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Arrow Recap – Season 3, Episode 13: Canaries

By Nick Tylwalk

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Recurring villains are cool for us viewers. For the super heroes we watch? Not so much.

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We’ve seen the Arrow tangle with Vertigo before, but Black Canary hasn’t had the pleasure. That could lead to trouble tonight when Laurel Lance has to face her greatest fear. Here’s a hint: it has to do with the previous woman to wear the leather. Let’s see what happens in “Canaries.”

On-the-Mark Recap: And we’re getting right to the main event! A trash-talking Canary beats up Black Canary. Bloodied, Laurel Lance begs for mercy from her sister, but Sara Lance only wants to know why her sibling is trying to replace her.

We head back two days, where the Arrow and Arsenal are chasing a crook. Black Canary gets to him first, beating him unconscious. Arrow lectures her about her selfishness and says she’s no hero, but Black Canary simply shoots back that they should stay out of each other’s way. At the Arrow Lair, Oliver wants to know why everyone allows Laurel to fight crime, though John Diggle points out that she’s not really asking for permission, and she can take care of herself. The master of timing, Malcolm Merlyn, drops in for a chat. He wants to bring Thea is on all of this so that everyone can join forces to prepare for the coming of Ra’s al Ghul. Ollie isn’t sure about telling her, and Diggle warns that if Thea discovers he’s been lying again, he risks losing her forever.

Our old buddy Vertigo is outside the courthouse, demanding in front of the media that he wants to confront his accuser, the Arrow. The policeman guarding him doesn’t look good, and that’s because he’s dosed on Vertigo. He freaks out and starts firing on bystanders, forcing Laurel, who’s there in her role as ADA, to knock him out. Of course, Count Vertigo is gone.

Chase tries hitting on Thea again, this time to no avail. Oliver arrives right after that and says he has something to show her in the basement. Thea says she thought it was flooded, but he admits tha he lied. Led into the Arrow Cave, Thea has a bunch of realizations all at once, and she thanks her brother for risking his life to save others.

Back at their apartment, Thea wonders why he’s leveling with her now. She’s also surprised that Malcolm knows he’s the Arrow, and as dear old dad walks in, Ollie explains they all need to work together if they’re going to survive the League of Assassins. It’s not that simple, though, because Thea is angry at her father for manipulating her and driving a wedge between her and Oliver. Can you blame her?

Team Arrow checks out some video provided by Laurel and discovers someone helped Vertigo escape. She wants to go with the team, but Ollie isn’t having it and asks for a word alone. In his typically preachy way, he says that the relief she feels about Sara’s death isn’t real, and the rush she’s chasing as Black Canary is no different than her other substance issues. Laurel angrily offers that if anyone uses adrenaline to mask his pain.

Arrow and Arsenal head out to find the dude who helped Vertigo, who reveals that he did it because his wife and daughter were threatened. Also, he has a big bomb strapped to his chest. Despite the archers’ plea, he decides to detonate it, and our heroes barely dive out two conveniently placed windows before they’re toast. Vertigo is watching, but all he sees is the explosion.

Returning home to find Thea awake, Ollie tells his super hero story of the night, and when his sister wonders how he can risk his life so often, he simply says it’s his job. Oliver asks Thea to trust him, and she says she does, but she can’t and won’t trust Malcolm.

Laurel is working when she gets a visit from her own dad. Captain Lance has some info for her, but he also talks about how last time he saw Sara, she seemed off, and he mentions what Sin told him. Laurel simply blows it off, but you can tell she’s feeling guiltier than ever about lying to her dad.

Thea tries confiding in Roy, who she now knows is Arsenal. She talks about her desire to get as far away from Merlyn as possible, a sentiment he backs. Down in the Arrow Cave, Ollie reveals he has a tracker on laurel, who apparently is tracking Vertigo solo. At the docks, Black Canary is spotted, and though the archers are on the way, she ends up getting hit by a Vertigo dart. We see the fight scene from the beginning of the episode again, though Arrow arrives in time to stop a killing blow. Vertigo has henchmen occupy Arrow and Arsenal while he makes his mistake.

They rush Laurel to the Arrow Cave, where Thea makes the mistake of coming downstairs. Ollie yells at her, Roy yells at him to stick up for her, and there’s tension all around. After Thea leaves, Oliver wants to know why the dynamic seems to have changed on the team, and Felicity ends up telling him off, explaining that all of them learned to make their own decisions when he was gone.

Roy heads outside and sees Thea kiss, and then leave with Chase, explaining that she needs something simple with all the recent craziness in her life. In Verdant, Diggle and Ollie have a talk, with the former explaining to the latter that he wasn’t just gone, he was dead. Because of that, the others learned that they were fighting for themselves. What Oliver has started has grown into something that will outlive him; the question is whether he can live with what it’s become.

In the Arrow Cave, Laurel wakes up, telling Felicity what she’s seen. When she mentions that she was foolish to think she could wear Sara’s jacket, Felicity offers that there’s a light in Laurel she never saw in Sara, and instead of trying so hard to be her sister, she should just be herself. Oh, and there’s a GPS signal that signifies Vertigo is making another move.

At the Queen pad, Thea and Chase have just finished getting busy. He pours a glass of wine, and she’s just about to drink it when a lesson from Dad saves her life … because she smells cyanide. A fight breaks out, and Chase admits that he’s a servant of Ra’s al Ghul. Thea ends up on the wrong end of a knife, but Arsenal arrives to save her bacon, and when his own scrap starts going bad, the Dark Archer shows up with an arrow to Chase’s shoulder. Alas, the DJ chooses death over dishonor, poison-style. So long!

Arrow actually approves of Black Canary joining his next move, which is good since she saves him from one of Vertigo’s henchmen. The villain has some scientists chained up working on more of his drug, and when the heroes crash the party, he tries blowing up the whole lab. Arrow saves the workers while Black Canary chases the bad guy, and … holy crap, she got hit with a dart again. I can’t believe you fell for it. What’s with you, man? (ht/ Dark Helmet)

This time, Laurel hallucinates both her sister and dad putting guilt trips on her, but she manages to shake off the effects of the Vertigo and beat the crap out of the villain. Because you can totally just shrug it off, right? Arrow tells Felicity it’s over, but she says he needs to get home pronto.

Ah, but first we see where Laurel goes. Her dad gets a relatively clean bill of health, and he says he already knows she is the woman in black. Sadly, she actually has something else to tell him about Sara. Many tears follow.

Oliver rushes home, wondering what happened. They ask Roy for a moment, and Thea finally admits they probably need Malcolm’s help, though she’s never going to forget what he did. Merlyn states that the siblings need to conquer their fears, and there’s only one place to do that.

Looks like it’s traveling time, and even though the Arrow just told the citizens of Starling City he wouldn’t leave them, that’s apparently exactly what he’s going to do. He does give Team Arrow the vote of confidence to keep things safe while he’s away. so that’s something. Roy gets a kiss on the cheek from Thea, who says it can either be for saving her life or standing up to Ollie on her behalf.

The last thing we see is the Queen kids hiking through the wilderness. Thea complains, but Ollie says it’ll soon feel like home — because for him, it was home for a while. Yep, they’re on the island …

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong: Maseo and Tatsu are getting out of town. Maseo tells Oliver they will be on the ferry to Shanghai, and that he should reveal he’s alive to the world, because Amanda Waller won’t recapture him with that much media attention. He tries phoning home, but he’s tasered and captured by Waller’s men.

They also torture him, and when that doesn’t work, Waller threatens Thea, suggesting that Speedy has developed a drug problem while he’s been missing and can easily be found dead with a needle in her arm. A conflicted Ollie tells her that Maseo and his family are fleeing to Shanghai.

When Oliver comes to, he finds Maseo with him. He apologizes for ratting them out, but Maseo lied about the ferry anyway, revealing that he returned on his own. Unfortunately, their reunion is cut short when both of them are knocked out.

Oliver wakes up again and finds himself in a car with Waller, who says he’s fortunate she still needs his particular set of skills. Wait, that might have been someone else. Anyway, he’s still alive, and the car is headed into … Starling City!

Favorite Moment: Another episode full of feels. It was kind of nice seeing Diggle finally wrong about something bad, as Thea didn’t flip out on Oliver for revealing his secret to her. I also liked Oliver coming to terms with the team’s growth in his absence. It’s like Bill Simmons’ Ewing Theory, but with super heroes!

Final Thought: No Ray Palmer this week? I guess he was cooped up in the lab the whole episode, working on that ATOM suit. I have a feeling it’ll be worth it.

Next: Previously, on Arrow ... our recap of Uprising

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