Arrow Recap: Clipped Crusaders — Was Diggle Able to Salvage the Team?
This week on The CW’s Arrow, Oliver waved the white flag in his war with Adrian Chase — and in doing so wound up picking a new fight, with a familiar face.
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Fresh off his physical and psychological torture at Chase’s hand, Oliver returned to the Arrowcave to firmly disband the team. Diggle assumes that some 1-on-1 time with the boss will fix things, but Oliver only reasserts his position, instructing Diggle to pack up.
While the rest of the team convenes at Felicity’s loft to scrape together a low-tech version of themselves, Felicity herself turns to Helix for help in outing Chase. They get as far as finding a security cam video of him removing his Prometheus mask, but Chase apparently wears a “scrambler” that auto-pixelates his revealed face. Alena suggests they could reverse-engineer the tech if they get their hands on it, but Curtis eventually beats them to the punch, showing up at Helix after using a T-Sphere to steal from Chase his scrambler.
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When Diggle discovers that Oliver has enlisted the Bratva to “put Adrian Chase in the ground,” he and the modestly-equipped team nearly thwart the Russians’ theft of their first “payment” — a diabetes drug. An angered Oliver explains to Diggle there is no price he won’t pay to solve the Chase problem. So for the last time, he tells, not asks, his former No. 1 to stand down.
Diggle turns to a distracted Felicity to talk some sense into Oliver, but even she has to wonder if letting the Bratva kill Chase is actually the best move. When Dig again appeals to Oliver, upon learning of the Bratva’s icky plans for the stolen drugs, Oliver details how his vigilante “crusade” was merely an outlet for the “murder spree” brewing inside him. “There’s something sick inside of me,” he maintains, so let the Bratva do their job, he pleads.
After Team Diggle thwarts the Bratva’s intercept of Chase’s armed escort, the D.A. gets put into WITSEC — setting the stage for Oliver to show up at Dig’s and slug his best friend, now that the Bratva won’t be able to get to their target. Diggle again tries to help Oliver work through his guilt issues, saying that if he doesn’t think he “deserves the hood,” by all means work to become the man who does. And ask for help if you need it.
Oliver begins to come around, “masking up” to help the team keep Anatoly from securing the second drug he needs. That of course creates friction between the old Bratva brothers — in part because Anatoly changed for the worse, as he feared he would, after Oliver left Russia years ago. Anatoly is heading back to Russia, but leaving behind his best men, free to seek revenge on the vigilantes who got in their way.
Oliver regroups the team, in the lair, where Felicity arrives with the decrypted video of Chase-as-Prometheus — the one thing their adversary couldn’t plan ahead for was Felicity. When that evidence is delivered to the SCPD, the U.S. Marshals babysitting WITSEC’d Chase are alerted… just moments before being brutally murdered by their ward, who then drives away calmly, spattered with blood, whistling, “What a Beautiful Morning.”
Oh, and Oliver broke up with Susan.
What did you think of the episode “Disbanded”?
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