Team Arrow is on the hunt for a new Black Canary, but no one will live up to Laurel Lance. A hacktivist tells Felicity that their group has everything she needs to free John Diggle once and for all.
The Arrow team got to take a break from hunting Prometheus, while they looked for a new Black Canary. Rory made a good point when he essentially described the perfect soldier as well as a decent human being, and Oliver still said no. Despite what he thinks, Oliver isn’t ready to have a new Black Canary.
They finally find a good candidate, but she’s operating in Hub City. Tina Boland was in Central City during the particle accelerator explosion, and the blast turned her into a metahuman. Unfortunately, Tina was working undercover as a cop at the time, and she and her partner were just burned. Her partner was killed, but she survived. Now, she’s out to get revenge on the drug lords who killed her partner.
Oliver, Curtis, and Rene head to Hub City to ask Tina to join their team. When they meet up with her, she is less than impressed. Oliver offers to help Tina in her quest for justice, but he says that no one has to die. Oliver tells Tina that she’s afraid of what happened to her and what she’s becoming. He offers to help her find her way back. I’m no expert, but I’m going to guess that Oliver is projecting just a little bit onto Tina.
The Arrow team helps out Tina, and they work together to take down the drug king who killed her partner. But when Tina came face to face with her lover’s killer, she couldn’t be stopped. Oliver tried to tell her that she didn’t have to kill him, but she pulled the trigger anyway. She claims it’s what her partner would have wanted. In the end, Tina doesn’t feel liberated, but Oliver offers her the chance to be part of a team again. Oliver hopes that she can be his second chance. Then, she reveals her true identity. Tina Boland was a cover; her real name is Dinah Drake. The puzzle pieces are finally coming together.
In the flashback this week, we get to finally see more of Talia al Ghul. Oliver wants to get back to the Bratva, but Talia tells him that he needed rescuing. Talia was Yao Fei’s teacher, and she says that Oliver is destined for so much more. She says that the world needs people like him. Talia lets Oliver help her take down some bad guys, and he uses a gun. It’s as weird as it sounds. After, Talia reminds Oliver that he keeps looking for new fights when there’s a fight right in front of him.
Talia pulls out Robert Queen’s book with the list of names of people who are failing Star City (formerly Starling City). Oliver knows that he’s not the man that his father raised, but Talia offers to help him find his way back from thinking of himself as a monster. Talia gives Oliver the tools that he has been using from day 1 as the hood. Talia tells to give the identity; she says, “It’s only when the monster becomes someone else, something else, that you’re free to become Oliver Queen.†Talia agrees to help him get ready and starts by giving him the first Green Arrow costume we saw.
Meanwhile, poor Diggle is still rotting away in prison. The DA, Adrian Chase, found out that the NSA was building a case against General Walker, but he must have friends in high places. The investigation was stonewalled. Felicity wouldn’t stand for that, so she turns back to the dark web. She knows that the information to free Diggle must be out there. Someone hacks into Felicity’s computer offering to help, but they have to meet in person.
When Felicity sits down with the scary hacker from the dark web, it’s like she’s looking in the past. A young girl sits down on the bench and can’t believe she’s meeting her hero. She tells Felicity that she became a hacktivist because of Felicity. She was actually disappointed to hear that Felicity “went all corporate.†The girl is part of a hacktivist group called Helix, and they have everything Felicity needs to clear John’s name. They call it Pandora. She hands Pandora over to Felicity in hopes that she can inspire Felicity to be the hacktivist she used to be and to help the world.
