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"Arrow" 3.19 Recap: Unacceptable Losses

Roy has to pay the piper, and not the cute one either. Lance reclaims his place as the worst character ever.

Previously on Arrow.... Captain Quentin Lance decided he didn't like being awesome so he returned to the irrational dickhead he was in Season One. Ra's al Ghul continued his campaign of terror against Oliver, who naturally lapped up the chance to be a martyr. And Roy Harper decided to fall on his sword for his mentor.

Okay, show, so this is how it's gonna be then? You're just going to get rid of every single character I like? That's the way you roll? Well, fine. The gloves are coming off. You're going to get recapped so hard you'll be feeling it for a week.

Since it's the tail end of the season, naturally everything in Star City is horrible and bleak and all hope seems pretty much lost. Then again, since all hope was lost a long time ago and no one bothered bringing hope back, I guess things are just sort of status quo.

Lance is livid that Roy has spoiled his fun of having Oliver summarily executed. But that isn't going to stop him. Oh no. He's going to see Oliver rot in jail if it's the last thing he does and no amount of rational thinking will get in his way.

Laurel comes to the precinct with signed orders to let Oliver go and Lance puts his hands over his ears and goes, "la la la la la!" Laurel wins some points with me by pointedly remarking that apparently only her dad gets to be above the law.

Ray comes into Felicity's office and wonders why she isn't rending her garments over Roy and Oliver. She's basically done with her boys and their endless desire to martyr themselves, though. She's too busy running the world to be bothered with their drama.

Ray then tries to walk back his whole, "I love you" declaration, which is sad because it's a total lie but he can tell he's kind of freaked Felicity out. And that makes total sense. If a gorgeous, wealthy, philanthropic, funny, noble, caring and supportive guy is in love with you, it's best to hold out for a better offer—like say from a self-indulgent, self-destructive, emotionally unavailable sociopath.

Oliver gets a chance to talk to Roy so they can have a guilt-off.

"It's my fault for bringing you into this!" insists Oliver.

"I killed a police officer!" says Roy.

"I've killed way more people than that!"

"But after I killed that guy I stole a poor kid's lunch money!"

And so on.

Malcolm Merlyn tries to reason with Oliver—and when the nutjob that leveled half the city is talking sense you have to wonder if maybe you've officially lost all credibility. Oliver doesn't want to hear any of Malcolm's advice. And it still seems out of character to me for Malcolm to not be scheming to take over the League himself.

In the midst of all this drama, there's a new meta human wreaking havoc in Star City. It's about time someone realized that it made more sense to use their super powers in a city without a super human defender. Though it might make even more sense to pursue your criminal career in, I don't know, Cleveland.

Lance storms into Verdant—which never seems open anymore—and gleefully announces that he has discovered there is a basement according to city records. First, Oliver basically built the Arrow Cave himself, so I have no idea why it would be on any plans. Second, in the next moment Lance makes a comment about how he searched it once before so why did he even need to bring up the city records at all?

See, show? It didn't have to be like this. All I asked for were some abs, some jokes and not to ditch Roy. But you wanted to play hardball....

Lance ransacks the Arrow Cave but to his disappointment, Team Arrow wiped the place clean so that only Roy's prints remained. Lance is so pissed he takes it out on a potted plant. And then he declares that he'll get Oliver Queen and his little dog too.

Since Lance kicked over his sandcastle, Oliver decides the best idea is to go to the secondary base to work on dealing with the metahuman. Diggle reminds Oliver that that's a really stupid idea for all the very obvious reasons. Oliver sulks and asks Felicity to bring in Barry.

"Oh, his plate is full on account of the fact that Wells is a psycho murdering face-sucker who needs to be put down. But.... There's always my boyfriend."

Over at Palmer Technologies, Ray is playing with his toys when Felicity comes in with a pouting, sullen Oliver in tow. Since Oliver is too busy sulking to ask for help, she does it for him and Ray grins like the big kid he is at the idea of a team-up.

"High five!" he says and Oliver grumpily gives him one.

BTW, it's okay to love Ray. He's got his own show right now so there's no chance of him being randomly and pointlessly killed or written out for no good reason.

Flashback!

Still pointless. Apparently, Amanda Waller was being held prisoner by the generic evil army person. That's a dumb move right there. If you cross Waller, you pay for it. That will only result in her detonating a nuke in your general vicinity.

Random Army Guy is going to unleash the deadly plague on Hong Kong for crazy reasons that don't make a lick of sense. It's up to Oliver and the Hong Kong branch of Team Arrow to stop all the people from being killed.

I wonder if they'll succeed? /sarcasm

Back in Star City.... Or wherever Iron Heights happens to be in the vast six hundred miles between Star City and Central City, Thea wants some answers from Roy about why he's being an idiot. He doesn't answer, though, because he doesn't want to lie to her. I thought we were passed this, Roy. She knows all about you and Oliver. You didn't need to get sent to the Pokey just to keep her paws off you.

Ray shows how awesome he is by figuring out their meta human's identity. Oliver forgets the reasons they went to Ray in the first place and starts to run off to deal with Blasto. Ray politely reminds him that he's the superhero this week and Oliver needs to sit down and be quiet.

Ray then gets baptized into the world of heroing by getting totally pwned! Apparently, the suit is just for looks as it does nothing to prevent damage from concussive impact or even being choked with a big iron chain.

Tony Stark would be very disappointed in you Ray.

Oliver temporarily removes his cranium from his anus and instead of lecturing Ray on why he can never, ever join the super hero club, actually gives him some decent advice. And Ray again shows how great he is by actually listening.

Prisons keep child molesters out of general population because having someone die while in your custody leads to expensive lawsuits. Apparently, though, vigilantes who have saved countless lives are afforded no such protections. A group of thugs jump Roy and he beats the crap out of them even though his wrists are cuffed (for absolutely no reason).

Lance continues to be a dick, ripping apart Thea's loft in his vendetta. His old boss shows up and points out that no one agrees with him and it's time for him to stop being insane. Well, naturally, Lance doesn't want to hear it. He's like Roscoe P. Coltrane, except horrible.

Oliver gets news about the attack on Roy and that's it for him. He's getting off the bench and getting back into the action. Only not, because Diggle totally shuts him down.

"I've already lost everything," Oliver says.

Wow. So, you have your sister who loves you and supports you, the support and love of all your friends but you have nothing? Such a charming lad.

Lance goes to visit Roy in prison in an effort to get him to admit to not being the Arrow. He starts off okay, trying to say he was afraid Roy's passion obsession would wind him up in trouble. Then things go off the rails, of course. When Roy admits to killing the officer, Lance sneers at him that being in prison won't make up for being a vigilante.

So.... Then why does Lance want to see Oliver in jail?

Felicity decides that it's been too long since she walked headfirst into danger in a skirt and heels, so she goes all by herself to plant some tracker things in the local power plant. But Blasto is there and once again she's in peril.

Oliver wants to help, but Ray has a better idea. He'll go in Oliver's place and Oliver can have control of his body. Well, that certainly has some interesting possibilities. I wonder how sensitive those sensors are, anyway....

With Oliver using the Wii technology, it's a much more fairer fight. Though somehow Blasto is able to take full roundhouse punches to the face with a metal glove and stay standing, Oliver/Ray beat the crap out of him pretty good. And then Blasto blasts him and Ray is on his own.

Seriously, dude, did you not figure that the people you met in this suit would ever fight back?

Anyway, Oliver gives Ray the "full hearts, clear eyes, can't lose" speech and Ray chooses to punch Blasto in the face rather than get blasted to pieces. And the day is saved and the damsel is rescued and so on.

Then Roy dies in prison.

Oliver comes home to where Lance is giving Thea the news. The repulsive captain abandons any semblance of humanity when he sneers at Oliver, "I'd say I'm sorry but we both know this is your fault."

This episode would have been one hundred times better if Oliver had decked him right then.

Oliver goes to the Arrow Cave to mourn and try to figure out how to make room for a new truckload of guilt. He remembers all the good times with Roy—training, laughing, snuggling.... Improper uses of the Salmon Ladder....

Felicity and Diggle show up and are like, "Psych! We were just playing."

Roy faked his death, with a little help from Diggle. He came up with the whole plan himself, because he's awesome, even though being awesome on this show is a killable offense. They used one of the 679 compounds that exist to make one seem dead and then smuggled his hot bod out of Iron Heights.

But now he has to go so that the show can make room for characters we can't stand. There's a lot of teary goodbyes. I assume Oliver and Roy said their goodbyes off screen. Then Roy gets into his fancy red sports car and drives off, leaving yet another void in the show.

Felicity makes mooky eyes at Oliver because the writers have forgotten she's far too awesome to be that girl. Ray notices and clearly he's sad to see that her heart belongs to someone else. I know Ray, it's hard to believe. There's no reason to think Felicity could be that stupid. But people surprise you.

Ray drops by Central City to put Blasto into the Dungeon of Forever Confinement and to hang out with his buddy Cisco. BTW, Ray? Cisco would totally appreciate you and not play headgames with you. You should think that over.

Ray asks the questions that we've all been asking—how do the people in the Dungeon eat and go to the bathroom. Cisco is utterly baffled by the question, as if that had never occurred to him before. So, just like one of my commenters said, the prisoners died off like hamsters a kid forgot to feed I guess.

The reason for Cisco's appearance is to drop the bomb that Blasto didn't get his powers from the particle accelerator explosion. So the universe expands with even more possibilities, none of which include awesome characters returning to the fold.

Ra's al Ghul stops by Thea's apartment just to murder her real quick. The writers of this show suffer from Game of Thrones envy, apparently. I guess Diggle was lucky that his wedding didn't turn into a bloodbath.

As one can see, this recapper isn't pleased with the latest happenings. I have heard some hints that perhaps Colton left of his own accord, but I have to think that even were that true, he wouldn't have done so if he had been utilized on this show to his fullest capacity.

Thoughts? Comments?

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