Arrow took a detour into Nikita territory with a little international intrigue and it was an enjoyable side jag as Oliver, Felicity, and Diggle jetted off to Russia to fetch a kidnapped Lyla from a gulag. As you do.
Diggle finds out she’s missing after he’s kidnapped and interrogated. He tells Oliver what he’s off to do and Oliver responds by gassing up the Queen jet, and Felicity comes along, too. The wrinkle there is that Isabel gets wind of the trip and invites herself along to make sure Oliver is actually working.
Along the way, Oliver reconciles with one of his fellow captives from the barge– a well-connected Russian facilitator–and flashes back to his first days with Sarah and Ivo where she duped him into acquiescence so he’d confirm Shado and Slade were alive on the island.
In the present, Diggle shares that Lyla is his ex-wife and that shades the mission to get her back with considerable more gravity. Diggle gets himself inside the gulag and finds himself face to face with Deadshot. They agree to a detente to get Lyla out. Oliver kills time by trysting with Isabel after they bond over a few vodka shots, and Felicity is none too pleased, telling Oliver plainly he can do better and that she’s disappointed.
Together, Diggle and Deadshot shoot and fight their way out with Lyla in tow and Oliver and co. drive them safely away. Diggle leaves Deadshot on the side of the road and they have words about Diggle’s brother, and Deadshot plants the seed that he never misses a kill–Diggle’s brother was always the target.
Once back home, Lyla and Diggle reconcile and reminisce and she tells him she’ll have his blueberry pancakes for breakfast. He sneaks a glance at his phone to look up the name Deadshot dropped to try to learn more, but he doesn’t tell Lyla yet.
Elsewhere in the Queen world, Moira’s attorney tells Thea to break up with Roy to help her mom’s case, so she does, and then Moira summons Roy and Thea to jail and forbids them to not see each other. I still want to know if we’ve SORAS’d Thea or she’s just done with school and it’s not worth a mention.
The Lances, aside from Flashback Sarah, had the week off.
I liked the roadshow one-off, and I’d be fine if we did these now and again–and Oliver never had to hood up in Russia, so that was a fun twist, too. Not sure that I like jealous Felicity–if she was just your friend who will tell you what’s what, that’s OK, but there was a hint of something else there in her disapproval. I was also waiting for Oliver to retort back to Isabel when she asked for Felicity’s quals as a personal assistant to the president that she was a grad of MIT but he didn’t.
I also liked that Diggle and Oliver got a place where Oliver called him “John,” and that Felicity was so game to go halfway around the world with her boys.
Tonight we’re back in Starling City as an old foe is new again. Here’s a sneak peek at “State vs. Queen”:
Photo courtesy of Diyah Pera/The CW