'Arrow' Recap: John Constantine Is the Godfather of Soul

Warning: Spoilers ahead for this week’s episode of Arrow.

Well, anybody can cross over two shows on their own network. (Speaking of which, where’s our Scandal/Grey’s Anatomy/How to Get Away With Murder mashup, Shonda?) But to put together characters across networks? Now that takes talent. Matt Ryan reprises his role from NBC’s now sadly-canceled Constantine, and it’s as good as fans hoped it would be.

The Plot

Sara has escaped, and is murdering street thugs and everyone who looks like Thea, on account of Thea killing her and all. Team Arrow realizes they brought back her body minus a soul, and fortunately, we discover in the flashback that Oliver once did a solid for everybody’s second favorite wizard owned by Warner Bros.: John Constantine (maybe if he took up Quidditch…).

Related: Get Caught Up With Our ‘Arrow’ Recaps

Constantine shows up, and one quick journey into the spirit world later, Sara’s got a soul again. Also, Captain Lance’s undercover work for Darhk begins to pay off as he learns that Diggle’s brother was killed because he was into some organized crime business that conflicted with H.I.V.E.’s organized crime business — and there can be only one organized criminal in Star City.

Constantine Comment

As anyone over the age of 14 who’s ever read a comic-book crossover knows, it’s actually pretty hard to do well. The guest appearance often feels shoehorned in, and the tones of the respective properties frequently clash. Fortunately, they nail it with this one. Of course, Lian Yu has some weird magical stuff that Constantine — and whoever’s running this drug operation — would be drawn to. And of course, they would need a powerful sorcerer to fix whatever’s wrong with Sara. Hopefully, we get more of Matt Ryan in this and future seasons.

Speaking of Whoever’s Running This Drug Operation…

They’ve been more than unusually trusting of Oliver this whole time — aside from Conklin (Ryan Robbins) — and this episode all but confirms that they’re not just keeping him around because they need an extra guard for the slave labor.

Constantine holds a gun to Oliver’s head, and Baron Reiter (Jimmy Akingbola) drops his gun; that’s not something you do for some scab who happened to wander into your highly illegal narcotics farm. How many times is Ollie going to be able to use the “Darn, the prisoner got away” excuse before we find out what’s really going on there?

“You Don’t See Me as an Equal”

Objectively, what Laurel did — bringing her sister back from the dead — is dumb. Literally everyone she talked to told her it was a bad idea, then she did it and people started dying, and she still pretended like she was doing the right thing.

But from the perspective of her relationship with Oliver, she’s right: He got to bring his sister back. Why not hers? Everything sort of works out — Laurel and Ollie and Thea all apologize for keeping secrets, and Sara’s now presumably back to normal (aside from that pesky bloodlust) — but let’s not forget that it took a bunch of dead muggers and the lives of at least two girls whose only crime was looking kind of like Thea to make it happen.

Strictly for Da Lance and Diggle Shippers

Here’s a pairing we should get more often. It’s the opposite of Felicity/Curtis Terrific; instead of the two perkiest characters on the show, we’ve got the two most curmudgeonly. It’s like seeing Oscar the Grouch and Grumpy Cat go out on a mission… although it does point out that Arrow uses the “Darn, the prisoner has escaped” gambit way too often.

It’s an unexpected — but welcome — twist that Andrew turns out to have been killed because of his own criminal activities. Will Diggle still be out for revenge? Or will he be able take down Darhk without making it personal?

Quiverful of Thoughts

* Green Arrow and Constantine first teamed up in the comics back in 1989. They met in Sherwood Forest, because of course the first thing an archer would do when visiting England would be to head straight for Robin Hood territory. You’re not doing anything to fight the cliché of the dumb American tourist, Queen.

* Obviously, Lance and Diggle’s ship name would be Quiggle.

* So that’s why the Chinese characters on Ollie’s tattoo make no sense: Constantine probably doesn’t know Chinese, either. Courtesy of Oliverdant on Tumblr:

Line of the Night:

What does Damien Darhk want? “A new beginning of the world. A nice glass of merlot. Not necessarily in that order.” Not only is he classy; he’s got his priorities right.

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