Arrow Recap S2E18: Deathstroke

Slade give Thea his handkerchief, as she pours out her heart break. He tells her its not an easy thing to recover from, and sometimes you never do. Thea notices that she’s no where near home, as Slade kicks her out of his car, and she runs headlong into the Mask.

Digg notices that with Oliver’s new no kill method, the jails are overflowing. Roy tries to concentrate on his archery skills, but he’s far from a natural. He wonders if telling Thea wouldn’t have been a better alternative. Felicity mentions that when she last revealed the secret the guy was struck by lightning, poor Barry. Oliver tells him that if Thea knew she would be put into danger, that she’s less of a target if she stays in the dark. Felicity tries to get Oliver to focus on Queen Industries since he’s been skirting his duties of late. Oliver has Slade on his mind, but Felicity tells him he can’t avoid his duties forever, and wonders if he even knows where his business suits are anymore, teasing that perhaps they’re behind a cool glass case like his Arrow garb is.

Past. The group prepares to hand over Hendrick. They’re divided, knowing that it’s effectively sentencing him to death. Sara wonders if its an opportunity to kill Slade.

Oliver rushes to his board meeting, and finds just Isabel waiting. She planned for his tardiness and told him an earlier time, wanting to ensure that he was there since he is the face of the company. Moira pays her son a visit. She wants him to attend her debate later, even though there is still a rift between them. Oliver plans to play the part that he’s been assigned. Oliver looks for Thea, who is missing from the debate. Sebastian Blood tells Oliver that she may have been caught up in his security traffic. Laurel gives Blood an apology for the nasty things she said about him, and he forgives her, blaming her addictions for the paranoia.

During the debate Moira and Blood go head to head when a question comes in from Thea. She’s being held hostage and the question is memed on the screen “How much is Thea Queen’s Life Worth?” Diggle tries to calm Roy, telling him that they will find Thea as media swarms her. Blood suspends his campaign to find Thea. Lance asks Moira if there is anyone who would want to harm Thea, and Merlin comes to mind, but she says only the victims. Isabel brings out the claws to protect the Queens. Isabel tells Oliver that the board vote has to go on even amidst the crisis, and he hands over his power to her to handle the company business. Oliver turns his attention back to Thea. Felcity has tracked Slade’s car to the last known place Thea was spotted. Sara has gathered some pit viper venom to knock Slade out and Oliver lets Roy off his leash to save Thea.

Sara tries to get a bomb disarmed, and goes over her plan. Slade takes Hendrick, and Hendrick takes out Slade, and they take the ship.

Roy delivers some hits to Slade, but they have little effect. Slade wants to play with Oliver’s fears, but Oliver tells Roy to call Lance to arrest Slade, and he shoots an arrow into his chest, full of pit viper venom. Slade awakens in jail. Lance wonders what Slade wants with Thea. Sara tells him that Oliver has no idea she’s been working with Arrow. Moira and Oliver head down to the station, but Slade has proof that he’s been out of the country, just recently returned, so he couldn’t have kidnapped Thea.

Oliver pays Slade a visit. He tells him that he’s being called Deathstroke and he likes the name, finds it fitting. Slade stonewalls where Thea is concerned, so Oliver asks how he got off the island. It was a brutal leaving, and he would have died if not for the Mirakuru in his veins. It rejuvenated everything but his eye. He tried to let go of the island, but it still has a hold of him, like it does Oliver. Oliver tells him that Sara never did anything to him. Shado is dead because of his choices, not hers, not Thea’s. He begs for her life, and Slade relishes in that guilt, but it isn’t enough. Slade is a free man.

Slade Wilson gives a statement, offering a 5 million dollar reward that leads to Thea Queen’s captors. Diggle tails Slade, but he loses him. Sara rides in on a bike, but the car they’re following turns out to not be the right one. Roy loses him in the streets as well.

Thea waits, and Slade pays her a visit. He tells her that Oliver and Moira are worried about her. She threatens him, and he laughs it up. She asks what he wants with her, but he wants nothing. He tells her that she’s free to leave whenever she wants. She worries that his men will shoot her if she leaves. They won’t he tells her, they were just keeping her there until he returned. As she goes to leave, he entices her by dangling her brother’s secrets in front of her.

Felicity wonders the next move. Diggle wants to wait for Oliver. Roy is posing a mutiny. He feels that every move that Oliver has made, has been an utter mistake. Sara thinks that he blames Oliver, because he lost Slade.

The police sweep the Queen house for clues, and Moira talks about Thea as if she was already dead, remembering her as a child coloring on the walls. Oliver tries to get his mother to get some sleep. Moira asks if Thea is still alive. Oliver knows that she is. She tells him that she woke up every day for five years as a mother who lost her son, and she cannot do it again. She blames herself for the predicament that Thea is in. Moira spun her lies thinking that she was keeping her family safe but it was all lies. She tells him that you protect your children, never thinking that you can be your worst enemy.  The divide between Oliver and his mother closes just a little bit.

Sara prepares her trade. Slade gives her Ivo and Oliver and takes Hendricks, but he smells the bomb before they can get away. He doesn’t think the blast could kill him, he’s not so sure that the same could be said for Sara. He threatens to shoot Sara like Ivo shot Shado, but Oliver stands in his way, as does Shado’s memory.

Roy wants to go out to look for Thea, but Diggle tries to stop him. His rage makes him dangerous, and he pins down Diggle. Sara fires a shot at Roy, threatening to shoot him in the chest with the next one. Oliver arrives in the middle of the chaos. He points more finds at Oliver and his inaction,  and he’s ready to leave Team Arrow. Felicity finds more bad news.

Isabel conducts her meeting as acting CEO, and Oliver interrupts. Isabel sends the committee out, so she can have a private pow wow with him.  His temporary appointment allowed the committee to vote for her permant appointment. His company is now hers. Slade planted her to draw him back to Starling City, the sins of the father, she taunts him, and shows that she’s not just a pretty face with some butt kicking moves of her own. But Oliver gets her pinned down, and he wants answers. Oliver keeps her pinned, and she sings. Everything has gone according to Slade’s plans. She tells Oliver that if he doesn’t come alone, then Thea dies.

Olliver prepares to get his sister. Diggle and Sara want to come along, but he knows that they cannot for fear what Slade will do to Thea. Felicity tells him to get Thea and not to hold back, to end it once and for all. Arrow goes in swinging and takes down Deathstroke’s men and finds an empty warehouse. As Arrow handles the men Deathstroke stops a prisoner transport. He kills the guards and offers the prisoners a proposal. Felicity calls Arrow and tells him that Thea is fine, she walked into precinct a short time before. She’s safe, but she’s not likely fine.

Oliver, Sara and Diggle rush down to the precinct. They tell Oliver that Thea was just a diversion, that he high jacked the prisoner transport. Moira and Oliver rush to see Thea. She confesses that Slade told her his secret, really her secret, that Merlin is her father.

Shado tells him that death is too good them, that being trapped there on that island is more befitting. He tells them what she said, and leaves them to rot.

Thea walks the streets alone, Roy gets the heck out of Starling City. Lance is offered a deal to avoid losing his badge if tells Police and DA the identity of the Vigalante, but unfortunately he doesn’t know it. Lance is arrested on conspiracy charges.

Blood is in a panic about his candidacy being ruined. Moira is getting the sympathy vote if nothing else. He may be Slade’s right hand man, but he’s not in the know about Slade’s obsession with the Queens. Isabel’s crazy is showing though, and with the acquisition of Queen Industries they can mass produce Slade’s serum.

Oliver returns to his lair and finds Diggle and Felicity. He was so worried about what Slade would do to him that it never occurred to him what he would do to himself. He feels that he can’t stop Slade from doing anything, but his team has faith in him. He’s not alone in his fight, and now they fight back.

Laurel listens to the report that Thea fingered Slade Wilson in her kidnapping. Slade pays Laurel a visit. He assures her that he isn’t interested in hurting her, but wishes to make Oliver Queen suffer. He tells her that Oliver isn’t the man that she thinks he is, but the Arrow, and you can just seen Laurel’s hamsters practically falling off their wheels.