Violet recaps the Season 2 finale of Arrow, titled Unthinkable, where the Arrow team tries to save the city from Slade and his army of Mirakuru soldiers, plus fend off an impending drone attack from ARGUS! Following the recap, both Violet and Josh share their thoughts about the episode.
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Episode Recap of Arrow, Season 2 Episode 23: Unthinkable
The cure works on Roy, who wakes up just as Slade’s goons make it up to the clock tower. Oliver holds them off while Diggle and Roy zipline to safety, and then he grabs Felicity and they zipline down together. Just then, Lyla flies up in a helicopter and fires a missile at the clocktower, killing the goons inside. Meanwhile, the rest of Slade’s goons continue to attack the city. The group heads to the Arrow Cave to form a plan: Roy and Felicity will fill injection arrows with the cure, while Lyla and Diggle try to stop Waller from launching the drone against the city.
It turns out that Thea did in fact shoot Malcolm Merlyn, but he was wearing a bulletproof vest, so he’s fine. He praises Thea for actually being able to pull the trigger, unlike Tommy.
At the police station, Lance gives the officers a pep talk, and they head out. Laurel walks in on Sara talking to someone, and gets shot with a knockout dart, and passes out.
It seems that Roy can’t remember anything past leaving town, and Felicity lies and confirms that he was out cold the whole time. Nyssa al Ghul shows up at the Arrow Cave with an army. Sara tells Oliver that she agreed to go back to the League of Assassins in exchange for their help. Nyssa tells Oliver that Slade is using the Queen Consolidated building as his headquarters.
Roy calls Thea to make sure she’s alright, and tells her that she’s not safe and to meet him at his place. Merlyn tries to talk her out of going, but it doesn’t work.
Arrow, Black Canary, and the League of Assassins infiltrate the Queen Consolidated building and attack Slade’s goons with the cure. Sara is about to kill Isabel when Oliver stops her. But then Nyssa does it for her.
Lance finds Laurel passed out on the floor, and Laurel tells her father that Sara is with the woman that took their mother. Then one of the masked men abducts Laurel. Meanwhile, at ARGUS, Waller has the drone locked on to Starling City.
Lance shows up at Queen Consolidated and tells them about Laurel. Felicity hacks into a satellite and sees that Slade’s men are trying to leave through the tunnel. Nyssa points out that’s an advantage and they decide to head there. Oliver tells Felicity that he has to kill Slade, though she tries to talk him out of killing him.
Thea meets Roy at his place, where he apologizes for everything. Roy tells her that he’s done with the Arrow, and she’s the only person he’s ever cared about. They decide to leave town and make a fresh start together. Just then, Roy gets a text from Felicity saying that they need him, and Roy tells Thea there’s just one more thing he needs to do before they leave.
Oliver takes Felicity to the Queen mansion and tells her to stay there, though she protests. He explains that Slade took Laurel because he wants to kill the woman he loves. But Oliver tells Felicity that Slade took the wrong woman, and tells Felicity that he loves her. He asks her if she understands. She says yes, and he leaves.
The Arrow team, including Roy and Lance, plus the League of Assassins, head to the tunnel and fight against the goons, who have killed off the ARGUS soldiers that were blocking the tunnel. Meanwhile, Dig and Lyla sneak into ARGUS and release Deadshot and some other prisoners to help them.
While Thea packs up at Roy’s place, she finds a bundle of arrows.
Though the drone wasn’t scheduled to launch until 0600, Waller orders it to be prepped to fire. But just then, Diggle, Lyla, Deadshot, and the other prisoners break into the ARGUS command room and stop Waller from launching the drone. Waller drops the bomb that Lyla is pregnant with Dig’s kid.
The Arrow team seems to be victorious. Slade calls Oliver and lets him know that he has the woman he loves – Felicity. Oliver heads to the warehouse to save Felicity. He finds Slade with his sword to her neck, and Oliver lays his bow down. One of Slade’s goons brings Laurel in as well. While Oliver distracts Slade by talking about Shado, Felicity stabs him with the cure. It seems that this was Oliver’s plan all along, knowing that Slade would overhear his conversation with Felicity at the Queen mansion, which Slade had bugged upon his visit, and had handed the cure to her when he asked her if she understood. Slade orders his guy to kill Laurel, but Sara shoots the guy, and Laurel takes the opportunity to hit the guy a couple times. Then Oliver tells Sara to get the girls out of there.
As Oliver and Slade fight, the ARGUS drone flies over, and Slade gets Oliver in a choke hold. He breaks free, and they fight some more. Slade tells Oliver that to beat him, he’ll have to kill him, which would prove that Oliver is a murderer. They continue to fight. Oliver shoots his trick arrows at Slade, which tie him to a pillar. Oliver calls Waller to tell her that it’s over and to call back the drone. She complies. The city is saved.
Lance and Laurel see Sara off at the port, as Sara explains that it’s her choice to go with the League of Assassins. Sara tells Laurel that Oliver needs her, and gives Laurel her black jacket. Lance tells Laurel not to get any ideas. As they walk away, Lance suddenly collapses and begins coughing up blood. It seems that he may have internal bleeding from when one of Slade’s goons hit him.
Roy returns to his place to find a note from Thea saying that she doesn’t trust him and that she’s never coming back. We see her getting into a limo with Merlyn.
Slade wakes up in a jail cell. Oliver is sitting there, and thanks Slade for helping him become a hero. Slade promises to kill everyone Oliver has ever loved. Oliver leaves Slade behind in the underground ARGUS supermax jail cell, which turns out to be located on the island where Oliver was marooned. Diggle and Felicity greet him when he comes out. Diggle lets Oliver and Felicity talk alone, and Felicity admits that Oliver had her fooled for a second when he told her he loved her. He agrees that they both sold it.
Oliver insists on flying the plane back, and Diggle agrees. Felicity asks when Oliver learned to fly a plane if he spent 5 years on the island.
In the flashback to the ship, Oliver admits to Slade that he blames himself for Shado’s death, and tries to distract him from injecting someone. Slade is about to shoot Sara when there’s an explosion on the ship from the missile that Anatoli was instructed to fire if Oliver did not return within an hour. Water floods in and gunfire breaks out. Deathstroke catches Sara, then throws her aside, and she is sucked out through the hole in the ship. Slade and Oliver fight, and Slade gets Oliver in a choke hold. Slade punches him, and they fight some more. A beam falls on Slade and pins him. Oliver takes an arrow and stabs Slade in the eye.
In a later flashback, Oliver wakes up in a hotel room, and two Asian men with guns get him and bring him outside – where Amanda Waller introduces herself to him. She has him get into the back of her car, and welcomes him to Hong Kong.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 2 Episode 23 of Arrow: Unthinkable
I can’t believe they did that. You know what I’m talking about: Olicity (a mashup of Oliver and Felicity’s names, if you have no idea what I’m talking about). That was cruel, playing with the fans’ emotions like that. I must admit, I fell for it for at first. But at the same time, I was immediately skeptical, exclaiming out loud that he was JUST talking about moving in with Sara a couple episodes ago, and now he’s over here telling Felicity he loves her? WTF?? I went off on how he’s such a player – which annoyed me because that’s supposed to be the person he was before the island, and they keep wanting us to think that he’s changed so much since then, but apparently that isn’t true if he’s going to bounce between girls that quickly. So when the big secret was revealed, it all made sense. It didn’t even cross my mind about the house being bugged. I mean, I’m sure it was in the back of my mind, but I didn’t know that Oliver knew about it. So I didn’t think of that as a possibility. But at the same time, Laurel was the other woman who was taken, not Sara, who, again, Oliver was so in love with that he was wanting to move in with her very recently! And we all know that that’s a big deal, because the last time a girl wanted to move in with him (Laurel), he ran away and got together with someone else (Sara) because he wasn’t ready for the commitment. Now if he is ready to make such a commitment to Sara, wouldn’t that suggest that she’s the one who should have been taken, not Laurel? Again, just showing how much of a player Oliver is.
In any case, I’m glad Sara is finally leaving for good – or so it seems. I know I’ve talked at length about how much I can’t stand her, or Laurel. So when Sara gave Laurel her black jacket, it made me roll my eyes and audibly groan, because it seems like what we know must be inevitable may soon be coming to fruition: that Laurel will take her place as Black Canary. After all, in the comics Laurel is the one who is Black Canary, not Sara. That means we’ll be seeing a lot more of Laurel, unfortunately. Can’t we find a way to get rid of her too? Ugh. It’s going to take a lot of training to get Laurel up to par with Sara, though. Not sure how that’s going to happen. As for Lance, I wonder what his fate is? They wouldn’t kill him off, right? Right??
Alright, so other than that, we got some pretty good action scenes in this season finale. However, I did think it was a bit anti-climactic how easy it was to take out Isabel, and I thought tying Slade to a pillar with trick arrows was a bit too easy as well, but I guess that was the only way for Oliver to subdue Slade without killing him. Regarding Thea, does she think that Roy is the Arrow? Has there ever been an instance where Thea saw Roy and Arrow in the same place? I can’t remember. If not, then it would seem possible to her. Which, considering all they’ve been through concerning Arrow, would seem like he was lying to her quite a lot. All of this could have been avoided if someone bothered to tell Thea about Oliver’s secret identity. Seriously, she’s like the only one not in the loop, what would it have hurt? Anyway, so now she’s going off with Merlyn for who knows what. I still think that Merlyn has Mirakuru in him. He claimed that he was wearing a bulletproof vest, and that’s why the bullets didn’t hurt him when Thea shot him, but I think it’s because of the Mirakuru that he didn’t get hurt. So, is Thea going to turn into some sort of super villain now? This should be interesting.
All in all, a great season finale that has me really looking forward to next season! What, Oliver already met Waller a long time ago in Hong Kong? He wasn’t on the island the whole time? What did Oliver help ARGUS with? Can’t wait to find out!
Josh’s Thoughts: Arrow, Season 2 Episode 23: Unthinkable
This was a pretty exciting Arrow season finale. We see a lot of people coming together—especially Roy who gets his own mask finally. Oliver even takes a League of Shadows ally in his fight to save Starling City.
The big heartbreak this episode is for Felicity though. Poor Felicity hears what she wants from Oliver, but it turns out to just be a play to manipulate Slade’s plans. In the end I was hoping Felicity knew about the plan, and she must have since Oliver gave her the syringe to use on Slade. Still, I am sure Felicity was hopeful. By the end we do learn she knew, but I think she still had some hopes there was glimmer of truth in there.
In the end, Slade is locked up with ARGUS, and in the comic book world, that usually means we will see the villain again. So I have a feeling we haven’t seen the last of Slade Wilson/Deathstroke.
I am curious to see where the story progresses from here though. Thea is still not on good terms with Roy, and took off with Malcolm. Does that mean she might be turning villainous? I am sure Merlin will be back to terrorize Starling City some more as well.
What I am really excited for is the crossover episodes Arrow is supposed to have with The Flash. Those ought to be really good episodes! Let’s hope season 3 does as well as season 2!
Scenes from Arrow, Season 3 Episode 1: The Calm
Here are scenes from the Season 3 premiere of Arrow, titled The Calm:
I loved the Season finale of Arrow, they had so much going on to keep you on the edge of your seat just waiting to see what was going to happen next.I love this show!