Well, the much-advertised wedding was the teeniest, tiniest part of last week’s Arrow. Instead, we got Ray waging a one-man operation against the Arrow while Diggle and Lyla took the worst honeymoon ever.
Ray gets points early in the episode, saving the wedding by stepping in to officiate, but quickly loses ground when he ID’s Oliver under the hood thanks to his suit’s X-ray tech (courtesy of Felicity). When he presents his evidence to Felicity, she stammers through an explanation, and Laurel just shuts him down when he tries to register a formal complaint.
Oliver finally confronts him head on, and incapacitates the suit, proving to Ray that he’s out of his league. Meanwhile, Oliver’s been dealing with that other league, and thinking he’s just up against Maseo, not realizing Ra’s himself is out and about in Starling City.
Amanda interrupts the newlyweds when she send Deadshot to fetch Lyla (and eventually Diggle, plus Carrie) for a mission, which turns out to be a rescue of a politician who’s actually organized the whole thing to create a backstory for an eventual presidential run.
Deadshot redeems himself by sacrificing himself to save the team, and the hostages (who are real), and TV 101 tells us that’s coming because we have recurring flashbacks in the lead up, telling us that he came home from his deployment angry and drinking and unable to connect with his young daughter, who was afraid of him. When he pulled a gun on his wife, she got a restraining order. Then, while he was sitting in jail, he was offered the job to kill Diggle’s brother and that set him on his path to Deadshot.
We wrap with Diggle and Lyla both deciding to retire because they worry about orphaning their daughter, but only Lyla does (and that bugged me, but OK). Felicity mends fences with Ray and tells him she wants to be someone he can trust personally and professionally — an equal partner, which he had told her he wanted her to be and then sort of rescinded when he found out about Oliver.
We also had the mayor take an arrow courtesy of Maseo, so team Arrow needs to wrap up the LoA threat ASAP.
I’m still completely over the love geometry, and we didn’t get any follow up on where things stand with Roy and Thea (who’s MIA except for the wedding) or Nyssa and Laurel, although Laurel wears a wrist guard courtesy of her new trainer’s vigilance.
I’m still waiting to see where we’re actually going this season, since we’re so close to winding down.
Here’s a sneak peek of tonight’s new episode, “Public Enemy.” No new episode next week for NCAA finals.
Photo courtesy of The CW.