Arrow: 10 Things You Might Have Missed in "Beacon of Hope"

MOVIE/TV REFERENCES

There were so many TV and movie references in this episode that I'm going to house all the ones I noticed under one entry, rather than making a whole new entry for each one.

Holy frak! - Popular catchphrase from Battlestar Galactica, which Cisco Ramon has used more than once (and I think Felicity, too).

The Borg is a race of cyborg villains in the Star Trek universe.

"John Hurt in Alien" is a reference to a famous scene in that Ridley Scott sci-fi classic where a baby alien hatches through the actor's chest. (Yes, I'm aware the image above is from Spaceballs, and not Alien.)

The "favorite scene from My Girl" crack was a reference to the fact taht Macaulay Culkin's character in that film is stung to death by bees.

In Independence Day, the invading alien army is shut down by a simple computer virus uploaded into their mothership. This worked primarily because the alien craft all worked on a hive-mind.

Bea Arthur is an actress best known for her work on Maude, Mame, and The Golden Girls. Here, she's just used as a famous "Bea" for the "bee" joke.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

...On that note, let me do a quick rundown of some of the common concepts and characters that we haven't mentioned in an Easter egg post in a while:

Iron Heights Prison is a prison used in the DC Comics source material, but in the Arrowverse, it's been home to almost every Arrow villain at one point or another, as well as Oliver Queen's mother, Barry Allen's father, and more.

H.I.V.E. is a terrorist organization (formerly?) headed up by Damien Darhk, a nigh-immortal mystic with a truly bad attitude.

Palmer Tech is the company founded by Ray Palmer, also known as the superhero The Atom. Ray first appeared on Arrow and has made the move to DC's Legends of Tomorrow. Felicity Smoak runs the company in his absence; the world believes him dead.

Reiter, the villain from the island, is an update of DC villain Baron Blitzkreig (also known as Reiter or Baron Reither), an Earth-2 supervillain from the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths era. Originally he worked with the Nazis. Later updates used him as part of a terrorist organization called Shadowspire, which is what he does in Arrow.

BRIE LARVAN

The Bug-Eyed Bandit, who appeared last year on an episode of The Flash, is a longtime villain who plagued (mostly) The Atom in the DC Comics continuity.

For the purposes of TV, they made him into a female and cast her as a kind of anti-Felicity, something that was played with last year and even more tonight.

TODAY'S DATE

In post-production, they knew just when this episode was going to air. According to the first scene with Brie Larvan, she got out of jail...YESTERDAY. So this whole episode would have taken place today.

Also, "These assaults are weekly" is a cute reference from Donna Smoak. It reminds me a bit of when Lance pointed out that May always yields a major terrorist attack.

VOLDEMOORT

This one gets broken out, becuase...well, becuase for some reason Harry Potter has been all over the DC TV Universe this week.

Both Supergirl and The Flash made references to the Harry Potter novels and movies this week.

So...will Legends of Tomorrow complete the circle?! We'll find out tomorrow.

MURMUR

Michael Amar, who previously appeared in the Season 2 episode "The Offer," was imprisoned for confessing to a crime he didn't commit after being beaten by police, and served out his sentence in Iron Heights Prison.

Amar was released from prison and had his mouth sewn shut, then went on a roaring rampage of revente against the officers who beat the false confession out of him, attacked a Blackhawk Security diamond shipment with his crew.

Amar and his crew attacked the Starling City Police Department killing several cops. The intervention of Nyssa al Ghul, The Arrow, and Arsenal stopped Amar's crew, and before Amar escaped, he was stopped by The Arrow.

NEAL ADAMS

This isn't the first time Curtis has suspected that "Neal Adams from Data Processing" was the Green Arrow.

Neal Adams is the name of one of the most influential comic book artists ever to draw Green Arrow.

ARROWCAVE

While the lair/hideout/bunker/foundry have often been referred to informally as the "Arrowcave," in the comics there was a time where that was ACTUALLY the name of Ollie's base of operations.

THE DODGER

Winnick Norton is an elusive international jewel thief who operates under the codename "The Dodger."

He's been referenced a couple of times, but only seen once, back in Season One.

His signature is to use a hostage to procure items for him, by attaching a bomb collar to them.

TERRIFIC

This isn't the first time Curtis has said "terrific!" to express his approval of something...

...Which is always a high-five moment for comic fans, since Curtis is the TV version of Michael Holt, the superhero known as Mr. Terrific.