Violet recaps Season 5 Episode 22 of Arrow, titled Missing, where the members of the Arrow Team mysteriously go missing one by one. Following the recap, both Violet and Josh share their thoughts about the episode.
On a TV broadcast, the Green Arrow is credited with bringing the Throwing Star Killer (aka Prometheus) to justice. Lance heads out to berate Rene for missing his daughter’s custody hearing. Before he leaves, he wishes Oliver a happy birthday. Thea wants to celebrate Oliver’s birthday with him, but he says he already has plans with Felicity.
That night, when Oliver shows up at Felicity’s place, it turns out it’s a surprise party, and most of the Arrow Team is there, except Rene and Dinah. They talk about what they’re going to do with their free time now that the city is safe. Then the others not so subtly leave Felicity and Oliver alone to talk. She talks about taking things one day at a time between them, and she encourages him to relax.
Later, Felicity is talking to Curtis on the phone when he goes by Dinah’s place to give her the Canary Cry modulator he made for her. It appears that her place has been broken into. Suddenly, Curtis is knocked out.
Oliver and Diggle investigate at Dinah’s house and find Curtis missing. Felicity says it wasn’t Chase, because she can see him locked in his cell at ARGUS. Oliver discovers a dart and concludes that Chase is working with Talia Al Ghul.
Oliver heads over to ARGUS to question Chase about the whereabouts of his team members, but Chase isn’t talking, of course.
When Oliver returns to the Arrow Cave, he tells Felicity that he wants her to stay with him to help him, rather than going to an ARGUS safe house. Oliver regrets having let his guard down and endangering the people he loves, including possibly his son, William. Diggle comes in and reports that Thea and Quentin are secure. However, Felicity gets a notification that Black Siren is no longer in her cell.
They try calling the safe house to warn them, but the comms don’t seem to be working correctly. The ARGUS guard goes outside to check it out, and Thea and Quentin take the opportunity to leave. They find the guard knocked out on the floor. Then they find Black Siren, who Quentin thinks is Laurel. Thea knows better though, and tries to warn him, but Evelyn comes in and shoots the tranq darts at Thea and Quentin, knocking them out.
Oliver, Diggle, and Felicity head over to the ARGUS safe house, and discover that Black Siren is working with Evelyn. Oliver says Felicity and Diggle need to leave the city, so that he can focus on finding the others rather than worrying about the two of them.
He visits Chase and points a gun at his head after knocking him to the floor, but tells him that he won’t give him the satisfaction of killing him. Chase says the only way to keep his friends from paying the price for Oliver’s sins is to let him go. However, Oliver says he’s going to find another way. Chase warns him that they’re transferring him to Idaho tonight, and after that, his offer is off the table.
When Thea and Quentin wake up, they are chained inside of a truck, being transported. Thea explains to him that Black Siren is not his Laurel, but is from another Earth.
Diggle and Felicity drive out of town, but along the way, Felicity is having second thoughts about leaving Oliver alone. Diggle agrees that it feels wrong, but maybe that means it was the right thing to do. They see a woman with two swords standing in the middle of the road, and try to run her over. But she has a trap set for them, and their car crashes. They get out of the car unharmed, but the woman catches them, holding them at swordpoint.
Back at the Arrow Cave, Malcolm Merlyn shows up and offers to team up with Oliver to save his daughter, Thea. They take motorcycles out to look for Diggle and Felicity, but they are long gone from the crash site. Merlyn brings up the fact that now Oliver understands that you’ll do anything to keep your child safe. He also tells Oliver that he’ll always have people in life that will need him. Oliver gets a phone call that Chase’s prison transfer is about to happen, so he heads over to make sure the transfer goes smoothly.
After Thea and Quentin arrive at their destination, Black Siren chains Quentin to the wall of a shipping container, and tells him that she is helping Chase in exchange for her freedom and his assurances that Quentin won’t be harmed. Quentin scoffs that Black Siren would trust Chase, and that Laurel wouldn’t be dumb enough for that.
When Oliver goes to ARGUS, Chase tells him that as soon as he gets on the transport chopper, his friends have orders to kill Oliver’s friends. After Chase is led away, Oliver receives a video on his phone — it’s his son, William, begging for somebody to please help him. Oliver runs outside, but Chase has already been taken away in the back of a truck, so Oliver beats down some ARGUS soldiers to try to take a van. Merlyn shows up to help.
At the transfer site, Merlyn and Oliver, hooded and masked, fight their way through the ARGUS agents to stop Chase from getting on the transfer chopper. Together, they take down all the ARGUS soldiers, including the ones at the helicopter. Chase reminds Oliver that everyone he loves suffers. Then he gets into the chopper and flies away, telling Oliver that he’ll see him on the boat.
Oliver and Merlyn return to the Arrow Cave and try to track Chase’s movements. Nyssa Al Ghul shows up to help. Merlyn breaks the news that one of the people they’re up against is her sister. Just then, they get more notifications about Chase’s whereabouts, and suddenly Oliver knows where he is taking his friends. We then see Oliver flying a plane with Merlyn and Nyssa to Lian Yu.
Chase arrives in Lian Yu and takes the hoods off of Felicity, Diggle, Thea, Quentin, and Curtis, chained, in the middle of the woods. They conclude that Chase is using them as bait to draw Oliver out — but that Oliver can’t do this alone.
We then see Oliver go down to the cells on Lian Yu and tell Slade Wilson, a.k.a. Deathstroke, that he needs his help.
Flashbacks
Kovar has Oliver chained by the wrists in the middle of the room. Then he injects Oliver with a red substance. Kovar explains that this drug will help set Oliver’s pain free, making it so that every time Oliver felt pain by a cut, bullet, etc., it will be like he is feeling it for the first time. When Oliver wakes up, he is locked in a cell. Kovar tells him that the drug is to show him all his pain, failures, and guilt. Meanwhile, Oliver is having flashbacks about these types of moments. Kovar slides a gun to Oliver, which only has one bullet, and implies that Oliver use it on himself, because he knows he’s the one responsible for so much pain.
Oliver hallucinates that he sees Yao Fei, Shado’s father, who tells him that those closest to him are fated to suffer, and that he can save them by sacrificing himself. As he holds a gun to his head, he then hallucinates that he sees Laurel, begging him to come home, and that they need him, otherwise his father and her sister will have died for nothing. Oliver uses the gun to shoot the lock and get out of the cell.
Her Thoughts on Arrow, Season 5 Episode 22: Missing
As I pointed out last episode, it seemed just a little too easy for Oliver to take Adrian Chase down. Especially after seeing Chase’s satisfied smirk at the end of last episode, it was all but confirmed that he was exactly where he wanted to be and had Oliver right where he wanted him. Of course, we all knew that he had to have some plan in place that involved William, but that was yet to be seen.
Little did we know that his plan was already in motion, when Rene did not show up for his daughter’s custody hearing. It did seem a bit odd that he would skip out on it, but wasn’t too out of the realm of possibility given his lack of confidence in himself when it comes to taking care of his daughter. But then when Lance mentioned to Thea that stuff had started to pile up outside of Rene’s place, that was the first flag that something was wrong. Even if he has been consistently absent in his daughter’s life, he has consistently been around for the Arrow Team.
Speaking of Rene, oddly, both Rene and Dinah were absent for the entirety of this episode. Indeed, even at the end of the episode when Chase pulled the hoods off of his captives on Lian Yu, those captives did not include Rene and Dinah. So where are they? Where is William, for that matter?
In any case, it looks like Chase’s goal was to bring Oliver and his friends and loved ones to the place where the series all began: the island of Lian Yu. We’ve finally caught up to Season 1 after 5 years of flashbacks. Now we get to see the ultimate showdown between Team Arrow and Team… Chase? Team Prometheus? It will be pretty cool seeing Deathstroke back in action, and actually fighting with Oliver, not against him. Although, it is possible that there may be some side-switching throughout the battle. There are so many variables with the people involved and their various allegiances that they’ve held throughout their lifetimes that I can see at least one person being easily swayed to help the other side. Let’s hope that what the show has been building to all this time turns out to be an epic season finale! Bring it on!
His Thoughts on Arrow, Season 5 Episode 22: Missing
COMING SOON
Scenes from Arrow, Season 5 Episode 23: Lian Yu
Preview of Season 5 Episode 23 of Arrow
Prometheus and Deathstroke… enough said.