ARROW: #TheCanaryLives (Sara Recap)

I need to get this out of the way: screw you, writers. An episode actually called Sara should be like that old Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode where it’s Jonathan doing all the really cool stuff, and they made new credits and everything. Making that the episode title after you PUMPED ARROWS INTO HER GUT AND DUMPED HER ONTO A DUMPSTER? Hacks. Turn in your credible writer cards at the door, you deserve to have them taken away.

Also, if you want a happy recap, I suggest going somewhere else.

Onto the recap! We’re off to a great start! Really rub it in, Arrow! Good job! Remind us again how you killed a) the only female superhero on TV and b) one of the few bisexual characters we get to see. Way to be inclusive! Way to keep your women out of the fridge! Laurel has brought Sara to the lair with arrows sticking out of her and I wonder exactly how she did that without being spotted. Moving dead bodies is hard, you guys. Um, not that I’m speaking from experience.

Flashback. Don’t care. Oliver has to shoot somebody. How he knows how to work a sniper rifle and scope, I have no idea. His target is apparently Tommy. I don’t care.

In present time, Laurel wants to find Sara’s old stuffed shark because Sara loved that thing. I have an old cheetah (named Cheetah) and I know exactly what she means. She swears to help Oliver find whoever killed her sister and Oliver tries to dissuade her from this path (um, it’s not drugs or alcohol, so I think it’s a better path than the one from last season. LET HER GRIEVE). He points out that her father will need her; Laurel doesn’t want to tell Lance until they catch Sara’s killer. Um, Laurel. Laurel no. A parent deserves to know when his or her child is dead.

Oliver goes in his Ollie Queen gear to check out the site of the murder and finds a piece of green glass or something. The music gets distinctly “eastern” the minute he picks up the glass. Diggle shows up to check on him, and promises to help him out. When Felicity calls him to let him know Lance called, he just rudely hangs up without answering her question (“Do you think he knows about Sara?”). Lance tells Oliver there’s another archer in town; another man was killed at the same time.

Cut to some jerky running from some random dude who doesn’t live long, thanks to the masked archer following him. AAAAAND we made it to one commercial break without me throwing the monitor against the wall! Go us!

Roy and Felicity bag and tag Sara, and Felicity tries to deal with her feelings. “There’s been a death in the family,” she tells her boss and when Oliver comes back to the lair, she updates him on the death: Tim Kauffman, a construction foreman. Diggle suggests it might be a League archer, but Oliver points out they don’t come after their own. Diggle runs off to get a lead from ARGUS. Roy searches for Thea on Felicity’s computers (“That is a cobalt-encrypted data-station, you’d better not be using it to TWEET,” she says. I would’ve said “Look at porn.” But then, we know what a high opinion of Roy I have). She’s a little perturbed that he’s looking for Thea. Roy doesn’t think Thea is where she says she is. He gives Felicity Thea’s letter and Felicity points out that Oliver needs to know about it.

“There’s someone I need to kill,” she says as she leaves after getting a text, and I know it’s Ray Palmer because that’s the look I get on my face when I know a Brandon Routh scene is coming. Don’t get me wrong. He’s actually able to show emotions here and try and be smarmy and everything, but good god, buying an entire holding company to get somebody to work for you? IT’S CREEPY, DUDE. IT IS DANIEL SHAW LEVELS OF CREEPY AND THAT SH** NEEDS TO STOP RIGHT NOW.

Oh, look, the need to throw my monitor is back, and we’re only 13 minutes into the episode.

In the scene, Felicity’s crying face is going to break my heart. I wish I could like this character. I really wish I could. He offers to talk to Felicity, who’s obviously distressed, and tells her that it gets better but CREEPY. CREEPY, CREEPY, CREEPY, CREEPY, CREEPY, CREEPY, CREEPY. HAVE I SAID CREEPY ENOUGH? BECAUSE HE’S CREEPY. Here’s a tip: spending 1.2 billion dollars to recruit somebody? Not cute. Not sexy. Not awesome. IT’S CREEPY.

Back in the blue and green-lit construction site, Oliver Queen uses typical levels of police brutality to beat info out of a drug dealer. Using ARGUS resources and Felicity’s magic, they track down the mercenary, a villain known as Komodo. Most exciting is that Laurel and Felicity are in the Foundry together. Can they dump the guys and become a team themselves? Felicity’s consistently smarter than anybody anyway. Meanwhile in the streets of Vancouver Starling City, it’s archers-on-motorbikes jousting for no other reason I can determine than “It looks cool.” GUYS. YOU FIGHT WITH RANGED WEAPONRY. YOU DON’T NEED TO BE MOVING WHEN YOU TAKE OUT A TARGET. Oliver gets hit and Komodo gets away, which Laurel is not happy about.

At the Foundry, they have a brief conversation about how the victims might be connected. Laurel shows up at the hospital to the question the witness and name-drops her way through the door to talk to some dude that I have no idea how he’s connected because I wasn’t paying attention. Mel, I want a raise for having to deal with obvious fridging (they literally stuff her body in a freezer) and Brandon Routh in the same episode. Otherwise I’m just going to keep forgetting how random dudes are connected to the case.

Foundry: Felicity is running a database search for Komodo, and Oliver is frustrated with how long it’s taking. He points out that he needs Felicity’s A-Game, but she doesn’t have it because, hey, her friend’s in the freezer, and that’s the sort of thing that screws you up a little bit. Unless you’re Oliver, who doesn’t have the LUXURY of falling to pieces, and I can tell you exactly where to stick that high horse you’re sitting on, Oliver. You’re not the team leader, dude. Felicity’s the team leader. He assumes that if he grieves, nobody else gets to, and Felicity points out that he’s still a human being. Oliver points out that one of these days, he’s going to be like Sara. Killed at the first convenience to further the plot? Nah, you’re the focal point. The story dies with you.

Felicity is understandably not impressed, just like me! She’s not going to wait with him, and she wants more out of life. This is why Felicity is the team leader. She’s smarter than all of you, both emotionally and technologically. Everybody just needs to admit that and your lives will be so much easier.

In the hospital, Laurel’s questioning the dude in the hospital, who was apparently Komodo’s victim. He caves after Laurel bangs his injured arm around a bit, but before he can tell her more than all of the victims were working on an oil pipeline, an arrow sprouts out of his chest. Laurel does not do the understandable thing like DUCK and GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE, but instead rushes to the window to watch Komodo get away.

Foundry: Oliver’s trying to reach Thea again. Roy looks conflicted, and finally gives Oliver Thea’s letter. Stephen Amell should probably hand this episode in for all of the awards shows. His face is heartbreaking as he tries to process that Thea’s not where he thinks she is.

Lance shows up at the hospital to tell Laurel that the police can handle this (and brings up Sara’s name). Felicity uses Laurel’s information to trace the money back to “Ameritech.” Sara’s somehow connected, but I’m more interested in the fight Oliver and Laurel have when Laurel tries to grab a gun and go along. They’re vicious. I love it. Cut to an event at Queen Consolidate with Ray Palmer and he’s so dead-eyed and this speech is so piecemeal. He’s trying to rename Starling City to Star City, which is the comics name. And…a lot dumber, in my opinion. Let’s not let him succeed.

Roy and Oliver show up right after Komodo, and there’s fighting and it’s a pretty cool sequence. It ends with Oliver pinning Komodo to a wall when Laurel shows up with a gun to take down Komodo, who says he was drunk in Bludhaven two nights before. Oliver asks Laurel not to pull the trigger, but she does and I hardly believe that somebody who’s as trained in weapons safety as Laurel is wouldn’t check the chamber. But whatever, show. Let’s all focus on how Oliver looks in the T-shirt in the next scene when he tells Laurel that LeCroix’s (Komodo) alibi checks out and that her father deserves to know. Which is probably why we cut to the police station. She chickens out of not telling him about Sara because his pill reminder goes off.

And finally, we arrive at the gravesite, where Sara is being buried in her old grave. I’m just going to cross my arms and glare at the screen and let Felicity make me cry, so the rest of this recap will be really short. Laurel echoes my feelings completely when she points out that it’s not fair. And it’s not. I hate everything about this storyline except the actors’ faces. Diggle says they’re naming the Digglette Sara and I’m a little creeped out that nobody has noticed the weeping angels in the background.

In the flashback, where Oliver has drugged Tommy and is holding him captive in a trick to convince him Oliver Queen is dead. It’s the first recorded instance of the Arrow voice, and he used it on his best friend. Okay, that was pretty clever.

Diggle’s back until they catch Sara’s killer. Next step: go get Thea. So basically we’re undoing all of the happy stuff from the finale. The only price? One bisexual superhero. Our closing montage is Laurel hugging the stuffed shark, Diggle playing with the Digglette, Felicity taking the job, and um, Thea going all Beatrix Kiddo on some fighters in a very nice villa while Malcolm looks proud. Also, her hair is really cute.

Screw you, show. Roz will be taking over recaps until I get my blood pressure situation under control. We’d better get some Pits action and I don’t mean Tommy, I mean Sara. If you bring Tommy back through the Pits, and not Sara, WE ARE THROUGH.