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Episode Recap of Arrow, Season 3 Episode 17: Suicidal Tendencies
So, Arrow begins this week with Diggle getting ready for his wedding! Unfortunately Oliver missed the wedding photos. Ray Palmer comes to the rescue at the wedding, as Diggle loses his minister, but luckily Ray is one! Diggle and Lyla exchange vows, and the knot s tied! Such a happy looking couple. Oliver and Felicity discuss their relationship, and Ray. Oliver seems a bit hurt still, but says Ray is a good guy. Their conversation is cut short though, as the imposter Arrow has killed again, and it looks like the police is going to gun for Oliver again. Ray Palmer even agrees–and plans on using his resources to help catch this bad guy. Team Arrow decides the best course of action is to try to catch the imposter.
Felicity is trying to find “Fake Arrow”, but it’s Roy that comes up with the lead. A drug deal going down. Oliver heads to the deal, and Fake Arrow is there, killing as per his M.O.. Oliver shows up, and those two duke it out. Turns out it isn’t Ra’s, but another league member. Then Oliver is attacked by several imposters. Where are witnesses when he needs them? Maseo then shows up, and seems bent on bringing him as Ra’s Al Ghul. But the imposters all suddenly vanish after a smoke bomb. Bad news for Oliver, Ray in his ATOM suit, uses some fancy X-Ray vision to figure out Oliver is the Arrow. Looks like we might be having a conflict between those two coming up.
Back at Ray’s place Felicity shows up and he looks pretty P.O’ed. He tells Felicity he knows about Oliver, and knows that Felicity has been working with him. Felicity pleads for Oliver’s innocence, but Ray isn’t buying it. He plans on taking him down though. One weird thing that happens though, is Felicity lets slip she has feelings for Oliver. That doesn’t help anything Felicity, geez.
Back at the Arrow Cave, Oliver tries to compare arrows, but he cannot find a difference between his and the Leagues. Looks like he won’t be able to use forensic evidence. Meanwhile, Felicity tells Oliver about Ray, and that he is going to rat Oliver out to the cops.
At the station, Ray talks with Laurel. That quickly doesn’t work, as Laurel is covering for Oliver. Ray realizes this, and plans to take other routes. But Ray does realize who Laurel is, and is getting frustrated with all these masked men. Laurel threatens Ray with a defamation suit if he pursues contacting the media.
Oliver pays a visit to Ray, to try to clear things up. I have to say, Ray is very distracting in this scene. His right eye is so red! did he have pink eye in this scene? Weird. Anyway, Ray is not buying the “story” Arrow is telling, and Ray admits he feels Felicity still has feelings for Oliver.
Back at the cave Felicity and Oliver, they argue over Ray…again…Oliver argues that being a hero and having a relationship is impossible. Felicity says Ray is doing just that, but Oliver retorts that he just hasn’t learned yet. Luckily all this emotion is interrupted with a drug bust. Oliver and Roy head out to the scene.
Turns out this is a trick, and Ray shows up. He stuns Roy, and takes on Oliver. It looks pretty hopeless for Oliver at first, but Oliver seems to find a sensitive area on the armor and knocks Ray down a few pegs. They have a conversation, and Ray seems to soften up some, as Oliver tells him that he could kill him if he wanted to. They part ways, but where did Roy go? HE seems to still be unconscious on the ground, did Oliver just leave him? Geez, what a friend!
Diggle heads off on his honeymoon with Lyla, but there’s a problem. Deadshot shows up, and says Waller has a mission. At ARGUS, Waller says that in Kaznia, a senator has been held hostage at his hospital there. They are on a rescue mission. Lyla tells Diggle to enjoy his honeymoon, but he opts to go with her on the mission. There’s a new comer to the team! Lovely Cupid, who is obsessed with the Arrow still.
On the mission the Suicide Squad talks about their jobs and how they conflict with having any personal relationships Lyla and Diggle disagree with Deadshot though. Diggle and Lyla get a little snippy with each over the mission–Lyla says they are only there to save the senator, but Diggle is worried about hostages.
The Suicide Squad infiltrates the hospital, taking down enemies along the way. The Squad gets to the hostages, and seems to have the rescue down pretty handily. Unfortunately, Waller had some bad information, as the Senator actually planned this “hostage situation” as a political move, planning to fake a rescue of his own, to put him in a good spot for presidency. Is solution now? Kill the Squad and all hostages to get rid of the witnesses.
The suicide Squad gets pinned down in a room, and the Senator plans to bomb the building. Deadshot is shot, but seems to be non-life threatening.
Lyla and Diggle mourn that their child could be orphaned, and regret ever taking this mission. Deadshot comes up with a plan–he will provide cover so that the group can escape. This will leave Deadshot stranded, but he knows there is no other way.
The Squad attacks the Senator and his mercenaries, and Deadshot provides the cover he promised. The plan goes off well, but Deadshot is killed, as the entire hospital blows up. Luckily the hostages are saved before that happens.
Deadshot gets a little bit of backstory this episode. We see him returning from military duty, and he and his wife have a nice reunion. He meets his baby girl as well, who must have been born when he was about to deploy, as she doesn’t remember him.
Later though, we see that Deadshot might be in pretty bad shape mentally. He gets frustrated with his daughter not eating, and he might have a drinking problem. His wife tries to talk sense to him, but he snaps and pulls a gun on her. She freaks out, and calls the police on him.
In jail, Deadshot gets a visit from a familiar group–an ARGUS agent. She offers a lot of money for him to join ARGUS. He declines at first, but in the end, the money and sense of purpose seems to change his mind, especially after learning of the restraining order against him by his wife. His first target given is Andrew Diggle…
Josh’s Thoughts: Arrow, Season 3 Episode 17: Suicidal Tendencies
Arrow was back on track for me this week. For the most part, this episode was really good. There was a little too much gushy emotional stuff between Oliver and Felicity this episode, but that is about all I have to complain about.
It was cool to finally see the ATOM suit in use, even though it was ever so brief. I am pretty curious to know how Oliver knew right where to take him down, but I can live with that. I did find it pretty hilarious that Roy gets knocked out in that fight, and after Ray finally realizes Oliver is not a bad guy, they have a “bro” moment, and part ways—all while Roy is sitting around unconscious.
I actually had some respect for Laurel this episode too. I like how she strong-armed Ray. I find Laurel more compelling as a lawyer than as a fighter. Maybe with Nyssa training her, her character will feel more believable.
The theme of this episode, which seems to come up quite a bit with Diggle and Oliver, is how being a hero/combatant is incompatible with being a family man/woman. I am curious to see how that effects Diggle in the future, as he seems to kind of flip-flop a bit on how much he wants to help Oliver. I like Diggle a lot, and definitely see why he changes his mind a lot.
Finally, Maseo seems to flip flop a lot, with his relationship with Oliver. I guess maybe from Maseo’s point of view, he is helping Oliver maybe, as if Oliver doesn’t join the League, Ra’ might eventually kill him.
Overall though, I enjoyed this episode ore than the past few. Hopefully this improvement continues through to the season finale.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 3 Episode 17 of Arrow: Suicidal Tendencies
COMING SOON
Scenes from Arrow, Season 3 Episode 18: Public Enemy
Here are scenes from next week’s Arrow episode titled Public Enemy:
