This week’s Arrow was simple but really pushed the story along. A throw away villain, Xavier Reed, The Mayor, is bringing illegal military grade guns and wreaking havoc in the Glades. Oliver reacts with Sebastian Blood (who is getting creepy this episode) to create a cash for guns benefit in the Glades which is attacked. The benefit also shows Oliver struggle in his new role professionally having to answer to Isabel Rochev for his fiscal actions. It shows Thea what a hero Roy is and lets them interact with Sin. They should create a Junior Arrow club.
Meanwhile Diggle meets up with his old colleague Lyla Michaels to flirt and try to get info on tracking down Deadshot. AND back on the island Oliver gets a neighbor on the boat and is getting tortured. This really reminds me of the scenes in The Dark Knight Rises where Bruce is trying to fix his back and get out of the hole.
The Bigger story this episode is the Canary. With Felicity’s help Oliver finds the Canary unmasks her and she is revealed to be… SPOILERS… the long thought dead Sara Lance. Man this is trouble for Oliver. Obviously he wants her to reveal herself to her family but she can’t for some reason. Maybe because they’re all drunks. Well at least Laurel is this episode. Quinten has been recovering for some time now. Anyway, the last time the viewers saw Sara, was way back in the first season when she joined Ollie on his boat, the Queen’s Gambit. During their trip, the ship was sabotaged and sank, along with Sara. Her remains were never recovered so her family buried a empty casket, after she was declared legally dead. But get this, Oliver then reveals to John and Felicity that he thought she drowned on the Queen’s Gambit, but met her a year after being shipwrecked, however he thought she had died since he last saw her. So apparently somewhere in between she joined up with the League of Assassins.
However, the best part of all of this is when Arrow and Canary, excuse me I mean GREEN Arrow and BLACK Canary, team up to take down The Mayor.
All in all a great episode.
Notes/Easter Eggs/ SPOILERS:
The Mayor: Also known as Xavier Reed, The Mayor shares names with two Marvel superheroes, Professor Charles Xavier and Reed Richards. The place where he is stealing he weapons from is Camp Kirby. This is a nod to Jack Kirby, who co-created both Charles Xavier and Reed Richards. Jack Kirby is best known for creating almost half the Marvel Universe of super-heroes in the 1960s. At DC he is best known for his work on Superman and creation of New Gods characters in the 1970s. But way back in the 1950s, he did a stint writing and drawing Green Arrow in Adventure Comics and World’s Finest Comics. The Mayor also reminds me of the characters Steel fought in his book back after Superman returned from the dead.
Lyla Michaels: Lyla is an old colleague of John Diggle. She works for the U.S. government organization A.R.G.U.S. which stands for Advanced Research Group Uniting Super-Humans. In the comic books they act as support and liaison to the Justice Leauge by supplying them with resources and cleaning up after battles. Argus was an all-seeing giant in Greek mythology with a hundred eyes. Lyla Michaels has a history of all-seeing in DC Comic books. She was created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez. She first appeared in New Teen Titans vol. 1, Annual #2 in 1983. She became the hero known as Harbinger in Crisis on Infinite Earths #1 in 1985, where it is revealed she has the power of splitting into various selves and can send those copies of herself through various points in time, space, and parallel universes. I’m not sure if this character will ever develop those powers. If you do want to read up on her, Crisis on Infinite Earths is a pretty historic, being the first company wide DC Comics cross-over. Basically every title in the company tied into this year long series at least one point during the year.
Anatoli Knyazev: This is the guy in the prison cell next to Oliver on the Amazo ship. Anatoli is a lesser known Batman villain known as the KGBeast who was created by Jim Starlin and Jim Aparo in Batman #417 in 1988. In the comic books Anatoli is a K.G.B. trained assassin code-named “The Beast” (very Arrowish naming convention), however he is known to the C.I.A as the KGBeast. In addition to being the master of several martial arts he is cybernetically enhanced with a prosthetic gun arm. KGBeast played a big role in Robin III: Cry of the Huntress. I haven’t read it since high school but remember it being pretty good.
The Flash Watch: A channel 52 news report mentioned protests over a particle accelerator currently under construction.