Arrow: "Left Behind" Recap

Arrow's "Left Behind" Recap

Mid-Season Premiere

The CW 1.21.15

Spoilers

Last time I recapped Arrow, there was major fangirling happening and figurative heart-clenching and fangirl-dying (you can read my reaction to the  mid-season finale here). After all, it isn't every day that the main character of a TV show ends up dead. Yes, that's right, Oliver Queen is dead and my recap will prove it.

The episode picks up a few days after Oliver Queen disappears to fight Ra's Al Guld. The Arrow team is trying to make up for the lack of Oliver around by fighting crime on their own (Roy takes over as supreme archer and Diggle dons the green hood to keep the presence of the Hood/Arrow [what's his name now?] intact). However, it's been too many days without word from Oliver--and some of the team are suspecting the worst.

Felicity holds that Oliver is alive. He can't be dead. He has to be alive. But after a few meet-ups (or intrusions, whichever you prefer) from Malcolm Merlyn, the truth is revealed: Oliver Queen is dead. And apparently, so is the Arrow because without Oliver they cannot keep saving the city.

In the meantime, Ray Palmer is starting his tests of the A.T.O.M. suit, despite Felicity's warnings of danger (if you want more about A.T.O.M. see the previous Arrow recap).After a few failed attempts at making progress, he tries to get her help with configuring the suit, but after much debate and the news of Oliver, Felicity refuses and walks away from Ray Palmer (I want to scream and shout but it was a very heartbreaking moment. Poor Felicity).

 And a new crime boss--named Brick--appears with one intent: to take over the Glades. He plans to do so by getting convicted men out of jail by getting rid of evidence and witnesses. Laurel tries to stop the criminals from inside the court room, but with the lack of evidence, her hands are tied. Instead comes the moment I (and probably others) have been waiting for since they first revealed the Canary suit: Laurel takes to the streets as Black Canary. And she's awesome for her five second moment.

~pause to gush about Black Canary~

Black Canary is often paired with Green Arrow in the comics (they do have a romantic thing in the comics as well as the show, but in the comics they actually get married, which right now is doubtful for the show but not totally out of the question). She's this super agile martial artists (supposedly able to defeat Batman. I know, right?) with the ability to create sonic vibrations--or a canary cry. I don't believe Laurel Lance has this super-human ability, but she does have some kind of sonic sound device she uses in the first revealing of her.

There's different versions of Black Canary in the comics as well. The first Black Canary is actually Laurel's mother, which was not shown in the show. Instead, Canary was Sarah Lance, Laurel's sister, which probably prompted Laurel to take on the mantel after Sarah's death. The second Black Canary in the comics is Laurel. (I can clearly see why they changed it for the show)

Basically, she's cool and fights crime as well as looks awesome in her suit. Plus, I'm excited to see Laurel not just be an annoying ex-girlfriend of Oliver.

~resume narration of the episode~

The only time we actually see Oliver is in flashbacks to his time in Hong Kong. He's on mission to get rid of the other half of the Omega drug, named Alpha. In the process, Maseo wishes to save his wife, but Amanda Waller refuses. But it is revealed later that Oliver spared a man's life in order to plant a GPS tracker so the man would lead him and Maseo back to Maseo's wife, Tatsu. Maseo claims that if they succeed in finding Tatsu, he will "be forever in [Oliver's] debt."

We also see, during random in-between scene moments, a man clad in black dragging Oliver's cold corpse through a snowy forested mountain (most of it was revealed in the promo trailer for the mid-season premiere). At the end of the episode, it's revealed that the mysterious man is in fact Maseo and he brought Oliver's body to a secret cave place thing. In the secret cave is Tatsu. Oliver wakes up and Maseo claims he brought Oliver there so Tatsu could "bring [Oliver] back to life."

Okay, I totally know this looks like the Lazarus Pit idea, but this picture
just look so freaking cool! I had to include it. :)

Of course, I knew Oliver couldn't be dead permanently. He's the main character in season three of supposedly five seasons (one for every year Oliver was presumed dead). And I wasn't convinced that A.T.O.M. or Black Canary would end up taking over as the lead of the show. This is Oliver Queen's show, he'll live.

But other than that, they didn't explain how he came back (probably to be revealed in the coming episodes, one of which will be aired by the time you read this). People immediately thought it would have to do with the Lazarus Pit because of Ra's Al Guld. However, Stephen Amell and the writers of the show have claimed that Oliver does not come back to life via the Lazarus Pit.

So how did Tatsu bring Oliver back to life? (and how many  more times is Oliver going to "die" before this series is ended?)

Will Laurel be able to pull of Black Canary? And when Oliver returns, what will he have to say about the new Black Canary?

And without Felicity's help with Ray Palmer succeed with his A.T.O.M. project? (My guess is yes, but finger crossed that his plans for the A.T.O.M. suit are completely different from what actually happens after his experimentation.)

We'll find out soon enough.

-Jaime