Arrow – Fighting Fire With Fire

By: Stacy Miller

Oliver Queen’s career as Mayor of Star City may be a short one as the city council has called a hearing to decide on whether or not to impeach him.  And Oliver (Stephen Amell) can’t even take the stand in his own defense. D.A. Adrian Chase (Jose Segarra) offers to resign so it will look like he and not Oliver is the responsible party.  But Oliver refuses to allow Chase to take the blame for him.  Instead, Oliver asks Adrian to represent him at the hearing.  All I have to say is that Chase must be one well versed lawyer as he was also able to represent Diggle, who faced a military court and now Oliver as mayor.

Curtis (Echo Kellum) receives a call from his husband Paul (Chenier Hundal) asking him to dinner.  Curtis is happy at the thought that they will get back together. “He wouldn’t be asking me to go out to dinner if he wasn’t ready to reconcile,” Curtis says.

Oliver wants Thea (Willa Holland) to make amends with Susan (Carly Pope) for ruining her career. He also wants Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) to help him because he has been calling Susan and she’s not returning Oliver’s calls. “Susan is your girlfriend so if anyone is going to fix it, it has to be you,” Felicity tells Oliver.  Oliver reminds that he has other things on his mind like trying not to get impeached so Felicity decides to help him after all.

When Oliver arrives at City Hall for the hearing, he sees Susan is there as she is covering the story for her new blog.  The medical examiner takes the stand and testifies that she falsified Detective Billy Malone’s autopsy report at the request of D.A. Chase because Mayor Queen wanted it done.  Things get worst for Oliver when Captain Pike (Adrian Holmes) testifies that Mayor Queen told him that Green Arrow killed Malone by accident because killer Prometheus had tricked him. It looks like the mayor IS covering for a known criminal like Green Arrow.

After the hearing is over Oliver and Thea are leaving City Hall in the mayor’s limo.  Thea suggests that they let Adrian takes the fall, but Oliver refuses to allow Adrian’s reputation to be ruined like Susan’s was. Suddenly, Vigilante appears and opens fire on the limo. Dinah (Juliana Harkavy) uses her canary cry and Thea starts fighting, but they are no match for Vigilante.  Oliver fights Vigilante, who leaves when he hears police sirens.

Oliver gets checked out by Dr. Schwartz (Venus Terzo) for the bruises he sustained, but the good doc thinks that Queen’s injuries are more mental than physical. “Are you prescribing me a girlfriend?” Oliver asks. “That or just a friend,” Dr. Schwartz answers.

Dinah investigates the scene of the limo showdown with Vigilante and finds part of his visor. She wants to bring it back to the Arrow Cave to be analyzed, but Adrian arrives and takes it away from her.  Viewers learn the identity of Prometheus when he has an altercation with Vigilante and Prometheus takes off his hood to reveal that he is none other than Adrian Chase!

Thea comes to Felicity and asks her to use the Pandora data drive to get blackmail information on Councilman Greg Kullens (Greg Rogers), whose vote could determine whether Oliver gets impeached or not.  John Diggle (David Ramsey) is concerned about the dark path Felicity seems to be going down and expresses his concerns.  Felicity finds information that suggests that the death of Kullens’ wife wasn’t an accident. John urges his friend not to use the information and resort to blackmail.  He wants her to show empathy, but Felicity tells Diggle that it something she no longer has.  It looks like both Thea and Felicity are making questionable choices, ones that they may not be able to come back from.

Later, Oliver holds a press conference and since Curtis was able to get a signal from Vigilante’s visor to track his location, Team Arrow learns that Vigilante is on the building across the street from the press conference and in a sniper position in which to take down the mayor. Dinah is able to let Oliver know that he’s in danger from Prometheus, but Oliver assures that as long as the team is outside he’ll be fine.  It’s moments like these that remind the viewer how much Team Arrow trusts each other.

While the press conference is taking place John, Curtis and Rene (Rick Gonzalez) spring into action to take down Vigilante.  Diggle, though, has to be saved by Curtis with his new and improved Kevlar.  He also saves Rene with his T-sphere that blasts Vigilante through a wall.  Curtis is Team Arrow’s MVP in this fight!

Despite all the fighting and firing going with the Team Arrow vs. Vigilante fight, the people of Star City don’t seem to hear or notice as they are concentrating on the press conference and Mayor Oliver Queen’s speech. Oliver is actually throwing Green Arrow (himself) under the bus. “The truth is that the Green Arrow has gone rogue. Green Arrow is not a hero. He is what’s keeping Star City from being the best it can be.”  The strategy seemed to have worked as Mayor Queen does not get impeached.

Later Susan comes to Oliver’s office and tells him that the hacker (Felicity) said that they lied about Susan and her phony stories and sources.  So, Ms. Williams gets her reporting job back. Susan tells Oliver that any information that she has that indicate he’s Green Arrow will stay secret between them. Oliver and Susan get back together. Next, Oliver goes to tell Thea that Susan got her job back and finds his sister packing up her office.  “Please don’t ask me to stay. I am broken, okay? I need you to let me go.”  Mayor Queen accepts Thea’s resignation.

At the Arrow Cave, Team Arrow tells Oliver how hard he made their job with his speech. Curtis meets Paul for dinner and is saddened when Paul gives him divorce papers.  Poor Curtis!  And Felicity becomes a member of the hackers Helix, which probably won’t turn out well.

The episode ends with Adrian coming up to Susan as she is walking to her car and tells her he has an exclusive for her. Uh oh! It looks like Susan is about to get up close and personal with a life or death story!