In Season 5 Episode 16 of Arrow, titled Checkmate, Oliver finally learns who the masked Prometheus is! Check out Josh’s recap, followed by our thoughts about the episode.
- His thoughts on Checkmate, Episode 516 of Arrow
- Her thoughts on Arrow, Season 5 Episode 16: Checkmate
This episode of Arrow has Oliver heading back to Nanda Parbat, home of the now deceased Ra’s Al Ghul, and League of Assassins. He confronts the woman we have seen in recent flashbacks. This woman reveals she has been training Prometheus for the purpose of taking down Oliver. The reason? She is Talia Al Ghul — Ra’s Al Ghul’s daughter, and she wants revenge. Oh, and she also decides to let Oliver know who Prometheus is — Adrian Chase.
So, Oliver heads back to Star City to confront Chase, who is currently talking to some city officials, and Chase seems to know that Oliver knows his identity using some clever word play.
Oliver then decides to confront Chase in the parking garage moments later, but Chase knows that Oliver won’t kill him. He promises to expose him though. Chase is not concerned though—he has kidnapped Susan. Deciding nothing can be done with Chase at this point, Oliver heads to the Arrow Cave to tell the team.
Meanwhile, Felicity is getting deeper in with her hacker friends, being introduced to the Helix team proper. It runs like a company — a company who is watching everyone and everything. Felicity seems a bit concerned but Alena/Kojo reassures her with “power to the people, right?”
Back at City Hall, Chase greets Rene and Lance with a maniacal greeting, while making sure their paperwork is all in order for the city-running stuff. Meanwhile, Oliver and Diggle pay a visit to Doris, Chase’s wife, to try to convince her who Chase is. She doesn’t believe it though. Then the police come in, receiving a call about the Arrow being there, and Oliver and Diggle are forced to flee.
Back at the Arrow Cave, the team receives some footage of Susan being kidnapped. The team tries to figure out where she is based on the footage. Meanwhile, Oliver laments getting close to her, and begins to go back to his solitary mentality. Diggle tries to snap him out of it, telling him his friends are his strength.
Felicity finally shows up at the Arrow Cave, as she was busy with Helix during all of this. Oliver tells Felicity that he’s not her boss, so she can basically go wherever she wants, but he does show concern about what she has been doing. Interestingly, Felicity has figured out Chase’s true identity.
Unfortunately for Oliver, he has to head to a press conference, covering his (Green Arrow’s actually) involvement in the attack on Chase’s house. Shockingly, Oliver condemns the Green Arrow’s action, ordering the police to take him down with any means necessary if he is spotted, if the Green Arrow doesn’t turn himself in within the next 24 hours.
Oliver then pays a visit to police chief Pike, and provides him with evidence regarding Chase’s alias. Oliver asks him to look into this discreetly, but apparently the news has already reached Chase — as Pike leaves the building, a homeless-looking man winds up shanking Pike.
Oliver learns about Pike, and heads to the hospital to check on him. Chase has beaten him there, and the two have another word battle with Oliver promising to take Chase down and Chase putting down Oliver.
This gets Oliver really heated, and he begins thrashing the Arrow Cave. Felicity decides to use her new friends to try to find Susan. But Alena says Helix needs its back scratched for Felicity to get what she wants, and that back-scratching is hacking into a Homeland Security drone — for reasons that Felicity is not given.
So Felicity works on getting the location, while Curtis watches her work. He is not very excited about the means Felicity is using to get this information, but Felicity doesn’t seem to pay him any mind about it. Meanwhile, Diggle tries to soothe Oliver some more after his tantrum in the Arrow Cave. He again tries to hash out that friends are helpful, not a hindrance.
Felicity is able to get the location of Susan finally, and Oliver jumps into action. He has Diggle go on his own side mission though, which will come up pretty quickly. In the building where Susan is being held, there is a good number of explosives in the building. Oliver finds Susan and gets her out of the building quickly.
Chase confronts Oliver, and with Oliver’s plan to keep the two in the building until it explodes, Chase decides to turn off his explosives. Then Diggle comes in with Doris in tow, and Chase is heartbroken to see that his wife now knows who he really is. But being the deranged man he is, he decides the best course of action is to stab his wife.
Diggle gets Doris out of the building, leaving Oliver and Chase to do the tango. The two battle for some time, but Talia then shows up as reinforcements for Chase. Unfortunately, the rest of Team Arrow comes back for Oliver only to find that he has been taken.
Doris died on her way to the hospital, and Lance and Susan confront Chase, who is back at work as DA, about Oliver. He seems to confirm he has Oliver. We then see that Talia and Chase do have Oliver, and Oliver tells Talia that Ra’s al Ghul would not approve of her allying with Chase. Talia doesn’t seem to care, and has Chase “make Oliver suffer”. Oliver looks like he is in for some pain. Meanwhile, Felicity has gone back to Helix again, to look for Oliver.
Flashbacks
As for the flashbacks this episode (the bane of my existence with Arrow lately), Anatoly and Oliver wind up in a big gun battle with Gregor. Gregor manages to escape though, so Oliver decides to use his “Robin Hood” outfit, as Anatoly describes it, and the two head out to find Gregor and eliminate him. Then the fight moves on to a hockey rink, and he is able to corner Gregor finally.
His Thoughts on Arrow, Season 5 Episode 16: Checkmate
I have mixed feelings about Adrian Chase being the villain. It seemed pretty obvious as the season went on, given how buddy-buddy Chase was being with Oliver. Usually when that happens in a show like this, they turn out to actually be the bad guy in the end. I typically don’t like this type of plot twist, because it seems so forced.
On the other hand, I think this character has proven himself to be pretty menacing, so I have enjoyed watching it play out. I actually think the actor does a pretty good job a creating Adrian Chase, as he came off as a good ally for Oliver in the beginning, before things started moving to the point of being “too good” of an ally.
I wonder what Chase is really after though with regards to Oliver, and what happened to Chase to feel so wronged. I get Talia al Ghul’s beef with Oliver—her father is dead, blah blah blah (I just realized, these recent episodes feel like the plot of The Dark Knight Rises), but so far I don’t understand Chase’s motives yet. I guess we will have to wait and see.
As for Felicity, clearly she is heading for some bad stuff. I am just curious how that will play out. Are we setting up Season 6’s baddies? Is this something that will resolve by the end of the season? Is Felicity going to go bad? Is Felicity going to be held hostage and forced to do some bad stuff? Hmm…
As for Doris, that’s a pretty sad way to go. To find out your husband is a sociopath, who then murders you. I was hoping that maybe the death is a fake-out so that she can testify against Chase later on, but so far it doesn’t seem that way. We also have the hope of Pike waking up, but he doesn’t actually have any evidence yet, so even if he wakes up, he is not much help until he starts doing some digging on Chase’s alias.
Anyway, get prepared for tortured Oliver. It looks like we have that coming next.
Her Thoughts on Arrow, Season 5 Episode 16: Checkmate
I was a little surprised that Oliver learned about Adrian being Prometheus so soon after the audience learned about him last episode, as I was kind of looking forward to seeing the dynamic between Adrian and the others while knowing this information. I was even more disappointed when Oliver tipped his hand so quickly after learning Adrian’s secret. It seems like it would be more of an advantage for Oliver not to reveal to Adrian that he knew about him, that way he and the team could come up with the best plan to take him down. Instead, right after finding out, Oliver went straight to Adrian and let him know that he knew his secret. Stupidest move ever.
Okay, maybe not quite as stupid as confronting the DA dressed as the Green Arrow, currently known as Public Enemy #1, in a public parking garage where anyone could see this. So many missed opportunities, storyline-wise, with Oliver immediately going to Adrian, rather than initially keeping it under wraps. Although, considering the kidnapping of Susan, maybe Adrian was about to reveal his identity anyway. Anyway, so it looks like Oliver has some pain to face while the Arrow team figures out his location and devises a plan to try to rescue him.
As for Felicity, I’m a little worried about her and her involvement with this hacker group. Sure, she’s getting back to her hacker roots and all, so that’s cool for her, but at what risk? She doesn’t even get the privilege of knowing just what she is working on for them when she does stuff for them, which I’m sure is going to come back and hurt her, and maybe even other members of the Arrow Team, eventually. It is yet to be seen just how her actions will affect herself and others, but I’m sure it’s coming.
Scenes from Arrow, Season 5 Episode 17: Kapiushon
Preview of Season 5 Episode 17 of Arrow
