Episode Report Card Monty Ashley: B+ | 3 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Un-Secret Identity
By Monty Ashley | Season 1 | Episode 16 | Aired on 02.27.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.China White is all set to kill Malcolm Merlyn, but she plans to subcontract it out to one of the many paid serial killers they have in this world. Oliver kills the first one as soon as he steps out of his helicopter, but the second one is our old friend Floyd Lawton: Deadshot! The Triad concocts a diabolical plan, which is basically that they'll pull the fire alarm at Malcolm's big gala, then Deadshot will shoot him when he runs outside.
Before the gala, Malcolm makes an attempt to reconcile with his son, Tommy. Tommy is resistant to the idea, because he's still mad that his father ran out on the family after his wife died. That's what Tommy says, anyway, but I think he's really mad about being cut off from the billions of dollars that funded his extravagant lifestyle. He eventually decides to go to the gala. Because who doesn't like galas?
The Triad's assassination plan doesn't go perfectly, because they start choking people right in front of Malcolm. So he grabs Tommy and runs upstairs, where there are two goons trying to kill him with machine guns. But Oliver's there, because Felicity hacked into the phone of the guy who was killed by the helicopter. Oliver saves Malcolm by fending off the goons. Up in the penthouse, Malcolm is just about to show his son that he's got a room full of archery gear, but Deadshot blows some stuff up and then shoots him in the chest.
Oliver is briefly detained by the police, but is once again able to escape without being shot or seen clearly. When he gets to the penthouse, he explains to Tommy that the only way to save his father is to dilute his curare-infused blood. Did you remember that Deadshot coats his bullets with curare? Well, he does. Oliver has to reveal his secret identity to Tommy to convince him to go along with this blood transfusion, which does not look like it would work. But Malcolm is saved and it doesn't look like he sees Oliver's face.
The episode ends with Tommy being hurt that Oliver wasn't going to tell him that he was the mysterious vigilante. And then we see Laurel's mother, who's played by Alex "River Song" Kingston. She thinks Sarah Lance is still alive! That shipwreck killed hardly anyone, it turns out.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!China White is back! And the previouslies also remind us that Malcolm Merlyn is the Black Arrow, although I'm the only one who calls him that.
The actual episode starts with a helicopter landing somewhere and police racing to get there. A square-jawed individual deplanes (well "dehelicopters," I guess) and tells someone via his phone that he gets "half on arrival" and "half when the job is done." He gets his half million dollars transferred in, then Oliver shoots the phone out of his hand. He blocks the next arrow with daggers and there's a big helicopter-side fight. One of the flaws of this show is that archery is basically designed for fighting at range. Once they're up close, Oliver has to use his bow as a staff, which requires careful organization to keep the bowstring out of the way. But after a bit of fighting Oliver stabs his opponent with an arrow. So I guess there's something to be said for carrying around a lot of pointy objects. The bad guy falls. Oliver snags the phone and runs off just as the police get there. McKenna finds at arrow and glares into the distance./p>
Felicity falls to the mat in the Arrowlair. Diggle's teaching her hand-to-hand combat. I guess it's a good idea, but I prefer her as a noncombatant. On the other hand, they've had a lot of scenes where Oliver showed off how awesome he was by schooling Diggle, which always felt like it kind of undercut Diggle as a character. His specialty is supposed to be hand-to-hand combat, but he wasn't even the best guy on a team of two. But here Diggle can look tough and Felicity's character concept can withstand being bad at judo.
Oliver comes in and reports that Guillermo Barrera is dead. If you care that's a guy named "Brutale" in the comic books. Oliver has his phone and he'd like Felicity to hack into it, because he knows that Guillermo was in town to kill someone. So he's going to protect that person, whoever it is.
Flashback Island. Oliver does four pull-ups in the plane and then falls to the ground, exhausted. Slade does some show-offy pull-ups and mocks Oliver's goal to get off the island. He suggests that maybe if Oliver got a bunch of bamboo, they could build a boat like on Gilligan's Island. I think he's kidding. Oliver goes to the plane's radio, but it's broken. He explains that his father used to do the maintenance on his aircraft himself. Slade smirks, "So you're hoping that aircraft maintenance is genetic?" Funny! But Oliver used to help and he claims he remembers some of it. Slade thinks Oliver should be spending his time training himself into a killing machine. Oliver answers "I think I have a better chance of making the radio work."