Recap / Arrow S 1 E 18 Salvation

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On the island, Fyers agrees to give Oliver and Slade a boat in exchange for the circuit board. To the exchange, Fyers brings his backup, Yao Fei, and Shado, who frees herself after Fyers threatens to kill her unless Oliver abides by the deal. A fight ensues, and Yao Fei is left behind. When Oliver, Slade, and Shado return to the hideout, the circuit board is gone; Fyers didn’t intend to hold up his end. Now the missiles are ready to launch, but Shado knows details of Fyers’ plan.

As Oliver is literally hanging around in the base, he learns that John Nickel, a slumlord, is getting away with his crimes. The hood sneaks into Nickel’s home, but finds that someone kidnapped him. Over dinner, Diggle and Oliver discuss how Oliver is still “living on an island” after eight months. Everyone’s phone begins buzzing from a live feed of Nickel being interrogated and shot by “the Savior,” who is trying to clean up the Glades.

Dinah and Quentin continue searching for Sara, leading Laurel to track down the woman in the picture; it’s not Sara. Dinah then reveals that she last saw Sara before she went on the Queen's Gambit and was responsible for letting her go making her feel guilty for letting her daughter die. Still convinced Sara is alive, she decides to leave Starling City but Laurel tells she can call her anytime. Moira meets with Frank Chen and assures him of Malcolm’s obliviousness to their part in his failed assassination. Malcolm later informs Moira that a Triad member was arrested and is willing to talk. As Moira tells Frank she ratted him out, the Dark archer murders Frank.

Felicity tracks down the Savior, who now had ADA Gavin Carnahan hostage. Oliver follows Felicity’s directions, leaping tall buildings and sliding over car hoods, but comes up empty as the signal jumps around. Carnahan is killed. Thea visits Roy’s, but is knocked out as he is kidnapped. Diggle figures out that the Savior uses subway lines to move around. The Hood stops the Savior and saves Roy, who swipes a piece of the arrow. Oliver realizes that the circle glyph in his father’s book matches the subway lines near the Glades.

Tropes applying to this Episode:

• Action Girl: Shado. Double as Hidden Badass.
  Slade: ...well, that was unexpected.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Averted; when Thea sees the gun delivered to Roy and he admits it's for a robbery, she gets upset and walks out on him. She does go to Laurel for advice, citing how she's dated a few bad boys herself. Laurel advises her to "run", but events conspire against that. The trope is lampshaded by Laurel at the end to Oliver, in a wry comment on their own relationship.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Laurel asked her father to look into Dinah's theory that Sara was alive, but never expected him to get swept up in her obsession. She makes her own inquiries and tracks down the woman in the photograph. It's not Sara, just a tourist who was photographed on a Chinese island.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Just because Thea and Roy have started making out doesn't mean they've stopped their Snark-to-Snark Combat.
  (Roy is getting intimate with his new rich girlfriend when they're interrupted by a knock on the door.)
  Thea: Oh, now you want to stop?
  Roy: Well we don't all have butlers. Some of us actually have to answer our own doors.
  Thea: Oh, the horror.
• Big Damn Heroes: The Hood smashes through the subway car window just as the Savior is about to execute Roy.
• Canon Foreigner: DC does have a character called "Savior", but he is completely different to Joseph Falk, being a superhero with powers. It's fairly safe to say Joseph Falk is an original character with no connections to this comic book version.
• Cassandra Truth: The guy who shows up at Roy's to deliver a handgun doesn't believe Thea's Thea.
  Guy: You look familiar... I seen you on tv or something?
  Thea: Probably. I'm Thea Queen.
  Guy: Yeah, right.
• Chekhov's Gun: An interesting case. Roy receives a literal gun for his upcoming robbery while Thea is visiting, but in an attempt to make her accept it, he unloads it (intending to only use it as a Weapon for Intimidation). His first reaction when the Saviour assaults him is to draw and fire his gun, but he never got around to reloading it.
• Conveniently Placed Sharp Thing: Roy cuts the duct tape restraining his hands using the flechette that the Hood threw into the wall next to his hand.
• Crusading Widow: A villainous example. The Savior lets his wife's murder be his Start of Darkness and he never looked back.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: Slumlord John Nickel claims that "Without me, people like that would end up on the street." This only further convinces the Savior how little he cares about his tenants, "People like that. That's all we are to guys like this."
• Eating the Eye Candy: Felicity is openly checking out shirtless Oliver as he does chin-ups from the ceiling above her head.
• Evil Counterpart: To Oliver. The Savior is a vigilante trying to save his home, the Glades, by hunting down those he believes have wronged it... except he's less interested in saving and more in avenging, his victims aren't so clearly deserving, and rather than offering his targets a last chance to right their wrongs, he has them plead their case for their lives on live streaming video before invariably executing them anyway, since he's already decided they're guilty.
• Foreshadowing:
  • A man whose wife was murdered in the Glades lashes out against the innocent and guilty alike.
  • Oliver realises the Undertaking is connected to the Glades, when he has a "Eureka!" Moment about the glyph on his father's notebook—a map of the subway tunnels under the Glades.
  • The Crawl text under the newsreader mentions an earthquake.
  • After being rescued by the vigilante, Roy keeps the flechette used to save him. The lights in the club even turn red.
    • There's a shot earlier of Roy staring at the bloody red arrowhead sticking out of the Savior's chest.
• Friendship Moment:
  • Diggle insists that Oliver take the night off, taking him to Big Belly Burger where he tries to talk him out of his self-imposed isolation.
  • Felicity laments that even if she was seeing someone, there's no way she could talk to him about all that terrible things that happened to her that day. Later Oliver tells Felicity that if she ever needs to talk about her day, she can talk to him.
• Get It Over With: When asked by the Savior why he should be allowed to live, Roy can't think of anything. He tells the Savior to go ahead and shoot him because nobody will miss him, even as Thea is watching the video stream and breaking down in fear for his life. When the Hood comes to the rescue, Roy is visibly shocked that someone would save him, much less shoot the man trying to execute him.
• Hope Spot
  • The woman Dinah thought was her daughter turns out to be someone else.
  • On the island, Shado is rescued but they discover that the mercenaries found and retrieved the circuit board. They also have Yao Fei in their custody, so there's nothing to stop them carrying out their plan.
• Hypocrite: The Savior claims he goes after criminals, when he's a criminal; killing innocent people in cold blood and acting as judge, jury, and executioner.
• Hypocritical Humor
  Felicity: You went over there to be all, "Grrr, stop being bad or I'll arrow you!" and now you want to rescue him.
  Oliver: I just don't like the idea that there's someone dangerous out there.
  Felicity: [significant look]
  Oliver: Someone else!
• I Can Change My Beloved: Cited by Roy regarding Thea's intentions. He says she's wasting her time because this is the world he lives in. "You either starve or you do things that mean you're lucky enough to make it to 21."
• It's All My Fault: Dinah feels responsible for Sara's death because she's the one who let her go on the Queen's Gambit with Oliver, which is why she is desperate to prove she's alive.
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: After what happened with McKenna (not to mention Helena, Laurel and Sara) Oliver has decided to give up having a social life altogether. However the events of the episode convince him that cutting himself off totally is a bad idea, and he asks Laurel out for coffee or dinner some time.
• I Will Only Slow You Down: Cited word-for-word when Yao Fei catches a bullet while fleeing the mercenaries. He has Slade and Oliver get his daughter to safety instead.
• murder.com: The Savior's M.O., playing Judge, Jury, and Executioner live on the internet.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Although Oliver does his utmost to save Thea's friend, he's clearly not happy on realising they're not Just Friends. Unlike last year however, Oliver doesn't interfere in his sister's love life.
• Mythology Gag: Dinah Lance leaves to go back to Central City and comments she'll be there “in a flash.” Central City is the home to The Flash in DC Comics, and in another coincidence, Dinah Lance, the Black Canary, first appeared in Flash Comics.
• Parental Betrayal: Dinah reveals she knew Sara got on the Queen's Gambit with Oliver despite it being a betrayal of Laurel, and didn't tell Laurel about until now. Laurel is less than pleased, but extends an olive branch by asking her mother to call her, when she's previously rejected such attempts.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: The Savior's intention. Except he considers a district attorney who chose not to take a case to trial for lack of evidence and a conflicted bit-part criminal barely out of his teens to be as worthy of public execution as a slumlord whose corruption has caused multiple deaths.
• Pet the Dog: After killing Chen, the Dark Archer tells Moira that Chen's daughter must also be killed in retribution. Not knowing the Dark Archer is Malcolm, Moira successfully pleads for her life to be spared.
• Pull the Thread: Dinah thinks the woman in the photo is Sara because she's wearing a Starling City Rockets cap like Sara was wearing on the Queens Gambit. Laurel suddenly asks how Dinah knew this, and she has to admit she came home early and caught Sara packing.
• Race Against the Clock
  • The Savior gives his victims ten minutes to present the case why they shouldn't be killed. Oliver has even less time when Roy is kidnapped, because Roy can't even be bothered arguing his own case.
  • While on the island, Oliver demands that Fyers hand over a boat in one hour. Slade interrupts to present a more realistic timetable.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Shado deals a round of these to Fyers, revealing her Action Girl status.
• Relationship Upgrade: In case the audience thought that Kiss of Distraction was a one-off, Roy and Thea are introduced passionately smooching in Roy's house. By the end of the episode, everyone else has been clued into the situation regarding Thea's new friend as well.
• Removing the Earpiece: After two fakeouts, Oliver looses his temper and shouts at Felicity to find the right address just as she witnesses the Savior execute a man. She responds by tearing out her earpiece and walking away.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The Savior's vigilantism comes across less as a calculated attempt to save the Glades and more as an extended version of this for his wife's murder; two of the three people he's seen targeting are the DA who chose not to prosecute his wife's murder and a young criminal he views as identical to the thugs who killed her, rather than more dangerous criminals.
• Snuff Film: The Savior's modus operandi is not only to execute whoever he sees fit, but to make sure everyone in the City gets a live feed of the victim begging with their last breaths.
• These Hands Have Killed: While Moira didn't murder Chen herself, seeing his blood on her hands after she turns him out to the Dark Archer to be assassinated causes her to have a full-on breakdown.
• Vigilante Man: And unlike Oliver, the Savior really has lost it. First he executes a slumlord that let one of his buildings burn down, but then he kills the ADA who refused to prosecute his wife's killers for lack of evidence, then he kidnaps Roy as a random gangbanger on whom he can take Revenge by Proxy for those who killed his wife.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Savior edges between this trope and Knight Templar. He really does desire to save the city, but is horribly misguided and takes it out on the wrong people more often than not.
• You Know Too Much:
  • When Moira realises that Malcolm is getting too close to the truth, she denounces Chen herself as the traitor, handing over the evidence that he hired China White. Chen is then executed by the Dark Archer before he can reveal that Moira put him up to it.
  • Shado says that Fyers would never have handed over a boat to Oliver and Slade because he couldn't risk them warning the mainland about his Evil Plan. The irony is they don't know that Fyers is planning anyway (though Shado does).
• Your Makeup Is Running: After tearfully hugging Roy, Thea admits she looks like a mess and goes to freshen up.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Felicity tracks down the Savior to an abandoned building. After searching every room Oliver can't find anyone, so has to go Roof Hopping to another address only to find an open construction site. It's only later they realise the Savior is using the abandoned subway system beneath the city streets, operating from a moving subway car he's restored.

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