Recap / Arrow S 2 E 6 Keep Your Enemies Closer

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In the flashbacks, Ivo believes Oliver is the key to finding a Japanese submarine containing the only batch of a serum that can regenerate cells and increase their strength. Sara breaks Oliver out of his cell and leads him to the ship radio. He contacts Shado, who’s been doctoring Slade’s severe burns. The Captain and Ivo are pleased with Sara’s method to find Oliver’s friends.

Roy posts the red arrow alert. As Oliver fights the counterfeiters, Diggle is kidnapped, and Quentin arrests Roy, but soon releases him upon learning he’s working for the Arrow. Moira’s lawyer informs Thea that her relationship with a known felon may be hurting her mom’s case, so Thea calls a break from Roy. Moira catches wind of this and reunites the two.

Amanda Waller of ARGUS asks for Diggle’s help rescuing Lyla Michaels after she went dark in Moscow while tracking Floyd Lawton. Oliver, Felicity, and an unwelcomed Isabel tag along. Oliver’s old friend, Anatoli Knyazev, says Lyla got stuck breaking into a prison, so they set Diggle up to be arrested. It works. During a cafeteria fight, Diggle is taken to a room where he finds Deadshot. When it’s time to save Dig, Felicity arrives at Oliver’s hotel room to see Isabel leaving.

Diggle and Deadshot both get free from their cuffs. Deadshot makes a deal with Diggle to bring him to Lyla in return for help escaping. They find Lyla and fight their way out of the prison, with a pick up by Oliver, Felicity, and Anatoli. Before Diggle parts ways with Deadshot, Deadshot mentions that HIVE hired him to kill Andy Diggle. Back in Starling City, Diggle and Lyla rekindle their romance.

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Tropes Applying to This Episode

• Adaptational Attractiveness: In the comics Amanda Waller is a middle-aged Fat Bitch. This version is slim and attractive in her high heels. But she's still a bitch.
• Ambiguous Situation: Is Sara merely Ivo's minion or is she his mistress as well? The Captain drops a snide comment implying that she's sleeping with him, but even though Sara's loose sexual morals will become a Running Gag in later years, it's not confirmed either way.
• Amicable Exes: Turns out Lyla is not just Diggle's girlfriend but his ex-wife and fellow combat soldier from Afghanistan, whom Diggle is prepared to risky a lengthy sentence in a Russian gulag to save.
• Bash Brothers: Diggle and Deadshot, surprisingly.
• Bait-and-Switch Comparison: According to Anatoli, Koshmar is full of killers and psychopaths. And that's just the guards.
• Bat Signal: Roy sticks the red arrow in the wall outside Verdant to let Team Arrow know about the counterfeiter meeting.
• Batman Gambit: On the island, Sara knew that Oliver would cooperate if he thought she was willing to help him, so she tricked him into thinking she was trustworthy and makes him confirm Shado and Slade's survival.
• Battle Couple: Apparently, the reason Diggle and Lyla didn't work out was because both of them were this; they couldn't have a relationship with the other without having a war to fight. No Battle, no Couple.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Lyla is shown to have a nasty shiner on her mugshot, but it's mostly vanished by the time Diggle rescues her.
• Big Brother Is Watching: ARGUS, and by extension the government, are fully aware of what Team Arrow is up to. Apparently, they just don't care, unless they find a use for them.
• Bilingual Bonus: Ollie says this, in unsubtitled Russian, to a guard who threatens to double-cross him: "If you do this, my men will find you, and your children will become orphans."
  Felicity: What did you say?
  Oliver: Please.
• Blatant Lies
  • Felicity has to interrupt the argument between Oliver and Isabel because of his 'evening plans' with Harper. Given that she looks exactly like she's discussing a date, Oliver gripes that she needs to work on her excuses (which also counts as Hypocritical Humor given his Blatant Lies to Felicity in Season One).
  • The Arrow appears behind Roy as he's busy watching the counterfeiters through binoculars. Roy is visibly startled, then claims that he knew the Arrow was there the whole time.
  • Isabel turns up at the airport demanding to know where they're taking the corporate jet. Turns out Oliver & Co. are going to Tahiti. Via Moscow.
  • Felicity wants to know what Oliver whispered in Russian in the corrupt guard's ear. Oliver claims it was, "Please."
  • Diggle tells Lyla how he broke up with Carly because of his obsession over catching Andy's killer. Lyla is glad to be the exception, but the moment she leaves the room he googles H.I.V.E., the organisation that hired Deadshot to kill Andy, showing he intends to continue his quest for revenge.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: The Captain is fully prepared to execute Oliver after he reveals the information they know, but Ivo says they will need him to find the graves he's seen. The Captain is not impressed, implying that Ivo is only saying this to make Sara happy.
• Commonality Connection: Isabel sees through Oliver's Obfuscating Stupidity and pegs him as intelligent, driven and lonely. Just like herself.
• Complexity Addiction: Instead of just calling Diggle on the phone, ARGUS abduct him after one of Team Arrow's vigilante escapades. When Diggle complains that he thought ARGUS was more subtle than that, Waller replies that this is them being subtle. On the other hand this does make it clear they know all about what he and Oliver are up to, avoiding wasting time with denials.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Zigzagged; when she has a few vodkas in her Isabel shows a more relaxed side to herself, who sees through Oliver's rich idiot façade and realises they aren't that different. They end up in bed together, but she reverts to her Ice Queen persona when Oliver is Not Staying for Breakfast and apparently going off with Felicity. The next day she appears to be on friendly terms, but shuts down Oliver's attempt to discuss What Happened Last Night.
• Discriminate and Switch: Inverted, When Diggle goes into his cell, his cellmate say "We don't get many like you in here." Diggle assumes "like you", is Americans, but no, it's his skin color.
• Enemy Mine: The guard is taking Diggle to Lyla's cell when Floyd murders him. He knows Diggle won't have let himself be imprisoned without an exit strategy, so agrees to show Diggle where Lyla is being held in exchange for escaping with them.
• Exactly What I Aimed At: When Diggle tells Deadshot that Andy was killed bodyguarding his target, Deadshot points out that he never misses and Andy was the target all along.
• Face–Heel Turn: Flashback-Sara helps Oliver escape and contact Shado by radio, only to reveal the whole thing is a setup to confirm that Oliver's friends survived the bombardment and pin down their location.
• Face-Revealing Turn: After being involved in a brawl, Diggle is chained up in a cold room as punishment. It's only when his fellow inmate moves his head to reveal his Eyepatch of Power that Diggle realises he's been locked up with Floyd Lawton.
• Facial Horror: Shado is shown applying a foul-smelling poultice to burns that cover half of Slade's face.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The ARGUS men who abduct Diggle use the callsign Task Force X.
  • There's another news report on the building of the STAR Labs particle accelerator, with a protestor claiming there will be disastrous consequences if it is turned on.
  • As well as the above, this first mention of the Mirakuru serum presages the debut of characters with superpowers in the Arrowverse.
  • Our first mention of H.I.V.E. who will play a major role in Season 4.
• A Friend in Need:
  • When Diggle asks for personal leave to deal with what happened to Lyla, Oliver says it's time they visited the Queens Consolidated branch in Moscow.
  • Thea is told by Moira's lawyer that she has to dump Roy because dating someone with a criminal record would look bad for her mother's trial. Moira catches wind of this and insists that they continue their relationship because she recognizes how good it has been for Thea.
• Futureshadowing: On the Amazo Oliver finds himself in a cage next to his future Bratva pal, Anatoli.
  Anatoli: You know in Russia there is a gulag almost as bad as this.
• Get into Jail Free: Anatoli supplies Diggle with a large bag of drugs and arranges for him to get arrested. Once inside the gulag, a corrupt guard will take him to where Lyla is being held.
• Glorious Mother Russia: Anatoli wears a great big fluffy hat. Also, plenty of vodka. And an utterly hellish Russian gulag.
• I Gave My Word: When Floyd asks what's stopping Diggle from killing him once he's fulfilled his part of the bargain. Diggle replies, "Honor."
• I Shall Return: When Sara lets Oliver out of the cell, he promises Anatoli that he will come back for him.
• It Doesn't Mean Anything: Invoked after Felicity catches Oliver post-coitus with Isabel. He explains later that he slept with her because she meant nothing to him, saying it's best if he doesn't get involved with someone he cares about. Felicity is clearly not happy with this explanation, saying only that he deserves better.
• Money to Burn: Oliver uses an incendiary arrow to burn up the bag of money being used to buy the counterfeiting plates. Given his family's financial problems, perhaps he should try Robbing the Mob Bank instead!
• Morality Pet: Sara for Ivo; he's willing to keep innocent people like Oliver prisoner, and plans to kill Shado and Slade, but was willing to keep Oliver for a bit because Sara asked him to.
• Mythology Gag:
  • “Miracle” or “Mirakuru” are references to the “Miraclo” drug used by the DC hero Hourman.
  • The apparent effects of Mirakuru seem to match Deathstroke's powerset in the comics.
  • H.I.V.E. is a supervillain organization in DC Comics.
  • In reference to her Russian origin in the comics, Isabel Rochev says she was born there, but adopted as a child by an American couple and worked to lose the accent so she could fit in.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Russian Gulag Lyla and Deadshot are in. Koshmar. The Nightmare.
• Not Staying for Breakfast
  • Oliver ends up in bed with Isabel, but then has to leave to go and carry out Diggle's escape plan. When he's about to make up an excuse for leaving, she responds bluntly: "Do I really strike you as someone who needs to cuddle?"
  • Lampshaded by Diggle when Lyla says she has to report in to ARGUS after their Victory Sex, insisting he get breakfast at least.
• Nothing Personal: When Deadshot is dumped out of the getaway van and Diggle spares him, Deadshot lets him know that he only killed Andy because he was contracted to, and that he'd better served going after the ones who paid him: HIVE.
• Pet the Dog = Pragmatic Villainy
  • Ivo calls off Oliver's execution when Sara asks him to, because he'll be needed to find the graves they're looking for.
  • After Diggle keeps his word to spare his life, Deadshot reveals who hired him to kill Andy, which has the added benefit of Diggle forgoing his vendetta in favor of another target.
• Rewatch Bonus: Isabel sleeping with Oliver takes on an interesting context given later revelations.
• Rogue Agent: Invoked; after Lyla was captured her superiors wrote her off, as having ARGUS bust her out would create an international incident. Waller however has no issue with getting Diggle and his vigilante friends to do the job instead.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Roy unintentionally does this when Lance arrests him. Knowing Lance is working with Arrow, Roy tells him that the reason he was at the crime scene was because he was helping the vigilante, and that 'he's on his team'. As such, Lance lets him go.
• Secret-Keeper: As noted above, ARGUS knows about Ollie's operation, but from the looks of things, the Bratva, or at least Anatoli Knyazev, its leader, knows about Oliver's skills, and likely other things too. Deadshot too, given the two were in an armoured van together for some time. In this episode, it seems outside of the civilian population, Ollie's secret is an open one.
• Ship Tease:
  • A lot with Felicity and Ollie. Isabel and a large chunk of Queen Consolidated staff think the two are doing it, and that's why Ollie promoted her so high, and when she sees Ollie and Isabel hook up, she's quite obviously jealous, and only moves past it when Ollie assures her he could never be with someone he actually cares about because of what he does. When Ollie learns what people think of Felicity and her short skirts, he's visibly upset.
  • To a smaller extent, Slade and Shado; Shado goes out of her way to help him recover from his burns, choosing to stay by his side instead of escaping while she can, and cuddling up to him when the burns cause his body heat to drop to keep him warm.
• Smoldering Shoes: Diggle is given an expensive coat to wear, knowing the guards will confiscate it when he's brought in. The coat is in fact a disguised bomb that blows up just when a guard is trying it on. As Diggle and the others pass through the guard room, the camera pans across a pair of smoldering boots.
• Spider-Sense: Justified; the counterfeiter waits smugly for a couple of his mooks to take the Arrow down from behind, only to be shocked when the Arrow shoots them because Diggle is watching from afar with binoculars and tipping him off.
• Super Serum: What Ivo's looking for; the Imperial Japanese apparently did stem cell research during WW2 but lost the prototype formula when the Allies attacked the submarine transporting the only supply. The submarine ran aground somewhere in the chain of islands that includes Lian-Yu, and Ivo is looking for the graves of the sailors killed in the attack to pinpoint which island it was.
• Super-Soldier: The Mirakuru serum enabled Super-Strength and cell regeneration and was to be used to create an army of super soldiers.
• Undying Loyalty: Because at some point Oliver helped him escape the Amazo, Anatoli Knyazev considers him his 'favourite American' and was the one who personally connected him with the Bratva, and is willing to help any way he can. Oliver, meanwhile, insists on coming to Diggle's aid, because he's his friend.
• We Do Not Know Each Other: Subverted; Sara invokes this trope with 'Tommy', but it turns out Ivo knows exactly who Oliver is, and is using Sara to get information on Oliver's friends.
• Wham Line:
  • Mostly for Worldbuilding effect, but this bit when Deadshot tells Diggle he was hired to kill his brother.
    Diggle: Who would want to kill Andy?
    Deadshot: I don't know their name, just their alias — H.I.V.E.
  • In-Universe when Ivo reveals he knows exactly who 'Tommy' is, because Sara has told him.
    Ivo: You're going back to the island...Oliver.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: Despite their "no kill" rule back in the States, our heroes have no problem shooting or blowing up several prison guards. Admittedly this isn't an 'Arrow' operation, but as Deadshot points out, honor is not just something you can turn on or off.

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