Arrow’s Roy Harper Gets a Major Status Quo Change in “Confessions”

Roy Harper (Colton Haynes) returned to Arrow — or, rather, to the present day on Arrow, since we have seen him all year long in the flash-forwards — tonight, and everything went downhill quickly. In an episode that saw Team Arrow set up to take the fall for a double-murder, it was not long before the police had serious questions about the unregistered vigilante who tagged along on the mission. Ultimately, those questions got more specific: what has Roy been doing since last year, when he was kidnapped by Ricardo Diaz and went on the run with Thea Queen and Nyssa al Ghul in the hopes of defeating the Thanatos Guild and destroying the world’s Lazarus Pits? The answer was…surprising.

Spoilers ahead for tonight’s episode of Arrow, titled “Confessions.” Turn back now if you don’t want to hear it. The episode was shot like a ’90s heist film, cutting back and forth between the police interrogating various members of Team Arrow and the actual events that they were describing. Two transit cops had been killed while Team Arrow was foiling a plot by the Ninth Circle to use a powerful bio-weapon against the city. Emiko (Sea Shimooka) was the Ninth Circle representative, and that threw everyone off their game, since both Oliver (Stephen Amell) and Rene (Rick Gonzalez) have emotional ties to her. At various times, the team was split up, forcing characters to admit in the interrogation that they could not always vouch for the whereabouts of their peers.

Eventually, Oliver revealed that he had been trying to keep Emiko from being a wanted murderer, protecting her in the hopes that Team Arrow could redeem her. While the officer who was standing at Dinah’s side during the interrogations was less than convinced, Dinah (Juliana Harkavy) said that they did not have enough evidence to counter their claims. Evidence one way or the other might have been easier to come by, if something had not happened to security footage from the time of the murder. Later, at the Arrow lair, Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) thanked Dinah for erasing the footage, which she said she could not have hacked into before the police arrived. Dinah said she thought it was Felicity.

As it turns out, Oliver and company had covered up a crime committed by Roy, and framed Emiko. They reasoned not only that Roy needed the protection, but that if someone who was part of Team Arrow were to be arrested for murder, it would turn the city against vigilantes again, destroy the team’s relationship with the Star City PD, and likely make all or most of them outlaws. When asked what happened, Roy confirmed what many fans likely already suspected: he had died during his quest to destroy the Lazarus Pits, and had to be revived in one instead. The bloodlust that comes with being brought back not-quite-right is unmistakable, especially after seeing it in Thea and Sara before.

To cap it all off, the final moments of the episode not only showed Oliver Queen buried in the rubble of an exploded building — but revealed that it was Emiko who had taken the security footage, and she was providing it to the police in order to incriminate Team Arrow and destroy Oliver’s legacy after she killed him. What’s next? Well, that’s for next week — although it’s worth noting that an upcoming episode synopsis mentioned an arrest warrant out for Felicity…!

Arrow airs on Monday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT, following episodes of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow on The CW.

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