Violet recaps Season 3 Episode 22 of Arrow, titled This Is Your Sword, where Diggle, Laurel, Felicity, and Malcolm travel to Nanda Parbat to prevent the bioweapon from being dropped on Starling City! Following the recap, both Josh and Violet share their thoughts about the episode.
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Episode Recap of Arrow, Season 3 Episode 22: This Is Your Sword
Oliver learns that it was Maseo who gave Ra’s al Ghul the Alpha and Omega.
Meanwhile, in Starling City, Diggle and Black Canary take down some criminals. Diggle starts punching a guy way too many times. Later, Felicity discusses Diggle’s anger with him. He is upset about Oliver kidnapping Lyla. Felicity believes that her Oliver died the day he joined the League, and this Oliver is someone else.
Thea tells Malcolm she’s going to visit Roy. He agrees that it’s a good idea for her to get out of Starling City for awhile.
In Nanda Parbat, Nyssa sits down to dinner with Ra’s al Ghul and Al Sah-him. Ra’s informs Nyssa that she will bear Al Sah-him’s child in order to extend his lineage. While Ra’s talks to Al Sah-him, Nyssa secretly steals a knife. Oliver goes for a walk, and meets up with Malcolm Merlyn. As they sit by a fire, Oliver tells Malcolm about the virus. However, Oliver says that he doesn’t think Ra’s suspects him. Apparently, Oliver and Malcolm were in cahoots about Oliver’s ascension to Ra’s al Ghul all along, though Oliver thought he would have more time to disassemble the League from the inside. When Maseo goes looking for Oliver, he is alone.
Thea stops by an auto repair shop and asks for “Jason.” Roy takes Thea back to his place.
Over at Palmer Technologies, Ray has Felicity sign some paperwork as Vice-President. Little does she know that it’s a Transfer of Ownership. Felicity gets called away by a text from Malcolm.
Oliver asks Maseo when he took the Alpha and Omega. He tells him he took it from the truck before they blew it up, before Akio died. He wanted revenge on Shrieve, but instead used it to trade his way into the League. Oliver says that when he becomes Ra’s he can set Maseo free, but Maseo says that the League is not his prison, and that from his prison there is no escape.
Felicity, Diggle, and Laurel meet up with Malcolm, and aren’t happy about it. Malcolm tells them the truth about Oliver: that his allegiance with the League is a charade. They don’t believe him. However, Malcolm has brought along Tatsu to prove what he is saying is true. However, they are still skeptical, considering they’ve never met or heard of Tatsu. Malcolm hands over all the information he has on the bioweapon, and tells them to meet him in the morning if they want to go to Nanda Parbat.
At Roy’s place, which he says is just temporary, Thea gives him back his red hoodie. Then they start making out and spend some time in bed together.
Diggle, Felicity, and Laurel watch video of the bioweapon’s attack on Hong Kong. Diggle and Laurel agree that if there’s a possibility of this happening in Starling City, they’re going to Nanda Parbat to try to stop it. Felicity says she can’t go back there after what they did to Oliver.
Ra’s al Ghul tells Nyssa about her mother, and presents her with a necklace that he had given her mother, in hopes that Nyssa would wear it on her wedding day. However, this angers Nyssa. Regardless, Ra’s insists she will marry Al Sah-him, and threatens her with the pain of 1,000 deaths if she defies him.
Tatsu goes to talk to Felicity about Oliver, and tells her how Oliver’s last thought before his fall was of Felicity. Tatsu encourages Felicity to fight for Oliver. Tatsu regrets not having tried to reach out to Maseo.
The next morning, Diggle, Laurel, and Felicity meet up with Malcolm and Tatsu, and head out to Nanda Parbat. They arrive and approach the plane that Ra’s plans to use to release the virus over Starling City. However, they are attacked by the League of Assassins. They fight back as Felicity goes closer to the plane and tries to hack into it. Maseo approaches Tatsu, who says it’s not too late to come back to her. He says it is, and they swordfight.
The plane begins to take off, and Felicity’s tablet gets broken by an arrow. However, Felicity has brought along some insurance: Ray. He flies around in his suit, and causes the plane to explode. Ray then crashes to the ground, but he is fine. Tatsu bests Maseo in the swordfight and kills him. As he dies, he thanks her for releasing him from his prison. She holds him and cries as he dies.
Ra’s al Ghul and Al Sah-him show up, and Ra’s shows them that they did not destroy the bioweapon. Al Sah-him tells them to surrender or die. Oliver leads them into the main room, and tells them to trust him. Ra’s al Ghul questions them as to how they knew about the virus. Tatsu says that Maseo told her. They learn that Oliver is marrying Nyssa, then are led into a cell.
Thea admits to Roy everything that has happened since he’s been gone. He tells her he doesn’t think this is something she can run away from, and that he wants what’s best for her.
A guard retrieves Diggle from the cell and brings him to Oliver’s room to talk alone. Oliver drops the Al Sah-him act, but Diggle is still very angry at him for kidnapping his wife. Diggle says that Oliver lost his trust and respect. Just then, the guard comes in saying that Ra’s has demanded Diggle to be returned to his cell.
Malcolm goes to Ra’s and tells him that Oliver Queen betrayed him, and has been lying to Ra’s all along. Al Sah-him is brought in, and denies his betrayal.
When Thea wakes up in the morning, Roy is gone. She goes to the auto shop looking for him. His boss tells her that he came in an hour ago and quit, and gives her a note and a bag that he left for her. The note says that living on the run from the police is not the life she deserves. In the bag is his red hoodie.
Ra’s al Ghul and Al Sah-him bring Malcolm back to the cell with the others. Tatsu is taken from the cell. Ra’s releases a vial of the bioweapon inside the cell, and seals off the cell, as Felicity appeals to Oliver to help them, with no response. As they lay dying, Al Sah-him and Nyssa’s wedding takes place. Nyssa tries to stab Al Sah-him with the knife she stole, but he is prepared for her attack, and blocks it. The wedding continues, and the union is sealed.
Flashbacks
Hong Kong is in chaos. They bring Akio into a pharmacy and give him some ibuprofen. He bleeds from the mouth. Oliver agrees to go with Maseo to find Shrieve and find out if they made a cure. They sneak onto the army base and demand the cure from General Shrieve. Maseo shoots Shrieve in the shoulder. He gives them the code to the safe in the room, and Maseo retrieves the cure. Oliver brings Shrieve with them so that he can tell them the correct ratio to administer the cure. When they return to the pharmacy, Akio is already dead. However, Shrieve tells them that there is no cure, that what they brought was merely insulin. Shrieve thanks them for bringing him there, because it would have taken weeks to track them down otherwise. It seems the army has followed them there.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 3 Episode 22 of Arrow: This Is Your Sword
So it turns out that everyone’s first instinct was correct: that Oliver was just acting like he had been brainwashed all this time, and that he actually had not gone over to the dark side. We also learn that all this time, it was a secret plan between Oliver and Malcolm Merlyn so that Oliver could ascend to the title of Ra’s al Ghul and take down the League of Assassins from the inside. However, what does not make sense is that at the beginning of the previous episode we see that Oliver believes that he is seeing Diggle – and yet, he kills him anyway. If he was himself, he would not have done that. I suppose you could argue that he didn’t kill him outright, he at least gave him a chance to fight back. Another argument could be that although he did see Diggle, that he knew he was being subjected to mind altering substances, and that he didn’t actually believe that it was Diggle, even though that’s what he was seeing. Both seem like weak arguments, and this aspect of last episode seems to contradict the claim that Oliver was putting on a performance this whole time.
Additionally, does Ra’s al Ghul really not suspect anything? While it is true that Oliver has done everything that Ra’s has asked of him, after the events of this episode, I might think that Ra’s would be suspicious. First of all, when Oliver calls Diggle to his room, and then Ra’s sends the guard to demand for Diggle to be returned to his cell, that seemed like a red flag to me. If he wasn’t normal Oliver, he wouldn’t have cared about talking to Diggle in private. Then later, when Malcolm Merlyn goes to Ra’s al Ghul and blatantly tells him that Oliver has been lying to him this whole time, that would probably raise his suspicions even more. What was the point of that anyway? Was Malcolm really selling Oliver out, or was there something else going on there? Or maybe Ra’s al Ghul knows that Oliver isn’t 100% turned, but doesn’t care, as long as Oliver is actually doing what he’s told to do.
Obviously, the Arrow team is not dead. Actually, my theory was that it was actually some form of the sleeping potion that Felicity had used on Oliver in Nanda Parbat a couple episodes ago. It’ll be interesting to see how they get out of this, especially considering it’s another crossover episode, with Barry Allen, aka The Flash, coming to help!
Lastly, what a tease with Thea and Roy! It was kind of like, oh maybe Roy’s not permanently gone after all… But then he leaves Thea high and dry, though he says it’s because he wants what’s best for her. It looks like Thea may soon be taking over as Arsenal.
Oh, one more thing, it looks like this episode was also beginning to set up Ray’s move to the Arrow/The Flash spinoff, Legends of Tomorrow, with Ray secretly transferring ownership of Palmer Technologies to Felicity. Guess we’ll see how this all plays out very soon, with the next episode being the Season Finale!
Josh’s Thoughts: Arrow, Season 3 Episode 22: This Is Your Sword
So, from the sounds of this episode, everything that Oliver is doing is just a shroud, trying to make Ra’s Al Ghul believe that he is a willing member of the League. That makes sense, as Oliver has endured a lot. I thought it was a bit weird last week that he had succumbed to Ra’s “reconditioning” after only three weeks.
Once Oliver told Malcolm this, I was pretty much believing what he said. Of course, the rest of the team wasn’t, which I can understand, given that Oliver did kidnap Lyla. I assume Oliver did it to prove his loyalty (he even says as much), and figured he would be able to keep Lyla safe. There are a couple of things I question though. One is that Oliver seemed to have no problem killing that random person last week. Additionally, that random person appeared as Diggle, and Oliver still willingly killed the guy. So either Oliver knew this guy wasn’t Diggle despite him looking like him, and killed another random innocent man, or he was under the influence then, and happened to snap out of it later. On top of that, he sure seemed bent on killing Nyssa, even taking an arrow to the arm without flinching.
Then at the end of the episode, we have Oliver willingly poisoning his ex-team members, knowing there is no cure. If I had to guess though, this is a ruse, and the gas is just a knockout gas, and someone will help to rescue them.
The last thing about this episode that was odd was Roy and Thea. It looks like Roy really doesn’t want to be around. He just up and left after Thea shows up. It is kind of sad how that went down. I guess it might be setting up Thea to take on the superhero role, but I will miss Arsenal.
Scenes from Arrow, Season 3 Episode 23: My Name is Oliver Queen
Here are scenes from the next episode of Arrow, titled My Name is Oliver Queen:
