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Remember the guy with the hand-claws that used to work with China White? That was Ben Turner -- alias Bronze Tiger -- because that way he can use the same monogrammed towels regardless of whether he's on a job. He gets busted out of jail because an arms dealer needs help stealing something. That's the sort of thing that happens on a comic book show, right?
Meanwhile, Oliver is starting to train Roy in how to control his new super-strength. But Roy doesn't like standing around slapping a bowl of water while a jerk in a hood shouts at him, so it doesn't go very well. His constant complaints are interrupted when Oliver learns that Bronze Tiger stole the blueprints to Malcolm Merlyn's house. So Oliver brings Roy along on his mission to stop the theft of Malcolm's prototype earthquake machine. He had an extra one! Not only do they fail to stop the theft, but Roy almost beats a goon to death. Oliver is sad about this, even though it wasn't that long ago that he would have killed all the goons himself. Roy stomps off on his own, because he's had enough of being mentored.
When Bronze Tiger hands off the stolen earthquake machine, Oliver is there to stop the deal from going down. And Roy makes a dramatic return to save Oliver from a Bronze Tiger Beatdown. But the arms dealer sets off the earthquake machine in a fit of pique, and Oliver can't turn it off without Roy's help. The only way Oliver can think of to distract Roy from beating up Bronze Tiger is to reveal his true identity, so now Roy is one of the many, many people who know that Oliver Queen is The Arrow. But that news calms him down enough that he's willing to punch through a shipping container for Oliver. So everything's fine, although the team is getting kind of big at this point.
In other news, Moira is going to run for mayor against Sebastian Blood. This is extremely silly, because I distinctly remember the show saying that everyone in Starling City hates her for her involvement in the whole earthquake thing, but I guess it's something we'll have to accept. And Laurel is in danger of being disbarred, so she wasn't able to get a new job. She deals with this by getting extravagantly drunk, although I think I saw someone dosing her drink. So maybe someone's intentionally drugging her, but she still has a legitimate pill-popping problem. Her father is unable to get her to attend a support group, but maybe she'll be shocked into sobriety when her not-dead sister Sara shows up!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Somebody enters prison for holding up the convenience store across the street from the police station. It's convenient that police always tell each other the backstories of every new inmate, otherwise we wouldn't know that. He sets off the metal detector with his "bum knee" and is let into a cell with someone named Ben Turner. It's Michael Jai White, which means this is the Bronze Tiger. You know, the guy with the hand-claws? Used to work with China White? The new prisoner tells Mr. Turner to be at a rooftop at Redwood and Larkspur at midnight. BT (I'm calling him that for both "Ben Turner" and "Bronze Tiger" and because it's shorter) points out that he's clearly in jail, so he might not be available for appointments. The new prisoner explains that he's here so his son will get paid. Then he rips open his own forearm, where a knife has been hidden. He cuts some brass knuckles out of his chest. It wasn't a bum knee after all! When the guard gets there, he asks BT what he did. But he doesn't pay enough attention to keep BT from cutting his throat with his cool Bronze Tiger claws. And then, I guess, he kills his way all the way out of the prison.
In a warehouse somewhere, Oliver (as The Arrow) is making Roy slap water, because it's "how an archer builds arm strength." That's dumb as hell. It was dumb in the first season and it's even dumber now that Oliver's back in civilization and could just bring in expensive exercise machines that could work out Roy's lats. Roy points out that he has plenty of arm strength, so it doesn't even make sense on a theoretical level. Then Oliver lectures him about controlling his strength, which is not a thing that Oliver's ever been shown to be an expert in. He seems to think that the training regimen that worked on him on the island will be perfect for Roy, but their situations are completely different. He starts to talk about Mirakuru and his old friend, but he won't go into any detail, and Roy doesn't know what he's talking about. Except that Oliver is willing to say this: "I had to put an arrow through his eye." It would be very touching if we hadn't already seen Slade in the current timeline. He's not dead; he's just wearing an eyepatch.
Flashback Island. Oliver and Sara walk through the jungle, which seems like one of the main things that people on the island do. Oliver has a doohickey that suggests that Slade is back at the cave. And Oliver's still whining because he blames himself for Ivo killing Shado, but that's just to remind the audience. The doohickey runs out of battery power, but Oliver knows where the cave is anyway. That doohickey was not an entirely successful plot device.