- Title: Arrow – What We Leave Behind
- wiki: link
Arrow wastes no time in explaining the cliffhanger where Ollie (Stephen Amell) ran into Laurel (Katie Cassidy) in the Arrow Cave at the end of the last episode. First explaining she was brought back to life through the time traveling adventures of her sister, Laurel’s true story is revealed to be something far different. Turns out she’s not this Laurel at all. She’s actually Earth-2’s Black Siren recruited by Prometheus (who sounds more and more like Michael Dorn every week) to further frustrate Oliver.
“Who Are You?” is a perfectly fine episode, but it’s so impatient to spill its secrets it ruins what could have been a far more interesting story. Black Siren revealing herself so early does nothing but cause some momentary friction between Oliver and Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) at how to best handle the situation. Had she masqueraded as Laurel for weeks, secretly poisoning the team on the inside, that would be a plan. This feels more like stunt casting. Speaking of stunt casting, the flashbacks to Russia introduce Oliver to a new ally in Talia al Ghul (Lexa Doig), the far more famous of Ra’s al Ghul’s daughters. Given the show’s creators couldn’t decide whether or not Talia existed in this universe just a couple of years ago, it seems like the blueprint for Ollie’s flashbacks has long since been abandoned as the show has remained on the air longer than perhaps they, or The CW, expected.
The fallout of the episode is two-fold. Black Siren is captured and sent to A.R.G.U.S. (meaning if the show wants to do another Suicide Squad episode they have another volunteer). Maybe Diggle (David Ramsey) could join her, as his capture also suggests he’ll be spending some time behind bars. At least Ollie’s legal help (Josh Segarra) keeps him out of the clutches of the General (Garry Chalk) who would like to see the soldier dead. The other consequence here is Ollie rededicating himself to find a new Black Canary. And apparently he won’t have to do much of a search as there’s a perfect candidate (Juliana Harkavy) just waiting to be recruited next week.
