OK, so tons of girl shit broke loose on “Heir to the Demon,” the last new episode of Arrow. Let’s break it down.
Sara’s ex-girlfriend, Nissa, who it turns out is the daughter of Ra’s al Ghul, comes calling to bring her back to the LoA (after drugging Laurel into what looks like an overdose). When Sara’s reticent to acquiesce, her mom is kidnapped. Oliver steps in to help and Sara makes the point to Nissa that she’s really over all the killing by trying to kill herself (OK). This gets the message across and Nissa releases Sara.
Of course, Laurel wanders in as all of this goes down, and her response to her long-presumed-dead sister’s reappearance to is to freak the hell out and rail at her about everything that’s gone wrong in her life and her parents’ life being Sara’s fault.
The episode was also chock full of flashbacks that revealed that Sara was hooking up on the sly with Oliver while Laurel was planning to move in with him, and the moment when Moira came calling on her and Quentin to tell them Sara was dead.
Back in the present, Moira throws her hat into the mayoral ring after paying off (not killing) her ob/gyn. To do this she taps the tempest fund (which Felicity had flagged) and when Felicity asks Walter about it and he says he’ll look into it but doesn’t report back, she follows the money and confronts Moira with what she figured out about Thea and Malcolm. She threatens to tells Oliver and Moira threatens back that Oliver will never love her if she does that, but then she does it anyway.
A seething Oliver grits out an endorsement for his mother in front of the press and then tells his mother they are DONE.
We close the episode with Sara coming to Oliver to tell him the Lance family reunion was a bust. She says she’s home, regardless, and he responds by kissing her and then they go at each other and the clothes come off. Which seems quick and odd given what Felicity did to seemingly get closer to Oliver, and the raging raw wound that Laurel is, but whatever. I’m still not totally onboard with the retcon that Oliver loved Sara the mostest and his relationship with Laurel was a manipulation by Laurel to trump her sister.
So,, like I said. high drama from all the ladies.
Again, I do not know what they’re doing with Laurel but I think we’re solidly setting up the chess pieces for something dire, especially if Sara’s back for good.
Oliver’s tantrum seems a little off the mark given his own secrets but I’m sure we’ll get to the real bottom of why. I can’t remember if he knows she has the Gambit in a warehouse and that she tried to kill his dad. As for Felicity — why was Moira’s paternity a secret worth telling when the tempest account on its own wasn’t? We’re getting really complicated, y’all.
One side note — the salmon board resurfaced in this episode with Caity Lotz giving it a go. Huge props to her for that. And in the previous episode, Stephen Amell stopped between rungs to have a conversation with Diggle and Felicity, which blew my mind.
We’re back tonight with a new episode. Here’s a sneak peek of “Time of Death.”
Photo courtesy of Cate Cameron/The CW