The perfect end to a story arc and beginning of another, this episode was as exciting as a season finale in itself!
Such high stakes! Such intense character moments! Such payoffs, and great tie-ups of character arcs!
The episode did a great job of focusing on Diaz, Oliver and Slabside prison, while not totally forgeting about the characters outside the prison by relegating them to mentions either by Oliver or Diaz. The innmates at Slabside, especially Oliver's foes Brick, Samson and Turner, and his mysterious friend/ally/sidekick Stanley also get a good share of the focus. Afterall, we won't be seeing slabside again. And perhaps, this might be the end of the Dragon's terrors too.
As the episode begins, we see that Ricardo Diaz, after being defeated in the last episode, has finally lost it. Full of hate, anger and solely focused on getting his vengeance from Oliver before our hero escapes his grasp for good, Diaz bribes the guard transporting him to Slabside to help him infiltrate the prison instead. This he does, beginning with taunting Oliver (who was spending his last hours in the prison) as his final visitor. Oliver tries to warn the guards that Diaz is in the prison but they don't listen. Finally, in an act of desperation, he bursts out of his cell, tackles the few guards guarding his floor and flees to seek out Diaz himself before he does serious harm.
However, he's too late. While the other inmates in his block are being rounded up in the yard, Diaz shows up in a guards uniform, kills the guards in the yard and sics the prisoners on the others, including Brick and Samson. Turner, however, is still in solitary, though earlier in the episode, before Diaz arrived, Oliver had cut ties with Stanley and revealed to Turner that he knew he was innocent and would help him once he got out.
Oliver is still busy fighting off guards when Brick and Samson accoust him in the hallway. Halfway through the fight and at a timely moment, Turner turns up and helps him against the two, stabbing Brick in the shoulder and injuring Samson severely. They let them escape though, to concentrate on stopping Diaz.
This doesn't go as planned. Diaz has anticipated Oliver's move and kills a hostage guard to his hearing, then lealeases the rest of the prison's inmates. Oliver and Turner are forced to rescue the guards from the prisoners and take them to the panic room where other guatds have found safety. Other guards are still with Diaz though, and Oliver realises he can't stop with without weapons. When he goes for some, he is stabbed with an anaesthetic and tied up by Stanley who finally reveals his true psycho-killer personality, begging Oliver to escape the prison with him so they could be partners on the outside. Oliver of course refuses and takes him down.
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When they get to Diaz, he sets off a device that instantly causes electrical fires throughout the prison. Oliver and Turner square off with Samson and Brick again and take them down, Samson falling into the flames and burning to death while Brick escapes. Turner gets the rest of the guards out, and Oliver goes after Diaz, fighting through his injuries and exhastion and finally takes down and incapacitates the dragon in his old cell.
As the prison is being restored to order, It's a happy ending as Oliver finally leaves through the gate, a free man once more, and is met by Dig and Felicity to take him home.
Meanwhile, Brick and Stanley meet up in the morgue where they're both about to escape, but Stanley kills Brick and leaves alone, with hatred for Oliver now deep in his heart...
What next? With Diaz down, who will take the role of the new big bad? And what will happen to the Green Arrow now that the world knows who he is? So many exciting questions to be answered as the show goes on!
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