Arrow Live Recap with Spoilers – Spectre of the Gun

The episode opens with a…special voiceover warning viewers that tonight’s episode isn’t for kids. Afterwards, we see a dude load up a bunch of assault rifles into a bag.

Over in the Arrow Cave, Dinah and Diggle spar together, while Felicity searches for clues as to Prometheus’s identity. She says that she’s focused her search on Prometheus’s mother and has narrowed her down to a single state.

Oliver greets Thea back to City Hall. Thea brings up Oliver’s relationship to Susan Williams, but Oliver quickly gets testy. Thea also greets Quentin discovers that Rene is his new assistant. As Quentin leaves the office, he passes a dude carrying the same bag that we saw earlier (the one filled with guns). The man opens fire on Oliver’s office, killing several employees in a rather graphic fashion. Rene shoots the shooter, but he’s wearing a bulletproof vest.

Rene has a flashback to an earlier time, when he was living with his young wife and daughter. Rene grabs a gun before going to a hockey game and then argues with his girlfriend about her possibly taking drugs.

The shooter escapes and Oliver quickly takes stock of the situation. Thea is safe, but Chase took a bullet to the shoulder and is bleeding heavily. Luckily, Chase is still alive, although five others were dead.Rene says he shot the attacker in the shoulder and asks Ollie to get his hands on the shooter’s primary weapon.

Back at the Arrow Cave, Felicity claims that the shooter isn’t in the system. However, it turns out that Quentin got a look at the guy’s face before he put on a ski mask. Quentin also points out that Rene shouldn’t be carrying a firearm, as it’s illegal for a convicted felon to have one.

In a second flashback, Rene shows his wife the drugs he found, when his daughter shows up. Rene gives his wife an ultimatum: either no more drugs or she’s gone.

Oliver informs Thea that two more victims passed away. Oliver is worried that the shooter is going to strike again. He then runs into Chase, who is trying to get back to work despite his injury. Oliver convinces him to stay, but Chase tells him to look into the Bertinelli family, as 90% of their hits have involved assault rifles.

Curtis and Rene argue over gun control, while Felicity tries to track the rifle.

Meanwhile, Oliver tracks down one of the Bertinelli mobsters, who says that he had nothing to do with the shooting. Vigilante shows up and guns the mobster down before fleeing. Felicity contacts Oliver and says that the actual shooter is a 44 year old systems analyst with a clean record.

Felicity identifies the shooter as a man who lost his family in a mall shooting. The shooter previously supported a Star City gun registry, but fell off the radar after the registry was shut down by the previous administration. Oliver says he’ll make a statement to the press and tells the rest of the team to track down the shooter.

In another flashback, Rene and his daughter comes home to signs of a struggle. Rene tells his daughter to get ready for bed while he searches for his wife.

Oliver makes an official statement and names the shooter to the press. He takes some questions, but gets caught up when the press starts asking him about his opinions on gun control. Oliver says that his views on gun control are “complicated” and then promptly ends the press conference.

Back in his office, Oliver starts beating himself up for always turning to violence as a solution. He then says he doesn’t know how to handle the situation as mayor. Oliver decides to gather every politician involved with shutting down the gun registry to start figuring out a solution.

The next day, Oliver speaks with the councilwoman who killed the gun registry. They argue over the legality of gun control, but Oliver says she’s not going to leave until they can figure out some reasonable guidelines for a gun registry.

Diggle and Dinah hit the street looking for the shooter. Although their search turns out empty, Diggle finds out that Dinah can’t find an apartment because they do background checks and she has a hangup doing “what normal people do”.

Back at the Arrow Cave, Curtis gets on a soap box about the lack of discourse in our country. He’s thankfully interrupted when Felicity finds a support group the shooter used to be a part of.

Curtis and Rene drop by the support group and finds out where the shooter is staying. Curtis finds out that Rene’s wife was killed because he didn’t have a gun available.

In a flashback, we find out that Rene’s wife was killed when her dealer showed up to collect cash. Rene tried to sneakily go for his gun (which was in a safe) but his daughter showed up and caused Rene’s wife to fight back. Rene shot the dealer, but the dealer got off a stray shot that killed his wife.

Rene and Curtis track down the shooter’s hideout and discover floor plans to his next target: the local hospital. Oliver assembles the team and leaves his (still ongoing) meeting with the councilwoman over gun control.

At the hospital, Oliver confronts the shooter out of costume. Oliver says that he knows the shooter is trying to force gun control on the city. He points out that the man who shot his family obtained his guns illegally, meaning that there was nothing the city could do protect them. Oliver points out that the people he shot were innocent too, which causes the shooter to point his gun at himself. Oliver talks the guy down and convinces him to stand down.

The next morning, Oliver presents the councilwoman with a gun control ordinance that he wrote with Rene. The councilwoman agrees to back Oliver, in part because it would look terrible to go against Oliver after the shootings.

In a final flashback, we find out that Rene lost his daughter to social services due to her being in an “unsafe environment”. In his darkest hour, Rene sees a news report about Green Arrow stopping Damien Darhk, which inspires him to become Wild Dog.

Curtis apologizes to Rene and offers to help him get his daughter back.

Dinah says that she got the lease to her apartment and says she got a job at the Star City Police Department.

The episode ends with Oliver holding a vigil for those who died at City Hall. He announces a new gun control act that balances gun ownership rights with public safety and says they just need to be brave enough to enact it.