Josh recaps Season 5 Episode 4 of Arrow, titled Penance, in which Lyla has a request of Oliver–help to break Diggle out of prison. The tricky thing is, Diggle doesn’t want to be broken out. Despite this, and Felicity’s and Thea’s protests, Oliver is setting on doing it. Following the recap, both Josh and Violet share their thoughts about the episode.
Recap of Arrow, Season 5 Episode 4: Penance
Oliver seems to still be butting heads with his new team. During a mission, Wild Dog gets trigger happy, ruining Oliver’s plan, and Oliver has to step in and clean up the situation. He remarks to Felicity that they are getting better, but there is still plenty of room for improvement.
Rag Man/Rory had not shown up for the mission either, and Oliver doesn’t really know why. But eventually Rory does show up and explains he is quitting the team because Felicity is a constant reminder of what happened to his family.
Oliver heads into his job as mayor and talks to the DA, and it seems this DA is not a fan of the masked vigilantes running around because if the city needs vigilantes, then the police and the rest of law enforcement aren’t doing their job. Oliver tells Thea and Lance about his plans to leave for a bit, so he puts Lance in charge of the city as Deputy Mayor while he is gone.
Back at the Arrow Cave, Curtis is concerned as to why the thief they stopped in the beginning of the episode was stealing a pretty run of the mill computer chip that could be bought in any local computer store. But the two are alerted to a robbery that is going down at Palmer Tech, so Felicity asks Oliver to look into it. Turns out it is Oliver making the ruckus—he needs a little technological help in his plan for Diggle.
When Oliver begins to enact his plan to free Diggle, the rest of the new team is tipped off by Felicity, who has them try to talk Oliver out of it. Oliver being Oliver refuses to back down, so Oliver and the rest of the team come to blows. Oliver takes the group down pretty easily, which is just another thing bringing down the team—they thought they would have lasted a bit longer at least.
Back in town, Lance and Chase are walking the stolen computer chip into evidence, but it turns out Tobias Church had a plan for this chip—use it as a way to blow the wall up from the inside out (couldn’t he just shot a bazooka at the wall or something?). Tobias walks in, and his men take out a few cops, but leave the rattled DA and Lance alive as they collect stolen weapons from evidence.
After learning about the break in, Team Arrow — sans Green Arrow — decide to try to take action. Felicity decides to look for Rory in the meantime. She tries to appeal to him to rejoin the team, but Rory seems hesitant to rejoin still.
At the Arrow Cave, Felicity uses some fancy mathematics to predict where Tobias will be next and it looks like it is the Anti-Crime Unit. At the Anti-Crime Unit, Lance and Chase are interrogating one of Church’s men, Espinosa, to no avail. Team Arrow-less, meanwhile, decides they should jump into action.
On the mission, Rory finally has his change of heart, and shows up providing backup for the team. Tobias decides to take on the team, and winds up putting a knife into Curtis’s back. Wild Dog tells Artemis to get Curtis out, and Wild Dog stays behind to take on Church. Church gets out his brass knuckles, and takes Wild Dog out pretty soundly. Outside, Lance has a van ready and he and Felicity tell the group to leave Wild Dog behind.
Oliver and Lyla, meanwhile, break into the military prison, and Oliver incapacitates a few guards, and makes his way to Diggle’s cell—which is empty. Lyla does some checking, and it looks like he is being moved to General Population, which Lyla remarks would be impossible to get him out of. Lyla thinks it is best to abort the mission, but Oliver has other ideas.
Oliver takes out another guard, and that puts the prison into lock down. Conveniently, Diggle winds up back in his original cell, which Oliver is waiting in. At first, Diggle protests being broken out, but Oliver is able to appeal to him and he agrees to the break out. Using the stolen tech from Palmer Tech, Oliver is able to burn a hole into the ground, and Diggle and Oliver end up on the lam. Seemingly cornered in the prison yard, Oliver tells Diggle to put on a harness. Turns out their plan was to Dark-Knight it out of there, with a plane piloted by Lyla coming around and using a hook, which scoops up the now harnessed Oliver and Diggle.
Diggle already has new living quarters—HIVE’s old headquarters.
Back at the Arrow Cave, Oliver arrives back as the rest of Team Arrow does, and he vows to rescue Wild Dog. Speaking of Wild Dog, we see Tobias has chained him up, and looks like he is going to get a pretty unhealthy dose of torture before Oliver and company are able to rescue him….
His Thoughts on Arrow, Season 5 Episode 4: Penance
So, Tobias is turning out to be a pretty menacing character. Although it is strange that he had to blow the wall up from the inside out at the evidence lock-up, I thought his overall presence in the episode made him pretty scary.
Team Arrow might have a beef with Green Arrow, especially Wild Dog if and when he is rescued. They might have a feeling of abandonment, and Wild Dog might blame Oliver for his capture. We will have to see how all that plays out.
I am glad to see Diggle might be back apart of the team though. Diggle is one of my favorite characters in the show, and seeing Spartan back is going to be a lot of fun. I am curious to know who the “Big Bad” of this season is going to be—Tobias or Prometheus? There was no word on Prometheus this episode, so we will have to wait and see what we hear from him later in the episodes.
Her Thoughts on Arrow, Season 5 Episode 4: Penance
I’m glad that the new team seems to be progressing at a realistic pace — they seem to be getting better, but they’re not unbelievably good yet, either. When Wild Dog, Artemis, and Curtis confronted Oliver, I was really hoping that the three of them wouldn’t be able to take Oliver down, because that would just be too unbelievable at this point, considering Oliver’s vast experience versus their lack of skills. Thankfully, Oliver easily thwarted their advances, which is what I would expect. However, it was a bit disappointing that the three apparently didn’t learn from their training that they’re supposed to work together.
I was a little surprised that they left Wild Dog behind. While it was the practical option, given the others’ lack of expertise, usually on these type of shows they have a “leave no one behind” mentality, and always want to go back for a fallen member of the team. I feel bad for Wild Dog that he appeared to be the exception to what felt like an unspoken rule.
The big news from this episode though is that Oliver was able to successfully break Diggle out of prison, yay! However, does this mean Diggle is going to re-join the team, or is he still going to avoid involvement but remain in the show, like Thea? I really hope he comes back to the team. I miss him, and I think the new recruits could benefit from having another trainer.
Scenes from Arrow, Season 5 Episode 5: Human Target
Preview of Season 5 Episode 5 of Arrow
