Arrow Recap/Review: "Identity"

Megan Miller ’17/ Emertainment Monthly Staff
The Hood is back in this episode of Arrow, but he’s not the same, and the bad guys know it.  Having taken a vow not to kill in honor of his best friend’s memory, Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) returns to the streets with his hood and his bow.  Now that his friends have convinced him to go back to his vigilante ways, plenty of people still need saving.
High on the list this week are the patients at the hospital in the Glades, which has been deprived of medicine and supplies for weeks due to several criminals who have been cutting the delivery trucks off in order to steal from the poor.  This is the least of Oliver’s problems, however.  Though these criminals are his main target, he also has to combat the resentment for his name that arises every time he enters the Glades.  In order to combat this, he hosts a fundraiser, which goes awry when he fails to attend, choosing instead to don the hood for the night, and giving opponents of Oliver Queen an opening for criticism.

Resentment has also been rising among his friends, John Diggle (David Ramsey) and Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Richards).  Felicity, an MIT grad and a technical genius, hates her new undercover position as his secretary, now that Oliver has assumed the position of CEO of Queen Consolidated, and Diggle expresses displeasure with being the “black driver”.  Diggle also has other reasons to complain: while Oliver was on the island for the second time, Diggle and his girlfriend broke up because he couldn’t love her while he still hated the man who killed his brother.  In Oliver’s own love life, his ex-girlfriend Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy) is still planning to bring down the Hood through the office of Starling City’s Defense Attorney.
Things are not rosy with the other half of the Queen children either; Thea Queen (Willa Holland) and her bartender-plus-boyfriend (not to mention aspiring vigilante) Roy Harper (Colton Haynes) still don’t see eye-to-eye on Roy’s nightly activities.  After he gets into a car crash and is arrested, Thea gives him an ultimatum: if he keeps going out looking for trouble, he doesn’t get her.  Though initially torn, Roy gives in after a run-in with the vigilante, who wants him to help get intel but to stay off the streets.
Trouble is brewing in Starling City, but when is it not?  Especially if the vigilante is off the job, considering that he visits Laurel at the end of the episode after she warns him to stay away, and it seems she knew he was coming.  As the scene closes, cops swarm in on the Hood with guns raised, and they’ve got him surrounded.  However, he’s got his bow strung, and he’s not going down without a fight.