Arrow Recap: “Burned”

Arrow Recap: “Burned”
Original Air Date (CW): Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Season 1 Episode 10

by Eric Levy:

What Went Down:

There’s an old adage: time heals all wounds, and after over a month of not being on the air, that time might have been exactly what Oliver Queen needed.

When we last saw our Emerald Archer, he was in a hospital recovering from injuries sustained in a brutal fight against a new threat—another archer—who revealed himself to be Malcolm Merlyn.

“Burned” wastes little time when it comes to someone being killed. In the opening scene, a building has been engulfed in flames and firefighters are on scene to try to put out the blaze. While this is happening, one of the firefighters douses another with a substance which ends up igniting him, and as we later learn, kills him.

We cut to Oliver, who is out of the hospital, but is dealing with the aftermath of his confrontation with the other archer. As he tries to get in a workout in the Arrow Cave (I know they don’t call it that, but for right now, I’m going to go with it.) It is clear that his encounter with the other archer has left some lasting effects. As Diggle enters the room, he reminds Oliver that there are still names on “the list” that need to be crossed off. Oliver responds by saying that those people aren’t going anywhere, and that with his step-father, Walter, missing, his family needs him.

In the first of a few island flashback scenes, we see Yao-Fei attacked and struck down by Deathstroke as Oliver watches from afar.

In present time, we are brought to Laurel’s place of business where her co-worker and best friend Jo — who just so happens to be the sister of the firefighter killed — learns of her brother’s demise.  Jo is understandably upset by the news and is comforted by Laurel.

At the Queen household, Oliver tries to get his mother out of her funk by offering her some take-out and movie. After being turned down, Oliver extends the offer to his sister, who is down for some chow and a Zach Galifianakis flick. While the two are on the couch having a brother/sister bonding moment, the news comes on talking about how “The Hood” has been a positive force for the Starling City, and that his absence the last six weeks has been a mystery.

Meanwhile, at Laurel’s place, Jo shows up and says that she thinks her brother Danny’s death was not an accident; she think that he might have been murdered. She hands Laurel a copy of the incident report. The report said that Danny’s coat was doused in turpentine. Jo goes on to say that she looked into it and there wasn’t any sign of turpentine in the building that caught fire. After learning all of this, Laurel decides to put on her detective pants, taking her to the location of an actual detective — her father. During the visit with her father, Laurel ends up stealing the phone that “The Hood” gave to him in “Year’s End.” This prompts a meeting between Laurel and the vigilante where she tells him about her friend’s brother’s death, and asks for his help in finding the killer. “The Hood” tell Laurel that he will look into it.

Back in the Arrow Cave, Diggle is working out. Oliver tell him about his meeting with Laurel and asks if the two of them should get involved. Diggle says yes and that he has a friend of a friend in the fire investigation department that he could reach out to. Oliver asks Diggle to notify the police with any tips. Clearly noticing something wrong, Diggle wonders why after six weeks, Oliver isn’t anxious to, “Hood up.”  While thinking about what was just asked of him, Oliver is distracted by something going on upstairs. Tommy Merlyn—who has recently been appointed manager to Oliver’s night club by Oliver himself— is yelling at a contractor over the lack of progress being made in the night club’s construction. After Oliver questions Tommy, he asks how Laurel’s friend Jo is doing. Tommy says that she is hanging in there, and that he has come up with an idea: throw a fundraiser for the fire department at the night club to raise money for the families. Oliver thinks that this is a good idea.

At this point, Laurel insists to Jo that she take some time off from work and be with her family. At the same time, Detective Lance storms in demanding answers to where his phone went. After admitting to taking it, Laurel tells her dad that she had to do something. When asked for it back, Laurel says that she doesn’t have it…”he took it back,” she says. This doesn’t make the detective happy at all.

Oliver is back at home and walks in on his mother and another man discussing the day-to-day operations of Queen Consolidated. Moira is telling the man that despite Walter’s absence, the company will be fine. The man goes on to bring up to Moira that this is the second time in five years that the CEO of the company has vanished under mysterious circumstances. Moira gets upset and asks the man to leave. Wondering what is going on, Oliver asks who the man was. After Moira tells him that is was Ned Foster, COO of Queen Consolidated, Oliver’s sister Thea joins in the conversation, telling Oliver that Foster wants their mother to take Walter’s place.

Moira says that her place is at home with her family. Oliver insists that Thea and himself will be fine. After Moria disagrees and storms off, Diggle walks into the room and tell Oliver that he is going to be late for his dentist appointment (right… dentist appointment.) This is of course code for something else. Diggle informs Oliver that the truck of the murder suspect has been located at the scene of another fire. Diggle says that he has Oliver’s gear in the car, but Oliver hesitates. Diggle tells him that the man in the hood is needed.

In another flashback scene, Oliver is on the island making a fire when he sees someone lurking in the woods with a gun. After putting out the fire, he grabs a knife and goes to hide.

At the scene of the crime Diggle was talking about, we see a firefighter knock another firefighter over a railing. As “The Hood” enters and tries to intervene, the firefighter, who is now hanging on to the railing after being attacked, falls, presumably to his death. “The Hood” and the other firefighter get into a fight, and after being knocked down, “The Hood” notices substantial burn marks and the tattoo of a firefly on the hand of the firefighter.

After this heated (literally… there was fire everywhere) confrontation, Oliver—still dressed as “The Hood”— sits down and has another flashback in which he attacks the man with the gun that was lurking in the woods in the previous flashback. Oliver knocks the man down, but ends up hurting himself by falling into an area with water.

Once the flashback is over, a hooded Oliver reaches for his phone and proceeds to call Laurel. Of course, she picks up, and he tells her that he has some information for her. He tells her about the murder suspects vehicle, scars, and tattoo. Laurel asks what she should do with this information. He tells her to do whatever she was going to do before she met him .

Diggle confronts Oliver about the information he has revealed to Laurel. Oliver says that he can’t right every wrong in the city. Diggle says he gets that, and that maybe Oliver isn’t back to one hundred percent like Oliver thought. Oliver agrees with Diggle, and the two engage in a fist fight where Oliver ends up getting the upper hand. Diggle thinks that Oliver’s problem might not be physical, but rather mental. After the two argue, Oliver walks off to tend to business related to the fundraiser for the firefighters. Here, he runs into Laurel, who is on the way to clean out Danny’s locker. Before Oliver leaves, he brings up Laurel and Tommy’s relationship. This catches Laurel off-guard. You can tell that there is still something between these two. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if anything happens with them in the future.

Once inside the fire station, Laurel talks to Danny’s old fire chief about the research she has done, and shows him a picture of him along with a handful of other firemen. It turns out that they called themselves, “The Fireflies.” Laurel wants to know why some of the men in the picture are now dead. She specifically has questions about a firefighter named Garfield Lynns who was killed in a fire a couple of years back. Yep… I said Garfield Lynns. The character, played in this episode by Andrew Dunbar, is straight out of the pages of DC Comics. There, Lynns is also known as Firefly.

Oliver reappears and asks about the aforementioned fire because he has no memory of it due to his time on the island. After hearing what they wanted to hear, Laurel and Oliver leave the fire station, but do so in opposite directions. Laurel immediately uses the phone she took from her dad, and tries to contact “The Hood.” Oliver sees Laurel trying to call him and runs to an area where she can’t see him and answers the phone. Laurel asks what to do next; “The Hood” says nothing, and that it is his turn.

Remember earlier, at the beginning of this episode, when Oliver was trying to get his mother out her funk? Well, now it Thea’s turn. She tells her mother, who is looking at old pictures, that they are going out. Moira declines the invitation, saying that she is too tired. This upsets Thea, who points out that her mother isn’t the only one affected by everything going on with their family.

Down in the Arrow Cave, Diggle is apologizing to Oliver for coming down so hard on him. He tells him that he knows what it’s like to stare death ion the face. Oliver tells Diggle that that’s not what’s bothering him. Oliver tells Diggle that he’s been close to death before… on the island. Oliver says that he never feared death on the island because in his mind, he had nothing to lose. However, now that he is back home, surrounded by family and friends, his tune has changed; the thought of death now makes him afraid.

After this heart-to-heart moment, Oliver turns to the task at hand: Getting to the bottom of Danny’s murder. From the facts that he has gathered, Oliver comes to the conclusion that Garfield Lynns might not have died, but was presumed dead. This gets Diggle’s attention.

Ok, it’s party time… or is it?

At the fundraiser for the firefighters, Oliver and Laurel continue to grill the fire chief about the Nodell Tower fire where Garfield Lynns was supposedly killed. Oliver tells the chief that he heard that Lynn’s coat was recovered in the fire, but never the body. The chief feels like he is being interrogated, but that doesn’t stop the questions. The fire chief eventually reveals what really happened: He radioed for his men to get out fo the building, but Lynns refused to leave, begging the chief to send the unit back in. The chief refused, his men die as a result. Oliver tells the chief that Lynns isn’t really dead. Laurel also concludes that Lynns killed Danny and the other men on the chief’s unit.

In an act of revenge against the chief for what he did in the Nodell Tower fire, Lynns shows up to crash the party, and sets off an explosion. While Oliver runs off to change into his gear, Lynns has a one-on-one with his former chief, voicing his displeasure with him. Lynns goes on to tell the chief that he was pulled from the wreckage and was listed as a John Doe in the burn unit. As Lynns’ motive unfolds, “The Hood” steps in to save the chief from certain death. Lynns ends up killing himself by setting himself on fire.

After all the hoopla, Jo decides to take some time off of work to be with family. As she and Laurel say goodbye, Detective Lance walks in and tells his daughter that maybe it’s better if she keeps the phone that she took, keeping the lines of communication with “The Hood” open. Then, in a moment of deception, it is revealed that Detective Lance has had the phone bugged.

In a final flashback scene, we see Oliver dressed in the clothes of the man he attacked. As he searches through some pockets, he discovers a set of keys and a map.

The fire that Lynns started at the fundraiser had no effect on the Arrow Cave, the result of concrete and steel construction, according to Oliver. Oliver goes on to thank Diggle for everything he’s done, and while holding up “the list,” tells him it’s time to go hunting.

What I Thought:

To be perfectly honest, this episode could have been total garbage and I probably would have liked it… going over a month without one of your favorite shows is pretty hard to handle. Fortunately, “Burned” was far from garbage.

While I did not enjoy seeing our titular character receive a major beat down at the end of  “Year’s End” by the other archer , I do appreciate what it did for Oliver here in this episode. Up until this point, we really haven’t seen him as being vulnerable — except during some of the flashbacks scene on the island.

There were a couple of sore spots for me when it came to the story. First, I was kind of let down that we didn’t see a physical presence from Malcolm Merlyn. I mean, he played such an integral part in the last episode that it seemed like something was missing. But the more I thought about it, the more I enjoyed the idea that he was used as a psychological threat to Oliver… so I let that one slide. The one issue I could not get past was the final confrontation between “The Hood” and Lynns. I felt as though it was very anti-climactic given the buildup that surrounded it. Writers Moira Kirland and Ben Sokolowski gave us just over 40 minutes of show, and in that time, a lot of it was centered on Oliver second guessing himself, and having those close to him — like Diggle — build his confidence back up. I thought that this was going to lead to something big. Instead, it fell flat.

Despite that, I thought “Burned” was an excellent episode. By no means is it a jumping on point for new viewers who might have caught wind of the show’s success over the break. There is a lot that has happened that isn’t explained in detail here. For a summary of what’s transpired, you can refer to my “What You May Have Missed” article.

Previews for next’s week episode, “Trust But Verify,” look good. Someone from Diggle’s past is on Oliver’s “list.”  The question is, how did he get there?

See you next time, 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