ARROW: “Guilty” {Recap}

It never bodes well for an episode when it starts off with the flashback of the death of Sara Lance one more time – again at the hands of Roy Harper (Colton Haynes). Because we haven’t been reminded enough times that Sara died and it’s the hugest of huge elephants in the room as to who did it.

But that doesn’t get at the problem at the heart of this cold open: a drug cartel is neatly killed, all their drugs remain and there’s a note that reads “GUILTY” for the cartel members.

Laurel’s practicing being a bad-ass and fighting and sounding like she still doesn’t have all the tools in her belt to be a superhero.

Roy’s issues with his waking dreams lead him to ask Felicity to draw his blood and test for the drug that he was meant to be cured of, as one more way to see if he’s reverting back to his old way.

Oliver gets the name of the one guy who might have had answers about the drug cartel – only to find him dead in Laurel’s new gym with the owner, Ted, in the room. Does this sound good to anyone else? Thought not.

Roy’s clean – surprise! – but admits to having dreams about being “not him”. He goes on to say that in his dreams he’s killed Sara and that they’re almost like he lived them. Felicity doesn’t sound convinced, and I don’t blame her.

Ted has no answers to the questions about why the dead cartel guy was there, which Laurel tells Oliver. Not that Oliver wants to believe her, because he never does.

Back to the flashback, Oliver gets a lesson in how his memory isn’t bad before he gets his memory back about what happened before on the tailing assignment.

Looking after Ted and his location, Oliver stumbles upon a warehouse with another guy strung up, brace knuckles and all these articles about him. Oh yeah, and a guy who is beating him, being Ted. Everyone shocked? No, I thought no.

Felicity has Roy stay behind when Oliver needs he and Diggle for back up to tell him that it’s possible that in a mirakuru daze he could have killed Sara. Roy tells Oliver and Laurel about what he thinks happened and how the mirakuru made him do it. Laurel’s not to happy with the news – neither is Oliver – and Roy leaves. Laurel can’t handle the news about Roy, and has to try and put it all together to figure out what happened to Ted.

The flashbacks about memory are making more sense now – Oliver will want to use the techniques he learned in Hong Kong to help Roy determine what happened.

Laurel starts to use her DA hat to get Ted to admit who was behind the mask in that first attack – Isaac Stanzler – was Ted’s old side-kick when Ted did the vigilante business. Isaac unmasks himself in front of Ted and Laurel.

Leaving aside Roy’s issues, Diggle and Oliver try to chase down Laurel, Ted and Isaac in Laurel’s car. Diggle and Oliver both fail, but Roy doesn’t. While Diggle and Oliver get Laurel and Ted out of the car – she ran it into some other ones – Roy takes on Isaac and while Isaac wants to use his own issues of being abandoned by Ted, Roy won’t let that win and doesn’t give up on Oliver. Thankfully Oliver won’t. Or else the show and I were going to need to have a serious conversation.

As only Oliver can do, in the end he tells Ted to stay away from Laurel, without asking what Laurel wants. Ted doesn’t want what happened to Isaac to happen to Roy. At least when Oliver goes to Laurel he doesn’t say that he thinks she’s incapable of being strong, but only that she wants to help her.

Roy, being an upstanding guy he is, wants to turn himself in for killing Sara, only before he can, Oliver has Roy meditate to find out what actually happened. Nice to see that the flashback does have a purpose, even if it seems odd. Roy didn’t actually kill Sara, but a cop from before. Roy’s mind connected the arrows of Sara’s death to the ones he used while on mirakuru with the cop.

Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8PM Eastern/7PM Central on The CW.