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Arrow Recap and Review S5, Ep. 14 - The Sin-Eater

Legion contributor Andrea Levine is recapping and reviewing Arrow for us this season. Follow her on Twitter @wysefyre!

The Sin-Eater begins with Oliver and Diggle making a trip to Oval City to visit Amanda Westfield aka Justin Claybourne’s mistress and Prometheus’ mother. She seems pretty chill about the mayor of Star City showing up on her doorstep, asking questions about her son, but she lets him to say his piece. Oliver tells her his theory about Prometheus and only asks for his name. Amanda refuses. Even though they haven’t spoken since Claybourne’s funeral, she believes f her son is Prometheus, he’s acting out because he’s lost and hurting, and she’s not about to let Oliver cage him up. She clearly has bitter feelings towards the Green Arrow for how he killed Claybourne. She kicks Oliver out.

Oliver and Diggle return to the Arrow Cave to find out some prisoners have hijacked a prison bus and are on their way to Star City for a little revenge. China White, Cupid, and Liza Warner have teamed up and are wrecking a little havoc all over town looking for an old stash of Tobias’ Church’s containing 100 million dollars. Quentin wants in on this, because he feels responsible for Liza.

While Rene and Curtis try to find out where the cash stash is, Oliver and Quentin track the women. They find them, fight, and while Quentin is chasing after Warner, Oliver takes on Cupid and China White. However, he’s interrupted by the SC Anti-Crime Unit coming in and training their guns on Oliver. They believe he is responsible for Detective Billy’s death. Not that they’re wrong, but it’s an inopportune time to attack. The ladies get away, but not before Warner tells Quentin her return to crime is his fault, because she believed in him, but then saw him confess to helping Damian Darhk. After that, she decided to embrace her dark side.

So now, Quentin has more guilt laid on him, and Oliver, after getting away, using a sparkly smoke arrow to provide cover, needs to figure out what the heck is going on. He, Quentin, and Adrian Chase meet with Captain Pike. They want to know what evidence Pike has. Pike was sent a copy of an ME’s report, and it says Billy’s wounds were consistent with the types of arrows the Green Arrow uses. Oliver asks Pike to give up the investigation, but without concrete proof proving the report false or some other information, Pike won’t. As well he shouldn’t. He’s doing his job.

Meanwhile, China White, Cupid, and Liza have found someone who can help them locate the stash. Under duress, he’ll show them where it is.

Oliver, thinking there’s no other way to handle this, goes to Captain Pike’s office. He tells Pike he’s in communication with the Green Arrow, and tells him the truth. He admits to the coverup to prevent citywide panic, but even though it was the Green Arrow’s arrow that killed Billy, it was really all Prometheus’ fault, so please back off and let the Green Arrow do what he does best. Pike agrees to think about it.

Felicity texts Oliver with the location of the women and the team suits up. They head to a cemetery, and confront the women, who have, in fact, found the money. Dinah blasts them with a Canary Cry and Team Arrow has them surrounded. At least, they did until the small army of gangs arrives. The trio is smart enough to make sure they have backup and money can buy a lot of loyalty.

Team Arrow is fighting their hardest, but they’re outnumbered, until the SCPD arrives. They were tracking the Green Arrow, but Pike decided to let him be and went after the women. China White is injured or killed, it’s a little unclear, but Cupid and Liza are fine. They’re taken in. Oliver thanks Pike and then tells Pike he knows he’ll have to live with Billy’s death for the rest of his life. This would be a nice statement if only Oliver hadn’t said something almost exactly like that when he met with Pike earlier in the day. Seriously. Either Oliver is getting lazy and careless, or he wants to get caught. Is he even trying anymore?

Quentin confronts Liza one last time. But this time, his conscience is clear. Which is great, because now we can deal with the other issues and drama happening in Team Arrow’s lives.

Let’s start with the least bit of drama. Dinah is sworn in as a member of the SCPD, and because of it, she needs to conceal her identity, so she dons the Black Canary mask for the first time. She doesn’t really feel worthy of filling the Black Canary’s shoes. Felicity points out she’s not. She’s just putting on a mask. More importantly, Oliver clues Quentin in on his intentions for Dinah to be the new Black Canary, and later on, when Dinah expresses doubt over trying to replace Laurel, Quentin explains she’s not replacing Laurel, she’s carrying on her legacy. He gives his blessing.

So, that’s all sweet and wonderful, but what about Thea and Susan Williams? Susan comes right out and asks Oliver if he’s the Green Arrow. At first he says yes, but then plays it off as a joke. She lets it go.

Oliver tells Thea, who rightfully freaks out, and runs to Felicity. Felicity also freaks out. They hack into Susan’s computer with the intention of deleting all she has, but they realize she has everything and has connected all the dots. Her intel came from an outside source, so even if they delete what she has, she’ll be able to get it back. Thea takes matters into her own hands.

Susan visits Oliver and informs him she was fired. She’s been accused of plagiarizing stories for the past few years. She wonders if he had anything to do with this, because the timing is pretty convenient. Oliver swears he didn’t know. Susan only half-believes him. She makes sure he knows she knows everything, but now she can’t go public because she’s been discredited. I guess this is the end of Susan and Oliver. Can’t say I’m too torn up about it.

Oliver confronts Felicity, who didn’t know the extent of Thea’s meddling, so he goes to Thea, and rips into her. He feels she should have come to him, but Thea didn’t want to, so he could keep his hands clean. She tries to say she didn’t mean for Susan to lose her job, but Oliver calls her out. She made a choice, and it’s one their mother would have probably made if she was in the same situation. That concerns him more than anything. He doesn’t want Thea to become Moira.

All that has to wait, because Adrian arrives with bad news. They turn on the TV to see a story about Billy Malone’s death and the cover up. The Sin-Eater ends with Oliver assuming his administration is coming to an end.

The flashback this week involves Oliver at the hospital with Anatoly.  They’re trying to figure out a way to confront Gregor and basically stage a coup for the Bratva, but Oliver notices a guy passing Anatoly’s room several times. They believe it’s one of Gregor’s men, so they try to leave the hospital.

Oliver was right. They’re attacked. They make it far into the hospital, bur get pinned down. Gregor swears if Oliver gives himself up, he won’t hurt Anatoly. Oliver, over Anatoly’s objections, does. And then he takes out all of Gregor’s men. The flashback ends with Anatoly reaching for a gun and Gregor stepping on it and putting a gun to Anatoly’s head. Since we know Anatoly lives, it’s not that suspenseful, but it’s still an ok bit of tension. We’ll find out how he gets out of that next week.

Other points of interest

~ Curtis reveals his mom has a hard time with him being gay.

~ Rene doesn’t like messing with cemeteries. He believes that’s how you get haunted.

~ The report sent to Captain Pike is sent from Oval City. Oliver believes this is Prometheus’ way of letting him know he knows Oliver saw his mom.

~ The Sin-Eater takes on the evil of men those around him. Oliver is a sin-eater. Quentin is a sin-eater. Thea is a sin-eater. Everyone’s a sin-eater!

This week’s Arrow should have been filled with an amazing assortment of fight scenes. The ones we got aren’t bad, but I don’t understand having China White, Cupid, and Liza Warner and not utilizing them better. Their story is weak. I’m all for advancing the coverup plot, but it shouldn’t have been at the expense of these great characters. They should have used someone else.

Other than that, it’s always fun to see Oliver’s life begin to implode. Seeing how he gets out of this should be entertaining. I don’t really think we’ve seen the last of Susan Williams, but other than turning criminal, there’s not much left for her to do. And I’m fine with that. She hasn’t really been that compelling a character.

I’m glad they’re slowly figuring out what to do with Thea. She’s been meandering lately, but seeing her slowly become more devious and walking a little down her mother’s path could make for a good story. That is providing the writers don’t pull her back now that Oliver has mentioned it. I guess we’ll wait and see.

What do you think?

                                 

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Andrea Levine

Andrea Levine is an East Coast based geek, who has more fandoms than she cares to admit. When she isn't talking about the latest geeky news, she's obsessing over musical theater. Her dream is to successfully bring geekdom and musical theater together (I'm looking at you, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark). You can read more of her exploits as Wysefyre over at [insertgeekhere].