‘Arrow’ 7×20 recap: Roy Harper returns with a dark secret
WARNING: The following article contains spoilers from Season 7, Episode 20 of Arrow titled “Confessions”. Do not read if you have not seen the episode or read ahead at your own risk.
After a season of seeing Roy Harper’s life in the future via flash forwards, Monday’s Arrow saw him finally return in the present day and he came back with one hell of a secret.
The episode kicks off with Oliver being questioned by the SCPD about the murder of two Transit System security guards. Oliver confesses to the police that Emiko is his half-sister and says she is the one the SCPD should be questioning.
From there, the show takes viewers on one rollercoaster of a ride as it time jumps back and forth to three days before the guards were murdered. It was a little hard to follow if you weren’t paying close attention. This is one episode you couldn’t live tweet or you’d lose out on an important detail.
Dinah questions every member of Team Arrow one by one. This was easily the most boring part of the episode as each member of the team blamed each other. As we time hop, we find out the guards were killed during a fight as they tried to stop a biochemical attack by the Ninth Circle and Emiko.
Team Arrow calls in Roy Harper and he takes a break from destroying the Lazarus pits with Thea and Nyssa. As we go through the episode, we find out that Team Arrow was lying this entire time to the police about what they knew. The team lied to the SCPD because it was actually Roy who killed both of the security guards. Yes, that includes Dinah too.
The team had been investigating Emiko so they knew that she and the Ninth Circle were planning on stealing from Aerodyne. But as we find out later, they were a crooked company who was getting money from the Ninth Circle this whole time.
During the big fight scene of Team Arrow versus Emiko/the Ninth Circle, Roy got knocked out. When he comes back to his senses, he is overcome with rage and takes out any Ninth Circle members in his path. He also, unfortunately, happens to come across the security guards and beats them with a pipe until Oliver showed up to stop him.
Dinah was there that night as well — in her Black Canary outfit — but Oliver is determined to understand why Roy did what he did. It doesn’t take long for Oliver to realize that this was not just Mirakuru — this was blood lust.
Yup, you read that right. Roy died and was reborn with the same Lazarus pit that Thea and Nyssa were working to destroy. Nyssa gave Roy some lotus to help with the after-effects but the Mirakuru changed his body in some way. Felicity gets a hit on Emiko’s location as Oliver and the team head out to finally confront her.
However, this is all one big trap by Emiko and the Ninth Circle. Not only did Emiko take the security footage of Roy killing the guards and send it to Sgt. Bingsley, but she also told Oliver that she knew Robert Queen was going to die on the Queen’s Gambit and did nothing about it. She tells him that she is planning to ruin his legacy by using the bioweapon because that is what the Queens deserve.
Emiko lures Team Arrow to an abandoned part of the building and sets off several bombs, burying the team under the rubble. The very last scene shows Oliver being sandwiched pretty hard.
Episode Notes:
- Dinah was extremely annoying during the early portions of this episode as the “whodunit” storyline opened. I felt her actions were very out of character for her.
- Felicity’s interrogation was the best! She’s eating for two but I do question why she picked out the purple candies. Those were the best ones!
- Overall, the episode did not do much for me. It didn’t really advance the story apart from bringing Roy back into the present time. It is so unbelievable that Diggle, Oliver, Dinah, or Rene would ever beat two guards to death.
- The fact that Team Arrow lied to the cops is not going to end well and might be a reason why vigilantes are so hated in 2040.
What did you make of the episode? Let me know in the comments below!
Arrow airs Mondays at 9/8c on The CW.