Arrowverse: 15 best Arrow moments of all-time

Arrow — “Darkness on the Edge of Town” — Image AR122a_0374bc — Pictured (L-R): Stephen Amell as The Arrow and Susanna Thompson as Moira Queen — Photo: Cate Cameron/The CW — © 2013 The CW Network. All Rights Reserved

10. The Hood Confronts Moira Queen

Episode: “Betrayal”/”The Odyssey” (Season 1, Episodes 13-14)

When Oliver Queen returned home to Starling City following his five years in hell, he often had trouble reconnecting with his mother. Though Moira appeared to welcome him home with open arms, she was concerned about the fact that this was clearly a different man from the immature playboy that left on the Queen’s Gambit five years earlier.

While the pair’s relationship did begin to flourish again, Oliver soon found out that she was up to some questionable activities due to her association with Malcolm Merlyn. After his teammate John Diggle revealed that she had been lying to them, he took matters into his own hands.

As Moira wrapped up a business meeting, the window of Queen Consolidated shattered to pieces as The Hood showed up and quickly took down anyone that came his way. Then, as if she were any of his usual targets, the Starling City vigilante pointed the bow and arrow at his own mother before exclaiming those iconic words: “Moira Queen, you have failed this city!”

With a fittingly loud in-your-face score and some gritty camerawork, it all happened so fast that viewers were left in complete shock by the time they realized it was the end of the episode. Undoubtedly a masterful cliffhanger, the following episode opened with a reprise of the scene before Oliver continued with his line of questioning.

Terrified, Moira reached for a photograph of Oliver and Thea and tearfully pleaded with the hooded archer not to take her from her children. There was something strangely ironic about the whole thing, given that she was talking to her own son, but it ended up working, as Oliver was so moved by his mother’s fear that he lowered his own bow and told her that he meant her no harm.

Then, in a moment of ultimate irony, Moira reached for her gun and began firing, wounding him in the process.

An unconventional, but brilliantly intense scene between a mother and her son that served as one of the most heart-racing cliffhangers and opening scenes in the show’s history and highlighted just how cunning (but brilliant) Moira Queen truly was.