- Title: Arrow – Birds of Prey
- wiki: link
“I think if the Huntress shows up you should totally kick her ass.”
The arrest of Frank Bertinelli (Jeffrey Nordling) brings Oliver‘s (Stephen Amell) murderous ex-girlfriend the Huntress (Jessica De Gouw) back to town to kill her father who Laurel‘s (Katie Cassidy) has returned to work to prosecute. When the Huntress shows up to take her revenge she walks straight into a police trap, loosing her chance to kill Frank, but that doesn’t stop her, and several armed gunmen, from taking control of the courthouse and take hostages who include Laurel.
Unable to convince Laurel to abandon the other hostages and escape, Black Canary (Caity Lotz) does exactly what Ollie asks her not to – stay and engage Helena on her own which only gets the hero thrown out of a rather high window and puts Laurel in the hands of Helena who offers Oliver an exchange for her father. Before the episode comes to a close Canary will show a heroic side the Huntress was never able to grasp and Helena will get a measure of revenge, although not at her own hand.
There’s also a B-story involving Roy Harper (Colton Haynes) attempts to break-up with Thea (Willa Holland) after both he and Oliver are forced to admit Roy has gotten no better controlling the rage and increased strength caused by the super-soldier serum. Flashbacks to the island focus on Slade Wilson (Manu Bennett) torturing Oliver and realize the boat he risked so much to acquire has a broken engine only one member (Artine Brown) of Sara’s group has the skills to repair.
Helena’s return offers some Canary on Huntress action while ending the vengeful piece of her storyline and setting up circumstances for a possible more heroic turn down the line. Although the series delivers another strong episode and good return for the Huntress, we never get to see Sara and Helena working together, and Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) is relegated to little more than a cameo, meaning we don’t actually get to see anything that quite resembles the comic from which the episode takes its name. The episode’s final scene sets up next week’s resumption of the Deathstroke storyline with the kidnapping of Thea and the return of Brother Blood (Kevin Alejandro).
It was a good episode but should not have been named Birds of Prey unless Huntress isn’t coming back. The show could have waited for an episode where Sara and Helena must work together to save Oliver. I like Felicity but she’s not really Oracle so even that would have been a stretch.