Arrow: Sara

I am a horrible, terrible person, y’all, because “Sara” didn’t decimate me. I was mostly pissed off at the end of it. I’ll get to why.

We start the episode with Laurel somehow having hauled Sara’s body across town and down to the lair — on her own. When Team Arrow finds her there, they’re plummeted headlong into grief. Felicity and Roy take care of Sara’s effects in a CSI fashion while Oliver goes to the scene of the crime, where Diggle finds him and tries to talk some sense into him.

Over the course of the episode, there’s a lost leader case of another archer, who of course, by episode’s end, had nothing to do with Sara. Curiously, the flashback of the episode had nothing to do with Sara, either — we do not see her alive at all. Instead, we find out Tommy landed in Hong Kong after Oliver’s attempted e-mail, and Amanda orders Oliver to kill him. It was great to see Colin again. We get one scene of him with Stephen Amell when Oliver kidnaps him and, while disguised, tells him Oliver is not alive and well and hiding in Hong Kong, and he should go home.

In the present, Oliver and Felicity discuss loss, and living, and not wanting to die on this crusade of theirs. Diggle offers a sign of life with the news that he and Lyla have named their daughter Sara. Felicity goes to talk to Palmer about a job. Oliver just sort of quietly seethes and feels guilty. And after Roy shows Felicity, and then Oliver, Thea’s letter, Oliver decides it’s time to go get his sister. We get one scene of her at ninja camp under Malcolm’s watchful eye.

And then there’s the set of scenes that left me ragey. Oliver tells Laurel she has to tell her dad about Sara. She starts to, and then he pops a heart pill before she can get to it, and she decides to hold her peace. She and Team Arrow convene at Sara’s grave and re-bury her. And Quentin knows nothing. I HATE that.

Quentin held onto Sara’s secret before Laurel knew anything so he, most of all, had a right to know. I really, really wanted/expected Oliver to check Laurel on it. I was really unhappy that Quentin was not standing at that grave with everyone else. And if this turns into an arc where Quentin finds out (or goes back to her grave for some reason and sees fresh dirt) and falls back in a bottle, I really will rage.

While everybody did a hell of a job with the material, I just didn’t feel it like I think I was supposed to, and maybe that’s because we didn’t have Sara flashbacks juxtaposed with her lifeless body being attended to in the lair. I think I was also just so hung up on Quentin’s exclusion to the point of distraction. I am sure they’ll continue to use Caity Lotz here and there in future episode flashbacks. Maybe then it will register.

Here are a couple of sneak peeks of tonight’s new episode: