Oliver is back at work at the SCPD as the Green Arrow, but Dinah assigns him to hunt down the New Green Arrow, who unknown to anyone is his secret half-sister!
Tropes:
- Action Prologue: The intro shows Emiko fighting several thugs and training.
- Batman Gambit: Diggle baits Diaz with a promise of freedom in exchange for his cooperation; Diaz is so tempted that he doesn't think the offer through, and ends up with an Explosive Leash and the first spot on an all-new Suicide Squad for his trouble.
- Boxed Crook: Lyla and Diggle brought Diaz into ARGUS custody to find out who's been financing the Longbow Hunters. Unsurprisingly, he refuses to be of any help. Diggle ends up conning Diaz into joining a revived Suicide Squad (complete with Explosive Leash) to get his cooperation.
- Broken Pedestal:
- Oliver is understandably crushed that Robert had a second family that he abandoned.
- In the present, Zoe idolises her father, but in the future, she's ashamed of his refusal to help the rest of Star City.
- Call-Back:
- Felicity makes a little quip about the Elseworlds crossover, with Oliver becoming the Flash and their encounter with Batwoman.
- Walter Steele, a family friend of the Queens who disappeared from the show many seasons ago, was mentioned.
- Calling the Old Man Out: In the future, Zoe tries to do this to Rene, but unfortunately he still refuses to work with Dinah.
- Cliffhanger: The episodes ends with Oliver reaching out to Emiko.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Moira was apparently so angry about Robert's affair that she deliberately sabotaged Robert's attempt to provide for his second family.
- Cross-Referenced Titles: To season 3 finale "My Name Is Oliver Queen".
- Cynicism Catalyst: In the future, Rene became disillusioned with his vigilante legacy, believing he can do more good as the Glades' mayor and has scorned helping the rest of Star City, and refuses to help his old friends.
- A Day in the Limelight: For Emiko, the New Green Arrow.
- Defiant Captive: Diaz is predictably unhelpful while in ARGUS custody, with only a "promise" of freedom managing to secure any degree of cooperation from him. Even then, he promises to come after Diggle and Lyla if their Explosive Leash fails to stop him.
- Everyone Has Standards: Despite his estrangement with his former friends, Future!Rene seems to be taken back by the reveal that Felicity was murdered and tries to uncover the circumstances.
- Exact Words: Diggle offers to let Diaz go free in exchange for information about Dante. He "conveniently" forgets to mention the bit about Diaz being conscripted into a revived Suicide Squad and having an explosive implanted at the base of his skull.
- Flash Forward: This time the storyline in the future introduces Rene and his new occupation as the mayor of the Glades, which is now it's own municipality. It also shows him being estranged from his friends and family and apparently being under the thumb of a powerful businessman with plans of blowing up Star City.
- Frame-Up: William Glenmorgan was in Santa Prisca at the time of Emiko's mother's murder; the real killer framed him to throw any investigation off the trail.
- History Repeats: Future!Rene's partner has a Malcolm Merlyn-like desire to "save" the Glades by destroying the rest of Star City. It's basically the Undertaking again, but in reverse this time.
- I Did What I Had to Do: In the future, Rene justifies his actions towards Dinah this way, as he now feels that he never really accomplished anything as a vigilante and had to step up as the mayor.
- I Just Want to Be Special: The main reason why Rene wants to go back to being a vigilante is because he is the only one of Team Arrow who failed to move on in a significant way. He wants to continue helping the public at all cost.
- It's Personal: Emiko wants to bring the murderers of her mother to justice.
- I Work Alone: Emiko repeatedly rebuffs Rene's efforts to be her backup in the field, at first anyway.
- Internal Homage: Emiko in this episode mirrors Oliver Queen from Season 1 in many ways. We hear her make a Private Eye Monologue about her mission, much like Oliver did in the earliest episodes of the series. She even says "My Name is Emiko Queen", similar to Oliver's iconic "My Name is Oliver Queen". Her lair, in the basement of an abandoned building in the Glades, is reminiscent of Oliver's original lair under the abandoned factory. And her reaching out to Rene for help after getting shot is more than a little similar to the circumstances in which Oliver recruited Felicity into the team.
- Internal Reveal:
- Oliver finds out that the New Green Arrow is his half-sister whom he never knew about it, until now.
- Rene finds out about the New Green Arrow's identity (although Emiko omits her last name and relation to Oliver), and her motivations.
- Large and in Charge: While Future!Rene is the mayor of the city, it is his unnamed business partner who holds the power and towers over the guy.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The Glades have long been an object of scorn from the majority of Star City, with the majority of the citizens seeing it as a crime-ridden slum and the people who live there barely worthy saving. Twenty years into the futures things have switched, and Rene is is no mood to help Star City after how the Glades were treated for decade.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: How Emiko's mom was killed. She was shot and then the house was set on fire to cover it up.
- The Man Behind the Man: In the future, Rene is apparently backed and controlled by his yet unnamed business partner.
- Moral Myopia: Moira was so angry at Robert's affair that she sabotaged his posthumous efforts to provide for his other family. Apparently, she saw nothing wrong with her own affair with Malcolm Merlyn, which resulted in Thea.
- Must Make Amends:
- Felicity persuades Oliver to reach out to Emiko to right his parents, wrongs (again).
- Robert intended to do this posthumously, writing a letter to Walter to ask him to look after Emiko. Moira had other ideas.
- Noodle Incident: Something happened in the future that destroyed the friendship between Dinah and Rene. Dinah also alludes to a fight between the two of them that didn't go in Rene's favor.
- Parental Abandonment: What Robert Queen did to Emiko and her mom.
- Persecution Flip: The flash-forwards reveal that while the rest of Star City has become a rundown and crime-ridden Wretched Hive, the Glades has prospered. Now the people there look down on the rest of the city the way they once looked down on the Glades.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: In the comics, Emiko was the daughter of Robert Queen and Shado, who was raised by the villanous archer Simon Lacroix AKA Komodo. The show has significantly altered her backstory, given that there's no way that Robert and Shado could have even met in this continuity, let alone conceived a child together. Also, Komodo in this continuity was a one-off villain in Season 3 who bore little resemblance to his comic-book counterpart. Instead, Shado's mother is an original character named Kazumi, who raised her.
- Red Herring: The killer Emiko thought she was hunting turns out to have been out of the country at the time of her mother's death; she's more than a little frustrated to be back at square one after all of her efforts.
- The Reveal: Emiko's mother was Kazumi Aduachi. When Robert Queen died, he arranged for Walter Steele to take possession of her via posthumous instructions. But Moira found out about them, and made sure those instructions never reached Walter.
- Emiko became the New Green Arrow to avenge her mother's death and more generally provide justice to the Glades, since the police and firemen still don't give a damn about the Glades.
- The future reveals Felicity was murdered by Rene's unnamed Malcolm Merlyn-like partner in his mission to "save the Glades".
- Revenge: Emiko wants to avenger the murder of her mother. Though she claims that she is seeking for "justice".
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Emiko getting shot at the beginning. If you are only using a bow and arrow against people with guns, no matter how well you are trained, you're bound to get hit by a bullet eventually.
- When SCPD gets a blood sample of the new Green Arrow, Oliver is excited about knowing the vigilante's identity in short order. Dinah cools his jets by pointing out that it'll take at least a week to get the DNA results back due to the backlog in the lab. Subverted when Oliver just gives the sample to Felicity.
- Additionally, the police aren't too happy for the Green Arrow directly working for the police department. Some would still view him as a criminal with a questionable history of breaking the law.
- Swapped Roles: Dinah is now Oliver's boss at the SCPD. She even jokingly calls him "rookie" at one point.
- In the future, Rene is the mayor of the Glades who wants to uphold the law and is opposed to vigilantes, while Dinah is a vigilante. This is an inversion of their positions in the present-day narrative this season, where Rene is the one who wants to continue playing vigilante, while Dinah is the SCPD Captain who wants to uphold the law and opposes vigilantism.
- This Is Unforgivable!: Oliver says this of his dad abandoning his second family, and his mother ensuring that they stayed abandoned.
- Ungrateful Bitch: Emiko at first towards Rene. Despite him saving her two times, she refuses to let him help her in the field and even threatens to put an arrow in him.
- We Used to Be Friends: In the future, Dinah and Rene aren't friends anymore.
- Writing Around Trademarks: Since the Arrowverse TV shows aren't allowed to use the name 'Suicide Squad', the program has been brought back under the new name 'Ghost Initiative'.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Felicity tells Oliver that he is a much better man than his father ever was and encourages him to try and connect with his sister, which he does in the final scene.
