‘Arrow’ Recap: Star City Gets Its Own Legion of Doom

Warning: This recap for the “The Sin-Eater” episode of Arrow contains spoilers.

China White, Cupid, and Liza Warner (Kelly Hu, Amy Gumenick, Rutina Wesley) bust out of jail and wreak havoc on Star City, but that’s the least of Green Arrow’s worries. The ACU is hunting him for the death of Billy Malone and that’s still not the least of his worries. It’s hard to tell how many of Oliver’s woes are the fault of Prometheus and how many are the result of his own mistakes, but what does it matter at this point? He’s running out of places to hide.

The Plot
Oliver Queen, the mayor, visits Amanda Westfield (Corina Akeson), who the team believes is the mother of Prometheus. She refuses to help, calling Green Arrow “the animal who killed his father.” Meanwhile, China White, Cupid, and Liza Warner escape in search of Tobias Church’s $100 million stash. Quentin and Green Arrow track them down, but they’re interrupted by the ACU who are there to bring in Oliver — they received the autopsy the DA covered up to protect Green Arrow. Oliver gets away, but can’t pursue the escapees for fear of running into the ACU again. He appeals to the ACU head, Pike (Adrian Holmes), as the mayor to lay off Green Arrow. At the big cemetery confrontation (Tobias hid his money in a sepulcher), the ACU does indeed let him go, but it doesn’t matter: The cover-up of the murder is exposed and Oliver — as mayor — is implicated in the cover-up and in danger of impeachment.

The Flashback
Oliver tries to help Anatoly escape the hospital when Gregor’s men come to kill him. Anatoly (David Nykl) calls him a sin-eater — someone who takes the guilt of a village onto himself. Oliver takes out the men, but there is one left with a gun to Anatoly’s head.

Speedy’s Revenge
Susan Williams (Carly Pope) finally asks Oliver, point blank, if he’s the Green Arrow. He says no and thinks the matter is settled, but Thea goes ballistic. She has Felicity plant incriminating digital evidence and has Susan’s reputation obliterated. With her credibility destroyed, she’s immediately fired and unhirable anywhere.

Is this the end of Susan’s arc? The revelation of all her research was building up a real head of steam; if this is how it ends, it’s pretty anti-climactic. It’s hard to know how to feel because it was never clearly established whether she was sleeping with him for a story or fell in love with him despite the incriminating things she learned about him. That being said, normal people have been turned into supervillains for less.

And what about Thea? This is as chillingly cold-blooded as anything she did while possessed by the bloodlust of the Lazarus Pit. If she had done it as sweet payback for Susan raking her over the coals earlier in the season, at least it could be written off as a crime of passion, but she basically destroyed a woman’s life for political expediency. Although, come to think of it, maybe she’s finally found her calling. What politician wouldn’t want a trained (character) assassin as their chief of staff?

The Three Villanos
It’s a shame Cupid, China White, and Lady Cop — er, Liza got caught. Supervillain team-ups cool; all-female supervillain team-ups doubly so. More than that, though, Cupid and Liza and are both failed alternate versions of Oliver and Quentin, and they operate both as foes and moral benchmarks. Quentin is right that Liza is using his collusion with Damien Darhk as an excuse for her own bad behavior, but he — and everyone on the team — could always use a reminder that the ends don’t justify the means.

Quiverful of Thoughts
*Look, Ollie, if you’re trying to hide your identity from the head of the ACU, maybe don’t say exactly the same thing to him as Green Arrow as you do as mayor. That voice modulator isn’t going to do any good if you keep plagiarizing yourself like that.

*Line of the Night: “This ain’t right, man. Disturbing those at rest. This is how you get haunted!” If you had to pick any member of Team Arrow to have a deep and irrational fear of ghosts, it’d probably be Rene, right?

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

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