TV - Arrow Season 3, Episode 13

Canaries are on the mind of Steve Taylor-Bryant this week...

"Roy and I were looking for the man that escaped from the courthouse earlier today. Found a bomb instead."

Sara’s back! No she’s not! Yes she is! No she’s not. This week had more dead people/dream sequences than Dallas back in the day, and I was happy and sad at regular intervals. There was also a villain of the week that drove the plot without actually mattering much to the episode. Let me explain.

This episode see’s Werner Zytle/Count Vertigo flee custody as the police guard transferring him are drugged and start firing upon reporters, before Assistant District Attorney Laurel Lance knocks one out on live T.V. Oliver is still struggling with the way the team have changed in his absence and patience is tested on more than one occasion as he worries about Laurel’s mission. She wants to live through her sisters past to protect her memory but Oliver thinks the violence and revenge is just another drug for Laurel to become addicted to.

When Black Canary Laurel confronts Werner he hits her with a strong dose of Vertigo and she fights the illusion that her sister, Sara, is back but disappointed with her and taunting her. This nearly kills Laurel both physically and mentally and happens more than once. Oliver has to tell Thea who he is and shows her the Arrow Cave. He explains that Ra’s is coming for them and they must work together along with Malcolm Merlyn to have any chance. Thea is back at her flat with D. J. Chase who after sexy time decides to carry out his mission from Ra’s of killing Thea, before Arsenal comes to the rescue.

At the end it is decided that they must train so Oliver et al disembark in the only place he truly knows; The Island.

Not much happened action wise this week but future storylines were set up nicely and the emotional journey that Laurel went on was a far cry from the useless kidnap victim of previous seasons, and to be fair to Katie Cassidy, who I have been highly critical of these last couple of years, I firmly believe she has ‘got’ the character and we are on an up rise performance wise. The flashbacks showed what we already knew about how devious Amanda Waller is but the surprise that during the five years he was missing Waller brought Oliver back to Starling City was a nice one. Paul Blackthorne showed what an incredible array of emotions he can carry going from happy Sara is back to devastated, and Peter Stormare as Vertigo is welcome on my television screen whenever he wants.

Good but not great.

Image - IMDb.