Oliver has disbanded Team Arrow in the wake of his torture by Prometheus, and has called in the Bratva to kill Prometheus for him much to Team Arrow's shock and dismay
- 10-Minute Retirement: Oliver's disbanding of the team doesn't last the entire episode, and he's convinced not to give up the fight, if for nothing else than to seek his redemption and atone for his murders. He does, however, think he has to earn the right to wear green again.
- Ax-Crazy: Adrian kills one of the guards fairly cleanly and quickly, but then proceeds to stab the other repeatedly with a pen, obviously enjoying it. He eventually drives away still covered in blood and whistling cheerfully.
- Deal with the Devil: How the rest of the team sees Oliver's bargain with the Bratva. Diggle eventually convinces Oliver of the same.
- Didn't See That Coming: Prometheus is completely blindsided that Team Arrow managed to blow his cover without blowing theirs.
- Everybody Knew Already: Felicity and Curtis find out that Helix was well aware they are Overwatch and Mr. Terrific and by implication, the identities of the other members of Team Arrow. They claim it took 8 minutes to figure out Felicity was Overwatch and less than three minutes to figure out Curtis's identity.
- Fallen Hero: While "hero" might be a stretch Anatoly has gone from a Robin Hood-esque crusader who thought the Bratva could help the common Russian people to becoming just as bad as Ishmael Gregor.
- Heroic BSoD: Oliver is in the middle of it at the beginning of the episode. He then first attempts to break out of it by paying the Bratva to kill Chase. Then he takes John's advice at heart and revives the Team.
- Hypocrite: To taunt Oliver, Adrian gives him a knife to tempt him, the Mayor, into attacking Adrian, the district attorney, in the middle of City Hall, in broad daylight. When Oliver questions the absurdity of what he's suggesting, Adrian calls him an unpredictable, savage, murderous animal. The ending, in which Adrian maims a guard with a pen and then drives off into the night while whistling cheerfully, makes it very clear that he has absolutely no moral high ground on that front.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Said by both Oliver and Anatoly to justify their actions.
- Internal Reveal: Thanks to Felicity and Curtis, Adrian is outed as Prometheus in a descrambled video. In addition to delivering it to the authorities, Felicity makes sure it goes up on YouTube.
- Ironic Echo:
- In the previous episode during the flashback, Anatoly tells Oliver he sees him acting like Slade and Ivo, evil men they faced together on Lian Yu. In the present, Oliver tells Anatoly he's become like Gregor, an evil man they faced together in Russia.
- Prometheus has been trying to convince that Oliver ultimately destroys the people he cares about, however it's his absence that caused Anatoly to go down a darker path.
- Kick the Dog:
- When engaging Curtis, Adrian asks him how his husband is doing.
- Anatoly is willing to murder dozens of civilian hostages to get what he wants.
- Morality Chain: Anatoly claims it's lacking Oliver's assistance that forced him to go down the road of traditional gangster boss, but it's implied that lacking Oliver's morality, whatever his ease with killing, is what allowed it.
- "Not So Different" Remark: John points out how he was in the exact same situation as Oliver and Oliver convinced him to stop blaming himself and atone for his sins. So naturally, John will not back down now either.
- Outside-Context Problem: Oliver bringing in the Bratva is his attempt to use this to eliminate Adrian.
- Refuge in Audacity: Adrian presents Oliver with a knife and offers him the chance to stab him. Oliver is the mayor. Adrian is the district attorney. They are in Oliver's office at City Hall. In broad daylight. Even Oliver, who once tried to kill Slade Wilson with an ice pick in the middle of his home while his mother was still in the building and under the impression he was nothing more than a concerned benefactor, is left aghast at the sheer insanity of what Adrian is suggesting.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: While the rest of the team goes back to their costumes when Oliver changes his mind, Oliver himself refuses to put on the Green Arrow costume because he believes he has to earn it back and instead goes out in a set of black clothing with a full face mask and carrying a gun instead of his bow. It also has a practical reason since there's a shoot to kill order out on Green Arrow, so appearing in that costume would be much more dangerous until the name can be redeemed.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: It's A Beautiful Morning plays as the blood-splattered Adrian Chase drives off into the night in a car he (presumably) hijacked after gruesomely murdering the witness protection agents assigned to protect him.
- Spanner in the Works: The team keeps interfering with the Bratva operation to kill Adrian and steal drugs, much to Oliver's annoyance.
- Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: Adrian tries to goad Oliver into killing him as the mayor in broad daylight. Much to his disappointment, it fails.
- Swapped Roles: In a tragic way, Anatoly, who used to be Oliver's Morality Chain in the flashbacks, is now so ruthless that he would willingly kill civilians.Anatoly: (reacting to Oliver restraining one of his men by the neck) In Russia you would have killed him.Oliver: And you would have stopped me.Anatoly: Looks like we not in Russia anymore.
- Take a Third Option: Anatoly thinks Oliver's only options are to shoot him or to let the Bratva take the drugs they're stealing. Oliver instead triggers the building's alarm, forcing both to retreat before the police show up.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Anatoly, best shown when in the flashbacks, he used to steal to help the poor and sick. In the present, he steals diabetes medicine from a struggling company and takes civilian hostages.
- Villainous Breakdown: Prometheus has one when he realizes his cover's been blown and gives the agents protecting him a brutal killing.
- We Used to Be Friends: By the end it's made abundantly clear that Oliver and Anatoly are no longer friends and there's no favor Oliver can do to change it, no matter how saddened they both are over it; the paths the two have taken have put them too far on the ends of the moral spectrum and they can't be reconciled.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Diggle delivers several lectures to Oliver asking him what the hell does he think he's doing, especially when he discovers the deal Oliver cut with the Bratva will result in the release of a new highly addictive street drug.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Diggle's entire argument to Oliver boils down to this.
