We begin this episode in great anticipation of the encounter between Thea and Oliver.  We first get a glimpse of the exchange between Thea and Malcolm Merlyn when she left Starling City 5 months ago.  It’s clear that Thea has some talents which she hasn’t been fully utilizing.

Then it’s on to one of the sub-plots.  Oliver tracks down the individual whose fingerprint was on the green glass he found where Sara was murdered.  After a short chase and quick interrogation Oliver realizes the lead is a dead end. 

But not all is lost to Oliver as Felicity has located Thea in Corto Maltese.  Oliver and Roy get ready to go get back Thea!  I’m sure they think it will all be cake and laughs too.

Meanwhile, Lyla asks Diggle to go to Corto Maltese with Oliver as she has a field operative, named Shaw, who has “gone dark” in Corto Maltese.  How fortuitous!  Diggle accepts as he’s not expected to be doing much – simply making sure Shaw is OK.

Then we see some more flashbacks to Thea’s training with Malcolm.  He tells her about how some Buddhist monks believed the first fight begins in the mind and that she must learn to accept pain, but reject suffering.  He plans to teach her how to do this by pouring hot oil over her hand.  She’s understandably not very fond of the idea.

Oliver lands in Corto Maltese and goes off to see Thea.  Upon finding her to not be at her supposed home he learns from a groundskeeper that she might be at her day job waiting tables.  Why she is waiting tables is beyond me…maybe to learn the culture and language better?  In any case, Oliver avoided getting shot by an arrow that was waiting for him from the end of Malcolm’s bow.  So I guess that’s a plus.

Thea is surprised but happy to see Oliver when he approaches her at work.  After a short bit of dialogue she repeats her affirmation: she is NEVER going back to Starling City.  Oliver is understandably dejected.

So, while he tries to think about how to persuade her to come home, Oliver goes off to help Diggle with checking up on Shaw.  The encounter is supposed to be very straightforward and friendly.  But Shaw pulls a knife and almost slices Diggle open.  Luckily he’s been training with Oliver. 

Shaw confirms Diggle’s identity and then tells him that they need to go stop the sale of Argus’ list of agents and their families.  Diggle takes off with Shaw to stop the sale.  But something doesn’t smell right.  Diggle guesses that something is up and that Shaw is actually up to no good.  But not quite in time as Shaw tazers Diggle, shoots at Oliver who is waiting as backup, and takes the transcoder stick from Diggle’s pocket before making his getaway.

Roy gets his chance to talk to Thea also.  They share a moment where he confesses he just wants her to be happy.  And if that means that she stays in Corto Maltese, then so be it.  We see that Malcolm is keeping an eye on his daughter from the shadows though and looks none too pleased with her interaction with Roy.

And then a flashback to Thea’s training.  Malcolm tells Thea that he must train her the same way he was trained – and then promptly hits her in the face.  She must have a face of steel though because she doesn’t start bleeding or anything.  Thea does show her war face however.

The guys contact Felicity for help in tracking Shaw down.  This of course happens right as she is in a meeting with her new boss, Ray Palmer.  He’s quite shocked as she gets phone call after phone call with mysterious undertones talking about finding people.  She’s embarrassed as usual.

Laurel is angry with the death of her sister and everything and decides that a good way to get out her aggression is to try and beat up a guy who likes to beat his girlfriend.  This does not go over very well for her and she gets her face pummeled quite soundly.  Her face, it turns out, is not steel.

Then we see Laurel in the hospital and sense that she is starting to go into a deep, dark place.  She’s had it with the injustice of the world.  Who knows what she’s going to do next…  Five bucks says she’s going to learn how to fight and try to take Sara’s place.

Oliver has one more meeting with Thea.  He discloses that, yes, he’s been keeping secrets.  Thea is still adamant that she will love him as her big brother no matter what.  She’s just pissed that he didn’t tell her who her father was.  That’s when Oliver tells her the truth of how their dad, Robert, died and pleads with her to come home even going so far as to say that he needs her.  He then leaves to go help Diggle.

The team is set up to intercept Shaw as the deal is going down.  But fate intervenes as a heavily armed group of men shows up and spoils the plans.  A big fight ensues and we get to see that Oliver is actually an amazing shot with a pistol as well.  It seems he learned some other things from his time working with Waller in Hong Kong.  After a solid fight the day is won and the group gets the data back. 

Thea tells Malcolm that she would like to go home.  He says he thought she was past all of that and that maybe she’s not ready.  A sword fight ensues between the two, because how else would you settle such things, with Thea apparently winning.  She suspects that Malcolm let her win, however, and he ominously states that he’ll see her soon.

Thea meets the group for the plane back home and everyone is happy.  That is until Oliver gets home to a waiting Laurel.  She asks him to train her but he refuses.  She’s not happy about that.

Upon entering his hideout under Verdant, Oliver and Roy have a conversation about Thea.  Oliver thinks that something is off with Thea and that she seems a little different.  The conversation is cut short, however, as Sara’s lover and fellow assassin, Nyssa, cuts into the scene with a bow aimed at Oliver and demanding to know where Sara is.

This should make for an interesting conversation in the next episode…

P.S. – I absolutely love Katrina Law as Nyssa.  She’s exotic looking like Nyssa should be, talented, and crazy beautiful.  I loved her in Sparticus as well and can’t wait to see where her career takes her.

Barry is definitely getting the hang of his powers.  Like the episodes prior, we start with a narration from Barry about how things are going and what we might expect from this episode.  Then, after a brief dialogue with Iris, we see Barry in full superhero mode save some police the trouble of having to capture an armed gunman in a car chase.  Very cool for sure.

Then we are introduced to the villain of the episode.  Aptly named “The Mist” (later, by Cisco) as he can turn himself into a poison mist, this villain starts the episode by killing a bunch of mobsters in a restaurant.  Good riddance…but why them?

Barry gets to investigate the scene of the crime after he and Joe West share a nice scene where they recommit to freeing Barry’s father.  At the scene of the crime Barry comes to the conclusion that the murder may have been done by a meta-human.  It’s kind of a leap right off the beat, but I guess one could say that he would make such a conclusion so fast due to his unique experience. 

So off to the lab it is – STAR labs that is – to consult with the team about what this meta-human could be capable of.  Joe asks a critical question which sets the group to talking about how they might be able to imprison these meta-humans.  This wasn’t a concern previously as the meta-humans ended up dead.  But genocide isn’t really an option.

The group decides that the best option might be to imprison these meta-humans there at STAR labs – down in the particle accelerator area.  This takes us to a view into the memories of the team which show us what exactly happened the night the particle accelerator exploded.  Caitlin has an especially bad memory as her fiancé, Ronny, had died that night.  Later on we find out that her fiancé died a hero though, so there’s someconsolation.

Iris and Eddie have a run-in at Iris and Joe’s house which prompts them to have their first relationship fight it seems.  Eddie is tired of hiding their involvement and Iris doesn’t know what to say.

We then get the second victim of the meta-human – a woman trapped in an elevator.  Barry hears the call on the radio and rushes off to save the day.  But he’s too late and the woman is dead.  But the culprit is still nearby and Barry confronts him in a back hallway.  This turns out to be a bad idea and Barry almost gets killed before he can get back to STAR labs for help.

The group now knows what this guy is capable of and they have a sample of the gas which lets them find out what poison he is using.  This information leads them to the identity of the culprit – Kyle Nimbus.  Turns out he was executed on the night of the explosion.  And this information leads them to Nimbus’ next target: Joe West.

Barry finds out that Joe is visiting his father at Iron Heights prison and rushes to save the day.  Joe and Barry’s father have a nice conversation where they seem to make amends as Joe discloses he is working to free Henry.  But their conversation is cut short as Nimbus crashes the scene and attacks the defenseless Joe.  Thankfully, Caitlin created a vaccine against his toxin which helps to save Joes life.

Barry leaves to confront Nimbus outside the prison but is unable to affect him physically.  He then gets advice from the team which may help – try to outlast him because he can’t hold his gaseous state forever and will need rest.  Kind of similar to Barry I guess.

Barry ends up besting Nimbus and saves the day.  All in a day’s work I guess.  And in the end Joe is alright, Iris and Eddie confess their relationship to Joe, and Cisco and Caitlin have a moment together reminiscing about the heroism of Ronny.

Then, at the end of the episode, we are greeted with a wonderful final scene involving Dr. Wells once again.  We see that during the crisis of the particle accelerator explosion, he went to his secret room (the futuristic one we saw at the end of the first episode) and watched as Barry was hit by the lightning through a camera in Barry’s lab.  It’s almost as if he planned the whole accident which created The Flash…

All of this lends more and more credence to the idea that Wells may be The Reverse-Flash.  Couple this with his statement earlier in the episode about how he feels like he had been “waiting centuries” for the activation of the particle accelerator and we have some compelling evidence for sure.  I’m looking forward to seeing what bigger role he plays and if he really is the Reverse-Flash or something else entirely.

Stay tuned for more next week!

The episode starts off where the previous one left off – with Sara dead in Laurel’s arms.  Oliver, Roy, and Felicity walk into their secret lair where they are stunned to find Laurel with a dead Sara on their table.  I love this scene as the cast captures the feeling of the moment perfectly.  They range in emotion from disbelief, to denial, and even grim resolve.

Of course the team is ready to go into action in short order.  Oliver is the bastion of the team and, although visibly angry and shaken, he keeps his cool and gets the team into action.  Step one: try to figure out who murdered Sara.

Oliver goes to the scene of the crime to investigate.  While there he has a conversation with Diggle about how he’s feeling.  After a short dialogue where Diggle relates how he understands what Oliver is going through because he’s seen it in war, Diggle simply tells Oliver that he’s there to help.  Oliver, being the kind of man he is, says nothing.

Oliver gets a phone call to meet Detective (now Captain) Lance.  He gives Oliver a file about a murder that happened earlier involving another archer.  Oliver, armed with new information, is on the move.  But not before the archer can kill another victim.

We get to see a touching scene between Felicity and Roy as Felicity reminisces about Sara.  Shortly thereafter the team gets set into motion to utilize all their resources, including ARGUS and their intelligence database. 

Oliver continues to be concerned about Thea.  Meanwhile, Roy is showing his own concern by trying to utilize the FBI database to locate Thea.  Roy confesses to the truth and shows Felicity the note which Thea left when she took off at the end of season 2.  The scene ends with Felicity storming off very angrily after a text.

This leads into the next scene of Felicity barging into Queen consolidated to confront her stalker, new Queen Consolidated CEO Ray Palmer.  He and Felicity share an interesting exchange and you can see that her wall against him, although strong, may be coming down due to his empathy.

When Oliver gets some information from a low level drug-dealer the team is able to figure out who the enemy is – Simon Lacroix aka- Komodo.  Using the information about the Komodo Felicity is able to track him using his cell phone.  Damn she’s good. 

This leads to Oliver interrupting his latest assassination attempt.  A short archer motorcycle duel later and we find out that the Komodo is seemingly better than Oliver.  At least when it comes to archer duels on motorcycles.

Felicity and Oliver share a moment where Oliver shows just how much the whole situation has gotten to him.  And Felicity shows how she feels as well by telling Oliver that she wants more out of life than just the “hole in the ground” before she walks out.

Laurel figures that she can help by using her District Attorney credentials to interrogate this most recent victim of the Komodo.  She finds out the link between the three individuals is that they were all working on a business deal together.  But Komodo strikes again and kills the man Laurel is interrogating before she can get all the information out of him.

But not all is lost!  The information which Laurel got out of the victim is enough to figure out who the next target is.  And it’s a wealthy businessman who is headed to Ray Palmer’s fundraiser at Queen Consolidated. 

The Komodo strikes, a fight ensues, and Oliver wins the archer duel this time.  Hooray!  But then he has to deal with Laurel pointing a gun at Komodo…she wants vengeance for the murder of her sister and she aims to get it.  But Oliver already planned for this back at the lair and took the bullets out of the pistol.  So even though Laurel disappoints Oliver by pulling the trigger, nothing happens.

One more tidbit is given out by Komodo as he stands stuck to the wall by an arrow is that he claims to not have killed Sara!  He even claims an alibi which later checks out.  By the way, I’m curious as to how the arrow doesn’t kill him given that it seems to at least have pierced his lung and probably his heart as well.  After all, it was one of Komodo’s arrows which Oliver caught out of the air and then shot back at him so it must have had a real arrowhead and not some tech gizmo arrowhead.  Kind of makes you wonder…

But we can just stack that onto the list of things that make us go “hmmm” along with the question of who killed Sara.  Meanwhile the group all deals with the aftermath of Sara’s death in their own ways.  One of the interesting developments is that Felicity decides she will work for Ray Palmer after all.  She cites the reason for doing so is because she wants more out of life – the same thing she told Oliver.

Along the way through this episode we are given flashbacks to Oliver’s time in Hong Kong under the house arrest of Waller.  Oliver is tasked with killing Tommy Merlyn, his best friend.  He of course can’t go through with it and instead has to find an alternative to getting Tommy out of town.  Oliver takes the more “Mission Impossible” style route and convinces Tommy that Oliver’s email going off was all a scam to kidnap a rich person for ransom.  Tommy is “saved” just after being scared almost to death.

And at the end of the episode we are given a great scene – taken to Corto Maltese we see a kendo training session.  It’s two against one and the team of two is getting their butts whipped.  When the match is over we see Malcolm Merlyn applauding proudly for Thea’s performance.  He congratulates her and she replies, quite ominously, “thanks dad.”

I’m looking forward to the next episode where Oliver and the team go after Thea.  I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he realizes that Merlyn is still alive and that Thea is training under him.

Side-note: For those of you that aren’t well versed in the DC Universe, Ray Palmer is a reference to the DC superhero “Atom.”  He’s a superhero who can shrink himself at will and alter the density of his own body.  He’s one of the world’s smartest people and a renowned physicist.  I wonder what they are planning for him in the show…

Arrow starts off season three with a bang for sure.  This episode gives us action, love drama, and intrigue.  It’s a classic CW formula. 

The episode begins with the Arrow and his team already in action.  They are rushing to take down an arms shipment.  It’s in this scene that we see Roy has taken a more active role in the group.  With a little coordination and only a little effort the team takes down the weapons shipment.

Shortly thereafter we are given an overview of the way things are following the events of the season two finale.  Oliver is broke and no longer owns his company, Diggle is soon to be a father, Roy is a full-fledged member of the team even looking like a “Red Arrow” type of character, and Felicity has a regular job which she hates.  We also see that the relationship between Oliver and Felicity is blossoming into a potential romantic relationship.

In fact, it is this episode where we get to see Oliver and Felicity finally take a step towards a real romantic relationship.  Oliver asks Felicity out on a regular date which seems to start off fine – until the criminal who has taken up the mantle of Vertigo, Werner Zytle, shoots an RPG into the restaurant where they are having their date. 

It turns out that the drug Vertigo is still on the streets and the arms shipment which was taken down by the Arrow and his team was meant for Zytle.  Now Zytle, as the new Vertigo, has his sets set on taking over the criminal underworld and is using his newly improved formula of Vertigo to help him.  And first on his to-do list is taking out the Arrow, which he tries to do by having a thug plant a tracking device on the Arrow just before Oliver ended up going on his date.

Needless to say, Felicity gets hurt and Oliver has feelings of regret and blames himself for her injury.  Even though she is only knocked out, Oliver takes it really hard.  He states that he wasn’t focused and should have noticed the guy plant the tracker on him.  Diggle tries to talk him out of the decision to end the relationship before it begins, but Oliver won’t listen.

Thus the tension between Oliver and Felicity continues as he breaks it off with her in a very wishy-washy manner.  Felicity says for him to stop dangling maybe and just say never!  Oliver kisses her and tells her not to ask him to say he doesn’t love her.  Felicity is upset and tells him that “I told you as soon as we talked, it would be over.”  And like that, their relationship ends before it begins.

But all that is after Oliver tries and fails to get his company back from the current board of trustees.  A new player in the game, tech savvy Ray Palmer, shows up and makes a counter-presentation to the board which wows everyone present.  Needless to say, Ray is given the company.

Thus begins the tension triangle which is ever-present in the show.  Ray Palmer has taken an interest in Felicity.  She is annoyed at Ray for having manipulated her into helping him get encrypted data from Queen Consolidated which helped him win over the board.  Oliver still wants to be with Felicity, but is self-sacrificing and thinks being with her would be dangerous and selfish so he refuses to get involved.

It’s the typical CW Hero who, while fun to watch and brave against any bad guy or evil doer, is completely afraid of their own happiness.  It’s actually frustrating to watch the unrequited love that is such a constant in these shows.  And yet it keeps us hooked so well, hoping that they can overcome the odds and just be together in the end.

The episode ends with some action as Oliver and Roy take down Zytle and foil his plan to blow up a stadium - part of a plan to take out three crime bosses and leave him at the top of the underworld.  The episode also ends with joy and new beginnings as Diggle is shown to have become a daddy while Oliver was taking down Zytle.  And finally, it ends in tragedy as Sarah Lance, back in town to see her hospitalized father (or so we are somewhat lead to believe), is killed by a mysterious off-screen archer – shot three times and then falls from a roof to land right in front of her sister Laurel whom she had just met with.

The plot thickens for sure.  Who is this mysterious archer?  Was it Merlyn or someone else?  And who is Ray Palmer and what are his real plans for Oliver and Queen Consolidated?  And of course, who will try to destroy the city this season?

I know I’m excited.  I hope you are too!