‘Arrow’: Cayden James’ Endgame Revealed in “Thanksgiving”

Like any good Thanksgiving, tonight’s episode of Arrow gave fans quite a few revelations, including exactly what one of this season’s villains is up to.

Spoilers for tonight’s episode of Arrow, “Thanksgiving”, below.

Tonight’s episode saw the team tracking down Laurel Lance/Black Siren (Katie Cassidy), who was tasked with stealing technology for Cayden James (Michael Emerson). As Team Arrow eventually realized, James’ goal with the technology was to draw the team out to a Billy Joel concert, and allow James to come face-to-face with Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell).

As James explained, he wants to get revenge against Oliver, for costing him his son. James revealed that he wanted a chance to make his motivations clear to Oliver, to justify his plans to destroy Star City.

Team Arrow later searched for records about James’ son, and found a boy by the name of Owen Post. Owen had James listed as his father on his birth certificate, but didn’t live with him. But when James was reprimanded by ARGUS, Owen quickly went missing, and hadn’t been found since.

In the process, James created a rather complicated situation for Team Arrow. He had a myriad of henchmen set up at the event, who Rene Ramirez/Wild Dog (Rick Gonzalez), Curtis Holt/Mr. Terrific (Echo Kellum), and Dinah Drake/Black Canary (Juliana Harkavy) proceeded to beat up. Video of this attack quickly went viral, causing Star City to vote for the anti-vigilante legislation.

So, what does this mean going forward? It’s far too early to tell, seeing as Team Arrow doesn’t yet understand how all the pieces connect in the first place. But it sounds like either way, Arrow fans will be taken on quite a journey to get those answers.

“We are talking about him playing a character who’s got a lot more nuance than the typical creepy-guy role that he is often cast in,” executive producer Marc Guggenheim told ComicBook.com earlier this year. “We’ve had a lot of creative discussions with him, and I think that’s one of the things that has excited us and excited Michael: that we really want to create a character in consultation and in conjunction with him. It’s not just ‘here’s the script — go!’ It’s a really interesting, two-way back and forth.”

Arrow airs Thursdays at 9/8c on The CW.