‘Arrow’ Review: The Odyssey brings Felicity (aka the BEST) into the fold

Let’s start off tonight’s Arrow review with one of the best news items from the week: Emily Bett Rickards has been promoted to a series regular for Season 2, which means we’re going to get a lot more Felicity. And since we’re on the subject, how awesome is it that Felicity is in on the secret now? The answer is ‘completely’ because Felicity is the BEST.

“The Odyssey” began where last week’s episode left off, which is still one of the lamest cliffhangers ever, but I digress. Arrow gave his ‘failed the city’ speech and Moira pulled out the, ‘I’m a mother!’ card. She even grabbed a picture of Oliver and Thea to show the vigilante that she needed to live for her children. Considering he is one of them, Oliver relented and that gave Moira time to pull out a gun and shoot him. It wasn’t a fatal wound, but he did leave blood all over the office floor.

Next, we cut to Felicity walking to her car in the parking garage and she finds Arrow huddled in her backseat. She’s confused when he knows her name, but then Oliver pushes the hood back and Felicity isn’t overly stunned, but she is distracted by the blood. She wants to take him to the hospital, but he insists on the Arrow Cave. Felicity does as he asks and when she arrives, Dig pulls a gun on her and she explains that he’s heavy. Dig helps her get Oliver inside and then he goes to work on saving his life.

Oliver is passed out and most of the episode takes place on the island, which we will get to in a minute, but before that, I want to gush about Felicity some more. First, Dig and Felicity working together automatically ups the awesome level in a room because the two of them with their sarcastic humor are so much fun to watch. Dig notices that Felicity isn’t that surprised by everything and she reminds him how stupid their excuses were and that she’s not dumb. She is a little concerned about some of Oliver’s questionable choices (like when he straight up murders people), but Dig points out that there are casualties in all wars.

Before we completely submerse ourselves in the island, I want to get into the very brief bedroom scene between Oliver and Laurel that we got a glimpse off in the February sweeps preview video. It was actually a fantasy sequence or a dream, I guess, that Oliver had and he was asking Laurel how she could forgive him for sleeping with her sister. Laurel’s response was to ask him if it hurt when they killed him. But this was not the best Oliver/Laurel moment in the episode. That came when Oliver found a phone on the island and called her, but didn’t actually say anything. I like when the show reminds us just how much he cares about her…again though, would it kill them to give Katie Cassidy more than a few minutes of airtime?

Slade Wilson (how good is this actor?) was continuing his quest to turn Oliver from a huge whiner (annoying, right?) into a fighter so they could have a chance to actually get off the island. The plan was going pretty well until Oliver stepped on a mine. But luckily, Slade took down some soldiers and used one guy’s body to take Oliver’s place on the mine. Then he told Oliver about his plan to intercept a plane and blow up the island. Oliver was worried about Yao Fei, which was sweet and/or stupid, depending on how you look at it.

Oliver snuck back into the camp (stupid) to warn Yao Fei (sweet) and it turns out that Yao Fei has his own reasons for staying on the island and that reason was important enough to him to turn Oliver into Fryers (I think that’s his name? He’s the guy calling the shots). Anyway, they brought out Deathstroke 2 or Original Deathstroke since he was the first one we met and he was supposed to kill Oliver, but Oliver started taunting him about how he knew his name and who he was and so on. Original Deathstroke was not pleased with that, but before he could kill Oliver (was anyone really worried?), Slade came and the two fought (it was a super cool scene) and Original Deathstroke ended up with something very sharp in his eye.

Meanwhile, Fryers (?) congratulated Yao Fei on his loyalty and allowed him to “have five minutes with her.” Then we got to see Yao Fei going to see a younger woman, who was tied up in a tent and had a big dragon tattoo on her back. As you guys may recall, my comic knowledge is a big fat zero, but I remembered this casting announcement for the character named ‘Shado.’ We only got to hear a whisper of her name, but comic fans should be pretty excited (I guess?) because she’s sort of a big deal or something? I don’t know. But at least now we know that Yao Fei is a good guy (probably) and he’s just stuck with the bad people because he wants to help his daughter.

Back in the present day, Oliver woke up and thought it was cool that he didn’t die. He thanked Dig and Felicity for helping and Felicity explained that she hacked into the police evidence and destroyed the blood sample from Moira’s office so they can’t trace it back to Oliver. He was impressed (as he should be) and wanted to welcome her to the team, but Felicity wasn’t quite ready to make that jump. She agreed to work with them to find Walter because he’d been nice to her (aw!), but that was it and she was going back to being the IT girl (IT girl, star of the show, whatevs).

Dig warned Oliver that he was putting Felicity in danger and then changed the subject back to his mother, but I guess Oliver likes getting shot because he’s basically given Moira a free pass since she held up that picture of him. Dig side eyed him the same way I am right now and then the camera zeroed in on Oliver’s shoulder and it looks like he’s got a tattoo very similar to Shado’s. So I guess those two are going to be meeting in the future…

Back at the Luthor mansion, Detective Lance was taking Moira’s statement and Thea (another one scene episode) was not happy that Oliver didn’t answer his phone. Detective Lance admitted that there was a problem with the vigilante’s blood sample and then he left and Oliver assured Moira that the vigilante would never bother her again. Guys, I know Moira’s probably not the big bad, but I still think it would be a cooler story if she was. Then again, I liked it better on Smallville when Oliver was an orphan…

Next week, we get more Felicity! But she’s in trouble because some crazy guy wants to blow her up. That is so not cool. Also, we’re going to meet Roy Harper (aka Colton Haynes). Until then, feel free to hit the comments and rave about Felicity…or other parts of the show, I suppose. See you next week…