ARROW: “The Return” {Recap}

Oliver and Thea have gone off to the Island for some bonding and shared workouts before Oliver goes back to some flashbacks of working for Waller. This will all payoff later, I’m sure, but right now it’s just talk and no action.

However, there’s some action going on with Quentin Lance is drinking in a bar rather than being on duty and Laurel has to walk in to get him out.

That flashback did get interesting because the first person Oliver saw in Starling City when he saw Thea for the first time again. But he then doesn’t want to talk about his story behind not telling anyone about Sara the first time or anything else. Mangst (man angst) at its finest. Right? But while he’s brooding and mangsting, he walks into the ARGUS facility and finds that Slade is loose and out around the Island. Great, a wonderfully crazed man who wants to hurt Oliver as much as possible with Thea alone. Nothing’s going to go wrong there.

Slade’s free because Merlyn needed to show and prove to Oliver that he’s a killer again, which is just like Merlyn to do.

Another flashback and we see Tommy with Thea as she’s buying drugs at Oliver’s grave. What a lovely kick in the gut to see the other Merlyn child again with his unbeknownst half-sister.

Slade manages to capture both of them and he’ll fake their deaths to leave them to rot, and when Slade talks about Shado, it’s clear that Slade wants to keep up some of Oliver’s secrets.

Flashbacks again and now we have Felicity walking into an office and admitting that Oliver’s cute even if she shouldn’t be talking to the air. That leads Oliver to crash Tommy’s party and see Thea crashing the party and being awkward all around. Thea buys more drugs from a lowlife and then Oliver kills the drug dealer for selling to Thea in the first place.

In the cell, Oliver breaks Thea’s arm so that she can reach around the wall to unlock their cell, then passes out.

Flashback again, and this time Quentin makes a show of telling off Thea, Tommy and Laurel for their choices while Sara and Oliver are dead.

Back where we are now, Oliver tells Thea that she killed Sara while Merlyn was off in Corto Maltese, and that’s a good secret to keep from a murderer if you ask me. Learning that news sends Thea on a shame spiral before she asks, “Why are we here?” and Slade gets a gun to her head. An awesome fight later and Thea maybe has Slade where we all want him – indisposed – before another flashback cuts in.

All the while that they’ve been running behind or ahead of Slade, Oliver finally says that they both need to not kill to be the opposite of what Merlyn wants of them. Shots are heard before a nice fade to black. Slade thinks that Thea’s lost once he’s finally safely back in his cell, but not before he asks Oliver how many people Oliver can lose before he’s no longer himself. That’s a creepy question to ask and one to even think of answering.

Safely back in Starling City, Thea tells of Merlyn once she knows what he made her do and will only be his soldier and tool, but never blood again.

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