Arrow Recap: Broken Dolls

Picking up where last week's rather insane finale left off, Laurel tells Ollie to put down the [...]

Arrow Broken Dolls

Picking up where last week's rather insane finale left off, Laurel tells Ollie to put down the bow. Suddenly, Black Canary crashes through the ceiling and, using an electronic device, dispatches a canary scream, which incapacitates the cops and blows out a bunch of windows. Oliver tells her "nice mask," and asks why she helped, but she runs off.

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Oliver heads back to base and explains what just happened at Laurel's. In the island flashback, Shado is investigating one of the dessicated Japanese army corpses she found; Slade tells Oliver that they need to make a new camp at higher ground so they can watch for the next incursion. They leave Shado there with the corpse. In the present day, Officer Lance gets a general distress call on the police scanner, but when he responds to it, he's told that Pike has waved him off. He makes his way to the crime scene, where he finds that the body has been set up in such a way that it's clear Barton Mathis is their best suspect. The perp, who Lance put away for consecutive life sentences, is now out thanks to the earthquake damaging part of Iron Heights. In the Arrowcave, Felicity figures out that Canary has been connected to a series of police reports. Ollie says he wants to catch her becuase he doesn't trust a flood of vigilantes. Felicity gets a call from Lance.

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There's a break, in which we see a woman headed to her car; she's cut off by Mathis, who kidnaps her. On a rooftop, Lance meets with Oliver and asks for help finding Mathis; Lance asks whether it's true that he's really trying another way, hoping to do his thing without killing. Oliver confirms it. Lance hands Oliver a file on Mathis--The Dollmaker, who suffocates his victims and props them up on stands like porcelain dolls--saying that he still feels bad it took him so long the first time that eight people died last time. Back at the cave, Diggle says that Mathis generally has a three-day window between kills. Oliver tells the team to arrange a meeting with Lance at the office of Mathis's attorney. In the alley behind the club, Arrow approaches Roy Harper and tells him to find Canary, but don't engage. At Laurel's office, her father comes to ask for her help finding Mathis's attorney, but she doesn't want to. She tells him that he's just using whatever guilt he's feeling to justify a vendetta, and he says maybe he's not the only one, indicating her Arrow collage. At the prison, Thea goes to see Moira, offering to help her dress for the pre-trial hearing. Moira isn't interested in fighting it, though, saying that she's willing to spend the rest of her life in prison on account of her When Lance asks Mathis's lawyer, Tony Daniel, to help find his client, the lawyer laughs him off and tells him to come back "with a detective's shield or a court order. Instead, he brings out Arrow, who demands information and, when it's not given, shoots an arrow through the lawyer's shoulder. After They're given a lead on a museum where Mathis might be hiding out, the pair go together to find a doll, holding the headline of Mathis's capture, over a ringing phone. He tortures Lance with the girl he kidnapped, telling him how he's going to preserve the girl "forever, for the world to enjoy, becuase everyone loves a pretty doll." Cut to the discovery of her body. In the Arrowcave, they're trying to find out anything they can about the forensics workup, but the system has been taken offline for security reasons. Arrow and Officer Lance head to the private lab, where Ollie knocks out the security guard and starts looking through files. Lance sees a skin cream in the forensics; now he's figured out how Dollmaker chooses his victims. In the island flashback, Oliver and Slade are arguing about whether caring about Shado will get him killed. As they argue, Slade slips and falls off a cliff, and Ollie catches him. In the present, Roy is bringing a case of champagne to a fence; he's looking for someone. His source doesn't know anything, except that Sin has been seen with Canary a few times. He tells Roy where to find her--Roy goes looking. At the Arrowcave, Diggle is disappointed by the skin cream lead. When they're bickering about how to find him, Felicity offers to go undercover buying the cream all over town to attract Mathis's attention. In the flashback, Slade has decided that he's going to steal whatever it is that the invaders had used to get onto the island. Looking through binoculars, though, he sees that there's munitions being fired off of a boat. In the present, Ollie, Diggle and Lance are staking out Felicity. Talking with Lance over the radio, he admits that

Broken Dolls

the reason Dollmaker so traumatized him, was because it came right after the death of his youngest daughter (Sarah, who was in the wreck with Ollie). On the street, Dollmaker grabs Felicity; everyone goes chasing after him except Lance, who stays with Felicity after she fights him off. Mathis blindsides Lance and pulls a gun on him, which Ollie shoots out of his hand with an arrow and then runs because the cops are there. They arrest Quentin Lance for obstruction and begin searching the building. In the flashback, Ollie and Slade rush back to camp to try and save Shado from the shelling. Well, Ollie does. Slad is just trying to save him. Ultimately Oliver is knocked out by a shell that lands near him and Slade's face is soaked in flames. Back at the police station, Laurel is upset that Quentin is working with Arrow. He tells her she needs to get perspective; that a guy with a bow and arrow can't save a guy who's had a building fall on top of him. He tells her he knows she's feeling guilty about Tommy's death and wishes he knows why. She tells him to stay away from both Pike and the Dollmaker case, and leaves. Back in the city, Roy goes after Sin in the hopes of finding Canary; it ends up being a foot chase, ending in a clock tower, where Black Canary blindsides him and knocks him out with a pipe. In the police parking garage, Officer Lance stumbles across someone who's kneeling near a car; he goes to offer the man help, but it's Mathis, who tazers him and throws him in the back of a vehicle with Laurel, who's similarly incapacitated. At the club, Thea is yelling at the liquor vendor, saying she's not paying for the alcohol she thinks she was shorted because Roy stole it. Ollie is talking to Thea about helping their mom fight the charges when he gets a text telling him to watch the news. He has Thea turn on Channel 52, where the news about the abduction of Laurel and Quentin. At the Arrowcave, the team have figured out via a van from Metamorpho Chemical--which was condemned after the earthquake--that Dollmaker is probably there. He's there, alright, torturing Laurel and about to kill her with his weirdo chemical dollmaking stuff, but Ollie shows up and shoots an arrow into the device, knocking it free of Laurel. He frees Quentin, who tells him to do whatever he has to to Dollmaker. Ollie chases the baddie away, only to find him fighting with Canary. A stack of hardware falls over on Canary, putting her at a momentary disadvantage; Arrow shoots the Dollmaker in the shoulders, ready to take him into custody, but Canary hurls a bolt through the killer's chest and vanishes. Laurel, with her dad, has a breakdown over the guilt that she feels it's her fault that Tommy died--that was only there because she refused to leave the city. He holds her as Arrow looks on.

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That night, Arrow appears at Quentin's apartment, where he thanks her for saving Laurel again. At the prison, Moira has another guest: her lawyer this time. She tells her lawyer that she's not afraid of dying. She tells her lawyer that finally being in a good place with the kids, she's not willing to let her secrets be aired at trial. Back in the clocktower, Canary backflips home and, before she pulls off the mask, there's a hooded figure. She tells him he shouldn't have come. He steps out of the shadows--a generic ninja--telling her that he has no choice; that Ra's al Ghul has demanded her return. She tells him to go back and tell them he didn't find her. He pulls a knife and tells her he won't lie for her. She takes the knife and kills him. Back at the Arrowcave, Ollie says something needs to be done about Canary and he's not sure who, since he's not sure what side she's on. Flash back again and Ollie's in an archaic, leaky prison, apparently in the hull of the boat he'd seen firing on Shado.

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