Check out Violet’s recap of Season 4 Episode 4 of Arrow, titled Beyond Redemption, where Team Arrow tracks down some corrupt cops! Following the recap, both Josh and Violet share their thoughts about the episode.
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Episode Recap of Arrow, Season 4 Episode 4: Beyond Redemption
The SWAT team shows up to bust up a drug deal and shoots everyone. Then a couple of SCPD detectives show up as well. The SWAT team kills them too.
Laurel and Thea show up at a building and discuss that Oliver isn’t to know what happened with Sara. Diggle arrives and says he doesn’t know what’s going on, just that Oliver has some big announcement to make. Just then, Oliver and Felicity walk in. They’re at Sebastian Blood’s old campaign office. Oliver says now it’s his, and announces that he’s running for mayor. The others are skeptical, but Felicity says that Palmer Technologies is going to provide funds. They then step into a hidden elevator, which goes down to their new secret lair. Felicity explains that Cisco helped set up the new Arrow Cave. Just then, Felicity gets the report about the SCPD detectives being gunned down.
Meanwhile, at the SCPD police station, Oliver shows up to talk to Captain Lance and tells him that he’s running for mayor. He asks Lance to endorse his candidacy. Lance says sure, and gives Oliver some evidence from the cop killing crime scene to examine.
At Palmer Technologies, Curtis tries to guess who the Green Arrow is, but Felicity refuses to tell him. She also calls him on pranking her by sending code to her phone. However, he denies it. Curtis takes a look and seems to recognize it. It could contain Ray’s last words, but it’s password protected. Felicity doesn’t want to hear it though.
Felicity returns to the Arrow Cave, where Oliver gives her the sim card Lance recovered from crime scene. She is able to determine where it came from, so Oliver, Thea, and Diggle go to check it out. They find weapons and SCPD gear. Oliver realizes that the people who killed the detectives were police officers.
Laurel brings her father down to her basement, where she is keeping Sara chained up. Laurel explains to her father about the Lazarus Pit. Laurel shows Sara a picture of the three of them. Sara asks, “Who am I?” then uses her chains to try to choke Laurel, while demanding that she let her go. Lance helps free Laurel.
Back at the Arrow Cave, Oliver and the others have returned. Oliver wants to set a trap for the corrupt cops by getting some drugs through Thea’s old drug dealer. Thea meets up with him, with Diggle posing as her bodyguard.
Oliver goes to the police station and tells Lance that the detectives were killed by corrupt cops. He asks Lance to subtly get the word out that about the location of the warehouse where they’re keeping the drugs they bought. Lance says he wants to be there to bust the cops.
The SWAT team shows up, and Team Arrow is ready for them, along with Captain Lance. However, they have a tough time fighting them. Laurel uses her Canary cry, but one of the cops uses a special gun that disables it. The SWAT team gets away with the drugs.
Lance comes back to the Arrow Cave with them. Lance reveals that the gear the corrupt cops had was specialized anti-vigilante task force gear. There are 40 cops on the task force. He says he’ll give Felicity unrestricted access to the police department’s computer network so she can narrow it down. Lance returns to the station.
The corrupt cops discuss what to do about Captain Lance, who they’re sure pegged them as cops.
Felicity goes to Palmer Technologies, where Curtis is pretty sure Felicity knows the password. She admits that she does, but she says she doesn’t want to listen to her ex-boyfriend’s last words before he died. Curtis says his brother died 6 years ago of cancer, and he would give anything to hear something from him he’d never heard before.
Captain Lance meets up with Damien Darhk to ask his help about what to do about Sara. Darhk is familiar with the Lazarus Pit, and says that if it were his daughter, he’d put her down, because she may look like his daughter, but she doesn’t possess her soul.
Back at the Arrow Cave, Felicity has identified Liza Warner as one of the corrupt cops. While Felicity is running facial recognition to look for Liza on security and street cameras, Oliver notices that Lance is talking to Damien Darhk.
When Lance returns home, Oliver is there waiting for him. Oliver confronts him about Damien Darhk. Lance says he’s been working with Darhk for 2 months, and that Darhk held himself out as someone who wanted to help the city. By the time Lance figured out who he really was, Darhk threatened Laurel. Oliver says that Laurel can take care of herself, and to stop hiding behind his daughter. He tells Lance that he’s part of the reason he decided to run for mayor, to find out what kind of man he really is, but didn’t expect to find out what kind of man Lance really is. Lance asks what Oliver is going to do, but he says he doesn’t know.
At Thea’s loft, Oliver and Thea talk. Oliver reminisces about the sports games they went to when then were kids, and explains why he wanted to run for mayor.
Lance goes back to see Sara alone, and pulls his gun, preparing to shoot her. However, Laurel comes in and sees what he is about to do. She convinces him not to, and he breaks down crying. Laurel tries to comfort him, but he leaves. As he reaches the hallway, Liza and the other corrupt cops attack him. Laurel tries to fight them, but she gets tasered.
Liza and the others bring Lance back with them to a warehouse which is he SCPD’s contraband disposal facility. They need him in order to gain access. Meanwhile, at the Arrow Cave, Felicity figures out where Lance was taken, so the team heads out. At the warehouse, Lance is tied to a post, while Liza and her posse load up the contraband. Laurel shows up and uses her Canary cry. This time, the cop’s gun doesn’t work on her, because she changed the frequency. Thea, Oliver, and Diggle show up to fight as well. Oliver frees Lance, then uses a trick arrow to tie up Liza. However, she breaks free, stabs Oliver in the back, and puts a cord around his neck, threatening to strangle him. Lance is able to talk Liza down, and she allows him to arrest her.
When Lance returns home, Oliver is there waiting for him again, and thanks him for saving his life. Lance says he is going to turn himself in. However, Oliver says that they haven’t been able to get close to Darhk, so he would like for Lance to stay on the inside.
Thea surprises Oliver and hires interns to work at Oliver’s campaign office. She also hands him a speech she wrote for him, based on what he told her about the city being united. Later, he delivers this speech as he announces his candidacy. Meanwhile, in a montage, we see that Felicity decided to listen to Ray’s last words, Liza is going to jail, and Lance is continuing to work with Damien Darhk.
Laurel goes down to see Sara, but she is gone.
Flashback to the Island
Oliver brings the woman to a cave to hide. He returns to camp and tells the other soldiers that the woman tried to escape and a minefield got Richards, so he made the woman’s death “memorable.” One of the soldiers demands to see the woman’s body. Oliver hikes out with the soldier, pretending to bring him to the body, and Oliver tells the solider that he strangled the woman. The soldier figures out that Oliver has experience killing, and threatens him if he’s lying to him. Oliver brings him to the cave, where the soldier takes the woman’s pulse, and is satisfied that she is dead. The soldier leaves, and Oliver wakes up the woman and speaks to her. Meanwhile, the soldier finds Oliver’s device he was using to communicate with ARGUS.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 4 Episode 4 of Arrow: Beyond Redemption
I had mixed feelings about this episode. I enjoyed the emotional performances that Paul Blackthorne (Captain Lance) and Stephen Amell (Oliver) delivered, but I felt like the storyline about the corrupt cops was on the weak side. It seemed like it was secondary to what was more of a character building episode. Captain Lance went through a lot of different emotions this episode, and I have to say Paul Blackthorne did a great job displaying those varied emotions.
Regarding the storyline about Sara, although Damien Darhk is a bad guy, I kind of agree with him in this situation. He has the experience and knowledge about the Lazarus Pit and what it entails. He knows that this creature that was brought back from the pit isn’t really Sara, it just looks like her. In this case, I think Darhk is genuinely trying to help Lance out and give him his sincere advice. Of course, in this case, it looks like Constantine is going to be brought in to help restore Sara’s soul, which will bring her back to normal. But if you didn’t know that was going to happen, the logical conclusion seems to be what Darhk suggested. Otherwise, it’s just some soulless creature that you keep chained up in the basement. Hopefully, whatever Constantine does for Sara, he’ll be able to help Thea out with her problem as well.
Overall, I wasn’t all that excited about this episode. But it will be interesting going forward now that Captain Lance is actually working with Team Arrow now.
Josh’s Thoughts: Arrow, Season 4 Episode 4: Beyond Redemption
So it looks like Oliver is going to make a big push for the Mayor position. I am curious how that will go. It will be a tough job being a mayor and a vigilante at the same time. In fact, those roles kind of seem counter-intuitive–I don;t think a mayor would really endorse a vigilante…
Another thing I found a little weird about the mayor thing–why would they want to use Sebastian Blood’s old lair? That seems creepy. Even more bizarre, why would you want your secret Arrow lair to be where so many people would be coming and going? You would think people would eventually figure out what is going on.
It looks like Lance’s dirty laundry has been aired out, to Oliver at least. Oliver seemed surprisingly calm about it, given how much of a hard time Darhk has given his team. But Lance did admit he got in over is head, and really had no way out at this point, because Laurel would be in danger. It also looks like Lance could be paying the price for his unholy alliance, now that he is going to be playing double-agent now.
Sara isn’t doing well it seems, and it looks like she might be missing a soul according to John Constantine, who will be appearing next episode. I am curious to see how this “magic” and “mystical” turn for the show will continue. I wasn’t really a fan of Constantine when it was on, but maybe adding him as a guest star to Arrow will be more interesting. We will have to see what happens, and see if Thea needs any soul restoration as well.
Scenes from Arrow, Season 4 Episode 5: Haunted
Here are scenes from the next Arrow episode, titled Haunted:
