I think we all know what we’ve been waiting for since the moment we first heard there was going to be a Green Arrow TV show. Well, last night in “Guilty,” it happened. In the season of Thanksgiving, and certainly we should all be solemnly grateful for this moment.
Here’s what happens in this episode of Arrow. Let me take just a moment, here.
Arrow? Baby? God knows I haven’t always treated you right. I haven’t always appreciated you. I haven’t given you enough credit.
Did I know you were bringing in Ted Grant, the boxer, who worked in a boxing gym full of boxing gloves? Yes, I did. But I didn’t have faith in you, so this never occurred to me.
Did I realize, when gang members started getting killed and Ted Grant was being framed for it, that there would inevitably be conflict between Ted and Ollie? Yeah. I realized that. Especially when Ollie caught on to the fact that Ted was training Laurel. But I never thought about the boxing glove arrow. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t believe in you. Not really. So when Ollie walked into Ted’s secret storage locker, and speared that boxing glove with his arrow, and used it to knock Ted out? It was like the entire universe was gently chucking me under the chin. With a boxing glove arrow.
So here we are, and I want to say, Arrow, you’ve never looked more beautiful. You’re not just women stomping around in massive heels and guys with their shirts off. You light up every network you walk into. I – I –
I’m sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.
Okay. Let’s get ourselves together.
This week’s Arrow posed two questions: should vigilantes take on apprentices; and what should vigilantes do when they kill people? The people of Arrow are qualified to answer only one of those questions.
The morals question is ridiculous. Ollie goes off the deep end when he learns that Ted, during a brief stint as a vigilante, accidentally killed a drug dealing gang member six years ago. He spends the rest of the episode stomping his foot and calling Ted names while metaphorically teetering on dozens and dozens of piled up dead bodies. Ollie has killed so many people that his victim’s eulogies have to have sent several members of the clergy to the hospital with laryngitis. Ollie could re-build Queen mansion as an ossuary. Ollie’s nickname, in vigilante circles, has to be “The Corpsemaster.” How the hell does he get the nerve — other than knowing that, if anyone actually called him out on this, he would kill them?
This situation grows more complicated when it looks like Roy killed Sara while he was in a mirakuru fugue state. Felicity notes that the wound pattern on Sara matches Roy’s height, if he had thrown the arrows with super-strength. DNA evidence, though, is inconclusive. Digg, usually so level-headed, loses his mind. He tells Ollie that Roy has to pay, if he killed Sara, because when it comes to ethics “We can’t have two sets of rules.” He says this while his wife draws a paycheck from an organization that nearly killed 500,000 people last year, and while behind him, a woman has just broken into the police database. Oh, Diggle. You’re smarter than this.
The other question is more solidly answered. Should vigilantes train apprentices for their fight? If they do, the show concludes, they have to stick by those apprentices no matter what. Ted was being framed by his former apprentice, Isaac Stanzler. It was Isaac who killed the gang member all those years ago, Ted covered for him, but told him to get out of town. The gang caught and tortured Isaac for weeks, and now Isaac’s mad at the world in general and at Ted in particular. In the grand showdown, precipitated by Isaac kidnapping Ted and Laurel, Roy goes up against Isaac. Isaac angrily says that Ollie will abandon Roy, and that Roy’s “just another weapon in his arsenal.”
When Roy tells this to Ollie, Ollie rather insensitively suggests “Arsenal,” as a name for Roy. But he makes sure not to leave Roy on his own. Instead he uses a meditation technique learned in this episode’s flashback to get Roy to remember what happened when he was under the influence of the drug. Roy remembers not killing Sara, but killing that police officer last season. He does not appear to be relieved that he has traded one innocent victim for another, but them’s the breaks, Roy. I would say “walk it off,” but it’s you, so parkour it off.
And Isaac? Well, he appears to be executed by a hot, redheaded archer named “Cupid.” While I wasn’t pleased to see him go, I was delighted to see her. If there is one thing about this show that is consistently delightful it’s — well, it’s Felicity Smoak. But if there are two things about this show that are consistently delightful, they’re Felicity Smoak, and hot crazy murderesses who want to wrap their legs around Ollie’s head. We’ll get both next episode, so color me happy.
