Back to [[Recap/{{Arrow}} Recap Page]].
----

Judge Brackett denies Thea’s plea bargain, saying he wishes to make an example out of her, so Oliver asks Laurel to have her dad pull some strings. Detective Lance initially declines, but after Laurel equates Thea to Sara, he persuades the judge to agree to community service and probation under Laurel’s supervision.

At the police department, Oliver runs into an old friend, Detective [=McKenna=] Hall, and asks her for information after learning that the man supplying vertigo is the Count. Oliver brings Diggle to the Bratva HQ, where Oliver must [[IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten kill a man]] before Alexi will arrange a meeting with the Count. Choking the man enough for him to appear dead, Oliver later orders Diggle to help the man flee. During the meet, police swarm the place, allowing the Count to escape, but not before he injects Oliver with liquid vertigo.

Oliver, fighting a drug hangover the next morning, asks Felicity to trace where the water in the liquid vertigo came from so he can find the Count’s home base. As the police close in on it, the Hood invades, fights the minions, and injects the Count with vertigo. [=McKenna=] tells Oliver the Count is in custody, but his survival is questionable due to the amount of vertigo injected. Felicity arranges a meet with Oliver, revealing that Walter found Moira’s book of names.

The men on the island create a fight ring into which Oliver is thrown opposite Yao Fei. The morning after Oliver is knocked out, Yao Fei rolls him over a cliff into a stream below. When Oliver swims to shore, he finds the map Yao Fei tucked in his jacket; it says “survive.”

!!Tropes applying to this Episode:
* ActionGirl: Hall takes down a mook when busting the drug buy.
* AwfulTruth: Thea finally learns about her father's infidelities.
* BadBoss: The Count inflicts a CruelAndUnusualDeath on one of his pushers just for giving up his moniker to the Hood. Turns out the police have known about The Count for months, so it's not like this information is a secret.
* BigBrotherInstinct: The way Oliver acts about Thea is BigBrotherInstinct at its finest. Particular mention goes to the scene where they walk to the court house and news reporters start swarming in on her. She holds her hand out to him and he takes it, then muscles his way past the mob while protecting her.
* BlatantLies: When Oliver gets Felicity to analyze the "sports drink". Lampshaded.
-->'''John Diggle:''' Your BS stories are getting worse.
* BrokenPedestal: Done by Oliver to Thea regarding their father. Moira is furious because she would rather Thea hate her yet retain good memories of at least one of her parents.
* ChekhovsSkill: Inverted. The island flashbacks reveal where Oliver first learned the trick he used to fake the death of Alexi's prisoner ''after'' he demonstrated it.
* DisposableVagrant: The Count uses junkies, prostitutes and the homeless for his MadDoctor experiments, but it's not until pretty young things in nightclubs start getting killed that the authorities feel the need to crack down. The police only know him by his moniker even though he brags of killing more people than your average serial killer, and Oliver's never even heard of The Count until Thea gets hurt.
* EvilIsHammy: The Count acts like he's operating in Gotham rather than Starling City.
* FailedAttemptAtDrama: After spending all night PerpSweating drug dealers, Oliver comes up with the Count, only for Detective Hall to tell him that they've known about him for months.
* FilmTheHand: Thea is shown doing this on a news website Laurel is looking at.
* HallwayFight: The Hood does the stairwell version while slugging his way into the Count's drug factory.
* IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten: The [[TheMafiya Bratva]] boss will only introduce Oliver to the Count if he kills an underling who has displeased him. Oliver appears to strangle him, but actually just renders him unconscious and temporarily stops his heart. Oliver carries the 'corpse' outside, then tells Diggle to get him out of town and set him up in a new identity. We then flashback to the island where Yao Fei 'kills' Oliver using the same method to prove his loyalty to Fyers, showing where Oliver learnt this trick.
* ImpairmentShot: Oliver suffering the effects of a Vertigo overdose.
* InternalReveal: Felicity hands Oliver the book containing the List that Walter found in Moira's bedroom.
* ItsPersonal: Oliver is [[KnightTemplarBigBrother more than a little intent]] on taking down the drug dealer responsible for Thea doing drugs. In fact from this episode on, on any attempt to reintroduce Vertigo to the streets of Starling City gets a guaranteed violent response from the Vigilante.
* LaserGuidedKarma: The Count is injected by an overdose of his own drugs. He escapes a KarmicDeath only because Quentin talks the Hood out of giving him a full dose to avenge Thea, but is dragged off to hospital strapped to a gurney and writhing in agony. Even Quentin looks uncomfortable at the sight.
* LeaveNoWitnesses: The Count jabs Oliver with Vertigo after the SCPD bust their drug deal, citing this trope. Although Oliver's HealingHerb pulls him through, he spends the rest of the episode fighting the effects.
* MakeAnExampleOfThem: Lampshaded
** Judge Brackett is not impressed with Thea's delinquency once again being swept under the rug, especially as she's no longer a juvenile, and refuses to allow the plea bargain because he wants to make an example of others who might want to try Vertigo, showing that if the [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney Queens can't get away with this]], no one else can. Oliver's desire to bring down the Count is partly motivated by a desire to take the heat off Thea.
** Also cited by the Count when he inflicts a CruelAndUnusualDeath on the pusher who gave up his name to the Hood.
* MeaningfulEcho: After Island!Oliver wakes up in the river where Yao dumped him, he finds a map in his pocket marked with directions and the word "[[Recap/ArrowS1E4AnInnocentMan Shengeun]]".
* MoralityChain: Laurel is shown to be this for both Quentin and the Hood.
* MythologyGag:
** The Count is the series' adaptation of Count Vertigo with his powers being made as part of the drug called Vertigo, and his moniker coming from the vampire-like needle marks he leaves on his test subjects.
** Thea’s middle name is “Dearden,” a reference to Mia Dearden, the second Speedy and first female Speedy of the comics.
** It is mentioned that Oliver saved one Anatoli Knyazev (which led to his becoming a Captain of the Bratva). In the comics, this gentleman is also known as the [=KGBeast=], a Franchise/{{Batman}} villain.
* NewOldFlame: Detective [=McKenna=] Hall.
* PowerOfTrust: Despite the BlatantLies he's been dropping on her, Felicity thinks she can trust Oliver with the book containing the List that Walter found.
* ReplacementGoldfish: Laurel sees Thea as this for her dead little sister Sara. She gets her father to pull strings so Thea will be assigned probation under her supervision at the legal clinic.
* UnwillingSuspension: In the BatmanColdOpen, a drug dealer tries to escape the Hood by climbing a gantry on the docks, only to get [[PinnedToTheWall pinned to it]] and left hanging there, even after he gives the Hood the information he wants.
* RevengeBeforeReason
** Thea is willing to reject the community service and go to jail just to spite her mother in revenge for supposedly cheating on her father.
** The Hood is willing to kill the Count in payback for Thea. He's only stopped when Quentin points out how disgusted Laurel would be if he really was the killer Quentin always said he was.
* SadisticChoice: The Count injects [[BadBoss one of his drug pushers]] with pure Vertigo which stimulates the pain receptors. He then gives the pusher a gun with one bullet, so he can either get revenge on Vertigo or MercyKill himself. The pain is so agonizing he chooses the latter.
* SayingTooMuch: When Oliver says he's very particular about what he puts into his body, Felicity says, [[EatingTheEyeCandy "I've noticed"]] then tries to VerbalBackspace, much to Oliver's amusement.
* TestedOnHumans: The Count got his name from the experiments he conducted to perfect his drug, which left twin injector-marks on the necks of the deceased junkies, [[DisposableSexWorker prostitutes]] and [[DisposableVagrant homeless people]] he used as test subjects.
-->'''The Count:''' A good wine's value is measured by its vintage. The number of years it took to ferment. Vertigo is measured in lives. 56 people died to perfect this high. Believe me when I say that they did not die for nothing.
* WilliamTelling: Oliver is suffering from the after-effects of being injected with Vertigo. Diggle holds a tennis ball next to his head and says that if Oliver can shoot it then he is fit to go out. Oliver nocks an arrow and sights on the ball before deciding his aim is too bad to risk the shot. He leaves anyway, saying he doesn't need the bow.
----