This episode has it all . It has Geoff Johns , co - writer extraordinaire . It has Dollhouse thespian doing what they do substantially . It has new DC characters render up . It has superhero love story , with multiple dyad . And it has a smoke that , maybe , never was .
This instalment is called “ Muse of Fire , ” which is an unsubtle nudge to the critics . The set phrase is from Henry V.
O for a Muse of ardour , that would rise
The smart heaven of invention ,
A realm for a stage , prince to act
And monarchs to lay eyes on the swelling scene ! ”
The soliloquy ends with the form of Shakespearean passive - aggression that he set in a lot of his plays .
acknowledge me Chorus to this account ;
Who prologue - like your humble patience pray ,
Gently to hear , kindly to guess , our gaming .
That ’s a good try . Almost as near as Yeats ’ version of a supplication for kindness , which goes , “ I have diffuse my dreams under your feet . Tread gently because you trample on my dreams . ” But idiot box recappers have never even heard of forgivingness or softness . It is my sworn duty to pull into a show like a godforsaken dog into a numb Capricorn . But I appreciate the allusions .
For my purposes , I will re - style the installment as , “ The Quantum Bullet . ” It necessitate a bullet that seemed to flicker in and out of existence between drafts , give grounds of both its presence and absence . Was it ever there ? And in what reality ? You make the call .
The sequence begins , as all good instalment do , with a leather - clad design on a bike . The cyclist is Oliver , who has arrive to have lunch with his female parent . She ’s walking outside her office edifice , summarily rejecting a dude ’s business enterprise suggestion . The installment now gets doubly as good as , before Oliver ’s eyes , another leather - garb trope on a motorcycle speeds up . The form pull up a gun , and fires several time . One of these shots is the first appearance of the Quantum Bullet .
The man go down , several heater holes in his back . Moira jerks as if struck and falls to the pavement . For a moment , the Quantum Bullet exists . Oliver runs to her , agilely leaping he smoke - riddle body of the man , and gathers her up in his arms . As we get a close up of the two , Moira shakily insists that she ’s all right , she has n’t been shot . So suddenly , the Quantum Bullet does not live . Oliver shouts education to the multiple security guard rushing to their aid to call an ambulance , and chases after the motorcycle , almost catch up with it before he ’s reduce off by a hand truck .
We next see Moira in a hospital bed without a cabbage on her . This does n’t forbid Thea from tromping up to Oliver and sibilate that Ollie , “ result Mom in the street alone , ” which is absolutely not true , since she was on the sidewalk , surround by security guards . Ollie says he want to get the motorcyclist ’s permission plateful . Thea does not in the least buy this , and have Ollie know about it with maximum cranky head tilt and the lip - shiny sneer I ’ve ever seen .
Quentin Lance , the Last Detective On Earth , has heard of this sneer , and goes to see if he can match it , let Ollie do it that the guy who got killed was pile up , and that Moira was not the target . So the Quantum Bullet remains out of existence . For now .
Digg finds Ollie beating a practice dummy with more than usual gusto , and says that the dead bozo worked for Frank Bertinelli , a reputed mafioso . Birds of Prey fan are sitting up in their chairs right now . Ollie says he ’ll take a meeting with Bertinelli , and adjudicate and work his style into the Italian ring , since he already has a position in the Russian mob . ( Personally I would love for him to go back in sentence and attempt to take up a position in the Jewish Mob with Bugsy and Micky Cohen . You ’ve got the Russian language down , Ollie . I now challenge you to ancient Hebrew ! ) Ollie nods to himself , likely think of the adorable readiness of pagan Mobster Commemorative Plates he ’ll eventually collect , but Dig state that maybe he should take a footstep back . It would be good for Ollie to take some time to de - mad - weenie himself , read Dig , since he leave his mother , “ Alone and bleed in the street . ” The Quantum Bullet reappears and riptide through Moira ’s mid - section . It preserve to play mayhem as Dig speak about how she was closely killed , and Ollie should be with her . Ollie suppose he ’s not good at family , but is in force at tracking down evil - doers , and when he finds the “ guy rope ” who did the shooting , “ He ’s a dead man . ”
The motorcyclist , who must have been traveling for hours , finally get back at his or her warehouse lair , and crosses out a photograph of the drained guy . I know this is a optical cue that ’s perfectly fair , but it always cracks me up when TV sea wolf do this . I want them to unpack a food market bag and , between each tripper to the fridge , cross out a picture of tomato , of milk , and pasta . Then maybe interbreed out a picture of a laundry machine running , and sigh at getting all their revenue enhancement forms refuse because their were Xs through all of them . Anyway , the killer takes off the helmet and – oh my ! It ’s a woman ! I marvel if this will modify Ollie ’s determination to kill her ! ( I do n’t recall Ollie kill a fair sex , yet . I always find it intrigue how superheroes in general tend to be extremely hesitant to show manful heroes killing , or even striking , distaff villains . In fact , I kind of suspect that a female scoundrel who shows up later does so because at last we have a distaff crime - fighter – because we all know that this is the first appearance of The Huntress – to fight her . )
Back at home , Ollie is leaving , as usual . Thea pouts because she wanted to go out tonight to a club , after spending a whole few hours of the day with her mother , who possibly got shot on some plane of existence . Tommy shows up to expect after Moira , but then shifts his tending to Ollie . He announces that he and Laurel are move out , and necessitate if Ollie is hunky-dory with that . I have to give Stephen Amell credit for this piece of acting . Ollie immediately revert to the Ollie of the first few episode . of a sudden Ollie has the eyes of a mutate alligator that Ed Gein flushed down the toilet when it was a baby as he says “ That ’s good . If you hurt her I ’ll photograph your neck opening . Just josh . ” Tommy laughs nervously , horks up his luncheon , and scamper off .
Now that Ollie ’s got himself in the successive orca humour , he meets with Frank Bertinelli and his “ associate , ” Nick Salvati . Salvati is played by Tahmoh Penikett , the haunted copper from Dollhouse ! Hi , Tahmoh ! Would n’t it be queer if you ended up getting beat to hell by a small-scale , dark - hairy woman in this show , as well ? But what are the odds of that ?
I have to say , I like ensuing scene , as Ollie and Frank talk about spirit , business enterprise , the shooting , and , eventually , Frank ’s girl , Helena , who has just wandered in . Frank does n’t drip evil , or even make any scary insinuations . He derive across as at nice , straightforward man , and a regular dad . Given what we absolutely know about him , that ’s manner more interesting than a heavy mobster . When Salvati informs him that there ’s an emergency meeting , he encourages Ollie and Helena to go out to dinner together and continue discuss byplay . With some vacillation , and some significant oculus striking , they accord .
Now it ’s meter to look into up on everyone ’s evening !
Frank and Salvati meet up with the platinum blonde China White , who assures Frank that it ’s not the Chinese Triad that ’s stamp out his people . He does n’t trust them . Monitoring all this is Quentin , The Detective Who Never Sleeps , Eats , or Does Anything Else . He worries that there will be a war between the two mob . ( He also enounce that only about half the bravo ’s bullet run into the target , again indicating that Moira might have been hit . )
Tommy and Laurel are having a upright time at dinner . At last Laurel seems to have retained some memory and case from episode to sequence , at least to the full point of knowing , “ Tommy = Good . ” They have a nice prison term , and flirt , and express Bob Hope for their relationship in the future tense . And then Tommy ’s credit wag gets turned down .
Thea has retain her jaw - dropping lack of sensitivity , when she laughingly complains to Moira , who ’s dumbfound in bed with the Quantum Bullet still flickering inside her , about how Thea has to be there because Ollie wo n’t . I ca n’t think of anything that a female parent would rather hear , when she ’s fed up in bottom , than a trivial comedy routine about how one of her children refuses to be near her and so the other child will grudgingly do it . particularly when her husband has just walk out . At this peak , I ’m kind of surprised that Moira does n’t cloak the tabloid around her neck and hang herself from the bedpost . rather , she hug Thea , the Quantum fastball flickering out of universe enough to rent her move easily , and tells her that they have to blank out the Ollie who go to the island , and admit the Ollie who came back . “ Everyone has secret , ” she enounce .
intersperse throughout all of these scenes is the dinner talk between Helena and Ollie . At first they ’re a short clumsy , but as meter rifle on , they get to cognize each other . Helena refers the his prison term on the island as a “ melting pot , ” and say him that she interpret that it changed him . He asks about her cross necklace , and she tells him that it was a gift from her fiance , whose death was her crucible . At the end , as the restaurant is obscure around them , and the residuum of the board are empty with their president heap on top of them . Ollie and Helena get into deep center contact lens and both get a little intense , before Ollie is called away by Dig . He pays with cash – clearly the cay to a successful particular date in this universe .
Dig has told Ollie that Salvati is accumulate enforcement money from a lot of businesses , and the next on his patent list is the one that Ollie ’s at . Sure enough , Tahmoh nonplus his baddie on in spite of appearance , smashing bottles and dictate finger broken . The finger are saved . woefully , the bottle all exit before first the Hood and then the Huntress number in , beating up and gunning down mobsters severally . The vigilance man then campaign each other , and Ollie rips off Huntress ’ helmet to reveal – Helena ! you could actually him eat the words , “ he ’s a all in man , ” as she lean out of the place and he , I ’m serious , emotionally pushes back his bonnet in a elbow room full of gangster .
The next morning Tommy stamp up to his father , demanding to sleep together why his faith funds has been evacuate , his cards have been cancelled , and all his adorable money is gone . His founding father is fence , which , I believe , Lionel Luthor from Smallville did as well . understandably , this is the preferred sport of Evil Fathers . The father does the common aristocratical father let down in his son piece and then whips off his mask to reveal . . . Barrowmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan ! I literally heave when this chance . It was a well reveal , but it does mean that Barrowman ’s character , who so far is still lean as “ Well - groom Man ” would have had his son at fifteen twelvemonth old . He ’s done very well for himself , as a teen male parent .
Ollie is settling back into his role as a wild - eyed psychopath trying to tempt women into the shadow of a defunct bus station very well . He walks up to Helena , at night , in a burial ground , and when she asks how he find out her , enjoin , “ I follow you from your house . ” deplorably , he ’s one - upped in jeopardise creepiness when Salvati forces them both into a van . Next thing they know , they ’re both tie with zip ties at an abandoned storage warehouse . Salvati found Helena ’s hybrid necklace in the restaurant , and knows she ’s the one killing them off . She explains that she knows her father pour down her fiance . He explains that her father find a laptop in her fiance suitcase that indicate he was talk to the FBI . She explain that that was her laptop , and she was talk to the FBI . He explicate that then her groom-to-be ’s dying was all her own defect , and that ’s enough for her to go Echo on his As .
Ollie and Helena both slip their zip affiliation at once and kill the hell out of the mobsters . She peculiarly does a good line with Salvati , who she prevail up against a wall before break his neck opening with a single hand . He expire , but not before Tahmoh Penikett ’s eyes seem to exclaim , “ I am like eight feet tall . How do I keep getting beat up by every single somebody in every single show ? ” We do n’t know , Tahmoh . But you sure can take a punch .
Tommy comes to Laurel at her flat , and confesses his new money problems . She feeds him leftover pizza , and pass him a “ Pearl Buck up small toaster ” speech . It ’s very sweet , but I ’m stun that we do n’t see Ollie coquette his face against her window in the background . We get an explanation for his absence in the next view .
Walter number back to Moira , who is on her second day of seam rest with the Quantum Bullet that never was . He say he did n’t fare back because she was “ hurt . ” He come back because he missed his married woman . My flutter of excitement at my favorite couple getting back together is squashed when the tv camera turns to see Ollie peering at them through the door . Hello , Hamlet ! So this is why you preferred not to see your best ally making out with your ex ! Spying on your mum is so much better . Thea walks up , is glad to get laid that Walter ’s back , and makes up with Ollie .
And Ollie ’s last period of the night is over at Helena ’s apartment , where Helena hits him with the ultimate supervillain line – “ We ’re the same , you and I. ” He make a token exertion to speak her out of her revenge plot , but mostly they just inch nearer to each other and talk ever more intensely about how in force it is so have someone to talk to . ( Dig : “ Hey ! ” ) At last , they snap up each other and kiss . ( Dig : “ Never beware . ‘ Talk ’ away . ” ) It ’s a practiced ending , but I have a off-white to pick with this panorama . In a serial absolutely overgorge to the gills with shirt - doffing , this prominent passionate passion scene displays the least amount of cutis of any scene in the entire serial . Did you total all this path to lose your bravery now , Arrow ? Really ?
But we end with a question : Was Moira shot , or not ? stringently verbalise , she was n’t . But it ’s vindicated that at some point she was suppose to be . you could see it in the amped up emotion in every tantrum talking about her and the shooting . There ’s also the fact that many people say she was spite and run . There ’s the way she was pushed , as if by a slug , in the shooting scene . And there ’s dead no reason why a perfectly fit and good for you cleaning woman would ask multiple days of bed residuum , with supervision , when all that happen to her was fall over near where a shooting happened . I cerebrate the Quantum Bullet appeared in some early incarnation of this instalment , perhaps after they ’d shot a few scenes . At some point someone decide that they ’d assume the wrong emotional heartbeat with Moira being shot and reduced it to a near - fille . It ’s unlikely that Ollie would be justified in seduce out with the person who shot his mother , even if it was an accident . The theatrical production and chemical reaction , though , are so odd , that both I and the people watching with me had to check again and again if she in reality was frivol away . What do you think ?
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