Felicity!!!
It’s not like “The Odyssey” wouldn’t have been a great Arrow episode without Felicity Smoak — it would still have been excellent — but the adorable IT girl just makes everything better. And now that Miss Smoak is in on the secret, hopefully she’ll be around a lot more.
They need her — what if the computers break?
The Joys of Felicity
How does Felicity get involved in Oliver’s complicated life? We can thank Moira for that.
“The Odyssey” begins right where the previous episode left off: Oliver has come crashing into Moira’s office as the Hood, threatening her for failing the city. Moira, understandably, reacts with some fear, clutching a photo of Oliver and Thea to her chest while begging for her life.
We probably shouldn’t be too shocked that this moves Oliver. He promises not to hurt Moira.
That may have been a bad choice — Moira has a gun. And she’s not at all hesitant about shooting her attacker in the chest.
Fortunately, Oliver has a friend at Queen Consolidated: Felicity Smoak. The poor girl finds a bleeding and nearly unconscious Oliver in the back seat of her car like some sort of ax murderer. Instead of running off screaming in an inconvenient but totally understandable way, Felicity simply accepts that Oliver is Starling City’s vigilante and drives him to the lair.
As soon as Diggle gets over his shock at a blonde girl showing up, he and Felicity work to save Oliver’s life. There are a few complications — like Oliver’s heart stopping and several loose wires on the equipment — but eventually our hero is almost as good as new.
Felicity has, meanwhile, updated Oliver’s computer system and hacked into the police files so Oliver’s blood won’t get tested.
But that’s it for her. Felicity isn’t too cool with the killing thing and only will help until they get Walter back. Then she’s out.
So let’s all hope that Walter doesn’t get found for a long, long time!
Survival, Death and Greek Classics on the Island
While Oliver lies unconscious and nearly dying, he has a whole bunch of lengthy flashbacks to the Island, giving us some of our first answers on that front. What exactly do we learn?
Well, it turns out that Slade Wilson is a decent and apparently super-patient guy. Oliver is still a Laurel-pining, rich-boy wuss, but Slade is desperate enough to train the boy in fighting and fire-starting. He hopes that together, the two of them might actually make it off the Island on a supply plane.
It’s not looking too good though. En route to the landing strip, Oliver whines, fails to start a fire and steps on an old land mine. At least this last foible gives Slade an excuse to swing out of the trees like Tarzan and kill a whole bunch of soldiers at once.
Yep, Slade Wilson is a badass.
He’s so badass that he takes out 10 guards while Oliver pretty much fails to take out one (although he does place a call to Laurel). Then finally Oliver does get to prove his worth — the pilots need a quote from “The Odyssey” in order to OK the landing. Slade is at a loss, but Oliver happily recalls this as the only book he actually read in college!
Even party boys like the classics.
The joy, however, is short-lived. Learning that Slade plans to call for an airstrike to kill everyone, Oliver insists on saving Yao Fei. Slade tries to talk the boy out of it, pointing out that people go bad over there. Deathstroke, in fact, was once Slade’s partner, Billy Wintergreen. Now, he’s an evil killer.
None of this makes an impact on Oliver. After a life spent in self-absorption, Oliver Queen is finally ready to be a hero. He heads to Fyers’ camp to liberate Yao Fei but gets a nasty shock when the man won’t go. It seems that Fyers has something — or, more correctly, someone — to keep Yao Fei in line.
But just before Deathstroke can finish off Oliver once and for all, Slade shows up with explosions and knives. He and his old partner fight to the death (Billy’s death, that is).
This would be more of a victory if Fyers didn’t shoot Slade right then (not too badly though) and if the supply plane hadn’t just flown away. The downsides provide motivation for Oliver though. A wuss no longer, the boy suddenly finds his own inner badass and becomes a partner Slade can use for survival.
Back at the evil camp of evildoers, Fyers talks on a phone to his mysterious employer — this man doesn’t want complications so close to the end (of what, we don’t know). Fyers promises to take care of things.
Complications or not, Fyers is pleased with Yao Fei’s loyalty and grants the man five minutes with his “someone.” The person in question is Yao Fei’s adult daughter, a near-hysterical and near-naked girl with an odd dragon tattoo on her shoulder.
As it turns out, Oliver has the very same tattoo…
Nepotism for Vigilantes
Oliver has survived his ordeal, but that doesn’t mean everything is OK. As Diggle points out, Moira could very well be a bad guy. But Oliver isn’t ready to accept this, whether it’s true or not. He insists that his mother is off-limits until they know for sure what her involvement is.
The boy even promises his mother that the vigilante will never hurt her again. Too bad Moira decides to hug her son right then — that’s got to make the bullet wound sting a bit.
A lot of this has got to sting. Ah, the troubles of being a vigilante with villainous family members! At least Oliver now has some Felicity on his side.
Do you like the addition of Felicity to the team? Is Yao Fei a good guy or a bad guy? What’s up with the dragon tattoo? Leave your comments below!
(Images courtesy of The CW)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
Laurel grew up in Mamaroneck, NY, Grosse Pointe, MI and Bellevue WA. She then went on to live in places like Boston, Tucson, Houston, Wales, Tanzania, Prince Edward Island and New York City before heading back to Seattle. Ever since early childhood, when she became addicted to The Muppet Show, Laurel has watched far too much TV. Current favorites include Chuck, Modern Family, Supernatural, Mad Men and Community. Laurel received a BA in Astrophysics (yes, that is possible) from Colgate University and a PhD in Middle Eastern Studies and History of Science from Columbia University before she realized that television is much better than studying.
