Spoilers follow:
This episode begins like any other; Oliver and Felicity bickering about upgrades to there tech in hilarious fashion. The only difference is once Oliver, Felicity and Roy enter the Foundry, they find Laurel standing there with Sara’s arrow ridden corpse. Everyone is distraught as Oliver closes Sara’s eyes. This is legitimately one of the most emotional moments in this shows short history.
A ton happened in this episode. Laurel makes a plea to Oliver that she is going to help him catch whoever did this. No matter what Oliver says, she is going to catch the person who did this. All in all this Katie Cassidy managed to convey raw emotion as she spoke about her sisters death. This is clearly the writer’s way of leading Laurel down the path of becoming Black Canary. In fact, that is pretty much the entire point of this episode.
To this point there has been some confusion as to why Sara was cast as the Canary instead of Laurel (in the comics there is no Sara) but it seem the grand scheme as always been to have Sara serve as the catalyst that leads Laurel to donning the Black Canary mantle. In this episode she directly defies Oliver and attempts to kill the man thought to have been behind Sara’s death, the deadly assassin Komodo.
It is always fun when they include random lower level villains into the show. Komodo is definitely a bit of a d-lister, but he was represented well here. He even manages to get the better of Oliver during a motorcycle/bow and arrow duel. Before you ask, yes you read that right and yes it was as awesome as it sounded.
Diggle made his way back to the group. Once he found out what happened to Sara he had to come help. We would have been hard pressed to assume that Diggle would have stayed away long after being dismissed by Oliver in the season premiere. Oliver needs Diggle in his corner. He is the longest tenured member of team Arrow and has saved Oliver on many occasions. The evolution of Oliver and Diggle’s relations ship has been astounding. Side note: anyone else wondering what happened to Diggle’s brother’s wife that he was in a relationship with? We know they broke up, but the fact that there has been no mention of here on any level is strange.
Felicity and Roy both deal with Sara’s death in their own ways. Roy finally tells Oliver about the note Thea left and Felicity gets fed up and leave Team Arrow for the job that Superman… err Ray Palmer has been dying to give to her since the premiere.
In the end it is proven that Komodo did not kill Sara. Which for obvious reasons just creates more questions. If it wasn’t him, who was it?
The Verdict:
Tonight’s episode was action packed and emotion filled. Katie Cassidy showed us she could do more than just be extremely annoying and pouty. The pieces are coming together so that we now see where this season is heading. At what point will Captain Lance find out what happened to Sara? Who killed her? Will Felicity come back to the team?
8.5
