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How Much Further Will They Go? Recapping Arrow 3.17: 'Suicidal Tendencies'

By Rich Epstein

When last we met our hero, he was being warned by his friend that Ra's al Ghul would not take no for an answer. We caught a glimpse of the threat to come when Ra's, dressed as Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) began his crusade to turn the city against the Arrow by committing murder in the Arrow's name. This week, we pick up where we left off, with a wedding. Huh. It's a bit jarring, seeing Oliver and John Diggle (David Ramsey) laughing and getting ready to celebrate John's wedding to Lyla (Audrey Marie Anderson). Laughing never seems to last very long on this show. Neither does celebrating. We'll see if we can get through the ceremony before something goes terribly wrong.

Well, Oliver's laughter certainly didn't last very long. In come Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) and her plus one, Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh). Great time for Oliver, watches his best friend get married while the love of his life looks on with her boyfriend. After Diggle warns Ray against hurting Felicity, he finds out that the officiant had to cancel. Ray tells the group that he is a minister and can officiate the wedding. So, the wedding begins. There is a really nice shot of Oliver watching Felicity watching Ray. You can really feel his pain as she smiles with pride at another man.

The vows are great. Lyla opens with "Do you really want to do this?" "Hell yeah, do you?" "Even more than the first time." I haven't always loved the work the writers do with the relationships, but this was perfect. Rather than getting all sappy, it cut right to the chase of who these people are. They've been married, they have a child, they love each other. They are both soldiers, their world is about action, not words. John puts the ring on her finger before they even finish those short vows because that is what matters, the action.

While most of the guests are dancing, Oliver and Felicity have a little chat. Oliver tells her that he is happy for her, "You deserve a normal guy and a normal life." Uh huh. Even without knowing about the whole ATOM suit thing, is a billionaire really that much of a "normal" guy? Anyway, about this time the party gets interrupted as Felicity, Oliver and Roy simultaneously get emails with a news story about the Arrow returning to killing.

Cut to the team (plus Lyla) in the Arrowcave, watching Quentin Lance (Paul Blackthorne) give a press conference. Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy) interrupts to point out that the witness' story is unverified. For some reason, Ray is at the press conference with the mayor, the chief of police, and the acting district attorney. Maybe I missed something, but when did he run for office? Anyway, he is given the podium and states that the Arrow needs to be brought to trial, and that he is using all of his resources to make it happen. Lyla tells the team they need to find out who is behind it, but they already know. Oliver asks Felicity and Roy to start looking into the next target, and tells John and Lyla to start their honeymoon. He isn't going to let Ra's al Ghul take away their day. Even if I hadn't seen the previews for this, there was no way they were going to make it to Fiji. Anyway, they get to the limo to go to the airport only to find Deadshot (Michael Rowe) waiting for them; "The Suicide Squad rides again."

They arrive at ARGUS headquarters, and meet with Amanda Waller (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) who needs Lyla to lead the Suicide Squad to rescue a senator overseas. Diggle won't let Lyla go alone, so he tells Waller he's in and asks to meet the rest of the team. In addition to Deadshot, we have Cupid (Amy Gumenick). Seems like kind of a small team.

The team lands in Kasnia and begins their mission. Cupid talks about how in love she is with the Arrow. Lyla tells Diggle that the mission is to get the senator, not the other hostages. Trouble in paradise already?

Flashback…to Deadshot? Wow, that was surprising. We see him as a soldier coming home to surprise his wife. His daughter is there, she doesn't know him. Her mother told her about him, but she's never actually met him and she's scared.

Back in Starling, Oliver has a lead on the League's next target and heads out. Only he's not in time, the bad guys are all dead before he arrives. He is in time to have it out with the assassin. He shoots the bad guy in the chest, but the assassin pulls out the arrow. They fight, and Oliver gets the upper hand when several more assassins dressed like the Arrow show up. Oliver takes them all out, and Maseo Yamashiro (Karl Yune) steps from the shadows to warn Oliver that he can't kill them all. He sets off a smoke bomb, and the assassins disappear, just before ATOM shows up. Before he even enters the building, Ray's suit is able to tell that it's Oliver under the hood. Through a building. I guess we are going to start out with full on x-ray vision. For some reason, Ray leaves.

The next day, Ray is at the office when Felicity walks in. Ray tells Felicity what he discovered, and that he knows that she knows about Oliver. She tells him that Oliver isn't the killer, and asks Ray to trust her. He takes it as a sign that she has feelings for Oliver, and he tells her that since she hid this from him, he can't trust her anymore. He wanted a true partner, someone who could help him. Dumb. Think about it, would you rather that she was the type of person who would betray someone's secret? She told him that there was something between her and Oliver, but it's over. And Ray thinks she should now be betraying Oliver's trust. Would that really be a good sign? If you are someone with a secret identity, wouldn't you rather have someone who you know will never betray that type of secret? Anyway, he tells her that he is going to keep his promise to the city and bring the Arrow to justice.

Meanwhile, the Suicide Squad is working on entry into the building, which Deadshot facilitates by taking out the guards. We move back to his flashbacks, to find his daughter still won't look at him, or even eat a sandwich he made. She won't talk, and he loses his temper. His wife walks in and we find that he can't hold a job, won't socialize. She wants to know what happened, or at least wants him to talk to someone. He ends up putting a gun to her, and tells her how he killed people overseas. He snaps out of it, and she calls the cops. The scene is kind of cliched, but probably for a reason. I can't imagine what it would be like to kill a lot of people and then be expected to go home and have a normal life.

Oliver is in the Arrowcave talking to Roy when Felicity walks in and tells them "he knows." She gives Ray's whole story to Oliver, and he is a little pissed that she didn't tell him about Ray. Kinda missing the point.

At the DA's office, Ray is talking to Laurel, and she doesn't give much weight to his testimony. He knows she is protecting Oliver, knows about their history, and deduces that she is the Canary. He tells her he will have to find justice on his own.

The Suicide Squad takes out the terrorists and get to the senator, only to find out that he set everything up when he pulls a gun on Cupid. Deadshot saves her (looks like she has a new love interest) taking a shot in the process, and all heck breaks loose. Despite the fact 1that the four Squad members just took out a whole group of trained terrorists, the one senator with a handgun is able to hold them at bay. Diggle has the group fall back as more terrorists storm in. Diggle patches up Deadshot, seeing his brother's name tattooed with Deadshot's other victims on his chest. Lyla radios for help, but can't get through. The senator talks to them through the radio. It turns out this was all a ploy to get his poll numbers up. Everyone was supposed to live, but now that they are all witnesses, the hostages will have to die. Along with the Suicide Squad. We'll see about that.

Back in Starling, Ray is at work in his office when Oliver walks in. They have a talk, Ray doesn't believe Oliver is innocent. Oliver tells Ray he should trust Felicity, but Ray thinks her judgment of Oliver is clouded by her feelings. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but Brandon Routh just could not match Stephen Amell in this scene. Maybe it was supposed to be that way; Oliver has had years to perfect the menacing look and threatening banter. But it came off looking like Amell was just the better actor.

In Kasnia, Lyla discovers that the building is rigged with explosives. She starts to panic, because she doesn't want to make their baby an orphan. Deadshot tells Lyla that they will make it out, which turns Cupid on. I must say, I like her a lot better as a supporting character. She is to one-dimensional to be the focus of an episode, but she works in small doses.

In his flashback, Deadshot is in jail when he gets a visit from someone with a lot of money who has use for a sharpshooter. It's one part of a larger organization, some sort of a hive (or H.I.V.E.). She tells him that his wife filed a restraining order against him, that he will never get to see his wife or child again. He accepts her offer and gets his first target, one Andrew Diggle. Well, guess that answers that question. Kind of, since we still don't know what HIVE is going to be on the show, other than our likely big bad for Season 4.

Oliver tells Felicity about his meeting with Ray. He thinks that Ray is unstable to be going after a man he thinks is a mass murderer (not to mention talking to the supposed mass murderer without his super suit a few minutes ago), and Oliver is afraid that Ray will be the next one killed. "You would like that wouldn't you" says Felicity, and Oliver recoils as if slapped. Oliver tells Felicity that he was happy for her, right until he found out that Ray was just like him. As they argue, Felicity gets an alarm and Oliver tells her to have Roy suit up and meet them. It turns out that it was a fake 911 call from Palmer. He shows up in his suit, and we are about to get a superhero showdown. ATOM starts off with a blast of energy, that Arrow and Arsenal dodge before Oliver fires back. The arrow bounces off of ATOM's suit, and Oliver realizes he's in trouble.

Maybe there's a reason we don't hear about a lot of people armed with bow and arrows, not that useful of a weapon in modern days. Palmer hits Roy with a blast, and Arsenal's done for the fight. Ray is on the verge of taking out Oliver, when Oliver notices a weak spot on the suit and hits it. The suit shuts down (boy, that was a bigger design flaw than the exhaust port on the Death Star) and Oliver has him dead to rights, but he doesn't finish him off, trying instead to show Palmer that he isn't a killer. He tells Palmer that Felicity chose him, now he needs to trust her, and helps him up. Oliver then walks off, as Palmer watches in confusion. I guess Roy is still just lying there? Maybe Oliver should have stopped to check on his friend? Does he need a doctor?

Diggle and his team bust in on the senator and take out terrorists. The senator threatens to detonate the explosives, and the three of them surrender. Three? That's right, one is missing. Deadshot takes out the terrorists through the window and shoots the detonator out of the senators hand. He tells the Squad that he won't be making it out, he is going to cover their escape from the roof of the building. He wants John and Lyla to make it back to their baby girl. The building blows with Deadshot still on the roof. That was noble and all, but couldn't he have told Diggle who ordered the hit on his brother first? Or are we saving HIVE for next season?

Felicity goes to talk to Ray, who is feeling a bit humiliated (and in a lot of pain). He apologizes to her, and tells her that he trusts her.

At the Diggle household, John is holding his daughter while a news report airs about the hostage situation. It turns out that the senator (and ARGUS) put the blame on Deadshot and bought off the hostages. Diggle tells Lyla he's leaving team Arrow, he can't keep risking his life. She tells him that the work he and Oliver do is good work, not like the work she's been doing for ARGUS, which is why she resigned. He tells her he's proud, and that nothing is ever going to change that.

Diggle returns to talk with Oliver. They toast to Deadshot, and Diggle tells Oliver they have to stop the fake-Arrow before any more people are killed, to which Oliver says "or they start killing innocent people." So, I guess we know what's next on the Ra's al Ghul playbook.

And we don't have to wait long. Ray, Felicity, Laurel and Quentin are in the mayor's office. Ray says that he believes the Arrow was framed, while Laurel and Quentin bicker about it. The mayor tells them to knock it off, right before an arrow hits her in the chest. It's Maseo, and he has Felicity in his sites as the episode comes to a close.

This was one of the better episodes this season. A lot of really good scenes that highlighted the complicated relationships between these characters. Not to mention, less Laurel and Thea is always a plus. Deadshot is always a good character, and like I said, Cupid worked in this episode as well.

The ATOM/Arrow fight was a bit of a let down. It was pretty short, and pretty one-sided until Oliver found the weak spot. I know Ray has a supersuit and all, but how long has it been actually working? Felicity didn't even know that it was ready. I just thought Oliver should have been able to use his skills to make a more even fight against the overpowered but inexperienced Palmer, kind of like against the Flash.

It will be interesting to see where we go the rest of the season…with the League taking out the mayor, how much further will they go? Just taking out random people on the street? Then what? We still have like six episodes left. Next week will be mostly about the manhunt for Oliver, and then?

Rich Epstein writes for Bleeding Cool. He can be found on twitter at @kaspe_r11.

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