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Oliver Returns To Old Ways In Russia – Arrow: Bratva Recap

This article contains spoilers for the Arrow episode – Bratva.

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Tonight's episode featured the return of Quentin Lance from rehab and he is eager to get back to work, even sets up an interview with Oliver Queen's current love interest and reporter Susan Williams. Then word breaks that General Walker has escaped military custody with the nuclear trigger and has vanished. Argus has intel that he is in Russia trying to sell the device to Markovian terrorists but because of US / Russian relations, Argus can't go in after him. So Mayor Queen borrows the city's private jet to visit Star City's sister city in Russia (yeah, that is really how they got there). With him went John Diggle, Rory Regan, Curtis Holt, Felicity Smoak and newcomer Dinah Drake. Not on the plan is Renee Ramirez who was left behind to help Lance prep for his interview.

In Russia, Oliver and company are met by his old Bratva friend Anatoly Knyazev, who decks him and tells him off for the way Oliver betrayed the local Starling City Bratva in season 2. Oliver tries to make peace with Anatoly, but he tells Oliver that he will have to do something for him before he would help. They try other means to find Walker. Felicity uses the data from Pandora to threaten a man into the information needed to track Walker's burner phone. But the snatch and grab didn't go well and they only ended up with henchman. Oliver tries to interrogate the guy, but Diggle is angry and impatient and beats the crap out of him. Oliver realizes that as Prometheus said, he is corrupting those around him. So he agrees to do what Anatoly wants, taking only Dinah for back up. He roughs up a couple guys to scare them. Then he and Dinah have a talk. Oliver opens up to her, letting her know about Prometheus and what he said, Dinah tells him that he's letting Prometheus get to him and that he's already a better person than he was. It's a nice bonding moment.

Back in the city, Renee is trying to help Quentin and keeps pushing him until he loses it and storms off. Later, Renee comes back and Quentin apologizes. He's still broken up about losing Laurel and needs something else to focus on instead of alcohol. Renee understands and starts working with him again on the interview.

Antaloy and some of his Bratva brothers arrive with the information and are going to go with the team. They interrupt the sale and discover that the nuke has been set to go off. Felicity tries to disarm and just sets off a fail safe making it unstoppable. Ragman sends Felicity away and wraps his rags around the bomb, containing it as it explodes. Rory survives, but rags no longer respond to him. His power is gone. He packs his stuff and leaves the city, not wanting to be a burden with Prometheus around.  Felicity, who seemed to get that she may have crossed a line, ends up not having gotten it and tells her hacker friend that she plans to do more with the information.

The flashbacks focus on Oliver training with Talia and her showing him the man who was importing the drugs Thea had been taking. He takes the guy out, killing him and showing Talia he is ready. She hands him back Robert Queen's list and convinces Oliver it's time to go back to Starling. But when he goes to talk to Anatoly, we see that he has been severely beaten by Gregor. Instead of saying goodbye, Oliver is going to kill Gregor.

Back in the main time, Oliver returns home and ends up sleeping with Susan. She asks about the scars and the tattoo on his chest. He tells her she's not ready to talk about it yet. But later, we see she's meeting someone who has a photo of Oliver when he was with the Bratva and she knows the tattoo was from them. He shows her a picture of a figure that was active in Russia the same time Oliver was there, a figure the Russians called the Archer. Susan now knows that Oliver Queen is the Green Arrow.

Quentin comes to the bunker and finds Renee working out. The interview went well, partly because Susan went easy because of something Renee had told her. Seems that when Renee was a kid, he was caught tagging by Officer Lance. But instead of taking him in, Lance looked him in the eye and told him he could be better than that and let him go. It turned Renee's life around. Each week the writers have been adding more and more depth to this character making him far more than the 'Wild Dog' that we were introduced to.

The next episode of Arrow features a political topic… gun control.

https://youtu.be/Py2JfvwA6OA


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Dan WicklineAbout Dan Wickline

Has quietly been working at Bleeding Cool for over three years. He has written comics for Image, Top Cow, Shadowline, Avatar, IDW, Dynamite, Moonstone, Humanoids and Zenescope. He is the author of the Lucius Fogg series of novels and a published photographer.
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