Team Arrow struggles to adjust to working under the SPCD. Meanwhile Black Siren looks into Diaz's murder at Slabside.
- Asshole Victim: Neither Turner nor Laurel waste any time pretending to be sorry about Diaz's death. Laurel explicitly says that he got exactly what he deserved.
- Benevolent Boss: James Midas actually promises his men that he'll raise their salary if they'll get him to safety.
- Black Comedy: Felicity cracks a Wizard of Oz joke about the effects of the poisoned bullets. Nobody else finds it very funny.
- Body Horror: The poisoned bullets basically melt people from the inside out.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Both Dinah's and Oliver's point of view are understandable. They eventually reach a compromise.
- Broken Ace: Initially, Dinah is pretty devastated about not being able to use her Canary Cry anymore.
- Brought Down to Badass: Dinah comes to terms with losing her Canary Cry during the course of the episode.
- The Bus Came Back: Bronze Tiger having not been seen since "Slabside Redemption".
- By-the-Book Cop: Sergeant Bingsley, who is especially annoyed with Team Arrow's antics.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: James Midas, the Villain of the Week, who produces the poisonous bullets for the gangs of the city.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The poisoned bullets painfully melt people.
- Dead Guy Junior: Mia is short for Moira, meaning that Oliver named his daughter after his deceased mother.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Oliver's zeal to see Star City made safe for his and Felicity's unborn child makes him prone to acting without thinking. He destroys a case of poisoned bullets to keep them from being used against the cops, failing to consider that blowing up the evidence might be a bad idea. Later, he assaults and violently interrogates Midas to get a confession, not realising that such a confession is worthless in the legal system. Once he calms down and starts thinking things through, the final operation goes off without a hitch.
- Felicity comes off as no better; her proposed solution to the team being criticised for acting like vigilantes, is to keep acting like vigilantes. One has to wonder how that idea survived being considered for more than a second.
- Dramatic Irony: Felicity and Oliver want to make Star City a better place for their future child. As the audience knows, things don't work out they way they hope.
- Elites Are More Glamorous: Dinah manages to convince Pollard to make Team Arrow a special ops unit within the SPCD, giving them autonomy that makes them work better.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Turns out Bronze Tiger has a son. If Black Siren can't speed up his release, then he wants a private visit with his son.
- General Failure: The SCPD sergeant, while clearly having his heart in the right place, dismisses anything that steps outside of SCPD protocol. While many of Oliver's tactics are explicitly illegal, the sergeant also refuses to follow Oliver's simple suggestion to split up in order to better surround the targets and take them by surprise.
- Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Dinah breaks it to Team Arrow that from now on they have to go into the field with standard-issue SCPD firearms and wearing regulation SCPD SWAT gear...then the very next scene shows them joining a raid with their faces exposed.
- Heroic BSoD: Dinah spends a chunk of the episode in a depression after realising that her Canary Cry won't work anymore.
- Honest John's Dealership: Felix, who charges William an extremely high price for the vintage dictaphone and then has somebody steal it back.
- Internal Reveal:
- Dinah confides to Rene and then the rest of her team that her Canary Cry isn't working ever since Dover slashed her throat.
- Oliver and Felicity tell Diggle about their expecting a child.
- Idiot Ball: It seems the team has forgotten about their friends. Can't Felicity just ask Barry to let her connect to the STAR Labs satellites? That solves her problem. As for Dinah, someone should get in touch with Sara, since the Waverider should be able to heal the injury that depowered her.
- Irony: Between Black Siren, the team's former enemy, and Emiko, Oliver's long-lost sister on a mission for justice, it turns out that the former is more trustworthy.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Oliver forces a confession out of Midas by threatening to dunk him into a vat of dangerous chemicals. Deconstructed; Midas' confession is thrown out almost immediately, as police officers obviously aren't allowed to do that. Oliver admits that he was bluffing about the threat, but that does him no good, as Midas clearly didn't know he was bluffing.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Emiko smugly points out that Team Arrow would never take Black Siren's word over hers regarding Diaz's murder, as she is also pretending to be somebody. Laurel's expression shows that she realises this as well.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Despite asking Dinah to deputize Team Arrow, Mayor Pollard really hasn't changed as she's still looking for any excuse to have them disbanded. And if they get disbanded, Dinah loses her job as Police Captain.
- Like Father, Like Daughter: Mia inherited Oliver's aggression and take charge attitude, to the point that William admits that he half-expected her to shout "you have failed this city" at Felix.
- Loophole Abuse: Felicity gets around not being allowed to hack into government satellite feeds by hacking into publicly owned satellites. The distinction doesn't do much to improve her standing with the SCPD.
- Never My Fault: Oliver and Felicity refuse to accept responsibility for their vigilante methods screwing up a case, instead blaming the restrictive SCPD regulations. Diggle sets them straight.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Oliver just violently confronting Midas and forcing him to confess almost ruins the entire mission.
- Not Helping Your Case: Oliver defends his interrogation of Midas by claiming that he was bluffing. Because that completely justifies threatening to shove a suspect's face into a vat of corrosive chemicals.
- Oh, Crap!: Laurel, when she realises that Emiko both knows her true identity and has more credibility with Team Arrow than she does.
- Only Sane Man: Diggle convinces Oliver to give the partnership with the SPCD another shot since trying to work by themselves will only get them sent to prison.
- Percussive Pickpocket: In the future, William purchases a vintage dictaphone in order to play the microcassette, only for a little girl to take it from his pocket in this manner. Mia immediately knows it was the girl, and that she was working for the guy who sold the device to William.
- Power Incontinence: Dinah's Canary Cry is on the fritz ever since the Star City Slayer slashed her throat.
- Rebuilt Set: The Arrow Cave has been rebuilt, and by the end of the episode Team Arrow is operating out of it again.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: What Rene, Oliver and Felicity constantly try at first. They eventually work out a compromise with the SCPD.
- Shout-Out: Felicity compares the effects of the poisoned bullets to the Wicked Witch's demise from The Wizard of Oz.
- The Reveal: Emiko Queen is the one who killed Diaz under Dante's orders.
- Slave to PR: Slabside covers up Diaz's manner of death, claiming that he was just shivved by another inmate, to fight off the bad publicity that resulted from Oliver's stay in the prison.
- Smug Snake:
- James Midas is incredibly smug in his villainy, feeling untouchable thanks to his wealth and friendship with the mayor. Borders into Too Dumb to Live in the climax, as he confidently tells Dinah that he'll have both her badge and her costume... after being caught red-handed trying to destroy evidence and while pointing a gun at a police captain.
- Felix, the junk dealer, cracks a wide smile while threatening to sic the cops on Mia if she attacks him. As soon as that advantage is gone, she knocks him on his back with a smile.
- Emiko smugly tells Laurel that Team Arrow would never believe that she murdered Diaz, but she was careless enough to kill him while wearing her Green Arrow costume and failed to realise that there was a witness (Bronze Tiger) who could place her at the scene.
- Take a Third Option: Dinah and Oliver eventually reach a compromise by effectively making Team Arrow an independent Special Unit.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Rene really chafes working with the SPCD due to a lifetime of resentment of them constantly neglecting the Glades. Oliver tries to make the best of it, but even he finds himself butting heads.
- The inevitable clash of Team Arrow now working under the SPCD. The special treatment that Dinah gave Oliver has come to an end under Pollard's orders. For starters, Felicity can't use any of her trademark hacking tricks and Team Arrow struggles to fit in under the SPCD hierarchy. Forcing a confession also makes the whole thing inadmissible.
- Wham Line:
- Emiko's reveal that "Laurel" is actually Black Siren means that she (or Dante) know a lot about Team Arrow.
- Bronze Tiger calls his son Connor "little hawk," revealing that he's the Connor Hawke who Diggle will later adopt.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Dinah is not happy with the rest of the team constantly going against protocoll, as she is risking her neck for them.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Rene encourages a devastated Dinah, telling her that she is the Black Canary, no matter if she can use her Canary Cry or not.
- You Remind Me of X: William tells Mia that she reminds him of their father.
