Arrow Recap: Season 5 Episode 12 “Bratva”

A trip to Russia forces the members of Team Arrow to reckon with their darker impulses, while in Star City, Susan Williams cracks a case.

Since he manipulated Oliver into killing Detective Malone, Prometheus has stayed on the back burner of Arrow. He hasn’t attacked again, giving our ragtag group of vigilantes time to recruit a new member and, now, travel to Russia. Yet, his presence poses always lurks underneath the surface, a constant threat.

Ultimately, Prometheus is less daunting for his physicality or skill in combat than his ability to push his opponents toward the edge, to bring out the worst in people. You might not even know you are losing.

“Bratva” brings the brewing discord within Team Arrow to the forefront. Unfazed by Diggle’s release, General Walker has escaped to Russia, where he intends to sell a nuclear weapon to terrorists. So, Oliver, Felicity, Diggle, Rory, and Curtis jump on a plane to the other side of the world to stop him (Rene stays behind to make sure he doesn’t cause any sort of “international incident”).

The welcome they receive upon arriving is, well, not so welcoming. At the airport, they run into Anatoly, who greets Oliver with a prompt punch to the jaw. “You should never have come back to Russia,” he snaps. If you remember, way back in the season 2 episode “Suicide Squad”, Oliver enlisted a contact from the Bratva, Alexi Leonov, to gather information on Slade Wilson. When Leonov asked for a favor in return, he refused and was expelled from the Brotherhood. Later, he found Leonov dead, shot in the eye by Slade. Hence, Anatoly’s hostility.

All things considered, the rest of the team takes this in stride. Felicity and Diggle especially are used to learning new things about Oliver’s shady past; at a certain point, nothing’s shocking. But they aren’t quite as adept at coping with their own angst.

For both of them, this mission hits close to home. Freshly out of prison, Diggle is determined to bring Walker to justice by any means necessary, while Felicity is determined to prevent another city from being destroyed like Haven Rock. As Oliver has demonstrated countless times, though, emotion can undermine judgment.

When her search for Walker comes to a dead end thanks to an outdated tracking system, Felicity persuades Rory and Curtis to go undercover with her disguised as Bratva members. She manages to get a conversation alone with a DetraLink employee and asks for his network credentials. As leverage, she mentions that he failed to notify the Kremlin of terrorist activity on his network last year – information she obtained from the Pandora files. “The question is, who would I tell?” she warns. Like that black fur coat-and-dress ensemble, menace looks pretty darn good on Felicity.

Of course, that’s beside the point. Felicity has long served as the idealist to Diggle’s pragmatist and Oliver’s loose cannon, and it’s hard to imagine the team functioning without that delicate equilibrium. When she tells Rory about her dealings with Helix, he’s taken aback. He gives her a variation on the standard “with great power comes great responsibility” speech, to which Felicity responds that you sometimes “have to fight fire with fire.”

Regardless, she got the information she needs, locating Walker in a church. After a brief tussle, the corrupt general gets away, but the team captures one of his henchmen for questioning. Oliver tries methodical interrogation, applying a combination of guilt-tripping and a taser. If they’re too aggressive, he reasons, the man will say anything, even if it’s not true.

But when he’s gone, Diggle opts for a different strategy, using the hostage as a punching bag to no avail. He claims that he doesn’t think there’s enough time for subtlety, but it’s obvious that he really just wants an excuse to vent his anger. After all, they’re chasing a man that framed him for treason.

This finally gets Oliver to cave and agree to do a favor for Anatoly in exchange for assistance. Namely, he intimidates a stranger into shutting down his business. Dinah watches from the car; it’s her turn to provide words of wisdom. Oliver confesses that he was reluctant to help Anatoly because he doesn’t want to get dragged back into the Bratva. The key, she says, is to accept that your past is part of you and you can’t change it. But it doesn’t have to define you or hold you back.

With this in mind, Oliver rallies the team. He attempts to impress upon Felicity and Diggle the importance of retaining your sense of morality. “I need the two of you to be better than me,” he says. “That’s why we work together.” Otherwise, Prometheus would be right.

Anatoly proves true to his word. He assembles a small army of men, and together, they launch an assault on the airport hanger where Walker is making a deal. During the fight, Diggle manages to resist killing Walker; he later tells Oliver that Walker’s mention of Lyla and his son reminded him of Andy, and he didn’t want to make the same mistake again. And when Felicity fails to find a way to disarm the nuclear bomb, she trusts Rory to contain the blast with his magical rags (just go with it).

So, our heroes haven’t crossed to the dark side – at least not yet. Anatoly informs Oliver that he is still bound to the Bratva, and Felicity secretly tells her contact at Helix that she intends to keep using Pandora. Meanwhile, Rory, unquestionably the most levelheaded member of Team Arrow, decides to take a temporary leave, the power in his rags extinguished by the explosion.

In other news…

Stuck in Star City, Rene helps Quentin, now out of rehab, prepare for an interview with Susan Williams. At first, Quentin snaps at questions about Laurel, but he eventually realizes that he has to fight his demons and find a healthy way of dealing with his daughter’s death. When you’re in a room with Rene and he’s the calm one, you know you’re in trouble. The interview goes well, in part because Rene revealed to Susan that years earlier, Quentin convinced him to get his life in order. The past, then, can be a positive influence as well as a negative one.

Still, Susan isn’t done causing mayhem; in fact, she’s just getting started. After sleeping with Oliver, she meets with a source who shows her photographs of the Green Arrow in Russia. Knowing that Oliver went on a trip there at the same time, she finally connects the dots. (For a supposedly hard-hitting reporter, Susan seems to be taking her time with her story.)

In the flashbacks, Talia tasks Oliver with killing a low-level drug dealer who has infiltrated Starling City, one of the names listed in his father’s book. The ensuing fight sequence culminates with Oliver uttering a slightly tweaked version of his old catchphrase: “You have failed Starling City.” The thrill doesn’t last long, though, as Oliver goes to say goodbye to Anatoly, only to find his friend in the hospital, beaten up by Gregor. Once again, Oliver decides to take revenge – and now, it’s personal.

Best line

Anatoly, in a toast with Oliver: “To our imperfect union.”

Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. EST on The CW.

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