'Arrow' Recap: Suicide Squad Lives Up to Its Name

Warning: This recap contains storyline and character spoilers from this week’s episode of Arrow.

The Suicide Squad is back, The Atom discovers Arrow’s secret identity, and the League makes things very, very difficult for Oliver in “Suicidal Tendencies.”

The Plot

Diggle and Lyla have an honest-to-goodness wedding, but naturally the honeymoon gets sidelined by A.R.G.U.S. business. The couple accompanies Deadshot and Cupid to rescue Senator Cray (Steven Culp) from a hostage situation that — it turns out — he manufactured as a political ploy; Deadshot sacrifices himself so Diggle and Lyla can make it back to their baby daughter.

Meanwhile, Ray has the suit operational and he discovers that Oliver is the Arrow. He leads the charge to bring the Arrow to justice for the murders which are actually being committed by League assassins, but when they face off one-on-one, Ray realizes that he needs to trust Felicity’s judgment and lets Oliver go. The League steps up its “Oliver for President of the League” campaign by killing the Mayor.

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The Flashback

No Hong Kong this week. Instead we got Deadshot’s — well, Floyd Lawton’s — backstory. A soldier coming home with PTSD and lord knows what else, he loses it on his family and ends up in jail. It ends with a H.I.V.E. agent contracting him to kill Andy Diggle. Which means he’s not actually dead, since we still don’t know why Andy was killed, right?

The Suit

Flight: check. Repulsors: check. Sith Lord Lightning… check?

A little special effects goes a long way: After a couple shots of Ray zipping through the air and a couple laser beams, Oliver’s experience uncovers an exposed power juncture and he turns the A.T.O.M. suit into a very expensive cosplay outfit. The story gets told without ripping up half the city, Avengers-style. That’s budget superhero stuff that doesn’t look budget, and nobody’s doing it better than Arrow and The Flash.

But It’s The CW… There Has to Be a Love Triangle

It looks like Oliver — as petulant as he sounded earlier in the episode — is actually going to let Felicity be happy with Ray. Ray is not going to let his jealousy of Oliver win over his sense of justice. And Felicity isn’t going to keep mooning over an impossible love like she’s in a Twilight novel. This is a trick, right? Because if they keep going in this direction, they’re going to avoid the Will They/Won’t They trap that has plagued shows from Gossip Girl to Law and Order: SVU.

Related: ‘Arrow’ at PaleyFest: Will the ‘Offer’ Have Dire Circumstances?

Where’s the Suicide Squad Spinoff?

Cupid falling in love with Deadshot might have been the best part of the episode. There was a very Harley Quinn vibe going on there: deadly, but also cuckoo bananas crazy. The entire story was Arrow at its most fun: intense action leavened by a little humor and the emotional backbone of Diggle and Lyla trying to get back to their baby.

The upcoming Arrow/Flash spinoff will feature Ray Palmer, Sara Lance (back from the dead?), Martin Stein (one-half of Firestorm), Captain Cold, and Heatwave, which sounds amazing. But why didn’t they just go with a Suicide Squad series? It’s a format tailor-made for television: It’s basically The A-Team with supervillains. Which is to say, it’s not such a great idea as a movie.

Inside Comic Moment

Meltzer Plaza — where Roy and Oliver are lured by Ray’s fake 911 call — is an homage to crime novelist Brad Meltzer, one of the early “celebrity” writers brought in to handle comic scripting duties. References to him pop up pretty frequently on the show; a few episodes ago, Thea had one of his books in her hands.

What do you think? Did they treat the wounded warrior story of Deadshot with sensitivity, or did it feel cheap? Still hoping Felicity will get back together with Oliver? Was the first Atom/Arrow fight everything you hoped it would be? Let us know in the comments below.

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