Recap / Arrow S 2 E 1 City Of Heroes

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Five years ago on the island, Slade, Shado, and Oliver bask in the glory of defeating Fyers until their proximity detector indicates people are nearby. They search for the intruders, who abduct Shado. When Oliver and Slade find her, Oliver beats one to death with a rock. Unbeknownst to them, a freighter sits offshore.

Diggle and Felicity parachute onto present day Lian Yu and bring Oliver home since he ran away. A group of Hood copycats, out for revenge against the Queens for their part in creating the earthquake device, attack an event that the mayor, Laurel, and her new boss (DA Adam Donner) are attending. They also interrupt Oliver’s meeting with Isabel Rochev, a representative of a rival company intent on taking over Queen Consolidated. Felicity urges Oliver to reinstitute his alter ego, but Oliver fears letting Tommy down.

The copycats invade Verdant, now under Thea’s ownership. Even after stopping a few of the guys, Roy cannot prevent them from kidnapping Thea. Oliver decides it’s time to visit the revamped Arrowcave. Felicity tracks the copycats to a church used for a Glades support group. The Hood rescues Thea without killing anyone and delivers the four men to Quentin, who is now a beat cop.

In the end, Laurel tells Oliver she’ll take down the Hood for Tommy’s death. Thea, after defending her mother to the copycats, finally decides to visit the prison. Upon Moira’s advice not to trust Isabel, Oliver brings in Walter Steele to save the company, making them partners with Isabel. Roy, out on patrol despite Thea’s insistence that he stop, is saved from a tussle by a black-clad blonde. Oliver plans to recreate his alter ego to honor Tommy.

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Tropes Applying To This Episode:

• 10-Minute Retirement: Dig and Felicity get Oliver out of one in the opening.
• Action Girl: The Canary is introduced clobbering a gang of rapists with her staff. As she's wearing black leather, she looks hot doing so.
• Answer Cut:
  • Oliver wants to know where Thea is. Cut to her making out with Roy on the desk of her office at Verdant.
  • Slade wants to know where the men who kidnapped Shado came from. Cue Flyaway Reveal Shot of a ship in the bay.
• Appropriated Appellation: Averted; Oliver never liked "The Hood" and now the Hoods have tarnished that name decides on another. The episode ends on Oliver looking at the arrow he's holding.
• As You Know: A lot of the first fifteen minutes has characters discussing things they should already know to let the viewer know what's happened since the end of season 1.
• Attempted Rape: Roy saves a woman from one near the end, and has to himself be saved by Black Canary.
• Badass Crew: While they're no match for Oliver, the Hoods are still a team of gun wielding vigilantes.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • A voice announces, "You have failed this city!" only for the victim to be gunned down in a hail of bullets.
  • Quentin turns up after the event as per usual and starts talking to Laurel...only to be reprimanded by an actual detective for interviewing witnesses as he's now an off-duty beat cop, having been demoted for helping the Hood.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands: In line with his determination not to kill, Oliver uses his new bow to shoot the guns from the hands of the Hoods.
• Blood-Stained Glass Windows: Downplayed as Oliver decides to cut down on the bloodshed when rescuing Thea.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: The copycats take the Hood's "You have failed this city!" which they ironically said to Oliver Queen himself.
• The Bro Code: Interestingly Laurel is the one affected by this. She says that sleeping with Oliver feels like she betrayed Tommy even though he'd already broken up with her.
• Call-Back: The episode opens with Oliver running through the jungles of Lian-Yu as in the pilot episode, this time in response to an aircraft instead of a fishing boat.
• Calling Out for Not Calling: Thea complains of her brother not contacting her while he was away, saying it was almost like he was on the island again.
• Canon Foreigner: The Hoods have no comics counterparts.
• Character Development: Oliver is pleased to see the more responsible Thea who is managing Verdant before she's legally old enough to drink there. Roy also has matured, holding down a legitimate job at Verdant that he rejected last season, and trying to get Thea to reconcile with her mother. He has also replaced his criminal activities with trying to be a vigilante hero.
• Cliffhanger: In the flashback, a ship has rather ominously weighed anchor in the bay of Lian-Yu. In Starling City in the present, Roy is saved by the Canary.
• Cue the Flying Pigs: Thea says she will visit her mother when Roy gives up his vigilante activities, with this trope in mind. When she does visit her mother after all, she then jokes that Roy must fulfill his end. Roy agrees...then sees a woman being attacked by rapists and goes to help.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Lampshaded by Slade when Oliver is distracted while sparring by Shado returning, so Slade uses the opportunity to crack him across the face with his stick.
• Downtime Downgrade: Oliver and Laurel have broken up following Tommy's death. This is justified, since they both blame themselves for him dying in the first place.
• Dramatic Shattering: Lots of shattered windows ensue when the Hoods gatecrash the Oliver/Isabelle meeting.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Felicity kept Oliver's Salmon Ladder... she liked watching him do that.
• Equipment Upgrade: Felicity has redesigned the Arrowcave and had a Oneida Kestrel compound bow custom made for Oliver, to replace the bow destroyed last year.
• Expy: Of the wannabe Batmen in The Dark Knight, who try to take up justice in the name of the hero they idolized, but use guns when their idol dislikes them.
• Evil Counterpart: Much like the Joseph Falk/The Savior, the copycat hoods view themselves as being on the same side as the Hood. However they are much more morally grey than he is, more keen on executing those they capture, and not ensuring those targeting they target are guilty and corrupted.
• Family of Choice: Even though he's divorced from Moira, Walter Steele comes to Oliver's aid to buy the remaining ten percent of Queen Consolidated.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When Diggle and Felicity parachute onto Lian Yu, a shipwreck of a large vessel is shown in the bay. Then Felicity notes the Deathstroke mask with arrow through the eyehole.
  • The men interrogating Shado speak of graves they are looking for.
  • The mayor of Starling City is assassinated, and Oliver sees graffiti in favor of Alderman Blood.
  • A news report mentions STAR Labs and a particle accelerator being built in Central City that should be ready around Christmas.
• Futureshadowing: Shado is teaching Oliver how to speak Chinese, a language he's shown to be fluent in five years later.
• Grave-Marking Scene: Oliver and Laurel encounter each other visiting Tommy's gravestone.
• Heel Realisation: Thea is refusing to visit her mother in prison, but being forced to defend her mother's actions to the Hoods forces her to consider Moira's point-of-view, plus the near-death experience makes Thea think she could have died letting her mother think she hated her, so she goes to visit Moira the next day to reconcile.
• Heroic BSoD: Oliver went into one after the destruction of the Glades and Tommy's death.
• Heroic Wannabe: Roy is brave but lacks the training and years of experience of his idol. Therefore he's unable to stop Thea being kidnapped and the Canary has to save him later.
• He's Back!: Oliver returns as the Hood/Arrow in time to save Thea from the copycats, then decides to revamp his alter-ego in Tommy's honor.
• Ice Queen: Isabelle Rochev looks angry in every photo, according to Felicity.
  Oliver: I didn't realize hostile takeovers were full of so much hostility.
  Rochev: Not at all, I'm in quite a good mood.
• Inadvertent Entrance Cue
  Thea: (berating Roy for emulating his hero) The Vigilante, who hasn't been seen since the earthquake, which means he did get buried alive and isn't coming back!
  Oliver: (just entering after returning from Lian-Yu) I'm back!
• In the Hood:
  • Much like their role model, the Hood-copycats all wear these.
  • Roy wears his red hoodie when taking on the rapists (also counts as foreshadowing).
• Institutional Apparel: The normally elegant Moira is in dark prison dungarees. Thea regards this as cruel and unusual punishment.
• Irony: The Hoods' end goal in the episode is to capture and execute Oliver Queen, who they believed was responsible for many of the ruined lives in the city due to Moira Queen's actions last season. However, Oliver Queen is secretly the Hood/Arrow, the very vigilante they idolize and consider themselves followers of.
• It's All My Fault: Oliver blames himself for not being able to stop the Undertaking.
• Knight Templar: While they believe themselves to be following the Hood's ideology, the copycats don't make an effort to target those who are actually guilty, going after the wealthy in general. They also execute with little hesitation while the Hood gave his victims a chance to do the right thing.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: Zigzagged; when Thea is kidnapped, Oliver thinks that killing is inevitable if he's going to put on the Hood to rescue her, and a flashback to the island shows him beating a man to death for threatening another loved one. However when it comes down to it, he refuses to kill the man threatening Thea's life.
• Land Mine Goes "Click!": Felicity steps on another unexploded Japanese mine, only to be saved by a Vine Swing by Oliver.
• The Last Man Heard a Knock...: The Robinson Crusoe version. Fortunately Slade and Shado have salvaged a proximity detector and sensors and set them up around the fuselage they use as a home.
• The Leader: Aglin is the leader of the copycat Hoods.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Slade tells Oliver to wait, but seeing Shado threatened causes Oliver to rush in and beat the man doing so to death.
• Ms. Fanservice: She might not have the fishnet stockings, but Roy's mysterious saviour does have a black leather corset catsuit that shows off her cleavage.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Channel 52 and reporter Bethany Snow are featured weekly in DC Comics.
  • Brother Blood, a Teen Titans villain is referenced as a figure from the Glades wanting to save Starling City.
  • The number 52 makes another appearance when the 52nd street bridge is mentioned.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The Hoods abduct Thea, the one person guaranteed to make her brother don the hood again.
• Never Split the Party: Shado goes off to flank the intruders, only to get captured.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Oliver shoots a hood with an arrow, the hood falls over a railing, and Oliver's there in time to catch him.
• Professionals Do It on Desks: Now that Thea is managing Verdant, having sex with an employee on the desk appears to be one of her perks. Until she sees the bruises from Roy's latest vigilante escapade.
• Sensor Suspense: Our heroes helped themselves to a proximity detector from Fyers camp, and it picks up that they're not alone on the island any more.
• Shoot the Hostage Taker: Averted; Roy takes a rifle off a Hood but doesn't have to skill or confidence to be sure of killing the Hood with the gun to Thea's head. Oliver on the other hand is able to do so.
• Skewed Priorities: Moria half jokingly claims if she knew that Queen Consolidated being on the verge of bankruptcy was what it took for Oliver to get involved in the business, she would have declared it a year ago.
• Sleeping with the Boss: Though in fairness, Roy was already her boyfriend and giving him a job also keeps him off the streets.
  Thea: Keep in mind, I do control your paycheck and your sex life.
• Soft Glass: All over the frickin' place in the vigilante attack on Oliver's office.
• Super Window Jump: To escape the Hoods, Oliver grabs Felicity and a pulley chain and jumps out a window Fast-Roping down to smash through another window lower down.
• Suggestive Collision: Felicity is saved from a mine explosion by a shirtless Oliver throwing herself on top of her. He's really sweaty.
• Take My Hand! / Save the Villain: Oliver saves a hood's life by catching him after he falls over a railing.
• Tastes Like Friendship: Inverted when Felicity notes no-one is eating the bagels for their hostile takeover meeting.
• Television Is Trying to Kill Us: When Felicity steps on a mine, Diggle tells her not to move...while tossing aside his pack which could have detonated another mine.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Oliver decides to use this trope as he begins to take up the hood again; remembering that Tommy died thinking him as a murderer, Oliver bears a responsibility to not be the man his best friend thought he was at the end.
• Time Skip: It's been several months since the first season finale.
• Took a Level in Badass: It's been a few months during flashback time, too, and Ollie's learned a lot.
• Troll: Dig is on a troll roll for the entire ride to Lian-Yu, as shown in the opening.
• Unstoppable Rage: Ollie beat a man to death with a rock on the island for threatening Shado. Notably, both Shado and Slade shouted for him not to do so, since they want to find who he works for.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Felicity throws up after landing at Lian-Yu. Given she was tandem skydiving with Diggle, he's grateful she waited until after they touched down.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Hoods did follow in the Hood's footsteps after all, but they didn't quite get his ideology right.
• Who Are You?: Roy's response to the Canary coming out of nowhere to save his ass is, "Where the hell did you come from?" It turns out to be a very important question, but she leaves without answering.
• Vigilante Man: A whole team of them kidnap Thea in an attempt to kill Oliver for failing to help Starling City