Recap / Arrow S 3 E 19 Broken Arrow

With Roy imprisoned as the Arrow, Oliver is forced to decide whether to rescue him or respect his decision. Meanwhile, a metahuman criminal needs to be stopped, and Felicity suggests going to Ray for help.

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• Aborted Declaration of Love
  Felicity: I know who you are. Whether you're in a suit or under a hood, you're the man that I... You're the man that I believe in.
• All Up to You: Oliver can't fight the metahuman because the police are following him everywhere he goes, so he has to call in Ray Palmer and his ATOM suit to help. Later when the neural interface is broken, Ray has to use his own Heroic Willpower rather than rely on Oliver's combat skills.
• Arc Words: "You need to learn to let other people help you".
• Arrow Catch: Unsurprisingly, Ra's effortlessly catches a knife thrown by Thea.
• Artistic License – Law: As the supposed Arrow, a vigilante who was responsible for several criminals either being imprisoned or killed, Roy would not be placed in General Population with the other prisoners. This would all but ensure that he is attacked by inmates in retribution and big surprise, that's exactly what happens.
• The Atoner
  Roy: Patrol officer Gabe Vincent left behind a wife and a nine-year-old boy.
  Quentin: I know.
  Roy: I killed him. I stabbed him in the chest with an arrow. So don't think for a second that I don't deserve to be here.
  Quentin: No. You don't think for a second that what you're doing here makes up for any of what you did out there.
• Attack Backfire: Zapping Simmons with the ATOM suits' energy gauntlets just recharges him for another blast from his Eye Beams. However this does give Team Arrow the "Eureka!" Moment to track him down via drains on the energy grid.
• Blatant Lies:
  • Ray claims that he didn't actually love Felicity after it becomes clear that she doesn't reciprocate his feelings.
  • Roy's confession includes him setting up the Arrowcave right under the club owned by his girlfriend without her knowledge. The irony is that Thea really didn't know, but only because Verdant was built by Oliver before she acquired it.
• Buffy Speak
  Felicity: So, obviously we need to catch this plasma death thing guy. Ugh, now I see why Cisco gives them all names.
• The Bus Came Back: Lt. Frank Pike.
• Call-Back:
  • Once again the police get a warrant to search the basement of Verdant, only to find one of Oliver's associates has already anticipated them without Oliver's knowledge.
  • During Quentin's discussion with Roy, Quentin showing him a victim of the Arrow in the morgue, and Roy killing a policeman, are raised.
• Calling the Old Man Out: In her only scene this episode, Laurel serves a writ to force her father to release Oliver and snarks when he resists, "Are you the only one who's allowed to put themselves above the law?"
• Call-Forward: After telling Oliver to get out of Hong Kong, Waller says they will meet again some day.
• The Cameo: Cisco at the end when Ray brings Simmons to the Pipeline.
• Can't You Read the Sign?: There's an attempt by inmates to murder Roy near a sign warning against unruly behavior.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Ray was seen early in the episode experimenting with remote controlling his suit. Later, he has Oliver operating it in order to compensate for his lack of experience.
  • Flashback!Oliver swipes a mobile phone while also stealing the vaccine. It contains plans on how Shrieve's men intend to distribute the supervirus.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Oliver has to be restrained from going to rescue Roy or take on Simmons himself, at one point nearly coming to blows with Diggle.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Averted, Ray gets his butt kicked during his first fight for trying to invoke this. Oliver chastises Ray for relying on his tech too much and not his instinct: after all, he didn't have his suit when he took an arrow for Felicity.
• Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind: From Waller no less, who kills a soldier just as he's about to shoot Oliver. She explains that she was being held hostage by Shrieve's men who are actually the ones trying to kill Oliver and the Yamashiros.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Oliver wants to call Barry to deal with the metahuman, but Felicity thinks he has enough going on in Central City with his hunt for the Reverse-Flash.
  • Quentin says he didn't want to waste time getting a search warrant for the Verdant's basement before it was turned into a storage unit again.
  • Oliver tells Team Arrow to get his backup weapons from the secondary lair, which he was shown to have in "City of Blood". Though they have to operate out of the Palmer Tech IT lab for practical reasons.
• Continuity Snarl: It's not exactly clear when Ray and Felicity had time to visit Central City in the midst of all of Starling's chaos. Word of God says that episode 18 of The Flash takes place before episode 18 or 19 of Arrow.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Much like with her older brother, Ra's has no difficulty defeating Thea.
• A Day in the Limelight: For Ray Palmer.
• A Death in the Limelight: Subverted by Roy. Thea on the other hand...
• Downer Ending: Oliver lost everything that he worked hard for: the woman he loves at the moment is now clearly being drawn to her new boyfriend, his Sidekick had to fake his death so he can clear Oliver's name and then leave town, and last but not the least, his only remaining relative may be dead at the end of the episode. Even in the flashback scenes things are going badly with a supervirus about to infect Hong Kong.
• Due to the Dead: Ra's gives a prayer for Thea's soul after stabbing her.
• Evil All Along: General Matthew Shrieve.
• Faking the Dead: Roy ends up doing this with the help of an A.R.G.U.S. agent Diggle contacted, who stabs Roy in a carefully selected place using a dagger impregnated with a substance that will slow his heartbeat to simulate death.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The fact that the Arrowcave is wiped clean of everything but Roy's prints should have clued Oliver into the fact that Felicity and Diggle were planning something. Not only is it unlikely for them to have done that in their allotted time, it would have been very difficult to get Roy's prints everywhere without his direct help.
  • Malcolm Merlyn warns Oliver that despite everything that's happened, none of the people closest to him have died, and invites Oliver to consider what move Ra's might try next to force his hand.
• From Bad to Worse: This episode is for Oliver. See Downer Ending above.
• Geeky Turn-On: Felicity has to restrain herself from kissing Ray when he thinks of something clever.
• General Ripper: Shrieve wants to use the Alpha/Omega virus to destroy China.
• Idea Bulb: Ray actually says, "Lightbulb!" at one point when he has a "Eureka!" Moment.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Ra's finishing blow to Thea.
• Improvised Weapon
  • Felicity becomes a Damsel out of Distress by turning on a steampipe to stop herself being choked to death.
  • During the attack on Roy, an inmate and then Roy (after taking it off him) uses a broken-off mop handle to good effect.
• Insistent Terminology: Thea calls Ra's al Ghul "the Demon", to which he corrects her; he's the Demon's Head. The implication is that the League itself is the Demon.
• Irony:
  • Oliver can't help giving a bitter smile on realizing he's stuck on another island that he might not escape alive, this time Hong Kong.
  • Noted In-Universe by a news report mentioning that Roy Harper was a career criminal before he turned vigilante.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Felicity blurted out Barry being suspicious towards Dr. Wells.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • When Ray is investigating a possible hideout.
    Ray: How many abandoned warehouses are in this city? No, no I'm genuinely curious.
  • When dropping Simmons off in the Pipeline, Ray asks Cisco how they handle feeding the prisoners (or handling certain other biological functions), but Cisco's realization over the origin of Simmons' powers cut off any answer.
  • Cisco mentioned that the day the Particle Accelerator exploded was on December 11, 2013. That was the same date "Three Ghosts" aired.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Felicity, Diggle, and Roy leave Oliver in the dark about their plan to fake Roy's death until they pull it off. He takes it surprisingly well.
• Mythology Gag: The night of the Particle Accelerator explosion, Simmons was in a jail cell in Opal City.
• Never My Fault: Lance tells Oliver it's his fault that Roy got fatally stabbed; Lance knew damn well that Roy would get attacked and did nothing to move him to more secure facilities.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Ra's manages to move from one side of Thea's condo to the other end in the second he's off screen.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Cisco and Ray realize that Simmons wasn't anywhere near Central City when the Particle Accelerator exploded, so he couldn't have got his powers that way.
  • Thea when Ra's al Ghul turns up for her.
• Out of Focus: Laurel and Malcolm both appeared in one scene each.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Waller saves Oliver's life and warns him to get out of Hong Kong.
  • Quentin dials his nastiness down a notch when speaking to Roy and Thea, mainly because he views them as acting out of misguided loyalty to Oliver who is the real culprit.
• Protagonist Title/Event Title: The title probably refers on how broken Oliver is at this moment.
• Put on a Bus: Roy Harper leaves Starling City, saying good bye to the rest of Team Arrow. In the flashbacks, Amanda Waller.
• The Reveal: Turns out it wasn't Waller who's been hunting Oliver and the Yamashiro family, it was General Shrieve.
• Run or Die: Ray has to do this the first time he's beaten. In fairness that's exactly what Oliver told him to do.
• Shout-Out:
  • Ray's climactic battle with Deathbolt is clearly inspired by the Final Battle of Real Steel. Bonus points for both having characters named Atom.
  • Felicity says, "I'll miss you most of all, Scarecrow" when saying goodbye to Roy.
• Sunglasses at Night: Deathbolt's final disguise attempt. Lampshaded by Felicity.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Oliver wants to subvert this by calling Barry to deal with Jake Simmons/Deathbolt, but Felicity says, "Oh, he can't help right now. Mnn, mnn. He's got a lot on his plate with Dr. Wells, I think. It's really hard to keep up with him." So they don't.
• Supporting Protagonist: Oliver is forced to be this by his current situation and was forced to let Ray be The Hero of the episode.
• Swapped Roles: Oliver finds himself chafing at Mission Control while an inexperienced Ray is taking on his role in the field. When he asks Felicity if she gets this anxious when he's in the field, Felicity has to resist making a biting comment.
• Tempting Fate:
  Inmate: Let's see how good you are without your arrows.
  (Roy beats them up with his hands cuffed)
  Roy: And remember—that was without arrows.
• Tonight Somebody Dies: Word of God implied this before the episode aired. Everything pointed to Roy, but Thea apparently bites it.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Lance reaches a new low in his vendetta against Oliver by harassing him and Thea, searching both the club and the apartment and taking great joy in it. He even tries to turn Roy and Thea against Oliver. It's so bad that Frank Pike has to tell him to stop.
• Trash the Set: The Arrowcave gets stormed and searched by the police, forcing them to move to an alternate site (Felicity's former IT lair in the Palmer Technologies building).
• True Companions: Team Arrow works behind Oliver's back to stop him going to prison, while in the flashback the Yamashiros refuse to let Oliver risk his life alone in Hong Kong to stop the virus.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Team Arrow don't fill Oliver in on their scheme until it comes off successfully, despite the risk of Oliver doing something reckless. They handwave this by saying that Oliver would never agree to it—the plan after all required Ray to become a fugitive leaving Thea behind, and taking a strong risk of being killed if something went wrong with the faked death or if another inmate with a grudge got to him first.
• Wham Episode:
  • Roy fakes his death and leaves town, while Ra's mortally wounds Thea in order to force Oliver to join the League to save her.
  • On a wider 'verse-related note, Cisco and Ray realize that Simmons wasn't in Central City the night of the dark matter storm, meaning that there's apparently more than one way to create a metahuman.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Lt. Pike gives one to Lance for still pursuing Oliver since there is no evidence against him and Roy is in custody. He warns him that he could destroy what's left of his career if he doesn't throttle back what seems to be a personal vendetta.
  • Lance accuses Oliver for being at fault for Roy being in prison. In fairness he thinks Oliver put Roy up to taking the fall for him, when that's not the case.
• Will Not Tell a Lie: Thea goes to visit Roy in prison, but he can't reveal the plan to fake his death because she might tell Oliver. However he has also promised never to lie to Thea again after she dumped him over his lies last year. Roy tries to assure Thea that everything will be alright, but when she asks if that is a lie, he hangs up.
• With My Hands Tied: Roy, when attacked by several inmates in prison, beats them all while handcuffed.
• Would Hit a Girl: Ra's curb-stomps Thea.
• You Talk Too Much!: Oliver catches a Death Glare from Felicity when he suggests that she and Ray might be related because of this trope.