Thea Queen is not impressed with the site of the new Arrow Lair, since it’s an office building. Specifically, it’s the former office of Sebastian Blood, and Oliver Queen has gathered his teammates to tell them he’s running for mayor. They’re not exactly psyched, questioning whether he has enough experience or a real platform. At least he has money, courtesy of Palmer Tech. Thanks Felicity! And in #Olicity news, Thea asks Felicity why she isn’t wearing “it,” but neither she nor Laurel knows what she means.
Oliver’s other surprise goes over better. After a ride in a fancy elevator, Team Arrow sees the new Arrow Lair, and it’s pretty boss. Thanks to some help from Cisco Ramon and S.T.A.R. Labs, it’s a high tech wonder. It’s also going to get put to use right away, as Felicity finds out about the cops getting shot. Oliver goes to talk to Lance …
… And he reveals he’s running for mayor. Because of staffing cuts, Lance is frustrated with his inability to process the evidence from the shooting, so he agrees to let Oliver take a look at a SIM card recovered from the scene. Lance has to leave as he has a text from Laurel.
At Palmer Tech, Curtis Holt makes a bad guess as to the identity of the Green Arrow. Like he’s not going to know Oliver’s “secret” by the end of the season! Felicity tells him about the weird Matrix-like code that’s being sent to her phone, supposedly from a terminal inside Palmer Tech. It wasn’t Curtis, but it might be Palmer’s Atom suit. Curtis theorizes that they might be able to hear Ray’s last words, but that’s not something Felicity wants to relive. Or, you know, he might still be alive.
An examination of the SIM card gives Team Arrow a location to investigate. Green Arrow, Speedy and Diggle find a building with only one locked door, and to their surprise, a stash of SCPD weapons and body armor. The weapons of dirty cops?
Elsewhere, Laurel has a surprise for her dad, and it’s something he never could have imagined: she’s got Sara chained up in the basement. Lance says it isn’t his daughter, but Laurel insists she just needs time to return to normal. Sara seems to understand when Laurel shows her family pictures, but that might just be a ruse so she can get Laurel in close to try to choke her. Hate it when that happens.
Team Arrow is busy debating how they can figure out which cops to trust. They decide to have Thea use her old drug connections to set up a buy, and Oliver gets Lance to agree to help after breaking the news of the dirty cops to him. Lance’s condition is that he’s allowed to be there to help take them down.
The trap is set, and the rogue cops come in firing with heavy weapons and armor. They also have some serious tech, enough to shrug off the Canary Cry and some arrows. Team Arrow fights them to a draw, at best, and Lance isn’t happy about it.
On the other hand, he does get to see the new Arrow Lair. Lance says that the people they fought were cops, packing gear from the anti-vigilante task force he reinstated a few months ago. He agrees to give Felicity unrestricted access to the police computer network to try to ferret out who the rogue cops are.
We see them arguing among themselves. Their cover as drug dealers is blown, and the leader, a female cop, says she has no intention of killing Lance even though he’s onto them. She calls him an opportunity. At Palmer Tech, Curtis asks if Felicity knows the password to Ray’s personal network. She does, but she fesses up to her true relationship with Ray and repeats that she doesn’t want to hear his voice again. Holt reveals that his brother died of cancer a few year ago, and he’d do anything to hear his voice again.
Lance is off meeting with Darhk, figuring since he was a former League of Assassins member, he might know how to help Sara somehow. His advice isn’t very comforting, since he suggests that Sara no longer has her soul, and the best thing he could do for her as a father is to put her down. After Felicity is done ogling Oliver during his famous bar workout, she reveals that the leader of the rogue cops is a Sgt. Warner. She searches for Warner by hacking into every police dashboard and traffic camera, but Oliver sees the Lance-Darhk meeting instead.
And he’s not going to sit on information like that. Ollie waits for Lance in his house, and they have an emotionally charges talk/shouting match that features a bit of role reversal. Oliver says that he thought Lance was more righteous, and he was, until tonight. Lance explains that he’s been working with Darhk for about two months, and that he was benign at first, and once he figured out who and what Damien was it was too late. He also reveals that Darhk threatened Laurel, but Ollie screams at him to stop hiding behind his daughters. Lance asks what he’ll do with this knowledge, but Oliver says he doesn’t know. His next talk is with Thea, and as they reminisce about Sentinels games, he wonders if the city is beyond saving. He also sounds like he’s decided against running for mayor.
Lance is back in the basement, gun drawn on Sara. He’s already upset, getting worse when Laurel arrives. As you might expect, he can’t bring himself to shoot his own daughter. But things quickly go for bad to worse. Warner and her task force wait for Lance upstairs, ambushing him and dragging him off. Laurel follows and takes out one cop before getting tasered from behind.
Warner takes Lance to the department contraband disposal facility, claiming that the rogue cops are leaving town after they blow the place up. Team Arrow is on the case, though, with Black Canary adjusting the frequency of her Canary Cry so it works this time. Green Arrow gets Warner with a bolo arrow and reluctantly frees Lance. Unfortunately, Warner frees herself and pulls some kind of garrote on Green Arrow. She threatens the hero’s life, but Lance makes a stirring speech (that includes the episode title for bonus points!) about not giving up on the city before questioning if Warner still believes in justice. She surrenders, with Lance quipping that she already knows her Miranda rights. Lance returns home to find Oliver waiting for him again. He’s planning on turning himself in too, but Oliver has a better idea, saying he trusts Lance to stay close to Darhk. The spy game it is!
At Oliver’s campaign headquarters, he finds Thea has hired a bunch of interns and written him a speech for his official announcement. It sounds a lot like the voiceover at the top of each episode. While he talks, we see a series of other scenes, including Felicity listening to Ray’s final words, Warner facing her own personal justice … and Laurel discovering that Sara is gone!
Meanwhile, (Back) on the Island: Oliver tells the woman he saved last week how to survive: where there’s water, edible plants, etc. It’s almost like he had to do the same thing once upon a time. In return, he asks her for a favor, saying she’s not going to like it. The other guards don’t trust Oliver, with the foreman demanding to see the body and upset that another guard was lost to the minefield. As they head out, the foreman says that Oliver is either lying or he’s one dark bastard, though he’s not scared because he’s the same way.
They reach the cave, and the guard is satisfied that the woman was strangled to death. He tells Ollie to get rid of the body since the cave might be useful. Of course, Oliver had the woman’s death faked using some island magic or something. But outside, the foreman finds Oliver’s backpack and the A.R.G.U.S. transmitter that came with him.
Burning Questions:
Shouldn’t Oliver be running unopposed given the mortality rate of previous mayors?
How long until we see Warner again as an ally? Lady Cop, is that you?
Final Thought: A bit of a slower-paced episode with lots of dialogue, though the brief action scenes weren’t bad. Season 4 is avoiding any villain of the week issues and keeping Darhk lurking nicely, but this still won’t go down as anyone’s favorite, I don’t think. Part of the problem is that it was hard to buy the cops, even well-equipped, as a force that should have been able to stand up to Team Arrow. Next week should be more exciting for one good reason: Constantine is coming