The Extremely Ill-Advised Arrow Project: Episode 1.17 – “The Huntress Returns”
| December 4, 2013 | Posted by Jess under Comics, Television, The Extremely Ill-Advised Arrow Project |
(Don’t get too excited by this recapping speed, gang – this was mostly finished before I took my blogging vacation.)
Strip club. A portly man is enjoying the show when a woman in a purple bathing suit with a sparkly white cross offers him a lapdance. He’s all for it, but in the private room she puts a spiked heel on her chest and demands to know where her father is. It’s Helena and, as she exposits, “Gus” is her dad’s attorney. Gus swears he doesn’t know where witness protection put Frank, even after Helena takes out her crossbow (where was she keeping it???). He begs her to believe him and she says she does.
A minute later, Helena walks out of the club and gets on her motorcycle. Inside, another dude finds Gus dead with two crossbow bolts in his chest. P.S. Why aren’t they called “crossbolts?” It would save everyone a lot of time.
Ollie’s club. The renovation is suddenly finished and McKenna is very impressed. He asks her to come to the club opening tomorrow night and she agrees.
Big Belly Burger. Quentin walks in and tells Laurel he’s glad she called – they’ve gone too long without talking. He apologizes for using her as bait and she thanks him and says she owes him an apology too. “For what?” he asks.
“Hello, Quent,” Mother of Laurel Whose Name We Still Do Not Know says. Quentin, shocked, asks why she’s there and she says she thinks Sara’s still alive. Laurel urges him to hear her out, and MOLWNWSDNK says there are thousands of tiny islands near Lian Yu and Sara could have washed up on any of them. She shows Quentin a photo taken by a tourist of a brunette young woman with a baseball cap obscuring much of her face. Quentin says it could be anyone, but MOLWNWSDNK thinks it looks just like Sara: “Our daughter’s a survivor, Quentin.”
Choked and furious, Quentin tells her she has a lot of nerve showing up like this. “Why you making me relive this?” he asks, and leaves, much to Laurel’s disappointment.
The Glades. Thea and one of her rich friends are talking about Ollie’s club opening when Thea spots Roy. There’s some cartoonish staging so he can avoid seeing her until it’s too late, but his look of annoyance when he does makes it worth it. “Didn’t know purse snatchers took coffee breaks,” she says. He asks why she’s in the Glades and she says she has a job there – something he should look into. He asks if she knows anyone hiring high school dropouts with criminal records and she says Ollie’s looking for valets for the club. “And you think it’s a good idea – me, taking the key to strangers’ cars?” Roy asks. “I think it’s time you put up or shut up,” she replies, and he agrees. She leaves and he watches her go, with a little incredulous smile on his face. You guys, I’m so into these two.
Arrowcave. Diggle’s brooding over Deadshot when Ollie comes in. He quickly puts on a cheerful front and they small talk for a bit before Diggle shows Ollie security footage of Helena interrogating Gus. “Helena,” Ollie says. “Yes, or as I like to call her, your psycho ex-girlfriend,” Diggle replies. Ollie wants to know why Helena’s back and Diggle says it was inevitable: “You tried to help her, you couldn’t. Now the only question is how long before she drops a dime on you, me, this whole operation.” Ollie tells him to talk to their contacts in the Bratva and find out what Helena wants.
Queen Castle. Ollie walks in and hears Thea giggling. “We’re in here!” she calls. He walks into the living room to find her chatting with…Helena. He’s not too pleased, of course. Thea asks about getting Roy a job and Ollie suggests she talk to Tommy about it – like, right now, get out of the room and go call Tommy, NOW. She skedaddles.
“Where you been?” Ollie asks Helena. “Um…Barcelona,” she says, “Monaco, Budapest…I just needed to forget who I was. And how much I missed you.” He asks about Gus and says with her father serving consecutive life sentences, her vengeance should be complete. She tells him Frank’s cut a deal and is going into witness protection, but he doesn’t deserve a second chance: “And I can’t take on a phalanx of U.S. Marshals – not without help.” “No,” he says. “It’s murder. It’s not justice.” I’m sure all the mooks you’ve killed would be thrilled to hear you split hairs like that, Oliver.
Moira walks in, and Ollie’s forced to make an awkward introduction. “Helena was just leaving,” he says, and they head for the door. “I guess I’ll just have to be persuasive,” she murmurs. “Fortunately, you have a family too.” She kisses him on the cheek and leaves.
Verdant. Ollie tersely tells Diggle he wants amped up security around his womenfolk. Diggle’s already on it. Ollie thanks him for not saying “I told you so.” “Night’s young,” Diggle says, and walks away.
Tommy enters and Ollie tells him they need to talk. “I’m sorry,” he says, with this very sincere face, except he makes the same face and tone of voice every time he apologizes, which is at least once an episode, so it’s kind of losing its impact. “I kept this a secret to protect the people close to me,” he goes on. “Do you think that’s what I care about?” Tommy asks. “That my feelings are hurt? You’re a murderer. A killer. You were my best friend in life and now it’s like I don’t even know you.” Ollie concedes that he’s changed, but now he can explain why. “What would be the point?” Tommy asks tiredly. “I wouldn’t believe a word of it anyway.” He walks away.
Flashback. Lian Yu’s quite pretty, honestly. I mean, and obviously CGI, but still. Ollie and Slade spy on the missile launcher and wonder what Fyers is planning. “Wild guess? He’s planning on blowing something up,” Ollie says. Flashback Ollie > Regular Ollie. Slade says that the launcher’s overkill for that and Fyers is planning on starting a war – and it’s their job to keep him from killing tons of innocent people. Ollie points out that there are six soldiers down there and it’ll be hard to steal a whole missile launcher out from under their noses. Slade spots the soldiers carrying explosives and says “Who said anything about stealing it?” But first, they’ve got to get the soldiers in one place. Slade looks at Ollie thoughtfully, much to Ollie’s apprehension. Hee.
Present day. Quentin is taking his anger out on his stapler when Laurel walks in. She apologizes for blindsiding him with MOLWNWSDNK and he asks if she really believes Sara’s alive. Laurel says no, “but what would it hurt to take a look at everything Mom found?” Quentin says it’s taken him a really long time to heal even a little from his grief and Laurel gives him puppy dog eyes until he takes the Sara files from her.
Verdant opening. It’s clearly very successful. Ollie, McKenna, Moira, and Thea clink glasses in a VIP area and Moira tells Ollie she’s proud of him. Meanwhile, Tommy’s brooding by the bar until Laurel approaches and likewise tells him how proud she is of him and Ollie. “Thanks,” he says shortly, and she asks if everything’s okay. He says he’s fine, but when she tries to talk about breakfast with her parents he clearly has no idea what she’s talking about for a minute, and she tells him he seems “really off.”
Thea runs up and asks if Tommy called Roy. Tommy says Roy starts tomorrow and excuses himself – and runs into Helena. Man, she is not a good actress but they certainly cast someone who can work the crazy eyes.
Ollie’s proudly overseeing his empire when an underling gives him a note from Diggle telling him to meet him downstairs. He heads down – and finds Helena there, pinning Tommy to a table, his arm yanked back painfully. Ollie tells her to let Tommy go and she says it’s not like he hasn’t killed mobsters like her father before, so what’s one more? Ollie said he tried to teach her a way to stop bad guys without killing (which, again, he never takes when he’s flying solo). “By obtaining leverage,” she says. “By exploiting someone’s weakness.” She yanks sharply on Tommy’s arm and he yells in pain.
Helena works the crazy eyes harder as she tells Ollie there’s a whole club of leverage above them, and he caves: “I’ll help you, but let him go. LET! HIM! GO!” Ollie, you’re very lucky that everyone loves Tommy and thus this melodrama feels warranted. Anyway, she does.
Later, Arrowcave. “Don’t say it,” Ollie warns Diggle. “Okay,” Diggle says, but then: “If you didn’t still have feelings for this girl, then you would have thought up a better solution than letting her extort you into killing someone.” Ollie asks if Diggle wants him to kill her. “I think you would have a long time ago if she looked like me instead of the T-Mobile girl,” Diggle says. Man, sometimes Diggle’s truth burns.
Diggle says Helena’s a killer; Ollie says she’s not evil, just lost, and Diggle of all people should relate to wanting revenge. “What would you do if Floyd Lawton was standing right there?” he asks. “Nothing that would involve blackmailing you into hunting him down,” Diggle replies. Well, yeah, he’d be right there. Ollie admits that he can’t kill her, and if he turns her in, she’ll narc on him, but by sticking around he can minimize the collateral damage. Man, Ollie cares a lot about whether people die when a) they’re rich and b) he’s not the one justice-skewering them.
Helena walks in and Ollie tells her he hasn’t been able to hack into the FBI’s security system to locate Frank’s safe house. Felicity trots in and says she’d love to, with a bit of confusion on the end of her sentence as she sees Helena. “Get out,” Ollie says quickly. “This is a private thing, Felicity.” Hurt and confused, Felicity leaves, but not quick enough to stop Helena from very obviously memorizing her face.
“How many girlfriends do you have, exactly?” she asks once Felicity’s gone. Ollie ignores that and says that Frank’s being taken to a hearing tonight in a van, but there’s also a decoy van. “It’s a good thing there’s two of us, then,” she says. He tells her it’s not too late to call this off and she says “I don’t take prisoners.” Except Tommy before, I guess.
Flashback. Ollie, with his balaclava on, leads his “prisoner” Slade into the camp. All six soldiers come over to see, and one of them recognizes Slade: “You killed a few of my friends, you son of a bitch.” “And I’m gonna kill a few more,” Slade says, takes his hands from behind his back, and shoots all six with one shot each. (Take note, Deadshot.)
Side note: all of the soldiers seem to be American, which is a little weird, because their commander is British, and technically they’re on Chinese soil. Last I checked, the Chinese government didn’t love having American soldiers running around on their turf.
Present day, We’re Lawyers, Laurel, Inc. Thea’s receptionisting when Tommy walks in with his hand in a bandage. “Cut yourself shaving?” she asks. Man, I love their relationship. “How was Roy’s first day?” she asks, and Tommy tells her he never showed. Her face falls.
Tommy pulls Laurel aside to apologize for last night. “Instead of an apology, why don’t you try the truth?” she asks. “You can start with your wrist.” He makes up some story and she sees right through it: “I know something’s up. Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?” You guys, I really enjoy Laurel in this relationship, which doesn’t require her to contort herself into behaving out of character.
Tommy tells her he can’t tell her what’s going on, and he can’t tell her why, though he wishes he could. She tearfully tells him that she’s got a lot going on right now (legit) and that he’s “a million miles away, and the worst part is? I don’t even know why.” She walks away. Tommy looks frustrated and sad. Dammit, Ollie!
Roy’s house. Thea knocks on his door. “Stalker, much?” he says when he answers it. She asks about the job and he says he doesn’t take charity. “Why are you so obsessed with the fact that I have money?” she asks. “You know, money isn’t everything.” Ohhhh Thea. Quit while you’re ahead, please.
Sure enough, Roy laughs: “Spoken like someone who’s got it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my life of crime.” He closes the door. Thea sighs and walks away.
As she’s cutting through a parking lot, she’s confronted by a guy in a hoodie: “Yo, could you help me out? Think I’m lost.” Thea tries to extricate herself, but her retreat is cut off by another dude: “Maybe you could give us some directions – or better yet, some money.”
Suddenly, Roy leaps from out of nowhere and slams into Thug #2 with both feet (how???). He then grabs the nearby wall and flips around on it for basically no reason, then beats up both thugs. A knife falls from Thug #2’s hand.
Roy gets up, clutching his side. “You okay?” he asks. “You’re bleeding!” Thea cries. “Yeah, that’s what happens when you get stabbed,” Roy says.
Night. Ollie and Helena wait for the vans on their motorcycles. Ollie tells her if anyone besides Frank gets hurt, “I’ll put an arrow in you.” “Now I know how you charmed your cop girlfriend,” she replies. Ollie makes a cranky face. I really hate that this show took an awesome, nuanced character from the comics and made her unhinged and evil.
The vans split up and so do the vigilantes. Ollie throws an explosive flechette at his, blowing off the back door. It stops and so does he, but the back of the van’s empty. Quickly, he heads off in Helena’s direction.
Helena, meanwhile, pulls up next to her van and uses her crossbow to shoot out the hood. The van stops. With a look of relish, Helena strides up to the van, crossbow out: “Give me Frank Bertinelli!”
The doors pop open and two armed officers face her as a couple of cop cars pull up behind her. “Your father’s not in the van!” Quentin says, “but he sends his regards. Where’s the Hood?” McKenna cuffs Helena, and Ollie pulls up long enough to see the arrest, swear, and drive away.
Cut to the interrogation room at the station. Quentin and McKenna walk in, the former reading off a list of Helena’s kills: “You are quite the hunter, Miss Bertinelli. Well, I guess I should make that huntress.” Groan. Quentin prattles on about Helena’s crimes for a while. Why does everyone on this show pronounce “organization” with a long I? Is it a Canadian thing? It’s a Canadian thing, isn’t it.
Helena stares at McKenna and rolls her head around on her neck like a cobra hypnotizing a fieldmouse. McKenna asks who the Hood is, and Quentin tells Helena that it’ll help her case if she gives him up. “Oliver Queen,” Helena says. “You’re dating him now, right?…Did he mention that we used to be lovers?”
McKenna rolls her eyes and asks about the Hood again, and Helena tells her that Ollie “uses people. He used me, he used the detective here’s daughter – excuse me, daughters. I would get out of it before you get yourself hurt.” Quentin, angry, demands the Hood’s name. “The Hood,” Helena replies.
Suddenly the lights go out and the fire alarm goes off. Quentin and McKenna leave the room to investigate. The station is full of gas; we see the cops fleeing, hands over their mouths. Helena waits patiently until Ollie walks in wearing a gas mask and unlocks her cuffs. “Freeze!” Quentin shouts as they leave the interrogation room. Ollie shoots a tranq dart at him and they book it.
Hospital. The doctor tells Thea she’s lucky to have a friend like Roy. “Don’t I know it,” she says. Especially now that she’s seen him shirtless. “We’re not friends,” Roy insists. The doctor, wisely, wants no part of this teen drama. He starts preparing the local anesthetic, and Roy freaks out. Thea’s amused: “Don’t tell me a tough gangbanger like yourself’s afraid of a tiny needle.” They never really wound up going anywhere with this, but for a while I thought this was a reference to Comics Roy’s past drug addiction and I was intrigued. Oh well.
Anyway, Thea tells him to think of something else, and he asks what. As the doctor does the injection (into Roy’s shoulder, so maybe it’s a tetanus shot instead of anesthetic? but then probably you should stitch the open wound first, doc), Thea leans down and kisses Roy until the doctor says “Done.” “Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asks Roy, who looks floored. GUYS, I’M SO INTO THIS.
Elsewhere, Helena thanks Ollie for the save and he says he was covering his own secret identity. “Why can’t you just admit you still have feelings for me?” she asks. Instead, he hands her a plane ticket to Rome: “The police know you’re tracking your father, Helena. You’ll never find him. So get out of my city.” Helena takes the ticket and nods, looking pissed.
Flashback. Slade opens a crate of explosives and he and Ollie plant them around the missile launcher as fast as they can before backup shows up. But when Ollie opens up the control panel he has a better idea: “I’m taking the circuit board. Computers won’t work without them and neither will this.” Slade grabs him and grins: “Leverage!”
Present day. Ollie knocks on McKenna’s door. She answers in a robe, her hair wet. Man oh man does her apartment look like a Pier 1 catalog. She asks what’s wrong and he tells her he feels like he’s letting everyone down. “You’re being too hard on yourself,” she says. “We both have demanding jobs.” He super doesn’t, though. She says he can make it work and he asks how. “Well, the first thing you do is, you find yourself someone you never have to apologize to,” she says. McKenna gives terrible relationship advice, you guys.
Anyway, they kiss, she shivers, and then they kiss again and back up towards the bed. Ollie doesn’t notice his phone buzzing. It’s Felicity, who just intercepted a police call – a sporting goods store has just been robbed of a crossbow: “Now, could be a coincidence, or your psycho ex-girlfriend – Dig’s words, not mine – is still in town.” She turns – and Helena is standing there, holding the stolen crossbow.
Post-commercial, Ollie runs into Felicity’s office and finds her tied up behind her desk. He unties her and rather sweetly touches her face to calm her down and make sure she’s okay when Diggle comes running in. I love how frantic both dudes are. NO ONE HURT FELICITY, THEY NEED HER FOR GOOGLING THINGS AND TALKING ABOUT FEELINGS. Felicity tells them Helena made her hack the FBI database and find out where Frank’s being kept, and Ollie storms out to do “what I should have done in the first place.”
Safe house. Helena storms in and kills a bunch of cops. As she marches up the stairs, Ollie appears and shoots the bow out of her hand. She grabs a rifle from a dead cop and shoots back, then shoots out the lock of the nearest door and storms in. Frank jumps out the window and Helena follows in a pretty glorious leap.
“Helena!” Ollie yells and they face off, weapons up. McKenna pulls up in front of the house; Quentin tells her to wait for backup over the radio, but she goes in anyway.
Helena tells Ollie he won’t shoot because he’s not a murderer. Um, but he is. Ollie says if he lets Helena go, “that blood will be on my hands. I’m sorry.” He shoots – and she catches the arrow. “I practiced that move,” she says smugly, then gets all tearful as she accuses him of trying to kill her, then attacks him. I am so tired of this “ladies be cray!” characterization.
Anyway, Ollie gets the upper hand and grabs his bow, but McKenna appears and tells him to drop the bow. As he does, Helena grabs the gun. “No!” Ollie shouts, but Helena shoots McKenna and runs off. Ollie runs over to McKenna, which is better than the last time Helena shot at someone he loved and he left Moira lying on the sidewalk. Progress!
Hospital, day. Ollie, in civvies, lets himself into McKenna’s room. They chat about her condition: “I have a shattered femur and it’s gonna take at least a year to rehab. I loved being a cop,” she finishes tearfully. She tells him she’s moving to Coast City to live with her sister because they have better PT there.
“I’ll visit,” Ollie says. “Hey, I’m a billionaire, I’ll move to Coast City.” Um, you won’t actually, so maybe don’t say that? She says his work is in Starling City, and when he blows that off, tells him not to make this harder than it already is. “Okay,” he says. “Whatever you need.”
Sigh. The show never really thought of anything interesting to do with McKenna, but I liked the idea of her a lot, and since Carly’s been AWOL for a while and with Joanna likewise written off, there goes our last WOC. Not great.
Police station. Quentin sadly packs up McKenna’s stuff. MOLWNWSDNK walks in and says Quentin asked to see her. He takes the photo of Maybe-Sara out of his desk and says “I’m ready to listen now.” “Thank you,” she says sincerely.
Verdant. Ollie’s moping on a glow-in-the-dark chair, which is amazing, when Tommy walks in. “I, uh, heard about McKenna. You okay?” he asks. “Not really,” Ollie admits. Tommy apologizes for being “a jerk” and says he now understands how hard it is to keep a secret like that. Ugh, show, you were doing so well! THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE SECRETS. THE PROBLEM IS THE MURDERING.
Anyway, Ollie somewhat tearfully says the lying is the hardest part and that he was wrong, thinking he could Hood it up and “still have a normal life – with anyone.” “Maybe not,” Ollie says, “but me being happy isn’t what’s important right now.” Man, so much of this dialogue when I recap it makes it seem like Ollie and Tommy are like two seconds away from declaring their love. Or Ollie and Diggle. Or Ollie and Slade. Ollie has intense relationships, is what I’m saying.
Flashback. Slade hands Ollie a radio: “Your plan, your call.” Ollie nods and takes the radio: “Fyers.” “Mr. Queen,” Fyers says immediately, “I thought I might be hearing from you.” Ollie tells him they have the circuit board. Fyers threatens them and Slade chuckles silently. “If your men kill us, then you’ll never find the circuit board, and after that we both know that all you’ll be left with is a really ugly piece of modern art,” Ollie says, and releases the talk button on the radio with immense satisfaction, Rich Boy getting off a sick burn about other people’s modern art investments. Fyers asks what he wants and Ollie says the obvious: a way off the island. Dun dun dun!
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