- Title: Green Arrow – Vertigo
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“Fantastic. Looking forward to my new and exciting career as a drug dealer.”
Both Oliver (Stephen Amell) and Laurel (Katie Cassidy) step in to help after Thea‘s (Willa Holland) arrest for driving under the influence of a new street drug named Vertigo. While Laurel gets her father (Paul Blackthorne) to talk with the judge (Serge Houde) who throws out a plea arrangement to make and example out of one of Starling City’s elite, Oliver calls on the help of an old friend working as a vice cop (Janina Gavankar) to find the mysterious Count (Seth Gabel) who is supplying the city with the powerful hallucinogenic compound that 56 people died to perfect.
Filled with anger over her mother’s perceived affair with the elder Merlyn (John Barrowman), Thea refuses Laurel’s deal that would keep her out of prison as a way to punish Moira (Susanna Thompson). Eventually Thea manages to calm down enough to make up with her mother, hear the truth about her father, and start her hundreds of hours of community service and probation under the watchful eye of Oliver’s former lady love.
With only a name and the scant amount of information Detective Hall (Gavankar) is able to provide Oliver enlists the help of his underworld contact (Eugene Lipinski) to arrange a meeting with the mysterious Count. After faking the death of a street dealer to prove his credibility, Oliver and Diggle (David Ramsey) show up for a meeting that quickly goes downhill when the Starling City Police Department show up and Oliver is drugged with Vertigo while trying to stop the Count from escaping. Diggle is only able to save his life using Oliver’s magic island cure-all (seriously, this thing cures every possible type of poison?!).
Although the cure saves Oliver’s life he’s left with a side-effect not unlike actual vertigo. Trying to figure out the drug’s composition Oliver enlists the help of Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) under yet another increasingly lame excuse. Although Felicity comes through yet again with the information Oliver asked for it’s her other admission and sharing the list Walter (Colin Salmon) gave her before his disappearance that will have lasting ramifications for Mr. Queen.
Despite still fighting the effects of the drug, limiting his usefulness with the bow, Green Arrow jumps headlong into danger to take down the drug supplier once and for all (and somehow manages to escape unseen by the police). Despite a couple huge problems with basic logic, “Vertigo” provides some fun, and a nice message. If the Count should return, however, I’d hope he’s experience would push him far closer to his comic book namesake than what we get here.
