Arrow - 'The Magician', 'The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak', 'Guilty', 'Draw Back Your Bow' and 'The Brave and the Bold'

You could accurately rename pretty much any given episode of Arrow 'A Shot
in the Dark'.

Okay, so another bumper crop of Arrow watching this weekend, trying to get caught up to Season 4. I apologise if I lose track of where subplots and flashbacks go.

In 'The Magician', Nyssa reveals that Sara was in Starling to check up on renegade Assassin Malcolm Merlin, once known as the Magician*. Nyssa assumes that Merlin killed Sara and is out for blood, Oliver wants to be sure they get the right guy and not keen to start killing people again. Laurel decides that this makes him a half-assed wimpodite, because if he really loved Sara he'd be shooting anyone who even might be guilty.

After a strong spell, I'm really disliking Laurel 'No one has suffered by me' Lance again. Nyssa may feel that anything short of vengeful murder is weaksauce, but she never condemned Oliver for killing people who hadn't murdered someone she personally knew and cared about.

Hey kids! It's Ra's al Ghul!
They have this big reveal of him like he's going to turn out to
be someone we know, but... I mean, we already knew he was
Ra's al Ghul. Is the shock that he isn't Liam Neeson?

Merlin swears on Thea's life that he didn't do it, but that doesn't stop Nyssa using Thea as bait to get to him, only for Oliver to get in her way. The return of Merlin to Starling tests Oliver's resolve, and he tells Thea that Merlin is alive, while still holding a fair bit back.

Then Nyssa goes back to Nanda Parbat (which is basically Petra with some extra minarets photoshopped in) where Ra's al Ghul is all 'Sara wasn't one of us, but we will get Merlin for breaking the code and who does Oliver Queen think he is to say we can't assassinate anyone in Starling City?' which is actually something of a theme.

Quentin Lance still doesn't know that Sara is dead for realsies now.

They actually make a really good fist of making Emily Bett
Rickards look, if not quite like an actual college student, then
certainly like a Hollywood college student.

'The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak' introduces Felicity's mother, a Vegas cocktail waitress, and something of her history as a goth hacktivist. A supervirus that the young Felicity wrote is being deployed by one 'Brother Eye' to hold Starling to ransom, and she has to find a way to stop it while also wrestling with family issues and her non-relationship with Oliver and what it might be getting in the way of (which is itself complicated because although Barry Allen has first refusal and they're adorable together, Ray Palmer is in the same series.)

Anyway, the day is saved despite some crazy ex hostage taking thanks to a Palmer Tech superwatch and crazy ex imagining that it was ever a good idea to tie Felicity to an active computer terminal. Felicity also gets to kick a little ass, which we always like to see.

There's some business around here with Thea getting Verdant up and running again, and hiring Roy as her assistant manager.

I'm going to go out on a limb
and assume we won't be
seeing this costume.

'Guilty' is focused on Laurel's trainer, Ted 'Wildcat' Grant, former heavyweight boxing champ and, it turns out, vigilante. He's being framed for murder by his ex-partner, by an astonishing coincidence at the same time Roy is freaking out over dreams in which he sees himself murder Sara. These turn out to just be traumatic images triggered by the fact that he murdered a policeman in the grip of mirakuru rage, which doesn't help him much, but it is nice to see someone handle a problem like this by opening up to his friends and partners and asking for help and counsel.

But also awesome.

And Oliver knocks out Grant with a boxing glove on an arrow, which is actually even dumber than a purpose built boxing glove arrow.

Grants partner is caught, but later murdered by a female archer calling herself Cupid, and in 'Draw Back Your Bow' we learn that this is Carrie Cutter, an ex-cop with severe psychological issues who has fixated on the Arrow since he saved her from the patented Mirakuru throat-lift, but has no time for this namby-pamby 'no killing' lark.

There must be young medical residents across Starling City
specialising in the previously underrepresented field of arrow
trauma.

Cupid represents a recurring pattern in Arrow, that there is apparently a plateau beyond which expertise increases only slowly, so that, for example, Sara is about as badass as Olly despite a two year lag in training, while Cupid outdraws Roy and Olly can stand up to Malcom Merlin or Slade Wilson.

Anyway, we thankfully avoid any damsels in distress through this, and end with Carrie off to join the Suicide Squad, despite being 'even crazier than the last woman' on the team.

Whether Oliver can beat Barry or not, it's telling that the
Scarlet Speedster even feels the need to prove it.

Finally, 'The Brave and the Bold' teams up Team Flash and Team Arrow, following from 'Flash vs. Arrow' on the sister show. It makes a big thing of the strengths and weaknesses of Oliver's determinator stance - extreme measures are needed to deal with those who see things in extremes - and Barry's upright heroic approach (although this serves to remind me that in Season 2 of The Flash, Barry is 2 for 2 on straight up murder) and the fact that the metahuman threat in Central City makes things seem like more of a game.

The Australian Secret Intelligence Service: Breeding
sociopathic mercenaries with eclectic weapon selections
since 2012.

They still dub the villain 'Captain Boomerang'.

Boomerang himself is another nod to Oliver's past with ARGUS. A former Suicide Squaddie and rogue ASIS operative (seriously; what the hell are the Aussie's teaching their spec ops?) he's gunning for Lyla, but more importantly represents the blowback from Amanda Waller's take no prisoners approach.

Our flashbacks show Oliver bonding more closely with his minders in Hong Kong, and being taught to hone his memory and get all torturey in the name of the greater good. In the latter case he fails to extract without torture details of a bomb which destroys part of Hong Kong. Waller tells him the blood is on his hands, and not - say - on the hands of the woman who put a rookie in charge of the interrogation to prove a point. I feel that while one shouldn't like Amanda Waller, one should at least be able to admire her; I don't admire this interpretation. She's not quite smart enough.

* In 'The Brave and the Bold' Cisco notes that metahumans and codenames make everything seem more like a game. I wonder if the same is true for the League of Assassins?