Wow. Just…wow. ‘Streets of Fire’ picked up seconds after ‘City of Blood’ ended and didn’t let up for an hour. There was action on multiple fronts, people died, and the focus shifted to what will be an incredible finale. Last season on Arrow>, the creators let the earthquake happen, which destroyed a good part of Starling City. What will these sadists do this season? We will all find out next week.
For now, here are the 6 Qs of this week’s ‘Arrow.’
1. What is it?
Arrow Season 2, Episode #222, titled ‘Streets of Fire.’
2. Who’s in it?
Stephen Amell stars as Oliver Queen/Arrow; Katie Cassidy as Laurel Lance; David Ramsey as John Diggle; Emily Bett Rickards as Felicity Smoak; Colton Haynes as Roy Harper; Manu Bennett as Slade Wilson; Willa Holland as Thea Queen. Guest starring this week are Summer Glau as Isabel Rochev/Raveger; Caity Lotz as Sara; Kevin Alejandro as Sebastian Blood; Chelah Horsdal as Kate Spencer; Adrian Holmes as Lt. Pike; David Nykl as Anatoly Knyazev; Cynthia Addai-Robinson as Amanda Waller; and John Barrowman as Malcolm Merlyn.
3. Who made it?
‘Streets of Firev was written by Jake Coburn & Ben Sokolowski. The episode was directed by Nick Copus.
4. What is it about? (**spoilers galore**)
The episode opens with Laurel (Cassidy) and The Arrow (Amell) separated by fallen debris. Arrow’s bow and quiver are on Laurel’s side, so he has to tell her how to use an exploding arrow to destroy the debris so he can get her out of there.
On the surface, Diggle (Ramsey) and Ravager (Glau) continue their fight. Ravager tells Diggle that she wants to kill Felicity Smoak and before she can explain why, Felicity (Rickards) runs her down with a van. Diggle climbs in and Ravager stands back up, shaking off the impact as if it were nothing. Digg says they need to find Oliver and they speed away.
At SCPD, Quentin Lance (Blackthorne) raids the armory and then is able to force his marauding masked attacker to throw him to safety as three grenades are pulled, blowing up Slade’s soldier — and half of the SCPD bullpen.
In the Mayor’s office, Mayor Blood (Alejandro) tells the governor that the National Guard won’t be necessary and that SCPD has it under control. D.A. Spencer (Horsdal) storms in and Mayor Blood tells her the same thing, even though the news reports show otherwise. Blood looks concerned.
Team Arrow reunites and Felicity explains that STAR Labs was sending over a cure for the mirakuru. She calls the courier, who is lying under an overturned car. Laurel leaves to go to meet up with Quentin at SCPD and Team Arrow scrambles to get to the fallen courier. At Queen Consolidated, Slade (Bennett) and Rochev hack Felicity’s call and they send a soldier to retrieve the cure first.
At SCPD, Quentin tells Lt. Pike (Holmes) that Blood is behind all of it and convinces him to call in The Arrow, as SCPD is outmanned. Pike agrees, and then gives Quentin his detective’s shield back.
Laurel is attacked on her way to the precinct and is saved by Canary (Lotz). Laurel reveals that she knows her identity.
At the Mayor’s office, Blood watches the news with Spencer as Slade’s army storm in. Blood orders that they stop but they kill Spencer anyway. Blood is furious and the soldier tells Blood that they don’t take orders from him.
Team Arrow is attacked in their van (the Arrow Mobile?) by Slade’s soldiers. The van crashes and Arrow is able to subdue the soldiers with a flash arrow.
At Queen Consolidated, Slade and Rochev watch the city burn and Slade laments that he wishes that Shado could be there to see it. Mayor Blood storms in and demands that Slade call off the army as the city is being destroyed. Slade tells Blood that he is in control and that he will not stop until everything that Oliver Queen loves — including Starling City — is in ashes. Blood finally realizes that he’s on the wrong side.
Laurel and Sara have a sisterly heart-to-heart, and Sara tells Laurel that she has done bad things and that she isn’t a hero. She says her name and title is some Arabic mumbo-jumbo and when Laurel asks what it means, Sara admits it means Canary. Laurel says nobody named Canary can be evil. Just bad actors, apparently.
Team Arrow finds the location of the STAR Labs courier and before they can get there, Slade’s soldiers get to him and take the cure. The soldier takes the cure back to Slade as Blood watches his city burn from the window.
Team Arrow moves into the clock tower and Diggle is tasked to gather Roy (Haynes) and bring his unconscious body there for safety. Ollie and Felicity have a heart-to-heart, and Felicity verbally smacks some sense into our intrepid hero.Laurel and Sara stumble upon a burning building and a woman is crying that her daughter is still inside. SCPD shows up and Laurel and Quentin are reunited. Canary comes out of the building carrying the girl and then disappears.
Mayor Blood calls Oliver and tells him that he was always right and that he stole the cure from Slade and he needs The Arrow to help him stop the assault. Felicity tells Ollie it could be a trap and Oliver agrees. Diggle shows up with Roy and Felicity steps back to watch over him. Just in case, they all say their goodbyes to one another.
Ollie confronts Blood at the Mayor’s office and Blood tries to justify what he did and he admits that he loves Starling City and actually thought this would help the city. Blood tells Ollie that Slade will not stop until Oliver is completely broken and that he won’t stop until he has taken the one person Oliver loves the most. Blood hands over the cure and promises to fix the city once Ollie stops Slade. Ollie cannot believe that Blood thinks that he’ll still be mayor after all of this.
Rochev shows up at the Mayor’s office and Blood admits that he gave the cure to The Arrow. Rochev calls Slade, and Slade says goodbye as Ravager perforates the Mayor of Starling City, whose last words are, “I loved this city.”
At the clock tower, Ollie plans to use Roy as a lab rat to test the cure but when it comes time to do it, he can’t.
At SCPD, news reports show a military force moving in to secure the bridges and egresses of Starling City. But the mysterious group isn’t a branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. Quentin calls The Arrow and tells him to turn on the TV.
Oliver calls Amanda Waller (Addai-Robinson) and demands that she call back her ARGUS forces. Waller admits that they cannot let Slade and his army to run free and that a bomb-laden drone is on its way to turn Staring City into a parking lot. Oliver tells her that he has the cure, and Waller says he has until dawn to stop the insanity. She disconnects the call and Oliver injects Roy with the cure.
The side story this week revolves around Thea at the train station. Slade’s soldier kills the cops in the area and before he can get to Thea, Malcolm Merlyn (Barrowman) shows up to take him down. Thea tries to escape her ghost of a father and Merlyn tracks her to the platform and tries to tell her that he is all he has left, and that he will do whatever it takes to protect her. Thea is her usual blubbering mess. Merlyn is able to take out additional members of Slade’s army with exploding arrows, even though these types of arrows did nothing to, say, Cyrus Gold, earlier this season. The side story ends with Merlyn at the mercy of Thea, who holds a gun pointed at him. As the scene wraps, she fires the gun multiple times.
On the island, Ollie plans to go after Sara, who was apparently taken by Slade and his men last week and he tells Anatoly that if he isn’t back in an hour, the Russian is to sink the Amazo with the last torpedo (I guess this one doesn’t need to be manually driven by a human). The two men have a moment between friends, where Anatoly thanks Ollie and tells him that he will always be in his debt. He also promises to teach him Russian.
Ollie sneaks aboard the Amazo (if it was that easy, why did they launch Peter in the doomed torpedo last week. He could have just snuck on with some explosives and breeched the hull. *sigh*) and frees Sara from the cells. He then goes to Ivo’s office to find the mirakuru cure, only to find the safe empty and Slade waiting for him.
5. Any revelations, tie-ins, easter eggs, etc.? (**SPOILER!**)
Various uses of “52.” Too much action going on for easter eggs and name drops.
6. Will we watch next week?
Yes. Starling City is on fire. ARGUS is planning to turn it into a crater, and Slade Wilson has a Nero complex as he watches it burn. Arrow assembles his allies for one final push to save it. Seeds were planted here that certain characters will not make it through the last hour of season two, and I am 100% fine with that. Last season’s finale was great, but with a bigger budget and a clear plan for next season, the creators have upped the ante and this — this is what a comic book TV show should be about. A city in peril. Its sworn protector doing everything he can to save it. This is the story of every comic book ever told. And it’s wonderful to see Arrow get back to it. I am gonna miss this show over the summer.
