Recap / Arrow S 2 E 4 Crucible

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At Queen Consolidated’s investor party, Felicity suggests that Canary may be following Laurel, not Oliver. Taking on this information, Oliver spots the Canary and after a chase, finds out that she’s Sara Lance. Diggle meets with Lyla Michaels about the serious weapons stolen from Camp Kirby by “the Mayor,” a man wanting to rule the Glades. With Felicity’s help to track the weapons, Oliver secures some, but “the Mayor” roams free. Despite Isabel’s disapproval, Oliver hosts a “cash for guns” event, where Roy introduces Thea to Sin, who’s wounded when “the Mayor” and his henchmen open fire.

At the hospital, Roy and Thea look after Sin while Oliver, after paying Sin’s medical bill, runs into Sara and attempts to convince her to tell her family she’s alive since they’re not doing well. After her dinner date with Donner, Laurel is pulled over for DUI and later ignores her father’s and Oliver’s interventions. As Lance attends an AA meeting, Laurel downs prescription pills.

Felicity discovers that “the Mayor’s” name is Xavier Reed, and that he’ll go after tonight’s convoy of assault weapons. Oliver recruits Canary for help and together they stop “the Mayor” without killing him. But, Brother (Sebastian) Blood kidnaps "the Mayor" and injects him with an unknown serum, which ends up killing him.

In the flashbacks, the ship captain questions Oliver and shoots him for being incompliant. Oliver’s cell neighbor mentions that the wound is a test to see if he’s strong enough to survive. Upon his return, the Captain is pleased that Oliver ripped out the bullet and asks if Oliver found the gravesite with misshapen bones. Oliver’s silence tells him everything. Later, Oliver is dragged away for torture and finds Sara towering over him.

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Tropes Applying to This Episode:

• Ambiguous Syntax: Oliver has an Oh, Crap! look when Quentin wants to speak to Oliver about his daughter, until he realises Quentin is referring to Laurel.
• Arc Words: When Oliver suggests that Blood run for Mayor, he replies that there is more than one way to "save this city".
• Armor-Piercing Question: Oliver asks Sara if she was worried that he'd told her family she was still alive, or was she secretly hoping he had? Sara doesn't answer.
• Authority in Name Only: The Villain of the Week declares himself the "Mayor" of Starling City, even though he's only a gang leader.
• Back from the Dead: Sara on both the island and in the present day. Sara points out that she thought Oliver was dead as well.
• Batman Gambit: Oliver fires an arrow into the wall next to the Canary's head to get her running in the direction of the automatic crossbow trap he's set up.
• Bash Brothers: Oliver and the Canary team up to take down the Mayor's goons, as well as the rogue soldiers who have been supplying him. At one point they even swap weapons of choice.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Alderman Blood is a masquerade for Brother Blood.
• Blofeld Ploy: The Mayor was going to kill one of his minions for throwing away his gun and fleeing after an encounter with the Arrow, but after his cousin asks for leniency, saying he brought the minion into the organization, the Mayor instead shoots the cousin and hands the minion another gun, telling him to do better to uphold his family's name.
• Call-Back:
  • Ollie finds himself imprisoned on the Amazo, and next to his cell is one containing a Russian man confirmed to be Anatoli Knyazev, AKA, KGBeast. Last season, Ollie revealed he got his connections in the Russian Mafia from Anatoli Knyazev.
  • At the hospital, Sara's wearing a Starling City ball cap like the one she was wearing when she left with Oliver on the Queen's Gambit.
  • This isn't the first time that someone compared what Oliver went through on Lian Yu to being forged in a crucible.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Laurel tells her father off when he expresses her concern about her growing substance abuse problem. She brings up the years that he was an alcoholic after Sara's death.
• Canon Foreigner: The Mayor has no comics counterpart.
• Character Development: Quentin is willing to approach Oliver to get his help with Laurel, whereas last year he hated the sight of Oliver and didn't want him anywhere near her.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Officer Daily, the police officer who pulls over Laurel for drink driving, turns up later handing over the Mayor to Brother Blood, and is revealed to be one of his followers.
• Cliffhanger: On the island, Sara is revealed to be alive and working in league with Oliver's captors. In the present day, Blood is revealed to be a villain, gathering an army via human experimentation.
• Combat Compliment: The Mayor compliments the Arrow on his use of a bow, being an "old school" weapon.
• Cut Himself Shaving: When Oliver turns up at the investor party with blood on his face, Felicity tries to pass it off as this. "Who taught you to shave, mister?"
• Dark and Troubled Past: Lampshaded with Ollie's time on the Island.
  Felicity: Do you have any happy stories?
  • He does not.
    Oliver: FIVE YEARS! Where Nothing Good Happened!
• Description Cut: Played for Laughs when Felicity tries to explain why Oliver hasn't turned up for the investor party.
  Rochev: Where is he?
  (Cut to Oliver in a fight with gangbangers armed with automatic weapons.)
  Felicity: Just got a little held up. You know, tying up some loose ends.
  (cut to the Arrow tying up a gangbanger and hanging him upside down)
• Don't Sneak Up on Me Like That!: Sin finds the Canary's staff an inch from her nose when she turns up in the clock tower with burgers. She's entirely unruffled.
• Double Meaning: Quentin telling the AA meeting about how his daughter is losing herself in her work "and worse" because she's running from the terrible things that have happened to her, is played over a montage of both Laurel (who he's referring to) and Sara.
• Dramatic Unmask:
  • The Canary is a Not Quite Dead Sara.
  • The Man in the Skull Mask and voice changer who kills the Mayor turns out to be Sebastian Blood.
• Drunk Driver: Laurel gets pulled over for driving with a 0.14 BAC.
• Early-Bird Cameo: A news broadcast talks about protests over the proposed construction of S.T.A.R. Labs, foreshadowing the hoped for Flash spin-off.
• The Easy Way or the Hard Way: The Captain gives Oliver a choice between talking and dying, or being tortured until he talks, then dying. When Oliver tells him to "Go to hell", he replies that he's already there and puts a bullet into Oliver, leaving the items to remove it and sew himself up.
• Facial Recognition Software: Felicity pinched the FBI's software and uses it to instantaneously find out who the Mayor is once he reveals himself publicly.
• Feet-First Introduction: Having survived his wound and self-surgery, Island!Oliver is dragged from his cell and dumped at the feet of a knife-wielding figure in black. He looks up and is astonished to see Sara whom he thought had drowned.
• Flashback Cut: Upon the Dramatic Unmask of the Canary, there's a flashback to Sara's 'death' on the Queen's Gambit.
• Flashback with the Other Darrin: Sara's new actress replays the original actress's only on-ship scene. Especially jarring because the hair color is completely different.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When they're talking about what happened to them on the island, Sara asks Oliver about what happened to Slade; only Slade. Additionally, she had a negative tone in her voice when asking that question.
  • There's another news reference to the building of the STAR Labs particle accelerator.
  • Brother Blood talks of needing an "army of the strong" and injects The Mayor with a green substance he dubs a "miracle".
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: The Mayor wears glasses, and is a gang leader who kills in cold blood.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: The Mayor was a nobody before the Undertaking, but after the earthquake he seized power in the Glades by having the biggest guns.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Inverted with the Arrow and the Canary. Both are no slouches in ranged and close combat, but the Arrow prefers the bow and the Canary prefers the staff, though they have no difficulty using each other's weapon when required.
• Holding Hands: Oliver and Sara at the hospital, after she secretly goes to check on Sin.
• Hope Spot: After his previous disastrous attempts to show his good intentions, Oliver is finally able to impress Alderman Blood with the Cash for Guns scheme and by saving his life. Then comes The Reveal that Blood is actually 'Brother Blood', gathering an army via human experimentation for his own sinister purpose.
• Hypocritical Humor
  Laurel: Please do not ask me if I'm OK, because I am sick to death of everyone asking me that!
  Oliver: I would never do that.
  Laurel: Good.
  Oliver: You OK?
• Kinda Busy Here: Felicity tries to call Oliver to find out why he hasn't shown up at the investor party, and winces at the sound of automatic gunfire.
• Lady Drunk: Laurel is somewhere in between this trope and Hard-Drinking Party Girl, age-wise, but she's not having fun with it. She seems to have inherited her father's drinking, and is responding badly to the rather extreme stress triggers of losing Tommy and getting kidnapped and almost murdered by the Dollmaker.
• Let Me Get This Straight...: Diggle and Felicity are understandably confused (and a touch reproving) over the revelation that Oliver lied (especially to the Lances) about what happened to Sara. It's not helped by Oliver's reluctance to explain things.
  Diggle: All right, so just to make sure I understand this correctly, after 'not' drowning when the Gambit went down, Sarah didn't 'exactly' make it to the island with you, where you would see her die...yet again. Feel free to fill in the blanks.
  Oliver: Not right now.
  Diggle: You mean not ever, don't you, Oliver?
• Mathematician's Answer: When Oliver wants to know where Sara has been all this time, she replies, "Everywhere" which as Oliver points out is not an answer.
• Meaningful Echo: Oliver repeats Anatoli's comment that "Living is not for the weak" to Blood, and later repeats Blood's comment about people living with pain for so long it's become normal to Sara when he tries to coax her into returning to her family.
• Mythology Gag: The Mayor's weapons were stolen from Camp Kirby, named for comic book artist Jack Kirby, who drew for both Marvel and DC back in the day. In fact, Kirby drew a handful of Green Arrow stories in the 1950s.
• No-Sell: When the Canary is caught in Oliver's trap, she throws down her Sonic Stunner but the Arrow is wearing earplugs. However shortly afterwards the stunner changes color and explodes, providing the distraction she needs to escape.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Whenever the Lances mention Sara to Oliver after he discovers she's still alive.
• Percussive Therapy: After Sin gets shot, Sara is eager to partner with Ollie to deliver some asskicking to those responsible. Oliver talks her out of killing the Mayor, though doesn't object when she clobbers him for calling her a bitch.
• Playing with Syringes: At the very end, Brother Blood doses The Mayor with a green concoction ("Are you ready to serve?") that makes him bleed from the eyes and die. He orders Brother Daily to bring him another test subject.
• Prison Ship: The Amazo.
• The Reveal:
  • Oliver finds out that Sara is alive yet again.
  • The supposedly idealistic Alderman Blood turns out to be Evil All Along.
• Sacrificial Lamb: A villainous example. The Mayor's most lasting impression is to show the consequences of Brother Blood's Mirakuru experimentation, with him being the first victim shown onscreen.
• Scary Black Man: The Mayor is an African American gang leader who rules the Glades with his guns.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Laurel tries to pull this on the patrol officer who pulls her over for drunk driving. It doesn't work, but fortunately Officer Daily calls her father instead of arresting her.
• Secret-Keeper:
  • On hearing of the Starling City vigilante in a green hood, Sara knew it had to be Oliver.
  • Oliver is forced into this position with Sara, who refuses to let her family know she's still alive because she doesn't want them to see what she's become. Even the knowledge that the Lances would ostracize him for lying about Sara's death on the Queen's Gambit doesn't stop Oliver from trying to convince her otherwise.
  • Sin realizes that she's this for Roy, what with kinda owing him her life, so she doesn't let Thea know he's working for the Arrow.
• Self-Surgery: Oliver is shot by his captors on the Amazo, who leave a kidney dish with the relevant items to remove the bullet and patch himself up. Apparently this happens to all their prisoners to see if they are strong enough to survive.
• Separated by the Wall: When her father turns up at Verdant to talk to Oliver about Laurel, Sara is listening on the other side of the door.
• Ship Tease: Lyla asks Diggle about Carly and when he admits that he's single now, makes a point of letting him know she's the same.
• Shoot the Bullet: When the Mayor fires a 40mm grenade at him, Oliver explodes it with an arrow.
• Slobs Versus Snobs: Sin snarks away at Thea once she discovers 'Abercrombie' is dating a member of the Queen family, though she unbends somewhat after Roy saves her life and they both stay at her hospital bedside to make sure she recovers.
• Something Only They Would Say: The Arrow gets some Five-Second Foreshadowing for the Canary's identity when she calls him, "Ollie."
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Sara is even better at this than Ollie is, able to dismantle his trap and escape in about one second after he's knocked to the ground by her exploding stunner.
• That Woman Is Dead: Oliver calls Sara on how she has been lurking around her family like a ghost instead of letting them know she's still alive.
  Sara: We're both ghosts. We died on that island.
• There Are Two Kinds of People in the World
  Blood: Most believe there are two types of people who go into a crucible—the ones who grow stronger from the experience and survive it, and the ones who die. But there's a third type. The ones who learn to love the fire. They choose to stay in their crucible because it's easier to embrace the pain when it's all you know anymore.
• Took a Level in Badass: Oliver notes that Sara has gained fighting skills she didn't have before, but she only says that she fell in with some rough people and had to get rougher.
• Tracking Device: The crate of weapons The Mayor stole has a GPS tracker that he's deactivated, but Felicity works out how to activate it again. The Mayor realises it's started flashing red too late.
• Villain Respect: The Mayor commends the Arrow for using old-fashioned weapons.
  "Old school weapon! Respect! But can your arrows do this?" (fires grenade launcher)
• Who Are You?: The Arrow asks the Canary this after capturing her and finding out she knows his Secret Identity. She warns him that Nothing Will Be The Same after answering that question, and she's right.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Laurel is not impressed that Quentin went to Oliver of all people for help with her.
  Laurel: A recovering alcoholic and former party boy trying to tell me how to live my life. Don't you see the hypocrisy there?
• You Just Told Me: The Captain determines if the island is the one they're searching for by asking Oliver if the bodies on the island have misshapen bones. Oliver takes the question with a straight face, confirming that he had seen such bodies.