Arrow 1.08: "Vendetta"

“I guess you were right. I’m more interested in revenge.”
- Helena

We pick up this week shortly where we left Oliver and Helena at the end of last episode. They’ve obviously slept together. Helena sneaks off and rolls up on her bike where the leader of Triad is getting into his car with lots of bodyguards. Helena is about to shoot him when Oliver intervenes. It turns into a bit of a crazy shoot-out but Oliver gets Helena to safety. She’s not happy he interrupted her attempt to get the Triad to retaliate against her father. Oli ends up taking her to the diner where he tries to convince her to let him show her his way of dealing with people. She’s not really interested. That night, while Oli is doing his work out (because no episode of Arrow would be complete without him being shirtless), Diggle vehemently disapproves of what Oliver is doing. Oli thinks he can save Helena but Dig isn’t so sure she wants to be saved.

We have a small-ish side plot with Walter and Felicity (our cheery and quirky IT girl who found the Queen’s Gambit location). Walter has returned from Australia and he assures Moira that everything is fine between them. At first, he reacts poorly when Felicity digs deeper into Tempest without his say so. She discovers the symbol in Oli’s book of names. He threatens to fire her if she does anything like that again. But when Walter starts digging after Moira goes to some board of directors meeting for an art gallery, he finds a matching notebook in the house. He’s confused because the pages are blank so he enlists Felicity again to solve the puzzle. He warns her that she needs to be careful. After all, the last person he asked to look into this thing ended up dead of suspicious causes. That doesn’t seem to faze Felicity much. She’s up for the mystery-solving and the challenge. She strikes metaphorical gold (or UV light in this case) when she discovers that while the pages are blank under normal light, they show up under UV spectrum lights. I guess that makes sense since Oliver’s book reacted in a similar way to the heat of a fire. So it would appear Walter is inching ever closer to whatever it is Tommy’s dad and Moira are up to.

Back with Oliver and Helena, he’s stopped by the house to take her on a little trip. They end up at Sarah’s grave and he explains his past and what he did to Laurel and Sarah and how he ruined their family pre-island. Helena wants to trust Oliver but she’s scared (what with the last guy getting murdered and all). Oliver swears he won’t hurt her. He takes her back to the man cave and is trying to teach her to use a bow and arrow. She’s not impressed by the weapon. Well, not until Oli starts showing off, shooting random objects she’s tossing into the air. Diggle shows up and he’s barely civil to Helena. He expresses his distrust to Oliver again but Oli just isn’t listening. He’s going to help Helena get on the right track. And so, that night, they take out Anthony Venza, one of Helena’s dad’s business associates. They take him and his goons out with minimal carnage and it appears Helena is pleased with the result.

The next evening, Helena seems to be in a good mood as she watches her father try to deal with the fallout of Venza getting arrested and losing a big chunk of his business revenue. She heads out to meet Oliver for a dinner date. It turns out they had the same idea as Laurel and Tommy. They all end up at the opening night of a new restaurant. It’s wicked expensive and obviously without access to any funds, Tommy can’t afford it. Things go sideways when Laurel mentions Oliver and Tommy working together on Oli’s night club. Tommy was supposed to talk to Oliver about the idea but never did. The couples break apart pretty quickly. Tommy feels too much pressure from Laurel and he doesn’t believe she and Oli are over. And Helena feels like Oli’s hurt her by making her go to dinner with the love of his life (actually Helena, it was your idea to invite them to your table). So things are not going so well in Starling City.

Tommy shows up at Laurel’s apartment to apologize. He was acting like an immature brat who has never had to take on any responsibility in his life and it scares him to have to rely on other people. Laurel says that he will be fine and that it’s okay to lean on other people. They share a kiss while we cut to Oliver, brooding in the man cave. Diggle appears and Oliver admits that his bodyguard/associate was right about Helena. Oli wanted to save her, to change her because he’s tired of keeping people at arm’s length. He thought the universe owed him one. Unfortunately, as he’s whining about how unfair being a masked vigilante is, Helena is off shooting the Triad to provoke her father to action so she can take him out. Oliver gets to the scene and calls Dig with a cryptic message: war.

The Triad shows up at the Bertanelli compound and things get dicey. Lots of people shooting and flipping over bannisters, including Oliver and Helena. Oli saves Frank as he’s trying to escape with the laptop full of evidence Helena had collected and was ready to hand over to the FBI. Frank makes off with it, only to get shot by Helena. She reveals her true motive and is about to kill her father when Oliver intervenes. They start scuffling and Frank shoots Helena. It’s only a flesh wound and after Oliver professes to care about Helena and tell her that her dad is going to prison for a very long time, she storms off with the threat that if he doesn’t stay out of her way, his secret will not be so secret anymore. Oliver is rather dejected and heads out to the diner where Diggle finds him with the remnants of chili cheese fries with jalapenos. Diggle gives Oli a pep talk about love and Oli heads out to offer Tommy the General Manager position at his night club. Even though Oliver lost the girl, he righted some wrongs in the city, served his father’s wishes and helped his best friend out. Not a bad week for Mr. Queen.