The past continues to haunt Oliver as the encounter with the mysterious archer has made an impact.

What They Say:
Burned – Oliver takes a break from being Arrow; Tommy hosts a benefit for the firefighters. Thea tries to lift Moira’s spirits.

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the series having spent some interesting time with what it’s done over the course of the first nine episodes, it put things in a good place at the end of the last episode with Oliver wounded, physically and mentally, after what had happened. With the wounds he has and knowing there’s a bigger threat out there, it’s definitely getting him to assess things and take some time to go through it all. With the use of the break, he’s working himself back into top physical condition again and remembering all that happened with the other mysterious archer that definitely schooled him and put him in his place. In a way, you almost feel like the wounds from it and elsewhere are more on the surface than before and that no matter how good he is, he’s still finding himself to not be where he was before.

While he is getting there, his focus has shifted for a bit as well. While Diggle is doing what he can to get him back on track with the list, Oliver is actually being rather focused on his family. With Walter having gone missing, now at six weeks, it’s left him feeling at a loss there since nothing has turned up after all this time and no ransom has surfaced either. That just makes it clearer that the people that want him aren’t looking for anything from someone else. Considering the divides that have come between him and his family since his return, it’s good to see that he knows he can put the list to the side, at least temporarily, to focus on his mother and sister for awhile. There’s certainly been enough strain there and knowing that there’s only so much he can push before that strain just snaps things.

Oliver’s absence as the vigilante is definitely being noticed though, as we see through a news clip in which the rates of crime went down significantly during the time he was operating. With him being six weeks out now, there’s a lot of questions from certain quarters about what happened to him as he’s proven himself to be a quantifiable presence and impact on crime in the city that’s worth having around. What will get him back on track, eventually, is a new incident that’s going on. The first noteworthy incident that starts things off here is the death of a firefighter on the job, the brother of a friend of Laurel’s, who was killed when he was set on fire by a mysterious Firefly that doused him and burned him to a crisp.

There’s a lot of struggle on Oliver’s part about what it is he needs to do as he keeps looking for ways to avoid going as far as he needs to with the hood. The archer has made a real impact on him and is in his head, making him think that he could be around any corner. Enough so that he’s even pushing off dangerous things on others, including Laurel. This is all done pretty well as he knows he’s not doing what he needs to but can’t and we get a pretty good series of flashbacks to the island from when he ran after Deathstroke started coming down on him and his savior pretty hard. It’s really well done in just seeing how well Stephen Amell can look like such a scared young playboy in those sequences, so frightened, and contrast it with the harder and stern vigilante that he is now. And to bring a mixture of it in how he deals with Laurel, Thea and his mother.

There’s a decent little mystery going on here with the whole Firefly aspect and though it’s not one that’s terribly deep and one that could go several ways, it does all lead up to the bigger action towards the end as it goes fairly big, which isn’t a surprise since it’s playing with fire. It’s an awkward kind of scenario that plays out since it’s all about revenge, but when revenge is denied, temporarily at least, it becomes something that Firefly can’t handle and has no problem taking his own life after. Considering what he suffered through, getting into his mind isn’t going to be easy, but with so many potential targets it’s hard to imagine that he wouldn’t take another way out in order to attempt it all again in the future and get what he was really after.

In Summary:
While not exactly the best return to the series since it’s a bit mild overall and one-dimensional with the villain of the week, it sets things pretty well in general by getting Oliver back on track and showign that he had to deal with something from the incident with the other archer. Taking advantage of the break, it gave Oliver a few weeks off and we get to see how his presence has affected the city and many others, though there are still plenty that want him out of the picture. The show has a number of little things going on and steady progression with these plots that helps the show to feel like it’s going somewhere, bit by bit. Between all that happens in the present and the tidbits from the flashback, Arrow is gearing up for more back story to hit sooner rather than later and I can’t wait to see where Oliver’s story takes him back then.

Grade: B