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Recap / Arrow S 3 E 18 Public Enemy

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Ra's al Ghul's actions turn the city against the Arrow, leading the team to make a major decision. In the flashbacks, Oliver encounters a familiar face in Hong Kong.


  • The Atoner: Roy discloses that on some level he wanted to get arrested because of what he did under the influence of the Mirakuru. He takes it even further when he sacrifices his freedom for Oliver's.
  • Backup Twin: Flashback!Oliver meets Shado's in Hong Kong.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Just as Flashback!Oliver is about to be shot, Maseo and Tatsu make a Dynamic Entry and quickly dispatch his attackers.
  • The Bus Came Back: Felicity's mom.
  • Cat Scare: Felicity has a brief Oh, Crap! when after she injects Ray with the nanites, he suddenly convulses and flatlines before making a miraculous recovery.
  • Changed My Mind, Kid: Played with; although refusing to help Team Arrow earlier, Nyssa still turns up to stop Quentin arresting Laurel when he catches her on the scene as the Black Canary. It's obvious she's only helping her Beloved's sister though.
  • Cliffhanger: Roy Harper surrenders to the police claiming to be the Arrow.
  • Continuity Porn: All over the place.
    • Roy suggested that Diggle pose as the Arrow again like in Season 1 (and while Oliver was away in Season 3).
    • Oliver brings up the time in Season 1 where he got arrested.
    • Quentin asks Oliver about being with Sara on Lian Yu.
    • In his "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Oliver, Quentin mentions the deaths of Tommy, Moira, Hilton and Sara, as well as the terrorist attacks of both Malcolm and Slade.
    • Oliver mentions Shado and Yao Fei to Mei in the flashbacks.
    • Mei sees the "Shado dragon tattoo" Oliver has that was imprinted on him by Slade.
    • Quentin mentions the mask people in the Arrowverse who followed Oliver's example such as his daughters, Roy, "the freak in Central City", The Huntress and "the new guy flying over Starling City".
    • The doctor who is treating Ray Palmer is the same one who treated the Arrow after he broke his leg last year.
    • Ray recalls how he asked Thea to run away with him just before they broke up.
    • The police have frozen Thea's assets so Oliver can't draw on them to escape. Thea is the legal inheritor of the Merlyn fortune.
  • Contrived Coincidence: Oliver somehow stumbles upon Shado's twin sister while fleeing in the middle of Hong Kong.
  • Darkest Hour: The whole city knows who the Arrow is and has turned on him, and Roy has to take the fall for him to protect him.
  • Death Notification: Oliver tells Mei that her father and sister are dead. Even though he provides no details, she's relieved having held out false hope for so long.
  • Downer Ending: Quentin and Team Arrow's benevolent relationship ends. SCPD hunts down Oliver, who was exposed as The Arrow. Roy, who is still guilty for killing a cop late last season, turns himself in as "The Arrow" so Oliver will be acquitted.
  • Enemy Mine: Oliver tries to get Nyssa's help, given that it's not in her interest for him to become the Demon's Head when it's her right. She refuses at first, but agrees because stopping the killing is what Sara would have wanted. However Ra's turns out to be waiting for them along with a police ambush, raising the question of whether Team Arrow was just Lured into a Trap all along.
  • Event Title: Technically, the title refers to Oliver being branded a wanted man.
  • Everyone Can See It: Even though she only had a brief meeting with Oliver, Donna Smoak saw right away her daughter was in love with him.
  • Follow the Leader:invoked Quentin accuses Oliver of being the paragon of masked people looming around the Arrowverse.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • Roy brings up the suggestion of Diggle posing as the Arrow again and confesses to Thea that he wanted to be caught to atone for his crimes. At the end of the episode, he ends up turning himself in while posing as the Arrow.
    • It's also mentioned that the Identity Impersonator trick won't work because Oliver hasn't been arrested yet. So Roy intercepts the van taking Oliver to prison after he gets arrested.
    • Ray mentions that he invented Nanomachines that can shrink. That is exactly what his comic counterpart's power is.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Roy chooses to pose as the Arrow in order to take the fall for Oliver.
  • Hero with Bad Publicity: The episode is perhaps where Oliver is in the absolute worst end of this trope.
  • Hidden Depths: Donna is her usual ditzy self, but shows her steel when she encourages her daughter to use the nanites needed to cure Ray. She also fakes a back pain to get the doctor out of the room.
  • I Am Spartacus: Roy's Heroic Sacrifice, as mentioned above.
  • I Knew There Was Something About You: Captain Lance is not surprised when the other members of Team Arrow turn up to visit Oliver. He already knew about his daughter, Felicity and Roy Harper, and the fact that Oliver's personal bodyguard is in on things is hardly a shocker.
    Quentin: Him, and the three of you. Makes sense.
  • The "I Love You" Stigma: Ray tells Felicity that he loves her, only for her to not return it and excuse herself from the room. Ray sits in stunned silence while outside the hospital room, Felicity's mom points out to her crying daughter that her refusal stems from being in love with Oliver.
  • Inadvertent Entrance Cue: Captain Lance is telling his officers to distribute Oliver Queen's photo, when the man himself walks into the police station to surrender.
  • Internal Reveal: Quentin Lance finds out that Oliver is the Arrow, as does the rest of Starling City. He also finds out that Sara was with Oliver on Lian Yu.
  • Irony: Lance blames Oliver for somehow causing the appearance of masks in Starling City and metahumans in Central City, in an episode airing the day after the episode of The Flash that revealed a masked, costumed terrorist (the Trickster) had been operating 25 years before.
  • It's a Long Story: Oliver explaining to Mei why're they're being chased and have to get off the streets.
  • It's the Only Way: Ray has a blood clot that could kill him, and experimental nanites that could cure him, but the hospital refuses to use an untested treatment. So Felicity has to inject him knowing she could kill him and be criminally charged for doing so.
  • Kill on Sight: Captain Lance has reinstated the Anti-Vigilante Taskforce with shoot to kill orders, though he does stop an ESU firing on Team Arrow as they are fleeing (likely because he knew Laurel was in the line of fire).
  • The Lopsided Arm of the Law: The city has been overrun by criminals for years, including one time letting two separate criminals (the Mayor and Brick) take over the Glades. Arrow essentially helped clean up most of it in the small time he has been active. Even though it's obvious he is being framed, NOW the cops know how to do a manhunt.
  • Modesty Bedsheet: Roy and Thea after doing their thing, though at least we're gifted with a panning shot of Willa Holland's great legs.
  • Mysterious Parent: Papa Smoak is mentioned in multiple suspicious throwaway lines...
  • Nanomachines: Ray invented one that he asks Felicity to use on him to rapidly cure himself.
  • No Escape but Down: Team Arrow throw themselves off a building and do some fast-roping down the side to escape the Anti-Vigilante Taskforce.
  • One Size Fits All: Despite being noticeably shorter than Oliver, Roy Harper has no problem getting the Arrow's costume to fit him. Mind you with all these costume copycats about, maybe it's a lot easier to get an Arrow costume than before.
  • Only a Flesh Wound: Roy shoots a police officer in the leg while fleeing, but this only brings back his guilt about killing a policeman. Captain Lance is understandably furious regardless.
  • Out of Focus: Malcolm appeared in one scene with no dialogue, though he was mentioned by other characters quite a few times.
  • Perma-Stubble: When Lance orders photos of Oliver circulated between officers, the first suggestion is one of a pre-island, clean-shaven Oliver. He's barely recognizable.
    Captain Lance: No, a current one, one with the... scruff he's always wearing.
  • Protagonist Title: One of the few episodes other than the series title itself that refers to Oliver.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Lance gives a pretty harsh one to Oliver in the back of the police van taking him to Iron Heights. He's turned people he claimed to love into criminals to aid his crusade, he's brought misery and pain to the city he wants to save, and he's failed to save many including Detective Hilton, Tommy Merlyn, and his own mother.
    Captain Lance: You, Mr. Queen, are not a hero. You're a villain. But you know that, don't you?
  • Revenge Before Reason: Lance blames Oliver/Arrow for Sara's death and becomes determined to hunt him down (even though it's obvious he's being framed).
  • Secret-Keeper: Even though a warrant has been issued for the Arrow's associates, Captain Lance is still hiding the fact that his daughter is the Black Canary. Presumably this is why he never goes after Roy Harper or Felicity Smoak as well. In the end Laurel does an immunity deal for them (and Diggle, whom he didn't know about) in exchange for Oliver Queen surrendering.
  • Selective Obliviousness: Quentin tells Laurel that deep down he always knew that Oliver was the Arrow, but chose to ignore it as long as he thought the Arrow was doing good.
  • Ship Tease: Felicity is unable to tell Ray that she loves him and Donna believes that it's because she's still in love with Oliver.
  • Shipper on Deck: Donna Smoak for her daughter Felicity and Oliver Queen.
  • So Happy Together: Roy and Thea get back together again in the same episode where Roy has to go to prison, breaking up their relationship.
  • Taking the Bullet: Ray takes Maseo's arrow in the chest for Felicity.
  • Talking in Bed: Thea tells Roy post-coitus that she was the biggest idiot in the world to break up with him.
  • That Came Out Wrong: Lampshaded when Felicity wonders if she can't say anything that doesn't sound like a Double Entendre. Ray says it's one of her more endearing qualities.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: Lance pursues Oliver with a shoot to kill order, irrationally blaming him for Sara's death and everything else that has gone wrong since his return. His "The Reason You Suck" Speech at the end is a particular Kick the Dog moment as he even rubs Tommy and his mother's death in his face.
  • Trailers Always Spoil: The trailer for the next The Flash (2014) crossover shows Ray appearing in his A.T.O.M. suit, making it clear that he's going to survive the events of this episode, and he does. And even if it hadn't, it was already announced that he was getting his own spinoff next season.
  • Wham Episode: Marc Guggenheim said that after this episode "the show will never be the same", and he wasn't kidding. The Arrow is on the run from the police for the killings for which he is being framed. Quentin Lance and the rest of Starling City finds out Oliver is the Arrow. Oliver turns himself into the police and finally Roy takes the fall for Oliver by dressing up in his green hood.
  • Wham Line:
    Roy Harper does Dramatic Unmask: "You’ve got the wrong guy! Oliver Queen isn't the Arrow! I am!!"
  • Whole-Plot Reference:
    • Let's see. An officer's daughter is dead, the officer blames the hero who was not involved, changes from supporting the hero to doing everything in his power to take down the hero and anyone associated with him. It is pretty much a Live-Action Adaptation of the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Over the Edge".
    • Also, Roy's surrender to the SCPD is reminiscent as in how Dent took the fall for Batman in the The Dark Knight.
  • You Are Too Late: After realising her father knows the Arrow's Secret Identity, Laurel gets out her mobile but her father tells her not to bother, as he's already sent units to every place that Oliver might be.

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