Last week had a face-off between Oliver and Diaz, and thanks to Diaz cheating with a knife, it didn’t go too well for Oliver. At the ends of their fight, Diaz had his crooked cops arrest him to spearhead his Green Arrow trial. This week on Arrow, we get the trial of Oliver Queen.
The episode starts seemingly with a flashback to Diggle parachuting down in enemy territory. Being the badass he is, we get to see Diggle pretty much be a one-man army as he storms the enemy encampment, shooting his way through dozens of enemy fighters. After gunning pretty much everyone down, he reaches his goal. His target: Christopher Chance, AKA The Human Target. Chance, has been seen previously on Arrow working for both the Bratva as well as with Team Arrow. Thanks to Diggle, he’s free from imprisonment and owes him a favor.
Oliver is getting ready for his trial and is surprisingly upbeat. His lawyer tells him to pump his breaks as the judge is in Diaz’s pocket, meaning he’s probably not going to get a fair trial. To make matter worse, they are not using their usual prosecutor but bringing in a cutthroat lawyer names Alexa Van Owen (guest starring The Shield’s Catherine Dent, who’s also making a killing it on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D). While she’s not in Diaz’s pocket, she has a 90% conviction rate. If there’s something to find out, she’ll find it. Van Owen offers Oliver a plea deal, meaning he would serve 15 years behind bars. If found guilty, all bets are off. Oliver doesn’t want a plea deal, he wants an acquittal. It’s off to trial we go.
Renee (now without last week’s PTSD), is trying to strategize with Dinah as to what they are going to say since they are both served a subpoena to testify against Oliver. Renee thinks that pleading the fifth amendment is the best course of action. Of course, this means that could also be arrested under suspicion of being vigilantes themselves. Curtis isn’t sweating it, because he’s managed to conceal his secret identity as Mr. Terrific and is under no suspicion. Quentin Lance, now the mayor is giving an interview with the press where he maintains Oliver’s innocence, even citing that he arrested and gave Oliver a lie detector way back when and Oliver was proven innocent. Just then, Earth-2 Lauren comes to see him and a reporter asks her (since “she” was already outed as the Black Canary) if she knows that Oliver is the Green Arrow. She tells the reporter that she knows who the Green Arrow is, and if subpoenaed, she will tell who the Green Arrow is. She tells her dimensional adoptive father that Diaz is out of control. He tells her she should stand up to him.
As the trial commences, most of Team Arrow testifies on Oliver’s behalf. Diggle, Dinah, Renee, even the local doctor ass testifies. Things first seem to work in Oliver’s favor. But remember, Van Owen’s a shark. She gets Dinah to plead the fifth when she attacks her credibility, citing when she killed Sean Sonus. When Renee takes the stand, he first stands tall for Oliver, but then Diaz walks into the room with his daughter having the necessary leverage on him. Even Oliver realizes that he has to do what Diaz wants and admits that Oliver is the Green Arrow, so now it’s not looking too good for Oliver. Diggle and Dinah confront Diaz after outside the courthouse and are even willing to reveal themselves to stop him, only for all off Diaz’s cops to pull their guns on them. It’s not looking good for Oliver.
Felicity takes the stand and testifies as an expert witness in computer forensics that the doctored photo of Oliver as the Green Arrow was in fact, doctored. However, Van Owen manages to bring up Felicity’s father and how she didn’t know he was a criminal hacker, meaning that she couldn’t know if a loved one is a criminal, throwing out her credibility. Next Oliver takes the stand. He does his best to answer her questions to make himself look in a good position. She then brings up his time in Russia when he was supposed to be in Lian Yu, where Oliver is forced to admit that he wasn’t on the dangerous island the whole time, throwing his credibility to the wind.
Just then, The Green Arrow appears.
Crashing through a sunroof in the courtroom (who knew there would be sunroofs?), The “Green Arrow” appears. When the mask is taken off Tommy Merlyn (guest starring Colin Donnell) appears. “Tommy” testifies that he faked his own death and has been the Green Arrow all these years. He was coming forward because he didn’t want Oliver to go to jail on his behalf. The judge then orders Tommy’s arrest. He tells them that his team will break him out anyway. Just as he predicted, Renee and Diggle beat of the corrupt cops that were taking him to Diaz and the three escape. He then pulls his mask off to reveal himself as the Human Target wearing a disguise.
Laurel takes the stand as Diaz ordered her to. However, she instead, tells the courtroom that Tommy is the Green Arrow, not Oliver. Both the prosecution and the defense make their closing arguments. Oliver prepares for the worst. The jury didn’t deliberate long and Oliver is found guilty. However, the judge makes a reversal and allows Oliver to go free. Turns out, Diggle and Renee had Chris Chance use his Human Target skills to impersonate the judge to get Oliver freed. This doesn’t go well for the judge as Diaz kills him later on. Shortly after, Earth-2 Laurel tries to kill Diaz, but he manages to use a device to stop her. Now that the law has failed to stop Oliver Queen, Diaz is going to kill him.
Not just him, everyone he knows, and all their families…..
