Does Bratva mean boring in English? I’m not sure I’ll call you back and let you know. Photo Credit: Arrow/CW
I have not been shy to say, and my view has not at all changed, that I find the Russian story line to be a bore. This recap is going to be pretty brief because of this, they had current situations in Russia, and flashed back in the past to Russia, that tied back to current Russia. Don’t overthink it, I didn’t.
Quentin has returned from rehab, he has rejoined Oliver on his campaign. Quentin wanted to set up an interview with, who he finds out now to be Oliver’s reporter girlfriend, to tell his story instead of hiding behind it. Rene is asked to stay back with Quentin and not take the trip to Russia with the rest of the team to help prep, and keep an eye on Quentin and to not start an international incident. Rene grills Quentin in a mock interview which gets Quentin to crack and tell Rene he doesn’t want to see him when he gets back. A long time later we see Quentin returning to Arrow’s headquarters seeing Rene train and they talked about the interview, and how Quentin did great and thinks the reporter went easy on him because of something Rene said. Rene told Quentin he told the reporter a story of the type of guy Quentin is, when he was younger Quentin stopped him for graffiti and instead of taking him in he got down to his level looked him in the eyes and said he could be so much more. That was the start of a turn around for Rene and that is the type of guy Quentin is.
Russia, well the rest of the team heads to Russia tracking down General Walker with the nuke, they believe he is going to sell it to terrorists. Oliver isn’t welcomed by his Bratva brothers very well, with a punch to the face to be exact. The team gets a lead on where they think Walker might be, but it is a trap, a couple of Walker’s men are killed, one is taken prisoner as Walker escapes. They take him back to their current place for questioning but he doesn’t give up any information even with Diggle beating him up.
Oliver goes to the Bratva for help, which leads to another lead on General Walker. They are able to stop the deal, and John got very close to killing Walker but stopped. Rory and Felicity had a moment where Rory questioned how Felicity got some information out of a thug who seemed scared, and like he didn’t owe Felicity anything. She said she was using information she was given by H.I.V.E. that was in addition to the information she got to get John Diggle free. Rory didn’t like that aspect and felt she crossed the line.
The two realize that the bomb is in a hanger and not originally with Walker, who tried to sell, steal and sell again to another party. Felicity tried to disarm it but it had a defense mechanism which made the countdown drop drastically down after being tampered with. Felicity thinking she would fail was thinking the only way is to fly it to a less populated area when Rory thinks since the rags survived one nuclear explosion it could survive another so he engulfed the bomb with his rags, sent Felicity out to shield during the detonation. It did go off, Rory survived, but his rag suit suffered damage and he couldn’t continue to use it and set to leave the team via text until Felicity saw him at his antique shop. Personal note I’m sorry to see Rory as the Ragman go. He was one of my favorite characters left on the show, but I can understand it as he seems very over powered compared to others on the team and current opposition.
Back home Oliver and his reporter finally had sex, which she was wanting for awhile, but we learn as a ploy to try to get more information out of Oliver, she asked a number of questions he didn’t want to answer. We close this episode with the reporter talking to her spy about Oliver’s trip, and how crime didn’t seem to go up during the trip but reports of the hooded figured did the time Oliver was there so the reporter is piecing together that Oliver is also the Green Arrow.
Next week an enemy who has lots of guns, let’s hope it is brings more excitement!
