Arrow #4.2: “The Candidate” Quickshot Recap

Written By: Marc Guggenheim & Keto Shimizu
Directed By: John Behring
Series Episode: 71
Airdate: October 14, 2015
Guests: Curtis Holt ( Echo Kellum ), Lonnie Machin ( Alexander Calvert ), Jessica Danforth ( Jeri Ryan ), Madison Danforth ( Tiera Skovbye )
Flashback Guests: Reiter ( Jimmy Akingbola )
Special Appearance: Damien Darhk ( Neal McDonough )

Teaser

Team Arrow is taking it to some ghosts in the warehouse district, making a hell of a hero affair of the fight. They’re so in sync that Green Arrow can shoot a zipline arrow perfectly timed for Black Canary to slide down it to take her to the ground. It’s such fun that Oliver Queen actually pauses a moment for a smile and to soak it all in. That is until he sees Speedy throttling a guy yet again. Felicity rattles on about needing her own codename, and suggesting Diggle needs one as well. Back at base, Oliver tries to talk with Thea about her aggression but she says she has to get ready for their dinner with an old family friend. That friend of their mother’s, Jessica Danforth, announces at dinner alongside her daughter that she’s running for the worst gig in Star City: mayor.

Act One

After enjoying a pep talk from Oliver, complete with “first day” fern and sack lunch, Felicity heads into ye olde Queen Consolidated Palmer Technologies headquarters to meet with the board for the first time in person. They reveal they have an ingenious way to curb the downward tide of the business; an algorithm designed by Curtis Holt. In tech-ese shortform, Holt motormouths his way through big-word speak, which Felicity perfectly translates to mean that the algorithm determined who in the company they need to fire to maintain the bottom line. Meanwhile, Oliver and Thea attend Danforth’s candidacy announcement event, even though they both want to convince her not to run. Danforth’s podium is shot at. Thea, sassily ordering her brother around, finds that it was a drone gun, and Oliver pursues Danforth. The security guy taking her out of the building, Lonnie Machin, is the one who staged the attack. Oliver confronts him with his “self-defense class” skills, as he tells Danforth, and chases him outside. A car hits Oliver, but boss that he is, he shakes it off to find that Machin got away.

Act Two

Not to be outdone by the car thing, Oliver flashes Felicity’s corporate card and buys a truck both he and Machin touched coming out of the event. Machin’s fingerprints are on the windshield, and Felicity is quick to determine that the prints are made up from multiple sources. With Danforth in police protective custody, Oliver goes to talk to Quentin Lance about the team helping him, insisting they are doing things different. Lance isn’t buying what Oliver is selling. At Palmer Tech, Holt meets with Felicity on his algorithm and reveals that he created it to determine a way for all employees to get paid better, but the board went Dark Side with it. That’s given a face when Felicity has to fire a woman named Carla who explained that everyone thought Felicity taking over would mean great things for the company. Guilt sandwich served.

While over at the police precinct, Diggle and Laurel stake it out to keep an eye on Danforth. She asks him why he’s being so surly beyond Oliver being back, and Diggle reveals his long-time investigation into H.I.V.E. and how everything’s connected to his brother’s murder. Laurel’s feeling Diggle’s sibling retribution vibe, but knows how keeping secrets can harm. Machin meets with Damien Darhk and insists on another shot at the Danforth job. He mentions the name of a guy Machin worked for that, no matter how many times you rewind and play it through again, you can’t quite make out his name. Ripton Zolo? Rickman Zola? Rip Manzola? The name’s mentioned enough throughout the episode that it’s one to keep an eye (if not an ear) on. Meanwhile, through the magic of TV forensics, Felicity discovers a cellulose resin on Machin’s prints that could only come from a Palmer Tech subsidiary. Green Arrow and Speedy go investigate the warehouse site of the shut-down company, but he has to bench her when she snaps a dude’s arm like a twig looking for info.

Act Three

Felicity “Magic Fingers” Smoak (trying on codenames here) cracks Machin’s identity and discovers he worked for the Bertinellis, the Chinese Triad, and Zolo, Zola, Zoloft, whatever. Oliver confronts Thea on her technique and goads her into a fight. Naturally, Thea goes berserker and the team has to pull her off of Oliver. He reveals that she was likely changed by the Lazarus Pit when it resurrected her, something Malcolm warned him about. Thea storms out, and Diggle wonders why it’s just starting to affect her six months after the fact. At Palmer Tech, Felicity and Holt discover his payment for the firing equation is a Force choke that he’s going to be fired, too. Oliver, meanwhile, tries to convince Danforth not to run for mayor. She’s adamant the city needs something more than the Green Arrow, someone to offer hope and to inspire so that the heroes have something to protect. He wonders where her daughter Madison is. She went to the library with police protection, but Oliver insists Danforth check on her. Bully for him because Machin has abducted her.

Act Four

Danforth holds a presser begging for Madison to be returned. Oliver turns to Lance and offers that his team can aid the police on this, assuring him that things will be different. Darhk meets with Machin over the abduction, dressing him down over the act. Machin asserts that it will work to get Danforth to drop out of the race. At Laurel’s, she asks Thea what happened in Nanda Parbat. Thea explains how the Lazrus Pit brought he back from near death, but might have made her crazy. The gears begin to turn in Laurel’s head, as her dad confronts Darhk about the abduction. Lance says he’s out but Darhk threatens Laurel’s life if he backs out of their deal. He tells Lance the abduction wasn’t what he wanted and offers the girl’s location. As Oliver and Felicity discuss the tribulations of trying to do things different, Lance calls Oliver to tell him where Madison is.

Act Five

Madison is strung up and Machin taunts her as he prepares to torture her. Sadist that he is, he offers to let her go as long as she doesn’t tell anyone about him and where he is. She easily agrees but darn near loses a finger on a faulty pinkie swear. Before Machin can give her the evil business, Team Arrow drops through some skylights to interrupt. He sprays fire to distract them and runs as Diggle and Canary tend to Madison. Green Arrow and Speedy hunt after Machin, who gets the jump on Speedy and gives her a little tap with his shock stick. Arrow and Machin square off in a brutal tete a tete, which Machin manages to get the upperhand on. Before he can really harm Oliver, Speedy intervenes and knocks Machin through some chemicals. In her blind fury, she pokes him with his own shock stick but the spark ignites the chemicals on his clothes. Arrow breaks open the fire suppression system but not before Machin gets a little on the crispy side.

The Tag

Madison is reunited with her mom, who decides that the risk is just too great in this city. Danforth goes to announce to the media that she’s dropping her bid for murder, er, mayor. Oliver tries to have a moment with Lance to wink-nudge him into acknowledging that the team did good. With a fried goon on the way to the hospital, Lance doesn’t quite see it that way. Felicity has Holt join her for a board meeting to announce that they’ve stopped the firings and have rehired staff because Holt has a surprise technology that will revolutionize the world and their company. The board gives them 6 months; Holt hopes Felicity has some technology to prepare because he’s got nothing. She offers that they have 6 months to come up with something. Oliver talks with Thea to assure her that they will work together to figure out what is going on with her. Laurel suggests she takes Thea out of town for a spa weekend, which ends up being code for Let’s am-scray to Nanda Parbat ick-quay to find out what’s going on with you. Only let’s dig up my sister’s corpse first and see what kind of adventure we can have. To match the effectively gaunt body of Sara, Lance learns that Machin escaped from the ambulance and left behind a new calling card in blood, the symbol for anarchy. Elsewhere, back at the loft, Oliver stuns Felicity by deciding he’s going to run for mayor.

Oliver dispatches the soldier who found him upon first landing back on Lian Yu, staking him with his knife. Using a fun bit of Q Branch-like satellite message connection, Oliver learns his mission is to infiltrate the soldiers’ operation. He tracks down the group and discovers they are growing and harvesting poppies, most likely, one can assume, to feed the heroin trade. Instead of attacking the group, Oliver is to join them. He tears his clothes and rubs dirt on himself. He flips the dead soldier’s body on to a mine to draw out the others. They find him and asks who he is. He explains he’s Oliver Queen and has been stranded on the island for the past three years. They take him to their leader, a man named Reiter. Oliver effectively plays dumb and thanks Reiter for rescuing him. Reiter recognizes who he is but assures him he’s not being rescued. He offers for Oliver to join them so that they can use his expertise of the island. Oliver agrees, and gets a haircut out of the deal.

Three Quick Thoughts

• Who the heck is this Ripton Zolo guy? He’s mentioned too often throughout the episode to be something minor. Rather than the speculated Darhk, could Zolo be Felicity’s long-vanished criminal father?
• Laurel’s thinking on bringing Sara back, at least, has some basic logic to it.
• Between the drug trade soldiers in the flashbacks and Oliver Queen deciding to run for mayor, on top of the whole Green Arrow thing, there’s a very decided comic-inspired bent to the stories this season.