“Broken Dolls” is episode three of season two of Arrow.
At the end of the previous episode, “Identity”, Oliver had gone to see Laurel, as the vigilante, again. Which she had expected, and she summoned in a whole host of armed police officers in tactical gear who surrounded him.
The episode opens with armed police still holding guns on Oliver and telling him to put the weapon down. Then the skylight above shatters, the woman in black seen at the end of “City of Heroes” drops down and uses some sort of sonic device that incapacitates the police and shatters every window. She leads Oliver away and then leaves.
Diggle and Felicity had heard about Oliver on the police scanners. He explains that Laurel thinks he’s the bad guy because he didn’t make it in time to save Tommy in “Sacrifice”. And that he was helped by a masked woman in black who was trained and used a sonic… thing. Felicity wonders if Oliver can be more specific. She and Digg also ask who the woman was, why she helped Oliver and how she knew to help him. Oliver admits those are good questions. He’s not happy to see another player in town though and wants to find out about her. Digg wants to know why Oliver went back to see Laurel.
Lance is buying a hotdog when a 10-78 comes over the radio. He acknowledges and says that he is responding but is told to disregard it and resume his patrol. Lance disregards this and arrives at a scene where there is a dead woman posed on a pole. Hilton tells Lance that everything is under control. Then Lance sees the body and says a name, Burton Mathis. Who is doing consecutive life sentences in Iron Heights. However, the quake split open parts of the prison and Mathis was one of the escapees. That’s being kept quiet. Lieutenant Pike knows what happened last time, and if Lance interferes he will be arrested for obstruction.
Oliver and Digg are sparring and Felicity tells them that police reports have mentioned the woman in black. She’s been attacking attackers and put five would-be rapists in hospital. Oliver doesn’t want more vigilantes on the streets. Then Felicity gets a call from Lance.
Lance arranges a meet with Oliver. He’s willing to be convinced that Oliver – the vigilante – has changed. The city is hurting and Lance has always thought that the police did not need to go outside the law. Now he’s not so sure. Lance hands Oliver a file on Barton Mathis, the Dollmaker, who suffocates his victims by forcing flexible polymer down their throats then dresses them up like dolls. The file is from 6 years ago and the file is Lance’s personal one, as he put him away before. Oliver thinks it’s not just the file that’s personal. The Dollmaker killed 8 girls last time and the police are spread so thin that they can’t risk letting the public know that Mathis is out. Elsewhere, a woman is walking to her car when she thinks she sees someone. There’s nobody there. Because he’s already in the car.
Last time the Dollmaker was killing one woman every three days. The victims were all young and pretty. Mathis has no family or known acquaintances. But he would have been entitled to a lawyer. So Oliver asks Lance to set up a meeting with whoever represented Mathis. Oliver also meets up with Roy outside the club. In the previous episode Oliver, as the vigilante, asked Roy to be his eyes and ears in the Glades. Now he wants to know about the woman in black. Who Roy has already seen. Oliver asks Roy to find her but not engage.
Laurel is speaking to her boss when Lance turns up and comments on the mess. Laurel says she’s fine; her father says she looks tired. The DA, seeing the conversation becoming personal, leaves. Lance says he came to check up on Laurel and court records. He’s looking for Mathis’ attorney. Laurel is concerned, because her father went to a dark place last time. He tells her that it wasn’t Mathis that did that. He feels that every girl who Mathis kills will be on his conscience. Laurel thinks her father is using guilt to justify a vendetta; he thinks he isn’t the only one.
Lance goes to see the attorney, who isn’t willing to talk. He suggests that Lance comes back with a detective’s shield or a court order. Lance thinks that’s funny. Because he’s brought the vigilante instead. Oliver shoots – non-fatally – the lawyer and they are told about a place that Mathis was always sketching. This leads to a room with a doll, a newspaper headline and a phone. Which rings. And Mathis kills a woman whilst on the phone with Lance. To preserve her beauty forever.
Felicity tells Oliver that the evidence from the crime scene was sent to an outside lab. Whose system is offline. Seems that someone hacked a lot of police systems last year. So Oliver and Lance head to the lab in person. Felicity gets the details up on the screens once she has access and Lance sees something he recognises. A skin cream another victim used. The skin cream is very high end and only a few shops sell it. So Felicity offers to be bait for the Dollmaker by visiting all four shops that sell it. As to it being risky, she asks if it’s more risky than going undercover at a mob casino or jumping out of a plane.
So Felicity visits the shops – and has kept the receipts so that she will be reimbursed. Lance, Oliver and Digg are watching. Laurel is mentioned and Lance says Oliver must have lost people too. Which is why he’s doing this. A month after Sara died, Lance caught the Dollmaker case. Each girl was like trying to save Sara all over again. Felicity gets grabbed, but the Dollmaker ends up being chased off and Lance gets arrested for obstruction.
Moira has a pre-trial hearing and her children get a bit of a shock. Roy uses some of his old contacts to get information on the woman in black – by selling some of Thea’s champagne. Lance, who seems to be changing his mind about Oliver, calls him Arrow at one point – it seems more appropriate than the Hood. Laurel brings up Tommy’s death – that has affected her in more ways.
In the previous episode on the island, the three had found some dead World War II Japanese soldiers. Shado is going to examine the body – she was pre-med – whilst Slade takes Oliver to higher ground. To see if they can find out how the men they killed got on the island. Which was by a ship. Which starts shelling the plane where Shado is. Oliver panics. This has consequences.