'Arrow' Recap: Sara Reunites With Her Father; Ollie Fights The League Of Assassins

by UInterviewNovember 7, 2013, 12:00 amNews >

This week on Arrow, Oliver learned more about what happened to Sarah on the island and helped Sarah reunite with her family in “League of Assassins.”

Sara (Caity Lotz), back from the dead, is staying with Oliver (Stephen Amell) at the Queen mansion. She wakes up in the middle of the night from a nightmare – she’s dreaming about being ‘rescued’ after the Queen’s Gambit sunk in the storm. Sara was taken aboard a creepy ship, thrown in a cage and then rescued by an even creepier scientist who claims he is going to ‘save human kind.’

Sara gets up and meets Ollie in the living room. He tries, again, to convince her that her family, Laurel and her father, need to know that she is alive. Sarah, once again, refuses, and before Ollie can even try to change her mind, they are interrupted when an assassin dressed up as Malcolm Merlin crashed through a window and tried, unsuccessfully, to kill them.

Oliver and Sara headed to Verdant and met with Dig (David Ramsey) and Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) in the Arrow basement HQ. Oliver wants Felicity to track down whoever attacked them, but Sara says they shouldn’t. She knows who he was – a member of the League of Assassins sent to kill her. It’s then that Sara comes clean: to survive after being separated from Ollie, she joined the League of Assassins, but, after killing a diplomat whose body was found by his children, she left the organization. But, as with any nefarious organization, you can’t just leave the League, the only way out is to die. That’s why she doesn’t want her family to know she’s alive: she doesn’t think they’d want her back if they knew she’d been a murderer for the last five years.

Ollie left Sara with Felicity and Diggle to visit his mother in prison with Thea (Willa Holland), their lawyer and the prosecutor. He is less than pleased to see that Laurel (Katie Cassidy) is now second chair for the prosecution, and quickly gets even angrier when he hears what they are offering: a deal for life in prison with the possibility of parole. Moira (Susanna Thompson) wants to take the deal, disregarding Thea’s desperate pleas not to.

When Ollie returned to Sara, the two teamed up to hit the warehouse the Assassins have been hiding out. They barely make it out alive, and Sara gets injured, but the trip is not a total waste: they learn that Malcolm Merlin was a member of the League. Afraid for the safety of the Lance family, Ollie sends Felicity to get Quentin (Paul Blackthorne) to leave town for a few days while he keeps an eye on Laurel.

Ollie takes Laurel to dinner and insists on walking her to her door, prompting a very awkward Laurel to try to kiss him. He dodges it, and, depressed, Laurel starts to walk away after giving him a speech about how everyone in her life leaves her, one way or another. Her door is open, and Oliver checks out her empty apartment – no sign of an Assassin, they must have moved on. Ollie leaves her, and Lauren takes some pills.

Felicity has less luck with Quentin, who brushes off her warnings, forcing Sara to take matters into her own hands. She reveals herself to her father, and, after the two reunite over Chinese food and he realizes she is the Black Canary who has been beating up scum in the Glades, the two of them go to the clock tower and prepare to fight the League. With Ollie’s help, the two defeat the League members, but not before Sara has to kill a man in front of her father. She lets one survive, and sends him with a warning to the League: the Lance family is off limits. Quentin wants Sara to stay, but she insists that she has to leave to protect her family and begs him not to tell Laurel or their mother that she is alive. Arrow tells Quentin that she’s right; it’s the only way. Quentin and Sara say tearful goodbyes, and, just like that, Sara is gone.

Being around Sara and all her secrets, Oliver realizes that his mother is insisting on taking the deal, not because she wants to keep her secrets, but because she’s afraid Ollie and Thea won’t love her if they know the truth. Ollie and Thea pay their mother a visit and convince her that they’ll love her no matter what – she promises to fight and refuse the deal.

It’s been a long day – and Ollie wants a drink. He returns to his Arrow HQ and shares a drink with Diggle before telling him more about his past: for the five years he was missing, he was not always on the island. Flashback to a weak Ollie on the boat, being thrown to the ground by a guard. He looks up, and comes face to face with Sara. He tries to say something, but Sara kicks him: “Prisoners do not speak.”

Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.