Recap / Arrow S 4 E 4 Beyond Redemption

"After five years in hell, I returned home with only one goal..."

Season 4, Episode 4:

Beyond Redemption

The team have to deal with a crew of corrupt cops robbing drug dealers and who killed two detectives who stumbled on them. Oliver makes the announcement he's running for mayor, and also discovers that Quentin has been working with Darhk. Laurel reveals Sara's resurrection to Quentin, and when he asks Darhk to help her, he advises Quentin the most merciful thing he can do for Sara is kill her. And the team gets a shiny new headquarters.

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Tropes:

• A Day in the Limelight: This episode largely focuses on Quentin Lance.
• Death Glare: Oliver comments on how Quentin has looked at him with disdain and contempt ever since he came back from Lian Yu, but he never thought he'd be looking at Quentin the same way.
• Brick Joke: The password for Ray's computer is "Password," the same one Felicity used last season to lock Ray out of his system until he got some rest.
• Broken Pedestal: Oliver told Lance that he had always respected him, viewing him as a moral pillar, and that this was shattered after seeing him working with Damien Darhk. Fortunately, things get better following the episode's climax.
• Call-Back: Many to earlier, phased out elements.
  • Oliver uses his "You have failed this city!" Catchphrase.
  • The Salmon Ladder returns.
  • In an intentional one, Thea revisits her drug-use days to work a sting and Diggle accompanies her in the guise of being her bodyguard.
  • Oliver uses "Detective" as a Code Name for Captain Lance, which is what the Hood/Arrow called him before Quentin knew his Secret Identity.
  • Yao Fei's cave from the Season 1 flashbacks, as does his faking the dead trick.
  • Oliver's campaign office is Sebastian Blood's old campaign office. Turns out his Supervillain Lair was underneath, enabling it to be adapted for another Mayoral candidate with a double life.
  • Vertigo and Slam are mentioned among the drugs being stored in the SCPD contraband disposal facility.
• Cops Need the Vigilante: The SCPD is now so underfunded even Captain Lance is willing to hand over evidence in a cop-killing case to Oliver because he can get quicker results.
• Crouching Nice Guy Hidden Jerkass: Captain Lance says that Darhk first approached him as someone with money and connections who just wanted to help Star City.
• Didn't Think This Through: Both Oliver and Laurel spring big surprises on Lance without warning, despite his heavily-noted heart condition. Captain Lance even lampshades it.
• Dirty Cop: With Star City falling to pieces and the SCPD with it, several former members of the Anti-Vigilante Taskforce have been ripping off drug dealers and reselling their product so they and their families can get enough money to clear out. They are led by Liza Warner, who was handpicked for the Taskforce by Quentin himself.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Felicity is enjoying the view of Oliver's salmon ladder routine as usual.
• Elite Army: What the corrupt cops were before. They're the members of the Anti-Vigilante Taskforce and equipped with very non-standard equipment including wrist-mounted daggers, net launchers, and sonic disruptors on their guns to take on Black Canary's sonic equipment, albeit only for a specific frequency. They also have the martial arts skill to easily take down Laurel and give Thea a good fight.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Darhk advises Quentin as a father that the best thing for Sara would be a Mercy Kill. Liza Warner mentions getting money for her own family as the motive for her thefts.
• Former Teen Rebel: In order to purchase a large amount of cocaine as The Bait for the crooked cops, Oliver asks Thea if the person who used to sell her drugs can provide it. She cheekily replies, "Depends which one..."
• Friend or Foe?: Thea does one of her fancy flips out of the path of the net launcher so it snares the cop behind her.
• The Gadfly
  • Thea enjoys trolling Oliver and Diggle with nostalgic comments about her delinquent teenage years.
  • When Oliver takes Quentin down to the new Arrowcave, he announces that he now has enough evidence to put them away for twenty-five years, then gives a "Just Joking" Justification with a deliberately unconvincing smile.
• Heel Realization: Captain Lance's Patrick Stewart Speech convinces Warner that she is too close to criminal, and has to turn herself in.
• Hoist With His Own Petard: Quentin gives Team Arrow access to the police mainframe enabling Felicity to hack the dashcams of every police car, one of which shows the meeting between Quentin and Darhk.
• Hypocrite:
  • Oliver calls Quentin on how he's always treated him with contempt, yet is now working with a mass murderer.
  • Oliver gets pissed off at Quentin for working with Darhk, despite the fact that he is being blackmailed, and yet Oliver spent the previous season working with Malcolm Merlyn and even put him in a position of power. He really has no room to talk here.
• Hypocrisy Nod: Oliver is speaking from experience about how badly working with someone like Darhk can turn out, when calling Quentin out.
• It Is Beyond Saving:
  • Darhk tells Quentin that Sara doesn't have a soul and killing her would be the kindest thing he can do.
  • Ollie begins to think about this about Star City, but Quentin's actions persuade him otherwise.
• Kick the Dog: Liz Warner murders a couple of plainclothes cops that turn up after they've shot some drug dealers. Though she is reluctant to kill her former mentor Captain Lance, even drawing a gun on one of her men when he objects, she's got no issue kidnapping him to use his palmprint to steal from the SCPD evidence warehouse for one final score.
• Last Words: Curtis works out that the issue with Felicity's phone is actually a file holding Ray Palmer's last words which would have been recorded and filed automatically in the case of a fatal accident. It takes him some coaxing to convince Felicity to play the file.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Captain Lance wants to know if Oliver paying him a visit will be a weekly event.
• Match Cut: From the stack of drugs on Lian Yu in the flashback to the stack of drugs bought by Thea in the present day.
• Meaningful Echo: Ollie's Opening Narration, already pretty meaningful, comes back in a big way as the centerpiece of the speech announcing his run for Mayor.
• Mercy Kill: Darhk advises Quentin that the best thing he can do for his daughter is put her down. Quentin goes to do so, but breaks down sobbing when Laurel catches him in the act and can't go through with it.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Quentin was emotional as he talked to Oliver about his unintentional employment under Darhk in Star City. Tears flowed down his face as he acknowledged that he had no other option due to the grave circumstances. He also came to the implied realization that his fury over Sara's demise had made him vulnerable to the League's influence, which had ultimately caused him to push away Oliver, the only person who could have provided assistance in the situation.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Curtis makes a guess that the Green Arrow is Neal Adams, another Palmer Tech employee who is "into the color green". Neal Adams is a legendary DC Comics artist who created the Silver Age/modern look for Green Arrow and with writer Dennis O'Neil produced the now-celebrated Green Lantern/Green Arrow comic and story arc.
  • Papp Stadium is mentioned, a reference to Green Arrow co-creator George Papp.
  • The problem with Sara's resurrection—that her soul wasn't restored when she was brought back to the life—is the same problem when Oliver is brought back to life by Hal Jordan in the comics.
• Never Give the Captain a Straight Answer: Justified as Captain Lance is hardly going to believe his daughter has returned from the dead until faced with Sara. Though given his heart condition she might have tried giving him some clue before a chained Sara leaps out from the shadows at him.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Laurel kept Sara locked in a basement keeping Team Arrow (sans Thea and Quentin) out of the loop. Unsurprisingly she escapes as there is no-one guarding her.
• No-Sell: Laurel tries to use her Canary Cry, only to find the robbers have a device that neutralizes the sonic wave. The second time however Laurel has changed the frequency so the device doesn't work.
• Nothing Up My Sleeve: Warner has a couple of wrist knives deployed from her sleeves, enabling her to cut herself free when Oliver snags her with a bolo arrow.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Conklin notes that Flashback-Oliver has the eyes of a man who has killed before yet is uncomfortable with the darkness inside him, despite supposedly being just a marooned playboy. When Oliver asks if maybe that should make Conklin wary of him, Conklin just replies that he's the same.
• On Second Thought: Oliver says that they don't need to get an entirely new police force to avoid problems... but yeah, they have no idea who is compromised, so they're better off just doing that anyway.
• Patrick Stewart Speech: Quentin declares that he has to still have hope that Star City can be redeemed, or everything he's ever done is pointless. This gets Oliver back on his side, and talking him out of turning himself in so he can continue helping the team.
  Lance: Living in this city, dealing with what we're dealing with right now? We're all desperate. We've all been made to do desperate things. Terrible things. But I got to believe that we are not beyond redemption. And I got to believe that this city can still be saved, cause once we stop believing that, that's when this city really dies and us, us, right along with it. Maybe, just maybe, we start saving our home by saving ourselves first. And that means facing up to our mistakes. That means facing justice. You put on that uniform 'cause you believe in justice. Ask yourself, Warner... Is that still the case?
• Properly Paranoid: The corrupt cops suspect the drug deal they heard about might be a trap, so they bring specialist weaponry from the Anti-Vigilante Taskforce with them, including a device that can neutralise the Canary Cry.
• Rebuilt Pedestal: Oliver's damaged view of Quentin is mostly repaired by the end of the episode, after Quentin stops Warner from killing him with a speech showing he really does care about his city. Also Quentin's hatred for Oliver that has lasted over a season seems to have finally been mended.
• Refuge in Audacity:
  • Oliver's campaign for Mayor, and he acknowledges it. He has no political experience, isn't a college graduate, and his professional experience is extremely limited. Even more so, his campaign manager Thea is a college-aged person who isn't a student, just a former nightclub manager.
  • Similarly, Thea's drug buy. She buys 80 kilos of cocaine for a party. ^note That's a little over 176 pounds and worth around 2.5 million dollars, in case you were wondering
• Rousing Speech: Oliver's speech announcing his run for Mayor is meant to be this trope for the whole of Star City. It succeeds.
  Oliver: United. That's what this city used to be. That's what it can be, that's what it must be again. Now I know that I'm not the obvious choice for Mayor. I'm not a politician, I signed away my family's company, I didn't even graduate from college. Although in my defense, I did go to four of them. I certainly don't have a traditional background for leadership, but I can tell you this. After five years in Hell, I returned home with only one goal: I wanted to save my city. And with your help, I can. With your help, I can restore our home to the shining beacon we know it can be. Now how we're gonna get there isn't a mystery. We will overcome our challenges with help from our friends, our family, our loved ones, those we trust, and those we will need to trust again in order to prevail because the only way that we are going to return our home to greatness is to do so together. United.
• The Snark Knight: Preoccupied as he is with Sara, Darhk, and a gang of corrupt cops, Quentin still has time to get in a few barbs at Oliver.
  • "You spend more time here now than when you were collared for hitting paparazzi."
  • Oliver tells Quentin he's running for Mayor and wants Quentin to endorse him.
    Quentin: Yeah, yeah, sure. After what happened to the last few Mayors I'm hoping you win in a landslide.
  • When Oliver complains that Quentin hasn't answered his calls. "What, you're running for President now?"
• Subtext: Oliver's What the Hell, Hero? to Quentin implies his desire to gain Quentin's respect is based on more than guilt over how the Queen's Gambit affair destroyed the Lance family. He looks up to Quentin in a way that Oliver can't with his own parents after discovering their involvement in the Undertaking.
• Talking the Monster to Death: When Warner has the Green Arrow at her mercy and is about to kill him, Quentin delivers a Patrick Stewart Speech that ultimately convinces her to give up and turn herself in.
• Tempting Fate: When Team Arrow object to bringing Captain Lance into the investigation, Oliver says that he is not compromised. He may not be working for the corrupt cops, but he is under Darhk's thumb.
• Too Dumb to Live: Oliver should have made a better effort to hide his backpack containing the A.R.G.U.S. communication unit, which Conklin promptly finds.
• Verbal Backspace: Thea assumes her brother has gathered them together to announce his engagement to Felicity, and openly wonders why she's not wearing the appropriate ring, only to backspace when it's obvious Felicity doesn't know what she's talking about.
• Wham Shot: The final scene shows that Sara has escaped.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Oliver gives this reaction to Quentin for being an ally of Darhk. But he takes back his harsh words at the end when he realizes that Quentin is really just trying to save Star City no matter how bleak things are.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!:
  • Captain Lance's reaction to the well equipped and technologically sophisticated Arrowcave in comparison to his own underfunded department.
  • Given their underwhelming response, this is clearly what Team Arrow are thinking when Oliver announces he's running for Mayor.