Arrow Recap: “Betrayal”

Arrow Recap: “Betrayal”
Original Air Date (CW): Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Season 1 Episode 13

by Eric Levy:

WARNING: This article contains spoilers.

This episode certainly lived up to its title. Not only was there betrayal between Oliver and his mother, but also between Laurel and her father.

After the events of last week’s episode, Oliver confronts Moira about the book of names that Felicity gave him. Of course, Moira goes into denial mode and throws the book into the fireplace.

Oliver wants to believe his mother, but Diggle makes it his top priority to show Oliver what he isn’t seeing–or as we find out, hearing.

After Diggle takes a page out of Driving Miss Daisy, he spies on Moira during a secret meeting between her and Malcolm Meryln. It is here that Diggle gets concrete evidence that Oliver’s mother is up to something.Using a listening device, Diggle records the juicy part of Moira and Malcolm’s visit and plays if for Oliver, who can’t believe what he hears. He finds out that Moira still has what’s left of the Queen’s Gambit and that it was sabotaged.

Now on to the Lance family dysfunction.

If you have been watching this show, then you will remember a few episodes back when Detective Lance had the phone that Laurel is using to communicate with “The Hood” bugged. Well, our overprotective father who is hell-bent on getting rid of “The Hood” takes it in his best interest to listen in on a phone call between the vigilante and his daughter.

Detective Lance and Diggle must have had a pow-wow to discuss ideas.

Laurel ends up finding out what her father did and decides that maybe it is best if they take some time apart from each other.

While all of this is happening, we are introduced to yet another villain, Cyrus Vanch, a criminal who has just been released from jail. If there is one thing I have learned watching Arrow, it’s that there is a rotating door of bad guys. Each week, we seem to get someone new. Before the show went on its midseason hiatus, the people behind the show left us with the image of Malcolm Meryln as this “dark archer.” Fast forward a bit, and we haven’t seen any sign of Malcolm in the costume.

Anyway, back to Vanch. He ends up kidnapping Laurel after learning that she has been in contact with “The Hood.” This leads to an unexpected team-up between Detective Lance and the vigilante as they try and rescue Laurel.

All of this made for a really nice episode, but the real thrill came during the flashback sequences where we were finally were formally introduced to Slade Wilson and it… was… awesome.

For weeks, we have been teased with this moment, but the payoff was well worth it. We also find out that Slade is going to train Oliver so that he is caught up to speed with Mr. Wilson’s skills.

So that’s where Oliver learned to kick so much butt… or so it seems.

Things are starting to get juicy on Arrow, and I am all in for the ride.

See you next week, Arrow Heads.

Eric Levy covers the hit CW TV show Arrow for DarkMedia. He is a comic book enthusiast who loves to read, watch, and write about his favorite characters. You can follow Eric on Twitter at @LifeinStrips. You can also check out his blog at lifeinstrips.blogspot.com