. Oliver meets up with Thea, but gets a phone call from Felicity, telling him that the bio-transfuser just went online, and he only has 30 minutes. When he turns back to talk to Thea, she is gone.
- Arrow finds a room with several inmates hooked up to the bio-transfuser, but he discovers that it’s not Slade they are transfusing from, but Roy. Slade warns that removing him mid-cycle will end his life, and says that he’s only there because Oliver pushed him away. They found him at a shelter, and he didn’t even put up a fight.
- Oliver shoots an arrow at the power grid, and he and Isabel fight, but when Slade comes at him, Oliver shoots him with a trick arrow that puts him out of commission for the moment. Oliver takes the opportunity to unhook Roy. Isabel points a gun at Oliver, but Diggle shoots her dead. Oliver is able to get away with Roy before Slade gets up and comes after him.
- Oliver brings Roy back to the Arrow Cave, but all they can do is wait. Oliver has some Mirakuru and plans to make a cure out of it. He confesses that 5 years ago he had the chance to use the cure on Slade, but he chose to kill him instead. So everything that’s happening now is Oliver’s fault.
- Oliver reveals to Thea that their father knew the truth. But all she thinks that proves is that he was a liar too. Felicity brings the Mirakuru to Cisco and Caitlin at Star Labs. Laurel finds Oliver at the club and gives him a long hug because he is important to her. Meanwhile, Slade uses the Mirakuru to bring Isabel back to life, as his new army of Mirakuru soldiers watches.
- In the island flashbacks, Ivo tells Oliver there’s a cure for the Mirakuru. Anatoli thinks he’s lying, but Sara hears him out. Ivo requests for a quick death in return, since he is dying of blood poisoning. He tells them he was able to synthesize a solution that reverses the effects of Mirakuru. He gives them the key to the safe in his quarters on the freighter, where he is keeping the solution. Sara points the gun at Ivo, but Oliver takes the gun and kills Ivo with it so she wouldn’t have to.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 2 Episode 19 of Arrow: The Man Under the Hood
So that was pretty awesome how Felicity got to go on the mission to blow up the Applied Sciences Division. It was only right, seeing how it was her plan and all. I guess she proved herself in the field when she took that bullet for Sara (which she seems completely recovered from already, by the way). However, I was hoping maybe she would start being able to fight, since we did see her starting to train in that episode. When the Arrow team came down the stairs and ran into Deathstroke, each of them tried to take him on, except for Felicity, who just hid. Maybe in the future she’ll start seriously training and we’ll get to see her kick some butt.
Speaking of kicking some butt, we got to see River — er, I mean Isabel — in action again this episode. Even though she randomly got shot and killed by Diggle. But no matter, Slade brought her back to life with the Mirakuru, plus he has his army built up. It was quite a twist that Roy was the one hooked up to the machine. After he drove out of town, I thought he would be gone awhile, just like in all the other episodes when he’s supposed to be around, but he’s nowhere to be found, without an explanation, so if he was specifically supposed to be gone, I would have thought he’d be gone for even longer. But apparently, it was the exact opposite. I find it hard to believe that they randomly found him at some shelter and he was so distraught by Oliver’s actions that he didn’t even put up a fight. For some reason, that doesn’t seem like the real story.
I wonder if Lance really does know the identity of the Arrow and Black Canary deep down, but he doesn’t want to admit it to himself. As for Laurel, her blackmail seems to work too easily. A little too easily. I’m waiting for the day when it blows up in her face.
Anyway, this was a great, action packed episode, and I’m curious to see how things go now that Slade has a whole Mirakuru army! It was hard enough facing off against Slade by himself, but now against an entire army? Let’s hope that Mirakuru cure comes through real quick, and that there’s enough to go around for everyone!
Josh’s Thoughts: Arrow, Season 2 Episode 19: The Man Under the Hood
Arrow continues the awesomeness this week! We have the cover, renegade group now taking down Oliver’s former company. It was pretty exciting, and Arrow seems to be getting better with the team dynamic. At the end of the episode, another great scene has Diggle coming to save the day in a very heroic way, and taking down that very “impolite” Isabel. It is too bad that she is able to come back with the injection of Deathstroke’s serum, although I do like Summer Glau as an actor.
I was surprised at Officer Lance’s decision to not know who the Arrow is. We have seen him for most of the first season spend his time trying to capture and stop him, but this season they seem to have grown close. As close as a masked vigilante can get at least. Now that Laurel knows what is going on though, I am curious to see how she will proceed. So far she seems rather reasonable, and even empathizing with Oliver after she had her conversation with her dad.
The scene where Deathstroke surprises Team Arrow was really good as well. It was pretty unexpected, and the team caught offguard. I was about to be upset with this scene, as I didn’t understand Deathstroke’s motives at first, but the show did a good job of closing this loop, when Felicity reveals the Skeleton Key was the target. It sounds like Deathstroke may have been surprised too, but more prepared for such a surprise.
It looks like in the coming episodes, Arrow is going to have his hands full with some “‘roided out” ex-cons. I am hoping that Oliver gets to go on the offensive soon though, taking Deathstroke down a few pegs, rather than vice versa, as seems to be the case lately.
Overall, I am really enjoying this season of Arrow. There have been a few missteps with episodes I think, but overall, given the network the show is on, it could be a lot worse.
Scenes from Arrow, Season 2 Episode 20: Seeing Red
Here are scenes from the next Arrow episode, titled Seeing Red:
