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Television

SPOILER REVIEW: Arrow: 5.11 “Second Chances”

Here we go. Please bear with me. I’m new here, I’m a huge fan of Arrow, with a need for a slight romantic vibe, so needless to say, I want Oliver to be with Felicity, but we can get to that some other time. I’ve watched this show from day one, so I’ve been with it through all of its good days and bad days. In my opinion, there’s more good than bad, so I will disagree with many critics of this show.

But down to business.

This week’s episode covered the introduction of the (potential) new black canary. I’m extremely partial to Katie Cassidy’s portrayal of her, so I wasn’t quite sure how I would feel about this Tina chick. But I think she will hold up quite well. She reminds me tons of Laurel’s back attitude to Oliver. She will put the necessary “bridge” back in place to bring the Green Arrow back to his glory of careful analytics with not a whole lot of emotion in play. But I’m not 100% sure. We get to see her in a Team Arrow mission next week, and I’ll have a better idea of who she is then.

The episode starts off with Team Arrow searching for a replacement for the Black Canary. As per Laurel’s last directive to Oliver on her death bed, she wanted someone to carry on her legacy. Oliver had not decided to work on that order until he tried to bring Earth 2 Laurel back from the depths of evil. (p.s. Katie Cassidy please come back more often). Meanwhile, we get a flashback to Central City, before the particle accelerator exploded, and we figure out Tina was an undercover cop. She was on a mission to bring down a mob boss. She got caught, was being tortured, and well, her partner got killed in the process. Then the accelerator explodes, and Tina is gifted with the powerful canary screech.

Meanwhile, we still have Diggle in prison if you remember. Chase, the Star City DA, gives him and Oliver good news, saying if they can find the NSA file on the rogue General Walker, Diggle might could go free. Oliver leaves and sends Felicity on a chase to find the file the NSA has by hacking them. Then, Oliver decides on their potential Black Canary candidate, and he, Curtis, and Rene head off to Hub City, Tina’s last known location, to find the lady to woo her to their team.

Felicity proceeds to try to hack the NSA, only to find the file on General Walker has disappeared. She is discovered however, by another hacker, one who knew of her previous “hacktivist” (I think I spelled that right) life style, and asks to meet with her in real life. They meet and the girl from an organization called Helix gives Felicity a flash drive with a ton of information. She does have a request that Felicity reconsider the hacktivist life style she once lived in college.

Oliver, Rene and Curtis use the big belly burger as their main “hideout”, planning to talk to Tina about joining the team. They discover she is still hunting for her partner’s killer, and is unwilling to let off the chase. After several meetings, they eventually agree to help her. This is after they discover Sonus’ meta powers, and Tina is almost killed by them. Curtis discovers a way to use the sonic dampener to mute Sonus’ powers. Tina, after listening to Oliver’s pleas to let Sonus face justice through the police department, shoots Sonus multiple times, and bids Team Arrow adieu.

Team Arrow returns to Star City, where Tina shows up in Oliver the mayor’s office. She tells Oliver she’s willing to take a chance on joining the team. Oh and her name isn’t really Tina Boland. Its Dinah Drake *le gaspeth*. Oliver heads back to the Arrowcave after this to meet with Felicity. She shows him the file on General Walker to send to Chase to get Diggle freed. After Oliver leaves to go tell Diggle, Felicity opens the Helix flash drive to see all of the information. Chase and Oliver meet with Diggle to let him know his case will probably be thrown out. They also got him the opportunity for bail so he can go home and see his son.

In the flashbacks this week, we saw Talia Al Ghul give Oliver the original costume from season one in Russia. She helps him deal a crippling blow to Kovar, and asks him to take the opportunity to learn from her.

Overall, I would give this episode a 4/5. There were times when it struggled a bit. For instance, the fortunate encounter Felicity has to get the file on General Walker. But overall, it was a phenomenal episode, and I’m sure Helix will be mentioned again soon! Maybe we’ll see tonight!

Katie Rentschler

Clemson University Graduate. Lover of all things Star Wars and DC.