Arrow – Spectre of the Gun

By: Stacy Miller

As the episode opens, Diggle (David Ramsey) and Dinah (Juliana Harkavy) are honing their fighting skills by sparring with staffs. Meanwhile, Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) is busy trying to find the location of Prometheus’ mother.

At City Hall, we see that Thea (Willa Holland) has returned to town and Rene (Rick Gonzalez) has a new job as Quentin’s (Paul Blackthorne) assistant.  But the routine day at work is interrupted when a man arrives and begins shooting.  It’s an intense scene as people are scrambling to get out of the line of fire with some becoming casualties of the gunfire.  Rene immediately springs into action. He is carrying a gun and exchanges shots with the shooter. Unfortunately, the shooter escapes while leaving five dead and DA Chase (Josh Segarra) injured. Thea questions Rene about why he brought a gun to work.  Back at the Arrow Cave, tests run on the shooter’s weapon reveals that it is an AR-15, but since there isn’t a registry the owner of the weapon can’t be traced. Quentin was able to see the shooter before he covered his face with a mask so Lance provides a description for a police sketch.

We get a flashback to Rene’s past.  He was going to take his daughter Zoe (Eliza Faria) to a hockey game located in a tough area of The Glades and wanted to bring his gun.  His wife Laura (Samaire Armstrong) tells him to leave the weapon at home.  Rene confronts Laura about using again and warns that when he returns home if the drugs aren’t gone, she has to leave.

Back in the present, Felicity continues to search for the identity of the shooter while other Team Arrow members debate the pros and cons of having a gun.  Curtis (Echo Kellum) says that as a black man he’s more likely to be shot than Rene. As a cop, Quentin knows the dangers of guns and wishes they weren’t as easy to obtain. Dinah wishes there were less restrictions in getting them.

Oliver (Stephen Amell) dons the Green Arrow costume to question a Bertinelli crime family member about their responsibility in the police shooting when who should show up, but Vigilante. He is there to basically taunt Green Arrow on his methods. “The only difference between us is that I use a more efficient weapon,” says Vigilante. He shoots the crime lord and then leaves.

The police sketch helps to identify the shooter as James Edlund,(Cliff Chamberlain) who was a systems analyst that lost his wife and daughter to a mall shooting sixteen months ago. And since the death of his family, Edlund also lost his house and his job.  He was a supporter of the Star City Gun Registry, but the city representatives voted against the registry making it easy for the mall shooter to obtain his gun. As the mayor of Star City, Oliver gives a press conference about the police station shooting and is questioned about his view on the gun registry. “It’s complicated,” Oliver answers. After the news conference, Thea and Quentin tell him that his response as mayor could have been better.  Oliver’s guilt for the violence he has shown as Green Arrow makes it difficult for him. “We cannot dismiss the idea that we are just feeding into a vicious cycle,” he says. But Quentin reminds Oliver that the problem they face is bigger than one villain with a gun and requires the mayor and not Green Arrow. “You try again and if that doesn’t work, you try again,” says Quentin.  Oliver realizes that better gun control laws are needed.  He contacts Councilwoman Pollard (Laard Sadiq) who shares a responsibility in the troubles with the gun registry.

We get another flashback on Rene’s past. He and Zoe came back home from the hockey game where a drug dealer is holding a gun on Laura demanding that she pay him the five hundred dollars she owes from the last score he got for her. Rene tells the dealer that he has to go to the safe and get the money.  But in actuality, Rene was going to get his gun.  Sadly, Zoe surprised the dealer who started shooting and Laura ended up dead in the melee. After Laura’s death, Rene spoke with a social worker on the phone and was told that because of the unsafe environment his home offered, he would be losing visitation and parental rights for Zoe. An upset Rene watched a television news report about Green Arrow’s killing of Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough) and how the people of Star City stood with him. Rene looks at his hockey jersey and mask and we got our first glimpse of Wild Dog.

Felicia gets information about Edlund’s gun country support group.  Rene and Curtis go to the support group and despite hearing the sad stories told by gun violence survivors, Rene doesn’t change his view. “Guns save lives. Period.” They are able to get Edlund’s address and a find a photograph of his family along with a supply of bullets and floor plans for Star City General Hospital.  Oliver is told of this and arrives at the hospital as Mayor Queen to talk James Edlund down from committing more violence.  He reminds Edlund that the people that he killed in the police shooting were as much of innocent victims as Edlund’s family.  Edlund points the gun to his own head in an attempt to end his own life but ends up surrendering the weapon and is taken into custody. Afterwards, Oliver goes back to Pollard with a proposal for a citywide gun control ordinance that Rene helped him with.  Curtis tells Rene that he researched what happened to Rene’s family and tells Rene that he has a friend who is a lawyer that can help Rene get his daughter back.

Later that night on the steps at City Hall, Oliver gives a speech at a vigil for the victims of the shooting saying “Hard choices require bravery. And we don’t run from hard choices.”