Episode Report Card Monty Ashley: B | 46 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Canary, But No Coal Mine
By Monty Ashley | Season 2 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.23.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.There's a new vigilante in town, and the first thing she does is save Oliver from those twenty police sharpshooters that were surrounding him. She's blonde, wears a mask and uses an electronic sonic device that shatters glass, so she's obviously the show's equivalent of Black Canary. She's got a friend with short spiky hair that looks a lot better than her own silly blonde wig, and neither of them are impressed by Roy's attempts to track them down.
Meanwhile, a serial killer has escaped from prison. Actually, he escaped five months ago when the earthquake happened, but it was kept quiet. Even from the police. That's a good idea, right? What are the chances it would result in the killer roaming free to kill whenever he wants? About 100%, as it turns out. And the killer has this thing where he kidnaps attractive young ladies with nice skin and forces polymers down their throats to turn them into dolls. Quentin Lance isn't allowed to investigate the case, even though he was the one who originally arrested him the first time. So he asks Felicity to hook him up with the vigilante, who is happy to work with him.
Quentin and Oliver stop off at the lawyer who defended the killer the first time he was arrested. He doesn't answer their questions in the first twenty seconds, so Oliver shoots an arrow through his shoulder. Then he grabs the arrow and moves it around a bit. So don't go thinking that just because he doesn't kill people anymore, Oliver is turning into a nice guy. But he gets results, because the lawyer remembers that the killer was always drawing pictures of this one museum that reminds him of the birthplace of porcelain dolls. When Oliver and Quentin investigate, they get a taunting phone call from the killer, who kills someone during the phone call just to rub it in.
After a little more hacking, they learn that the killer stalks women who use this one super-rare kind of skin cream. Felicity offers herself up as a decoy, which almost works, but the killer gets away. Quentin gets arrested on a vague "obstruction" charge, but his daughter Laurel gets the charges dismissed. It was a lot of filler, so I'll use this paragraph to mention that Moira Queen is now facing the death penalty if she gets convicted. Too bad this billionaire CEO can't afford more than one lawyer.
Luckily for everyone, Quentin gets kidnapped by the killer, who's using a van that leads Oliver right to the abandoned factory he's using. He also grabs Laurel and starts pumping polymers into her throat. Naturally, Oliver gets there just in time to save her. The killer runs, but Black Canary is also there! And she attacks him! When she's momentarily out of action, Oliver shoots arrows into the killer's shoulders. Then she kills him and vanishes. Quentin and Laurel hug, and she realizes Tommy's death was actually more her fault than the vigilante's.
But all of that is unimportant compared to the real news: Quentin starts calling the vigilante "The Arrow." Finally!
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously, Roy saw someone that was probably Black Canary, but he doesn't read comic books so he doesn't know that yet. Oliver told Roy to be his eyes and ears in the Glades. Laurel surrounded Oliver with fifteen or twenty gun-toting goons. And that brings us up to right now! Oliver doesn't want to put down his bow, because he swears he's not Laurel's enemy. Even though he's pointing a deadly weapon at her, which kind of cuts against his argument. He slowly lowers it, and then! Someone in black leather smashes through the ceiling! This woman holds up an electronic gizmo that emits a noise that disables everyone in the room. All the windows blow up. She and Oliver run out the window and are followed by the goons. Out in the alley, Oliver quips, "Nice mask. Why'd you help me?" Instead of answering, she parkours up a fire escape.
The comic book character Black Canary is a blonde who wears a black leather jacket (and fishnet stockings, because comic books aren't as progressive as some of like to pretend) and has an ultrasonic scream. She's also one of the best fighters in the world, which helps balance off the fishnets. And like I say, this is clearly the Arrow version of her. This is cool, because she's pretty great.
Oliver returns to the Arrow lair and Felicity complains about how the police are chasing him instead of bad guys. I realize he's turned over a new leaf, but he did kill a lot of people last season, so I think the police are within their rights to want to arrest him. Oliver says he had help from a masked blonde woman in black who used a "sonic...thing." Diggle and Felicity want more details about who she was and why she helped him, but Oliver doesn't know anything. Diggle asks why he was at Felicity's office in the first place, and Oliver explains his theory that if he could just explain himself, she'd understand that he's not the bad guy. To his credit, he now understands the flaws in that theory. That's good, because "The superhero who keeps trying to explain himself to his ex-girlfriend" is kind of a lame hook.
Flashback! Slade, Shado, and Oliver have brought a malformed skeleton back to the plane, which is weird and gross. Slade doesn't care why the soldiers were looking for it, because he's more concerned with the prospect of more soldiers, who will naturally be looking for it. Then why'd they bring it to their secret hideout? That seems like the last place you want to draw soldiers to. Just drag the skeleton out onto the beach and leave a note saying "Here's your skeleton; please leave." Oliver fondles the stone he took off the corpse and comments on Shado's weirdly expert examination of the skull. Slade wants to get to a high point where they can watch anyone who approaches the plane, but Shado is too busing happily examining the skeleton to go with them. She says she'll be fine. Oliver doesn't want to split up the party, but he goes with Slade.