In order to protect the future, Oliver was forced to revisit his past in an Arrow episode full of reunions. Read on for our recap of “Missing”.
This week’s Arrow begins on an ominous note: joy.
It is Oliver’s birthday, and with Adrian Chase in custody, the team can actually celebrate this year. After finishing his mayoral duties for the day, Oliver heads over to Felicity’s apartment for a dinner date that might or might not be romantic. He finds it dark and empty, which naturally puts him on guard. A noise – someone is in the room. Oliver effortlessly wrestles the intruder to the ground and finds… Curtis.
Surprise! This isn’t a date; it’s a party. All of Team Arrow is here, except Dinah and Rene. The latter’s absence is hardly inexplicable; after he failed to show up for his custody hearing, Quentin hasn’t been able to contact his assistant. Dinah, meanwhile, is supposed to arrive once her shift at the police department ends. That she never shows up should raise her friends’ suspicions.
But for now, they enjoy the Green Arrow-themed cake that Felicity ordered (“Oliver’s a child at heart,” Curtis reasons) and discuss plans for the future. Curtis wants to visit Florence; Diggle wants to teach his son to fish; Felicity wants to spend a night under the stars on the Pacific Crest Trail; Oliver wants to buy socks. You have to appreciate the little things, right? Briefly, we get a glimpse of a parallel universe in which these people got to have normal lives. We’re almost tempted to believe it’s real.
Evidently, our heroes are too. Only when Curtis arrives at Dinah’s house to find the door broken does reality settle back in. Inside, he sees something that causes him to gasp – and promptly gets knocked out.
Oliver has no doubt that Adrian is somehow responsible, despite being locked up in a glass box. An answer materializes in the form of a tranquilizer dart embedded in the wall: Talia al-Ghul. To make matters worse, someone has released Black Canary from her cell at A.R.G.U.S.
As Oliver, Felicity, and Diggle contemplate their next move, Thea and Quentin hide out at a safe house. However, their refuge proves short-lived. With Evelyn’s help, Black Siren breaks in and confronts Quentin, who, unfortunately, has not been clued in on the existence of alternate worlds. Thinking Laurel has come back to life like Sara, he gets himself and Thea captured.
Adrian, Oliver deduces, is using Team Arrow as leverage to buy his freedom. But wouldn’t it be easier to just not get caught in the first place? If this scheme seems overly convoluted, that’s sort of the point. Besides Josh Segarra’s riveting performance, Adrian makes for a formidable villain because 1) there are no means he won’t use to achieve his ends and 2) there’s no real end. He has nothing to gain, no ultimate goal or grand purpose, other than the pure satisfaction of tormenting Oliver.
Unwilling to give Adrian any more leverage, Oliver persuades Felicity and Diggle to leave Star City. It’s not an attempt to push them away, he assures them, but an attempt to do something that Adrian wouldn’t expect. Having seen Oliver distance himself from those he loves emotionally, if not physically, plenty of times before, we’re skeptical. More likely, it’s another (subconscious?) manifestation of his belief that human connection is a weakness. When Malcolm Merlyn lectures you, you know you’ve got issues.
Sure enough, Talia thwarts Felicity and Diggle’s escape, blowing up their car and shooting both of them with tranquilizer darts. EMPs render their trackers useless.
In the Arrow Cave, Oliver receives an unexpected visitor: Malcolm Merlyn, back from his stint on Legends of Tomorrow. The former League of Assassins member proposes a truce. Although the feeling is unrequited, he insists that he loves Thea and just wants to keep her safe. She’s the only family he has left. Shady alliances have a habit of coming back to haunt Oliver, but he’s desperate and, for the first time in a while, alone.
Acting as mayor, he oversees Adrian’s transfer from the A.R.G.U.S. facility to a state prison. The prisoner remains unfazed, stating that the instant he boards the helicopter, his “friends” have orders to shoot… He doesn’t say who exactly. After he leaves the building, Oliver gets a phone call with a video attached. It shows William in a nondescript room, pleading for help. At last, the cliffhanger from “Underneath” comes into play.
That does it. For Oliver, William isn’t just family; this kid he barely knows is also his legacy, a chance to contribute something good to the world and possibly redeem himself. He’s his future. So, he and Malcolm commandeer a van and pursue the A.R.G.U.S. convoy. But Talia’s men beat them to the airfield, freeing Adrian. While Malcolm keeps them occupied, Oliver confronts his adversary and demands that his son be let go. Only if Oliver keeps up his side of the deal, Adrian says.
Oliver relents, watching as Adrian boards the helicopter and vanishes into the rainy skies.
Later, he uses the Arrow Cave computer to track the helicopter’s flight trajectory. The rest of the team is still missing, and he needs all the help he can get to rescue them. Enter Nyssa al-Guhl. As it turns out, she might be the perfect ally. Not only is her sister one of Adrian’s accomplices, but she’s also familiar with his destination: Lian Yu, where it all started.
Of course, Adrian wants Oliver to find him, which is why he brings the other team members to the island as bait. But Oliver has another card to play, one that Adrian may genuinely not expect. In a cell underground, he finds an old friend waiting.
“Hello, kid,” Slade Wilson says. “It’s nice to see you.”
In other news
In this week’s flashbacks, Kovar tortures Oliver by injecting him with a drug that causes his most traumatic memories to resurface, from the origin of his various scars to Taiana’s death. It’s supposed to drive him to commit suicide. He experiences hallucinations – first of Yao Fei, who articulates his fear that those he loves are doomed to suffer for his sins, and then of Laurel, who urges him to come home. Laurel wins.
Best line
Kovar to Oliver, basically stating season 5’s theme: “Nothing ever really dies. There are always echoes.”
Related Story: Supergirl boss promises the season 2 finale is heading toward multiple showdowns
Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. EST on The CW.