Arrow Recap: “Vertigo”

Arrow Recap: “Vertigo”
Original Air Date (CW): Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Season 1 Episode 12

by Eric Levy:

WARNING: This article contains spoilers.

Arrow just keeps getting better and better.

This week’s episode, “Vertigo,” focused on Oliver’s mission of stopping a sadistic drug dealer who goes by the name of The Count, played by Fringe’s Seth Gabel. As we find out, Oliver stops at nothing… and I mean nothing, to make sure he gets the job done. This includes killing a man and then bringing him back to life… I’m not even kidding, it was crazy. I’ll explain in a bit.

In the opening scene, we see the “The Hood” interrogating someone who supplies the drug Vertigo. After Oliver finds out that The Count is behind the operation, he sets out to confront the drug dealer, but is reminded by Diggle that Thea’s court hearing is scheduled for that day, and that she would probably want Oliver by her side, rather than playing vigilante.

At the court hearing, Thea tries to enter a plea bargain, but the judge denies it. He sees Vertigo sweeping over the city like a plague, as he put it, and wants to make Thea the poster child for the drug. As a result of the judge denying the plea bargain, Thea will head to trial.

After the hearing, Moira is upset and doesn’t understand why the judge had to make an example out of Thea. Oliver tells his mother that he has to go take care of something. That something involves enlisting the help of the police to find The Count. Apparently, the police have known about The Count for some time, and a friend of Oliver’s who works in the department hands him all the information they have on the Vertigo pusher.

At this point, we see The Count for the first time, as he thanks the supplier who ratted him out to “The Hood” in the beginning of the episode by injecting him with a lethal does of Vertigo. It is here that we see the haunting effects the drug has.

I thought it was very interesting that the creative minds behind Arrow decided to make The Count a drug dealer. In the comics, he is known as Count Vertigo, but his name has nothing to do with a drug. Instead, he donned the name after dealing with an ear defect that left him with the medical condition of vertigo. To go further into his backstory, Count Vertigo was implanted with a device in his ear that corrected his problem, which he learned he could control to affect other people’s balance.

Ok, now that I gave you a lesson in DC history, let’s get back to why you are here.

So now that Oliver has some new info on The Count, he continues his mission of finding him. This involves Oliver getting involved with the Russian mob. Oliver asks them for a favor, and they ask for one in return. This results in Oliver killing someone… or does he? No, of course not. Would Oliver just go around killing people… wait, nevermind, don’t answer that. Anyway, we learn that Oliver knows some kind of technique of bringing someone back to life after choking them out. In a flashback to the island, we see that Yao-Fei performed the same move on Oliver.

Speaking of the island, not only did we get further details on Yao-Fei’s betrayal of Oliver through flashbacks, but we finally saw Deathstoke again. According to teasers, he is going to have a larger role in next week’s episode entitled “Betrayal”. It has yet to be seen if he will be called Deathstoke, or go by his real name, Slade Wilson. Regardless, the character will be played by Spartacus’  Manu Bennett.

While all of this stuff with Oliver and The Count is going on, Laurel tries to help Thea by convincing her dad to pull some strings in Thea’s case. Laurel asks him to look into probation and community service instead of jail time. Surprisingly, Thea objects to this because she wants to see her mom suffer for what she has done to her father and Walter. This bold move forces Oliver to tell Thea the truth: that Moira didn’t cheat on Robert… Robert cheated on Moira.

After Thea storms off, not wanting to believe the news her brother just told her, Oliver finally comes face to face with The Count, who ends up injecting Oliver with Vertigo. The drug does not agree with Oliver and he begins overdosing, but luckily for him, Diggle is right by his side to take care of him.

Don’t worry, Oliver gets his revenge. In the end of the episode, with the help of everyone’s favorite tech girl, Felicity, “The Hood” locates The Count and gives him a dose of his own medicine.

As Vertigo courses through his veins,”The Hood” vanishes and The Count is taken into custody. Meanwhile, Thea accepts Laurel’s offer and begins her community service by working in Laurel’s office.

Also, Felicity shows Oliver the list of names that Walter gave her–the same list that Oliver has. Felicity informs Oliver that his mother may have something to do with all of it.

Well there you have it, another fantastic episode of Arrow. If you have been enjoying the show as much as I have, than you should try giving the comic book of the same title a chance. It comes out one a month and often provides further detail on plot lines in the show. You can check out my review for issue # 3 here.

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