Join us each week as we review the latest episode of ARROW. Warning: the following review contains major spoilers for the newest episode of the show.
Episode 2: "Sara"
Synopsis: Quentin calls The Arrow when another archer appears in town and starts skewering businessmen. However, the team hits a rough patch with the mission and gets help from a surprising source – Laurel.
In Starling City: After the shocking death of Sara Lance last week, ARROW has a lot to explain. The episode opens with Laurel bringing Sara's body to the Arrow's base and the team is left in shock. Reeling, Laurel and Oliver think about Sara and they both vow vengeance on who killed her. They agree not to tell her father until they find who killed Sara. Oliver tried calling Thea again and leaves a plea for her to call him back. Felicity finds nothing on security cameras, so Oliver goes to the rooftop where Sara died and finds a jade arrowhead. Diggle shows up to see if Oliver is okay and he refuses to mourn and tries to retrace the steps of her killer.
The Arrow meets Lance who tells him another archer is in town, killing off others aside from Sara. We see another victim run from the new archer who kills him by shooting through multiple plate glass windows. Oliver tells Diggle there could be about ten archers in the world, most of them in the League of Assassins. The latest victim was a construction foreman. While the others investigate the archer, Felicity and Roy try to search for Thea as Roy doesn't believe she is in Europe as Oliver thinks.
Felicity gets a call from Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh) at Queen Consolidated and tells him to leave her alone and stop sending flowers and gifts. Palmer even bought her current employer forcing Felicity to quit to get away from Palmer. He senses she is upset about something else and asks if she needs to talk. Felicity cries as he apologizes and tries to be consoling. Oliver visits the site of the latest archer attack and finds a guy hiding around who IDs the archer as wearing a black mask and DIggle finds it is a man names SImon Lecroix who goes by the name Komodo. They triangulate his phone and Oliver goes after him. Oliver stops Lecroix from his next kill and the two have a pretty kickass motorcycle chase ending in a game of chicken but with arrows flying. Lecroix shoots Oliver and gets away.
Back at the base, Oliver asks for intel on where the team is at on finding Lecroix. Trying to find a connection between the victims, Laurel goes to the hospital to speak with the surviving victim. Oliver gets angry at how slow Felicity's search goes and she lashes out at Oliver for not grieving. He says he has to be strong for everyone and Felicity implores him to be human and feel. Oliver then says he realized looking at Sara's body that one day that will be him and there is no other way for his life to end. Felicity says she cannot live her life that way and leaves.
Speaking with the latest victim, Erlich Kelso, Laurel confronts him about knowing what is going on. When Kelso is uncooperative, Laurel smashes his injured arm until he reveals there was a deal for a pipeline but not before the new archer shoots and kills Kelso mid-sentence. As Oliver tries calling Thea again, Roy reveals his letter to Oliver explaining why she isn't calling back. Oliver accepts his explanation and walks away. Laurel meets her father at the hospital and knows she is lying about why she is there, but he sends her home. Laurel gives Felicity the intel on Ameritech Industries. They find the next victim will be Tommy Weston who is going to be at Ray Palmer's fundraiser at Queen Consolidated.
At the fundraiser, Palmer promises to donate half his net worth to help make Star City a reality. Amidst applause, Lecroix attacks. Oliver and Roy fight as Palmer looks on and Lecroix jumps out the window. After pursuit through the building, Lecroix and Oliver face off. Oliver shoots Lecroix and asks him who he works for when Laurel arrives with gun in hand. Oliver tries to stop her saying revenge makes it worse. As Laurel attacks, Lecroix says he was in Bludhaven when Sara was killed. Laurel doesn't believe it and pulls the trigger but the gun is empty.
The next morning, Oliver once again promises Laurel that he will find Sara's killer and tells her he thinks her father deserves to know what happened. At the station, Laurel arrives to begin telling him about Sara. She sees his hand and how weak his heart is and she has second thoughts. The team buries Sara and hold a small memorial at the cemetery. As they mourn at the site of her previous gravesite, Laurel becomes upset saying it is not fair that she doesn't get a proper burial and that no one will know what happened. Diggle then reveals that he has named his daughter Sara in honor of their fallen friend.
At the base, Diggle tells Oliver he is back on the team until they catch Sara's killer. Oliver says before he can, he has to find Thea to bring her home. Felicity then arrives at Palmer's office and agrees to work for him. In the final scene, we see someone training in Kendo gear, defeating several opponents. A clapping Malcolm Merlyn watches and the fighter is revealed to be Thea.
In Hong Kong: Resigning himself to becoming an operative for Amanda Waller, Oliver receives his first mission. Looking through the scope of a rifle, Oliver sees his target is Tommy Merlyn. Oliver refuses to kill his best friend and is told when he logged into his email in the last episode, it triggered an alert. Oliver now has to kill Tommy to get him off of Oliver's trail. Oliver suggests they find a body at the morgue to pose as Tommy, but instead we see someone inject Tommy with something, knocking him out.
Whe Tommy comes to, he is held underground by a masked man, begging for his life. Oliver poses as a kidnapper saying he posed as Oliver to blackmail someone for money. Oliver tricks Tommy and says Oliver Queen is dead, sealing Tommy's belief that his friend is gone and there is no trail to follow.
Episode Grade: 8/10
The third season of ARROW has already proven itself to be quite exciting and we are only two episodes in! The vengeance for Sara's death comes into full swing tonight as Oliver pursues his first suspect. The development of Laurel this episode hints at her future as the next Canary while Felicity is given some nice strong scenes that look to pay off as the season carries on. Even the Hong Kong scenes were a bit more congruent this week than last, and the return of Tommy Merlyn was a nice touch. Oliver went from a lighter debut last week to a much darker place this episode feeling very much like Batman. I am still not sure what I think of Brandon Routh as Ray Palmer, but he is definitely charismatic. The ending tease of Thea joining forces with her father also looks like it will be worth seeing next week. Not an amazing episode but yet again ARROW delivers a solidly entertaining outing.
Next on ARROW: "Corto Maltese" – Oliver decides it’s time for Thea to come back to Starling City, so he packs for Corto Maltese, where Felicity has traced Thea’s whereabouts. Lyla asks Diggle to go with Oliver because one of her field operatives, Mark Shaw, has gone dark in Corto Maltese and she’d like him to look into it. Feeling responsible for Thea's departure, Roy joins Oliver and Diggle on their journey. Shaw double-crosses Diggle, putting numerous A.R.G.U.S. agents, including Lyla, at risk. Meanwhile, Laurel meets Ted Grant, and Felicity adjusts to her new job.