Arrow: Easter Eggs and Other Things You Might Have Missed In "Penance"

THE NAME GAME

After a few episodes of hanging around and fighting bad guys, both Artemis and Mr. Terrific finally got their names this week.

At the Arrow hundredth episode event over the weekend, both Madison McLaughlin and

KORD INDUSTRIES

Kord Industries, a fixture in seasons 2 and 3 but less common in 4 and so far in 5, is the name of the tech company owned and operated by Ted Kord. In the comics, Ted is one of three people who have gone by the name of Blue Beetle. A heroic legacy that started in 1940, Kord's version of the Blue Beetle was the most Green Arrow-like: an inventor and industrialist who didn't have any special powers but who did have a lot of tech, mostly Beetle-themed.

It's rumored that he was supposed to be the character who eventually evolved into Ray Palmer, but DC had other plans for the character — widely believed to be the forthcoming Booster Gold movie.

TECH VILLAGE

This not-quite-a-Best-Buy is the name of the store where Felicity Smoak worked at the beginning Arrow's third season.

This may be the first time it's had an in-story reference in at least a full season that wasn't just a brief callback to "Felicity worked there once."

It is also, due to Ray Palmer's attempts to recruit Felicity to work for him, a subsidiary of Palmer Tech.

PALMER TECH

Of course, this is the company formerly owned by Ray Palmer, and then Felicity Smoak. Before that, it was Oliver's company, which he signed over to Ravager as part of Deathstroke's attack on Oliver and the city.

It's unclear who owns it now — maybe it's just whichever stockholder has a plurality and nobody exciting at all — but after four years of the company being one of the most regularly-used sets on the show, this is the first time we've gone back this year.

AMERTEK

Church took RPGs from Amertek?

We weren't going to mention Amertek necessarily, since we just talked about it a couple of episodes ago, but it's definitely worth noting that in the comics, the company's most notorious weapon is a modified RPG colloquially called a Toastmaster, which was designed by John Henry Irons during his time working for Ametek.

CELL 1138

John's cell number is a nod to THX 1138, George Lucas's directorial debut.

It's arguably better known among the average moviegoer for giving the first bit of its name to THX, Lucas's revolutionary sound system, but the film itself remains one of Lucas's best-reviewed works and a reminder that he did great work outside of just Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

It's worth noting that at one point in the film, the title character THX and one of his fellow prisoners (SEN 5241) stage a jail break from a facility where most of the other inmates have no desire to leave — kind of like Diggle had no desire to leave at the start of the episode.

MOLECULAR DESTABILIZER

That spray, used to immediately and dramatically destabilize the molecules in anything it's sprayed on (how does it stay in the bottle?), feels like a nod to the universal solvent in the first arc of All-Star Squadron.

In that story, a solvent designed by villain Dr. Zodiak was used to dissolve everything from walls to guns, and made the gimmick weapons used by a number of Justice Society of America members pretty useless.

CALLBACK

This one is kind of an odd mention, but it's interesting to note that Friedkin's comments to Oliver in jail -- "do you think you scare me more than him?" -- are echoed in the present day almost immediately by the man being interrogated by Adrian Chase.