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Arrow Review: Season 3, Episode 10 – Left Behind

By Nick Tylwalk

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Previously, on Arrow, they kind of killed the Arrow.

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Yet there’s still a show, so hooray! I think we all know Oliver Queen will be back eventually, but for now, Team Arrow is going to have to carry on without him. How will they succeed in doing that? Will they succeed? The first step is in tonight’s episode, “Left Behind.”

On-the-Mark Recap: A high speed chase opens the show, with cops chasing down criminals fleeing in a van. Shots are being fired, and we hear that they’ve already shot one police officer. Arsenal is in pursuit on Olvier’s bike, confusing the crooks who expect him to be green. Roy and John Diggle (who is wearing the Arrow suit) manage to catch one of the criminals, but the other gets away. Back at the Arrow Lair, Felicity Smoak is using every surveillance satellite she can, but still has found no sign of Ollie.

She leaves for her other job, where Ray Palmer is testing a guantlet from his ATOM suit on some clowns.

Not live clowns, mind you. Felicity mentions how he should consider that even in his suit of armor, being a hero is dangerous. Ray responds that the Arrow and his partner go out all the time with no armor. Besides, they need to start small and get the suit to work. Funny, that.

The guy Team Arrow caught, Fisher, is denied bail thanks to some legal work by Laurel Lance. Meanwhile, Diggle tries using his ARGUS contacts to get a lead on Oliver, but no dice. The heroes discover that a man named Daniel Brickwell is behind the crooks, a name Roy recognizes. Then it’s time for a trademark dose of Diggle realism (Felicity even recognizes the look that precedes it), with John telling Felicity that he’s prepared for the worst, even if she continues to remain hopeful.

As for Brickwell, he’s upset with Anton, the crook that got away, for striking out on his own when he was supposed to lay low. Brick gives Anton a chance to shoot him to save his own skin, but Brick pummels him mercilessly and leaves his unconscious body for the rest of his men to handle. At the police station, Fisher tells Laurel he’s less scared of the law than he is of Brick, and Laurel sees his attorney making a phone call to his boss.

Thea Queen is having some father-daughter bonding time with Malcolm Merlyn, which in their case means swordfighting practice. She’s distracted by worrying about Ollie, and Malcolm says he’ll look into it.

Felicity is able to trace the call Anton’s lawyer made to a warehouse in the Glades. Diggle decides to ditch the Arrow suit this time, saying he needs to be able to move and shoot. He and Arsenal only find the burner phones burnt, the remains of poor Anton’s body and some weird numbers or codes. They head back to the Arrow Lair, and … Oliver, is that you? Nope, it’s Merlyn. He only wants to talk about Oliver, and while Felicity says he’s still alive, Malcolm says they would have heard from him by now. He also corrects Roy’s claim that he may have been taken prisoner. Ra’s al Ghul doesn’t take prisoners.

After Merlyn departs, Felicity tells the others that nothing has changed, and that if they’ve learned anything from Oliver, it’s that sometimes you need to keep pushing forward. Laurel drops by with information on Anton and how he’s connected to Brick. She wants to know where Oliver is, and Roy informs her that Malcolm says he’s dead. A defiant Laurel thinks they shouldn’t believe anything Merlyn says and seems to pick up Felicity’s spirits when she says he’ll be back again.

Oh, and Malcolm is actually out looking for Oliver, discovering the scene of his duel with Ra’s.

The numbers don’t stay a mystery for long with Felicity on the case, but Meryln soon shows up to rain on everyone’s parade. He explains that it is Ra’s al Ghul’s custom to leave the instrument of death behind as a monument to a fallen soldier, and he found the sword. Asked about the body, he says Oliver fell into a ravine, and his remains are unrecoverable. Merlyn states in no uncertain terms that Oliver is dead, and that testing the blood will prove it. Felicity blames Malcolm for Ollie’s death, and he admits he set the events in motion to get his own head off the chopping block. However, he says that since Oliver failed in the duel, his death is sure to follow.

Team Arrow does, in fact, test the blood on the sword, and it does belong to Oliver. Felicity thanks Diggle for not saying “I told you so.” Roy handles the news by drinking, and when Thea asks if he;s okay, he simply says he got some bad news about a friend. She also asks if Roy can ask the Arrow to look for Oliver. In turn, he passes that request on to Diggle, and the two men briefly argue about the point of continuing on. Then the light bulb goes off in John’s head, and he realizes the numbers aren’t a code, but case numbers. Specifically, they pertain to most of the bad guys Team Arrow has put away since Slade’s attack on the city.

Ignoring John’s advice, Felicity goes to her day job, where she breaks down while telling Ray his plan won’t work. She crosses the line, though, when she thinks Ray’s dead fiancée wouldn’t approve. After a harsh rebuff from her boss, she leaves, but gets a call from Diggle explaining that he thinks Brick is trying to destroy all the evidence on the men they’ve put away over the last eight months. Wait, all the evidence from all those cases is in one big truck?

Apparently so! Arsenal and Diggle are on the scene, though, and our big action set piece takes place. Brick ends up cornering Diggle, offering him the same opportunity he previously gave to his own man. John goes for the headshot, impressing Brick, though it glances off and the two men go hand-to-hand. Arsenal is pinned down by gunfire but manages to arrive and shoot Brick with an arrow before he chokes Diggle.

The crime boss does get away, as does the evidence truck thanks to a door that slams shut in our heroes’ faces.

Oh, but then we learn why: Felicity closed the door remotely, choosing to save her friends from getting killed. A Team Arrow argument breaks out, and when Diggle says if they’re going to do this without Oliver, they need to trust each other, Felicity says, “There is no ‘this’ without him. It’s done. I’m done.”

Somewhere cold, Maseo asks someone we can’t see for help with Oliver, saying he had nowhere else to turn.

Back at her job, Felicity apologizes to Ray. She says she lost a close friend after losing another one just three months ago (sidebar: were Felicity and Sara ever really that close?). Thus, she can’t stop Ray from following through with his ATOM plans, but she doesn’t have to help him either.

Next we return to the Arrow Lair, where Laurel tells Diggle the judge had to let all those criminals go since the evidence disappeared. He tells Laurel Oliver isn’t coming back. Is he? For the first time since he met Oliver, he’s not sure what’s next. After they hug, John notes the irony of Ollie always worrying that something would happen to him. He leaves, and Laurel eyes up the Canary gear, and … I see that look in her eyes!

Thea returns home and throws a knife at someone lurking in the shadows. It’s Malcolm, who catches the blade before telling his daughter that because they are in danger, they need to leave Starling City forever.

Brick assembles all the guys who just escaped jail because of him, noting that he still has all the evidence, and if they don’t want to run with his crew, the DA will get gift-wrapped packages sending them back. His plan is to take over the Glades. Two of the guys leaving discuss the offer among themselves, but they’re incapacitated by the Canary cry grenades, and Laurel calls herself “the justice they can’t run away from,” dressed in full Canary gear and rocking a blonde wig.

And … HE’S ALIVE! Oliver comes to and sees a familiar face: Tatsu. Astonished, he also sees Maseo, who tells him he summoned Tatsu there in order to bring Ollie back to life. Why? Well that’ll make sense once we discuss …

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong: Amanda Waller yells at Ollie and Maseo for goofing up their last mission. Maseo asks if they can lead a team to free his wife, but Amanda points out they don’t know where she is. There’s also the small matter of China White holding Omega, though she can’t use it without Alpha, which is in the hands of the Hong Kong military. Waller wants them to get it back, reminding Maseo that the task at hand is NOT recovering his wife.

They prepare the assault on the lab, running into some trouble in the form of a very durable window that leaves Ollie dangling precariously from a zipline. He finally gets in, and while they come under assault from Triad thugs, they manage to recover the Alpha. Ollie had a bead on one fleeing bad guy but chooses not to shoot him.

Naturally, Waller is pissed, and even Maseo chastises him, since they now have no one to interrogate (Ollie says torture) for information. But Maseo changes his tune when Oliver reveals that he planted a tracker on the fleeing dude so they could get a bead on Tatsu’s location. Maseo says he will forever be in Oliver’s debt for that. Ah yeah, I think he just called that in.

Favorite Moment: When Felicity first expresses doubts about Ray’s plans, his response is priceless: “You make it sound like using an advanced exoskeleton to fight crime and save the city is a Looney Tune idea.” Much needed comic relief in an otherwise grim episode.

Final Thought: Even though we are all pretty sure how this will play out in the medium term, it’s still entertaining to watch as it unfolds. Of course Team Arrow isn’t going to give up the fight, but how low will they go until they bounce back? It looks like next week will have Arsenal and Black Canary working together, which should be an interesting dynamic indeed.

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