Arrow – Home Invasion

• Title: Arrow – Home Invasion
• tv.com: link

 “You’re thinking too much.”
“Nobody ever accused me of that before.”

Deadshot (Michael Rowe) returns to Starling City, walking into a trap set for the assassin by Diggle‘s (David Ramsey) old friend Lyla (Audrey Marie Anderson) who is less than pleased to learn Diggle wasn’t completely honest for his reasons in wanting to see the hired killer taken down. Green Arrow (Stephen Amell) also steps in to help a young boy, a client of Laurel (Katie Cassidy), whose family was murdered by a hitman (J. August Richards) working for Starling City’s most crooked financier Edward Rasmus (Al Sapienza).

After an attempt on their lives, Laurel, Tommy (Colin Donnell), and the young boy move into the heavily fortified Queen mansion. When Rasmus decides to flee the country the same night as the Deadsot sting Oliver must choose between avenging the murder of the young boy’s parents or keeping his promise to Diggle. Oliver’s choice costs for agents their lives and leaves the vigilante with yet another strained friendship. The assassin’s attack on the Queen home is stopped by Oliver, but it also illustrates (quite vividly) to Tommy that if Laurel ever knew his best friend’s secret she would choose Oliver over Tommy.

When Roy (Colton Haynes) steals a police radio to try and find Green Arrow, Detective Lance (Paul Blackthorne) decides to take the young rapscallion and his girlfriend Thea (Willa Holland) down to the morgue to show them the hard truth behind the vigilante’s quest for justice. When neither the detective’s scared straight campaign nor her attempts to dissuade him work, Thea agrees to help Roy find his hero and, as corny as it sounds (and oh boy, does it sound corny), his destiny.

In this week’s flashbacks Shado (Celina Jade) trains Oliver to use a bow in order to help both her and Slade Wilson (Manu Bennett) rescue her father (Byron Mann). The storyline ends in a cliffhanger when the man they set out to save turns them in to the enemy. The flashbacks end with the tease of Oliver leaving the island (picking up a loose plot thread from earlier in the series which suggested Mr. Queen didn’t spend all of his missing years confined to the island).

With only three episodes left to go, Arrow shakes things up as Tommy and Laurel’s relationship ends, Diggle abandons Ollie’s crusade after Deadshot gets away, and Roy and Thea decide to hunt down the vigilante (who is far closer than either of them realize). The flashbacks also suggest the beginning of a romantic relationship between Ollie and Shado which will be interesting to see how the show deals with that complicated relationship.