My "Arrow" 3x11 Recap
We open with the scene where Ollie says goodbye to Felicity, except this time he agrees to stay and kisses her. He ends up stabbed and dying anyway. I admit I thought this was Felicity's dream...
It turns out to be Ollie's dream. Perhaps signifying he would dead either way? He wakes up and learns from Tatsu that she and Maseo haven't been in contact for a long time, but he called her up to save Ollie who should really be dead. Seriously, he fell off a mountain and had no serious damage. Okay, show. Ollie tells Maseo that he is worried what will happen to him for saving his life. Maseo tells him to worry about his home instead.
In the Glades, BC Laurel tries to save a girl but is easily pummeled. I like that she is not an awesome vigilante overnight. Arsenal comes to the rescue.
At the Arrow Cave, Roy stitches up Laurel. He does it badly. Haha. He says she understands what she's going through but she is going to get herself killed. Diggle shows up to reinforce the message. Laurel tells them that Sara and Ollie are gone so someone needs to step up to save the city.
At Palmer Technologies, Ray and Felicity head out to a meeting. Ray tries to get Felicity working on the chip for his suit again. She refuses and is very unpleasant about it. I don't think she appreciates how good she has it with her creeptastic boss. More on that later.
At Verdant, Thea reschedules plans with Chase for some reason. I mean, the actor who plays Chase played some dreamy characters in the past but this is not one of them. After he leaves, Captain Jack shows up to encourage Thea to leave town. She refuses to uproot her life without a reason. Roy watches all this from afar. The Chase stuff, too?
At City Hall, Laurel goes to a meeting with a bunch of people and the Mayor. Quentin is also there. He asks questions about Sara and for a brief moment it seems he's onto Laurel. Alas, Laurel's antics have lead him to believe she is back in town. The meeting starts. Felicity and Ray show up. Ray suggests bringing in the national guard. Brick shows up with his thugs and tries to take the Mayor and the Aldermen. He gets away with three Aldermen. Laurel, Ray and Quentin all fight with mixed results but are ultimately fine. It's worth noting that Felicity is unusually (but expected) useless her and Ray protects her. More on that later.
In the mountains, Ollie wants Tatsu's help keeping Maseo from going back to the League of Assassins. Tatsu says she might have been able to change Maseo's mind but not the assassin he has become. He blames himself for what happened and thus is probably looking forward to the death that awaits him at the League. We all know his son is dead at this point, right?
Back In Hong Kong, Ollie and Maseo go to the bar where the tracker has lead them. Guards take them to a backroom that has China White. Maseo has made a deal to trade Alpha for Tatsu's life. Ollie is shocked. He hates wasting trackers.
At City Hall, Quentin asks Felicity where the Arrow is. She says gone. Instead of asking for more details, Quentin just asks Felicity to have Sara call him while she's in town. Felicity realizes Laurel is back in the game. Quentin is willfully ignorant at this point.
At the police station, Laurel questions the thug she beat up. She threatens to charge him with the death of a gang leader and imprison him where all the members of that gang are being held. He did not commit this crime so Laurel is working outside the law in every way. I believe one of the writers said Laurel is the moral compass of the show and if so I feel like that compass is not pointed in the right direction. The thug agrees to tell her where Brick is.
At Thea's place, Roy confronts Captain Jack. He wants Captain Jack to leave Thea alone. Captain Jack says Thea will never find out about his misdeeds. Roy says she will find a way to the truth. Like, how she still doesn't know her brother is the Arrow after two and a half years? Captain Jack tells Roy to stay out of it. We see Thea's home has pictures of herself and Ollie, Momma Moira and Walter. Very sweet.
At Palmer Technologies, Felicity patches up Ray. (He didn't get patched up at City Hall?) He's handling what happened okay. He realizes he doesn't want to avenge his love, he wants to protect those he cares about like Felicity. It's the opposite of what she wants but probably the nicest thing she has heard in days. It might also be something that inspires her later. Again, Ray brings the creepy but protecting Felicity is when he came to this realization so fine.
At the Arrow Cave, Laurel and Roy suit up to rescue the three missing Aldermen. Diggle is against it and tries to get Laurel to help via computer like Felicity. Laurel says she's going no matter what and since Diggle lost her brother, she thought he would understand. How does she know that?
BC Laurel and Arsenal try and fail to save the Aldermen. Brick is so upset that he kills one just to spite them. That could've gone better.
At City Hall, Quentin wonders why Sara hasn't called him yet. Brick calls up making threats and wants the Mayor to meet him. Also, Roy gets called Red Arrow on the news.
At Thea's place, Captain Jack tells part of the truth. Ra's wants him dead because of the Undertaking. Again, technically true but he somehow frames himself as the victim/hero rather than the drop dead gorgeous sociopath.
At Laurel's office, Laurel tearfully watches coverage about the dead Alderman's family. Felicity shows up to be there for her. Laurel has said she has decided to quit since she does more harm than good. Felicity then likely incurs a whole lot of hatred in the fandom (or rather, the writers will take heat for this) as she encourages Laurel to keep at it. It's not about avenging people. It's about to protecting them. I guess Ray also shares some blame here.
At the meeting spot, Brick tells the Mayor to get every cop out of the Glades or he will kill the hostages. Quentin calls Felicity and asks for the Arrow. She volunteers BC Laurel. So soon after the first beating?
In the mountains, Ollie tries to convince Maseo, one last time not to go back to the League. It does not work. Neither does Tatsu declaring her love for him and kissing him. That's awkward. However, the League discovers them. Maseo nearly gets them away but fails. When the assassins discover Tatsu, Maseo and Tatsu kill them all.
Back in Hong Kong, Maseo hands over the vial of Alpha. It's a fake. Ollie, Maseo and Tatsu fight their way out of the night club together. It's pretty awesome.
At the Arrow Cave, Roy blames himself for the death of the Alderman. Diggle says it was Brick's fault. He pours him some Russian vodka. He says at the end of some rough nights, he and Ollie would have a drink. Ollie would toast something in Russian that Diggle didn't understand. They toast to Ollie. I really like the reminders that Ollie got more of an education in his five years of torture than any other time of his life. Roy begins to doubt the mission. Felicity and Laurel show up. They say that though Ollie and Sara are gone, there are still people depending on them for safety. It's up to them to keep everyone safe.
At the Arrow Cave, Laurel calls Quentin using a program that makes her sound like Sara. It's brutal. I guess Quentin will never learn that she is dead. Do they expect to keep this up until he dies? Anyway, Quentin just refused to pull the cops out of the Glades and told the Mayor to do it herself. After this awful bit where Laurel as Sara says she's fine, she learns that one of the Aldermen has a pacemaker which Felicity can track.
At Palmer Technologies, Felicity pulls Ray out of a meeting to borrow his helicopter, even though she doesn't know how to fly one. For some reason he let's this happen. He must want to sleep with her ever so badly. Or maybe she has to agree to work on his super suit before her next big favor.
Diggle flies the helicopter to where Brick is staying. BC Laurel and Arsenal fight the bad guys and bring the Aldermen safely onto the chopper. BC Laurel faces off with Brick one more time and manages to jump out of a window and onto a ladder descending from the helicopter. I guess they teach that in boxing. They fly away like that.
In the mountains, despite the protests of Tatsu and Ollie, Maseo heads back to the League. He wounds himself to make it look like Ollie killed the other League members and wounded him at the same time. So, Ra's who just fought Ollie is to believe that he fought all those other dudes and won?
Back in Hong Kong, Tatsu is reunited with her son at home. Ollie privately asks why Maseo didn't warn him that he was going to give China White a fake vial of Alpha. Maseo says he thought he was handing over the real vial. Amanda must have known he would try something like this. Ollie can't believe he was willing to risk the lives of so many people. Maseo says he would do anything for his family. Tatsu thanks Ollie for saving her. So, did Amanda or China kill the kid?
In an alley, Laurel dresses up like Sara and uses her voice to visit Quentin. Brick continued to threaten the people of Starling City so all the police officers are getting pulled out of the Glades. He wants to know why Sara is avoiding him. Laurel just puts him off. So, this is of course, awful. I'm wonder if Thea will see the video and confess everything to Quentin. Quentin will realize Team Arrow all banded together to lie to him (one person in Sara's outfit, Felicity's device, Red Arrow/Roy fighting with her) and turn against them again. Thoughts?
At Thea's place, she still doesn't want to leave the city. She feels like Ra's will want them dead wherever they go so they may as well stay and fight. Captain Jack agrees. Fairly logical and I hope this means Thea trusts Captain Jack less.
At Palmer Technologies, Felicity returns the keys to Ray's chopper, even though he didn't know they have keys. She also gives him the quantum processor needed to make his suit. She would like to help him not die. I wonder if this means he will be joining her misfit team? Some people thought it was weird that the instant Felicity tried to help Ray that she had the tech ready for him. I will choose to believe she figured it out some time ago (with no vigilante business to suck up her time) and just decided to give it to him now when she wants to help him.
At Verdant, Chase stops by to get some music. He says he heard a rumor that Thea was leaving town. Thea denies this and for some reason doesn't wonder how he even heard about that. She leaves him alone and he calls Maseo to report on Captain Jack. Whoops. I will say that you just got interesting, Chase. Some theories: 1) Maseo could be gaining some insurance to keep himself alive. 2) Though we've seen it last season, Ollie's 5 Years Ago friend is not exactly trustworthy. Nyssa and Maseo didn't believe Ollie killed Sara. We know Ra's is willing to sacrifice his own guys. Perhaps this whole thing was staged to lure Ollie into a false sense of security so that he feels like Maseo is one of the only people he can trust. Then they can finally get Captain Jack, who they have been searching for. Once they got him, they can get Ollie all over again. Thoughts?