ARROW - Season 7.17

ARROW – Season 7, Ep. 17: “Inheritance”

Laurel has gotten some intel on Emiko, and says that Ollie’s sister is not the hero she makes herself out to be.  Ollie invites her to investigate, making Felicity happy.  However, Felicity WILL have to make a choice between Laurel and the team. 

We open up with a young Emiko walking down the hall, while she hears her father and mother argue.  He tells her mother that she has to go, otherwise Moira will cut him off.  He walks out of the room, where Emiko confronts him, and asks him what’s going on.  He says that her and her mom will have to live elsewhere, and she protests. But her father says they can’t always get what they want.  We flash forward to Oliver and Emiko training, and talking about how they were trained. 

We later see Laurel tracking Emiko, but Emiko grazes her with an arrow to send a message to her to back off. 

Felicity has tracked down her old pal Alena Whitlock to help her develop the ARCHER program.  Alena is down with it.

Later, we see Oliver in the kitchen when Laurel shows up, and talks to Ollie about his sister NOT being who she says she is.  She informs Ollie that Ben Turner said that Emiko killed Diaz that night, and that there is NO record of her past the age of 15.  Ollie says she deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Ollie follows her to Palmer Technologies, where her and Dante walk into a lab, looking for some weapons, and they get what they want.  Dante then hits the lab tech, and puts a bomb in the room as he walks out.  Ollie goes in to try and save her, but the bomb goes off.  He tries to save her, but it looks like it’s too late. 

The team is at the lair, when they find out that Dante is a part of the Ninth Circle, and they wonder what to do with Emiko.  The team isn’t sure on listening to what Laurel said about her, but Felicity defends her.  Ollie decides he’ll talk to her, while they work on trying to take down the Ninth Circle. 

At the SCPD, Laurel and Dinah talk about a few cases Laurel’s worked on where she’s bent the rules to try and get charges to stick.  Dinah says that if she continues to do that, she will end up having those cases overturned, and all that work will be for nothing.  She gives Laurel a new case, and wants the charges to stick to them the right way. 

Ollie and Emiko talk, and Ollie tells her that he followed her and Dante into Palmer Tech the other night, and she admits that Dante trained her when she was 11, and that she’s indebted to the Ninth Circle.  Ollie says he can help, but she says that it’s not a good idea, it will end bad for both of them.

Flashing back in Emiko’s memory, we see her stealing Dante’s watch.  He catches her, and tells her that he will teach her how to steal and fight. 

The team convenes back at the Lair, where they get a lead on where the Ninth Circle will be hitting next.  Emiko and Dante arrive at their next hit, only to be met by Team Arrow.  Dante nails Emiko, and says that she led them here, when she says she did no such thing.  He goes to have her captured, but Ollie saves her. 

Once more at the Lair, they try to get a bead on Dante and the Ninth Circle, but ARCHER is down, and they cannot track him.  They try to find out the hard way, and split up before the Ninth Circle complete their weapon.  Emiko is hurt and Rene goes to tend to her.  They chat, and she asks why he never asked about her, and he said he learned not to pry, and that she let him be a part of the team despite her reservations. 

Flashing back yet again, and we see Emiko doing more training with Dante.  He tells her she’s not working hard enough, and she says she is.  She also still think about her father, and he asks why….he abandoned her.  He said that the Ninth Circle is her family, and that he has a gift for her.

We’re at the SCPD yet again, as Dinah and Laurel are about to interrogate a man called Hernandez, and want his boss.  The guy ends up playing on Laurel’s emotions, especially when it comes to Captain Lance.  She gets upset, and Dinah comes in to save her before she goes Black Siren on the guy.

Once more at the Lair, Felicity is still frustrated that ARCHER is down, and they’re still trying to find a way to determine what the Ninth Circle is doing in trying to obtain uranium.  Felicity is going to see if she can reboot the system, but she knows she will have to rebuild it.  Ollie goes to help her, and finds a device hidden.  He comes back saying that he found out what was gumming up the works, when he’s confronted by Emiko.  She’s been playing him all along, and they fight.  Ollie has her dead to rights after a brief battle, but hesitates.  She escapes his grasp and blinds him, escaping.

Laurel and Dinah have a chat about the man Hernandez, who got killed not that long ago after being released from custody.  Laurel said she played by the book, and Dinah isn’t quite buying it.  Laurel says she’s been working her ass off to redeem herself, but it doesn’t seem like it’s enough.  Dinah apologizes, but says that maybe Laurel doesn’t quite know who she is herself.

Flashback to Emiko meeting her father, with a business plan to help Queen Consolidated, and thinks she can help them increase profit, and be a part of the company.  But he says that the company is for Oliver.  She says what is she to do, since he abandoned her and did nothing for her mother.  He says he has to leave on a trip to South China aboard the Queen’s Gambit.  We see Emiko and Dante talk, discussing the ruse they played on Oliver.

The Lair is where we end up, as the team congregates in the aftermath of Emiko’s betrayal.  Ollie is frustrated, and the team has struck out in being able to locate the Ninth Circle, or their next hit on locating some uranium, until they realize that maybe the uranium is just a ruse, and they’re looking for something else.  They figure out that they’re looking to combine chemicals to make a gas, using drones to scatter it over the city.  Ollie and Diggle talk about family betrayal, and how he needs to treat Emiko as the enemy, whether she likes it or not.

They’re off to stop the drones from scattering the gas over the city, and when Dante says that maybe they should hold off on the test, but Emiko tells them the test goes on, and to stop Team Arrow.  The battle ensues, and Rene runs into Emiko, who tells him to go away.  She ends up facing Oliver again, and she orders her underlings to attack.  Ollie ends up fighting off the lackeys, but Emiko makes off. 

Felicity returns home where Alena has continued working on rebuilding the ARCHER program, and they discuss the ways they can improve it, but it will require hacking into systems that would be considered illegal.  Felicity says they need to get to work.

The team once again discusses what happened, in regards to the drones going off, but only hitting empty targets.  They realize it’s just a test, and have to prepare for the real thing.

Emiko and Dante talk, and he says that her distractions have not been able to lead the Ninth Circle.  She says that she is their leader, and they will follow her.  She also says that she has a way to increase their plan, by getting Felicity’s ARCHER program.  Dante isn’t sure about this.  But Emiko says that if he questions her authority again, she will kill him.

We see Laurel in her office when she hears a news report about her and Diaz, and questioning her as a criminal.  Emiko shows up, and it turns out SHE killed Hernandez, and leaked the info to the press about Laurel’s association with Diaz.  Laurel is pissed.  But Emiko says now they know the truth, and that she’s possibly set her free.

One more flashback into Emiko’s memory, as we hear the newscast about the Queen’s Gambit being destroyed and Robert Queen killed.  We see the picture Dante gave Emiko, with the specs of the Queen’s Gambit in her hand, she sets it on fire as the episode ends.

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More drama and some action unfolded in this installment, and it wasn’t bad….but it WAS a bit predictable on the betrayal by Emiko part---kinda saw that coming, so it took the edge of the episode off a little. 

Emiko has been completely two-faced the entire time, and it was easy to tell from when she first appeared on the canvas.  Outside of her revenge on her mother’s death, which, as we saw at the end of the episode, the person responsible was her own father.  Now, he didn’t exactly pull any trigger on a gun, or have her ordered killed…it was his simple abandonment of her AND Emiko that led to her mother’s death.  At least that is MY working theory.  That has been her revenge all along, by my deduction.  Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s still the issue of her looking for the killer, but I wonder if that’s just been a red herring.  Her whole plan was to infiltrate the city, earn Ollie’s trust, then kill him when he had the chance.  She knows Ollie is about protecting the city, and she’s there to lay waste to it.  Her on an equal level with Dante and being the ACTUAL leader of the Ninth Circle makes her close to the actual “big bad” of this season. 

Laurel has tried and tried to be the “good girl” and work on her redemption…for Quentin’s sake.  But, her cutting corners, and Emiko finally exposing her association with Diaz, it looks like the Black Siren is going to have to make a return in order to save herself.  The team still doubting her after all she has done only makes it worse.  But what will really hurt is the relationship she’s built with Felicity will suffer…even though Felicity’s the ONLY one who’s seen her redemption and stood by her. 

Oliver.  Well…once again, betrayed by someone he loves.  First, his father, then his mother, now Emiko.  Guy CANNOT catch a break!  Despite all the bad HE has done, he has done his best to try and do what is right…only to get jerked around by those he loved at every turn.  Now, he’s got to stop his sister from going on a killing spree on an entire city, plus HOPE he can reach Emiko and find a way to get to HER redemption.  But THAT will be a VERY hard sell….I’d almost say IMPOSSIBLE.  I see that the ONLY way Emiko has ANY redemption…is in death.  And I feel that is where this final battle is building up towards…a final confrontation between Ollie and Emiko, where she will have NO problem killing him with extreme prejudice….but can HE?  Will he make that lethal decision should it be the ONLY way to stop her AND the Ninth Circle from destroying Star City?

It was good to see Alena back.  Felicity’s hacking partner is there to help her get the ARCHER project off the ground.  We see what the consequences are in the future with this program, but we’re seeing the genesis of it now.  My question is this:  Felicity creates it and develops it….but what happens to Alena in the future?  Does she die over it? 

It was a solid episode, and we got to see in flashbacks Emiko’s animosity build towards her father…which isn’t TOTALLY unjustified, but to outwardly seek revenge to the point of killing the man and all his family is off kilter.  But Robert Queen did himself no favors by engaging in an affair with her mother.  Moira caught him in the act, and Emiko and her mother suffered the consequences.  Ollie wants to restore the Queen name, but he may have to give up on that, and there is no way he will be able to redeem it in Emiko’s eyes.  The Ninth Circle is a new group of terrorists to invade Star City, and will they be able to succeed where others could not?  The story is really beginning to take shape, and we’ll see what happens next time. 

We got some time off between now and mid-April before we get the next episode.  But please feel free to subscribe, leave a comment, and pass along this great page to everyone willya?  It’s better than fast food!

Until mid April, kiddies----keep your sights on the bullseye!