The show is so incredibly better with Deathstroke on it that is for sure. Oliver is back on the island and goes to talk to Slade Wilson, who shockingly to Oliver seems to be well put together and thinking very clearly upstairs. He says that the mind control has wore off quite some time ago. Oliver tells Slade that he needs his help to save his family and friends, and in exchange he gives Slade information on his sons current whereabouts as incentive. The guard doesn’t want to let Slade leave, so Oliver knocks him out and takes Slade and Digger Harkness, AKA Boomerang for his mission. With those two in the fold along with Malcolm and Nyssa and Malcolm the team starts inland, they don’t get to far when a missile expertly destroys the plane off the island.
Nyssa and Malcolm head one direction, Oliver, Digger and Slade the other, Slade is doing the tracking, while Digger complains at the lack of weapons and Oliver says he trusts Slade over him. It turns out to be the right call, as the trio come upon a clearing with Felicity, Curtis, Thea, and Oliver’s mother of his child in individual cages, it was a trap as Digger double crossed them, he had a gun all along that Chase gave him, as Artemis and Nyssa’s sister comes down from the trees with loaded guns on them. The bad guys say that Chase didn’t approach Slade as he thought it was a waste of time, but maybe now that he sees who the winning side is he wants to change his mind. Slade says I’m sorry kid as he tells Artemis to put a gun to Oliver’s head, Slade sucker punches Harkless and Oliver is able to disarm Artemis, around this time Nyssa and Malcolm return and are coming up from behind, Talia throws out a smoke escape allowing her and Harkless to escape but Artemis is capture and put in a cage. Oliver tries to get information out of her, but she doesn’t give up anything, Oliver says when it’s over, despite his best judgement he will come back for her.
Oliver wants Malcolm to fly a plane and get the loved ones who were just caged to the mainland and safety and then to come back to help fight. Felicity gives Oliver a kiss before they separate and they say they will talk about things when they are both safe off the island. Nyssa starts to track her sister’s tracks, while Oliver and Slade are behind, Slade tells Oliver that he thinks he has survivors guilt, and it is one of the hardest things to do but he needs to forgive himself for it. At another part of the island, Thea and Malcolm are talking, but still not on the same page about love and respect, when Thea steps on a land mine. Malcolm does a quick look at the mine, and they realize they can’t diffuse it, so Malcolm pushes Thea out of the way and takes her place on the mine. Boomerang and his goons are finally catching up to the group, Malcolm tells them they have to go and get off the island. Boomerang and the goons get close to Malcolm and start to make fun of him for standing still, but they don’t realize what’s happening and after giving the rest a head start, he sacrifices himself and seemingly blows himself and the others up. Thea who wouldn’t give Malcolm the time of day is now visibly shook, she says it’s weird that now he is gone she misses him, and she got a glimpse of how good of a father he could have been. The group does find Chase’s plane, but Curtis notices some antennas, and between him and Felicity looking at a scan on a tablet(that Oliver gave her) she realizes that the whole island is setup with explosives.
Nyssa, Slade and Oliver find and make way inside the temple, the group splits up again, with Nyssa going one way and Slade knocking Oliver out and giving him to Black Siren for Chase. What a low down double crosser, they put Oliver in the same room with the rest of his friends, while inside he gives Dyna the sonic dampener Curtis was working on, she uses her sonic voice to break all of the chains. Back inside it’s a sister fight, Nyssa versus Talia! When Nyssa has the upper hand, Talia’s goons go to attack when Deathstroke comes out and dispatches them quite easily. Oliver thanks Deathstroke as it was all a ploy to get Oliver to Dyna so the others could escape. With all this commotion Adrian Chase and more goons show up and welcomes Oliver to purgatory. Oliver asks where his son William is, Adrian says that he wants Oliver to kill him, and everyone starts to fight.
During the course of the fighting, Black Siren and Dyna are going head to head, and they both use the canary cry against each other knocking both of them backwards. Black Siren is able to get to her feet first and starts to close in on Dyna when Lance is able to face his fears and knocks Black Siren out from behind! Dyna said he didn’t have to do that, and he said that for more reasons than one he did. In a way it seems that Lance is embracing the fact that Black Siren is not his daughter, and maybe in some way Dyna being the Black Canary can help ease the sting and maybe be a de-facto daughter to him in the future? Pure speculation on my part.
The rest of the rag tag team dispatch of Adrian’s goons while Oliver has Adrian in a choke hold. Adrian refuses to tell Oliver and keeps telling Oliver to kill him, he says that’s not going to happen that’s who he was not who he is anymore. Oliver lets him go since he won’t kill him and Adrian isn’t talking, so he kicks it up a notch and tells him, “your son is dead Oliver.” Thinking that is enough to get someone’s blood boiling to deal a final blow, Oliver says he doesn’t believe Adrian since he is a liar. Felicity talks to Oliver via the coms, and tells Oliver he can’t kill Adrian as the island is rigged with explosives to a dead man switch, so if Adrian dies the whole island will go off. Adrian escaped during the exchange, and Oliver tells everyone to go and get on the plane and off this island as he is going after Adrian and his son.
Oliver is able to catch up and see Adrian leaving on a boat and is able to get on as it’s leaving, they have a punching fight on the boat. Back on the island the plane was sabotaged from the get go and never use able. Adrian tells Oliver he has William and takes him from the holding dock and tells Oliver he has to make a choice. He can save William and kill all his friends on the island, or he can save his friends and Chase will kill William. Oliver ponders and starts to lower his bow and shoots Adrian in the knee freeing William, Oliver says he won’t kill Adrian and Adrian isn’t killing anyone. Adrian had one last sick trick up his sleeve as he pulls out a gun and commits suicide, which in turn causes the whole island to go up in explosions as the season concludes.
Questions we will hope to have answered, did Curtis and Felicity find a way to get everyone off the island or into some shelter? I have to look back but I think the grid might have had some small patches that explosions wouldn’t cover did Felicity get everyone there in time? Or was Adrian Chase one of the biggest villains Arrow has ever faced and he is now on his own, unless he re-recruits Ragman?
