Arrow 5×11 “Second Chances” saw Team Arrow trying to recruit a new Black Canary to honor Laurel’s last wish.
I’ll admit I was ready to hate Tina (or should I say “Tina”?) from the jump. Or maybe not Tina herself but the fact that she is meant to be Laurel’s replacement. I am still unhappy with the show’s choice to kill Laurel; it made little narrative sense and didn’t end up being about her — much like Sara’s death, now that I think about it. But Sara was also resurrected and is now the the star of her own spin-off. Laurel, so far, remains dead.
So, I was ready to be annoyed at this episode, detailing the quest to replace Laurel as the Black Canary with an original character. (And yes, I’m aware of the irony that Sara, another Arrow original, is my favorite character.) It turns out that I liked Tina just fine; I just didn’t want her to be the Black Canary.
But then the big reveal: Tina Boland was her undercover name. Her real name is Dinah Drake.
This changed my view on the whole thing. Why? Because Dinah Drake is the Golden Age Black Canary. In the comics, Dinah Drake is Dinah Laurel Lance’s mother and the original Black Canary so they’ve changed the character quite a bit for Arrow. But I’m relieved that they’re honoring the Black Canary mantle by introducing a character who served as Black Canary in the comics. This is really the only avenue that could have made replacing Laurel tolerable for me. Would I prefer Laurel to remain? Of course. But this will work for me.
To rewind a bit, the episode follows Team Arrow’s attempts to find a new Black Canary. Oliver refuses to accept any of the stellar candidates his teammates bring up until Curtis brings up a mystery woman (“Tina”) who has been kicking criminal ass for the last three years. And she has her own version of the Canary Cry, thanks to the particle accelerator.
At first, she has no interest in joining the team. Her wit and tongue are sharp and she’s on a quest for revenge. When she became a meta, she was being help captive by a drug operation she and her partner had been working undercover to bring down. The boss, Sonus, killed her partner. Since then, Tina has been trying to bring him and his organization down.
This is made more difficult because Sonus also got meta powers that night in Central City; his powers are reminiscent of the effects of vertigo. But Oliver, revealing his identity to Tina, convinces her to accept the team’s help. They take out a large group gathered in preparation for a big drug shipment. And Tina, despite Oliver’s pleas not to, kills Sonus.
She realizes what most people who go on revenge quests do, though: revenge help. You think it will, but things aren’t magically better because a loved one’s death has been avenged. Tina’s partner and lover is still dead. So, she accepts Oliver’s offer of a place to find herself among people who understand what she’s been through.
In the process, we also get a brief crossover with The Flash as Oliver calls Captain Singh as the Green Arrow for information on Tina, since she was formerly CCPD. He has The Flash give a sign that he’s legit. We had a brief Berlanti-verse crossover in this week’s Flash as well, as Cisco and Gypsy briefly ended up at CatCo during their duel.
As much as I enjoy the big crossovers, the little ones work particularly well because they’re reminders of how interconnected the shows are. That’s a big advantage of having a shared universe, so I’m glad they find moments to take advantage of it.
Diggle’s case comes to a head in this episode as well. Adrian Chase reveals that the general who is framing Diggle was under investigation for corruption, but the investigation was shut down. Felicity hacks into the NSA to get the case file, only to discover it had been deleted.
Felicity does a deep dive into the Dark Web to track down the file. She’s clearly dealing with Billy’s death by working and doing anything and everything to help the loved ones who are still with her. In the middle of her work, she’s contacted by someone who recognizes her hacktivist identity.
She meets this person, who turns out to be a young woman much like her. Felicity inspired her to become a hacktivist as well, though she was disappointed to see that Felicity had gone legit at Palmer Tech. She offers Felicity a jump drive with the general’s file as well as other files that her organization, Helix, has compiled. These files have the ability to take down corrupt politicians, organizations, etc.
In other words, in exchange for the drive, she wants Felicity to return to her hacktivist roots. And Felicity, when she opens the drive, is clearly tempted.
The release of the general’s file gives Chase grounds to get Diggle released on bail. He also filed to have the charges against Diggle dismissed, and he expects that to be a slam dunk. Diggle has officially been freed. I still wonder if Vigilante will be paying the corrupt general a visit, though.
And in the flashbacks, Talia al Ghul reveals she knows all about Oliver. He wears the hood of one of her students, Yao Fei, despite appearing much younger than him (hello Lazarus Pit). She wants to help Oliver become “someone else, something else,” but first she helps him kill one of Kovar’s associates as a sign of good faith. Oliver sees himself as a monster, and she agrees that he has a monster in him; he needs to give the monster within an identity so he can be free to be Oliver Queen. Cue him suiting up as The Hood.
We want to hear your thoughts on this topic!
Write a comment below or submit an article to Hypable.