Arrow Season 2 Episode 17
What They Say:
Birds of Prey – Oliver expects the Huntress to return once her father is arrested; Laurel is involved in a hostage situation at the courthouse; Roy tries to keep Thea safe.
Content:
While Oliver and the main crew had a light episode last week considering so much of the episode before that focused on the island with Slade, going the Suicide Squad route allowed Diggle to have a big episode to himself while expanding the overall lore of the series. It’s still surprising that the Suicide Squad got its due like this so quickly in the life of the series, but it worked very well as an adaptation of the core pieces with a great nod towards Harley Quinn as well that delighted fans. But with that kind of focus, things have to swing back a bit the other way and allow the rest of the cast to get their time and to draw back in with Oliver himself considering what he’s facing now that Slade is alive and in town, spending a good bit of time conspiring against him in a big way. And what better way to complicate Oliver’s life even more? Bringing back in the Huntress for a bit.
This episode gives us an intriguing moment from the start as we get Quentin and a squad of officers going after Hugo Mannheim, which could be connected to the Bruno Mannheim of the Superman comics that is a big part of Intergang, which fits in with the criminal ties that we get here. That’s something for a future story material potentially, but what we get here is a good bit with Black Canary and Arrow watching over the events and getting involved when the whole thing goes south in a big way with a lot of weapons and a lot of action. Where it goes though is a bit more interesting as one of the guys that Oliver ends up stopping along the way is actually Frank Bertinelli, Helena’s father that she’s sworn to take down and has traveled far and wide to find him.
The idea of Helena coming back is definitely not welcome among the core group of Team Arrow, especially the whole psycho ex-girlfriend part that Felicity brings up and that Sarah cutely hones in on to tweak Oliver. Helena’s been causing a lot of trouble out in the world in her quest to find her father and that just makes it clear to the newer members that they do need to take her seriously when she does return. And they know it won’t take long, but Oliver is in a very different position than he was before. He’s actually got friends now and it’s great to see that he not only utilizes Sarah to deal with it but also to bring Roy into it. Of course, part of it is just trying to get Roy to control himself since he’s still coping with the effects of the Mirakuru drug that’s coursing through his system.
Events in the show do have a quick pace about them as changes are afoot, such as Laurel being given her job back quickly in order to put her on the Bertinelli case since she has so much experience with it. While her slate is wiped clean easily enough, and in a legitimate enough way that you can let it slide, all events turn their focus to the quick trial itself, or at least the first stage of it. Which means a couple of layers of a trap being put into place as Helena intends to get what she wants and doesn’t care who gets taken down along the way. She sets a sizable trap in the courthouse that actually turns the place into a decent battlefield since she uses some gun toting goons to bolster her odds, which puts both Oliver and Laurel at great risk since they were both there.
Though things get a bit convoluted as it goes on with the location, the hostage situation and the way it comes together, it’s a strong sequence overall as we get Helena controlling the situation as night settles in. Laurel realizes how she was being used, Sarah does her best to try and stop things from getting worse by protecting Laurel but making the situation worse and Oliver trying to save Helena from herself. While Oliver does realize that he created Helena in this form, Sarah points out that he also made Slade what he is and he has to deal with Helena in the same way. It’s a good conflict for Oliver to work through since he has such a connection with her and a sense of responsibility as well. And having to protect both Sarah and Laurel at the same time because of how it plays out just makes his position near untenable when you get down to it.
It’s surprising, but I rather like the approach that’s used in the midst of the action as we see Laurel trying to connect with Helena, and using her own situation to try and achieve it. Laurel’s alcoholism hasn’t been the most engaging of storylines this season, but it’s used in an effective way, at least in term of character and story, as she talks to her about what happened to Tommy since that is a similar image to what happened to Helena’s boyfriend. Helena’s tough to be sure, but there’s still something human in her that lets it filter in a bit. While it may not be the overall result that Laurel wants to achieve, you can see it as being her way of trying to save someone in the way she needed to be saved as well.
Admittedly, a lot of the final act of the episode plays out as you’d expect with the people involved, and the mild anti-vigilante resentment that’s starting to filter into the show a bit as well, which is good to see. Going for an action resolution is about what you’d want from it since it is a superhero show, but it like we’ve seen so far this season, they continue to up the ante in style and presentation for it as well as physicality. The Black Canary and Huntress fight may not be truly epic, but it has a good run to it that challenges Canary to do what’s right while putting Helena in a position where her vengeance is incomplete, which will definitely challenge her with how she copes and deals with it. Much like so many other arcs with the characters, what we see is that they aren’t static, that it isn’t a grand reset at the end of each episode. While Helena gets what she wants, albeit indirectly, it doesn’t give her what she needs and now she has a different life track to deal with. And Oliver makes this realization as well with himself and his relationship with her, and while it can go only so far at the moment, it hits the right emotional tone that both characters are changed by the way their lives intersected.
With the flashback story, which always has some ties and connections to the present day, we get to catch up a bit with how Oliver is in shackles and how Slade is pushing the crew of the ship in his own special way to get the ship fixed and moving again so they can finally get away from all that the island represents. That represents a problem though as the people he needs to fix the boat have fled to the island with Sarah and Slade is offering a deal of some sort to get what he needs in exchange for what she wants. There’s a good bit of tension with this as it runs as the subplot but advances what’s going on smoothly enough. There’s also the really nice little bit that’s finally being drawn in with why Oliver has some of the tattoos he has as that begins to be explored as well.
In Summary:
While Roy’s control issues are looking like they’re going to start taking a bit of focus in the next couple of episodes, everything here is all about the Huntress, her quest for revenge and the way it pushes both Oliver and Sarah to grow and change. And that continues to be one of the big strengths of the show as these characters are nothing like they were when we first met them, though their core pieces are definitely still there. Helena offers us an interesting angle to look at things since Oliver has his responsibility factor to it and we get to work through Sarah and her mindset of having to deal with threats by eliminating them, which is Oliver’s big thing this season after being a lot more cutthroat in the first season. There was a lot of anticipation for this episode since it was bringing the Huntress back and it definitely has a lot of payoff to it.
Grade: A-