“League of Assassins” is episode five of season two of Arrow.
This episode opens six years before the present. The Queen’s Gambit is at sea and Sara is in Oliver’s cabin on the phone to her father. Being rather less than truthful about where she is. The storm is getting stronger outside and Sara is worried. Oliver tells her that she is going to be fine. Which is seconds before Sara is dragged out into the storm. She sees the boat going down as she calls for help. In the present, Sara wakes up in the Queen mansion after the nightmare. Oliver tells her not to worry, no-one will know she is there. Even if he doesn’t understand why she doesn’t want to tell her family. Sara doesn’t think that they will be happy to see her. Oliver knows how hard it is to come home after so long.
In Iron Heights, the DA is tired of waiting for Oliver and is about to start when Oliver arrives, apologising for being late because an old friend is in town. His words fading as he notices that Laurel is accompanying the DA. Laurel is going to be the prosecution’s second seat. Moira’s lawyer thinks it’s a conflict of interest, Laurel herself doesn’t look ecstatic about being there.
The DA has a plea offer for Moira – life with the possibility of parole. Moira’s lawyer doesn’t think that’s good enough. The DA says that Moira aided and abetted in 503 homicides. Moira’s lawyer says her client was forced under duress to participate and withdrew from the criminal conspiracy before its execution. Moments before admittedly. The DA says that, with Malcolm Merlyn dead, someone needs to be responsible. Besides, as said in “Broken Dolls”, the prosecution will seek the death penalty otherwise. He is going to go through Moira’s subpoenaed messages, phone records, letters and emails and is sure that there will be something there to crush the duress defence.
Moira asks for a few days to consider the offer. Oliver follows Laurel out; she says she didn’t ask for the case she was assigned it. It’s a new job, so she doesn’t have enough pull to refuse, and she used all the pull she had getting the plea bargain. The DA is serious about the death penalty, and they both know what it’s like to lose someone. Oliver also wants to know is Laurel is okay. She says she is. She doesn’t look it.
Sara is looking at photos in the Queen mansion and one of the Queen’s Gambit triggers another memory. Of floating on some wreckage after the ship went down when a bird – a canary – approaches, before flying off to the freighter that Oliver was later taken prisoner on after it shelled the island. Oliver arrives and interrupts Sara’s memories. He mentions Laurel – no he didn’t mention Sara to her. Sara thinks there is no forgiveness for what she did over the years. Oliver tells her that you can’t get forgiveness unless you first ask for it. Then someone crashed through the window. Dressed like Malcolm Merlyn.
When Roy went looking for Sara, she asked him if he was working for someone. Later, she was attacked by another figure dressed like Malcolm, who told her that Ra’s al Ghul wanted her to return. She killed him. Sara and Oliver fight this new individual, who proves more than a little skilled. Oliver removes the mask, revealing that it isn’t Malcolm. The man gets away though.
Oliver takes Sara to his base and she mentions his one-man war for Starling City. He tells her, as Felicity and Diggle arrive, it’s not one man. Oliver explains their uninvited guest, who he believes is an underling or follower of Malcolm bent on revenge. He has some dirt from the intruder that he wants Felicity to analyse. Sara has look uncertain through this and, when Oliver talks about tracking the man down, says that their attacker – The First – wasn’t after Oliver. He was after her.
The First is a member of the League of Assassins. Who Digg heard of in Afghanistan but thought were a myth. That was where Sara was for the last four years after the freighter. They took Sara in and remade her. She left – but the only way you can do that is dead. Sara mentions one of the things she did that proved too much, and Oliver gets a message from Thea asking him to come to Iron Heights. Moira wants to take the deal. Thea is not happy. Oliver knows his mother is hiding something, but she doesn’t share.
Oliver returns and Digg asks how it went. Oliver wants to know if they’ve found him someone to hit yet. Felicity believes she know where The First is hiding out. Sara says it’s her fight; it became Oliver’s when they came into his house and threatened somebody he cares about. They arrive at the pesticide plant where The First is sharpening a sword. He catches an arrow that Oliver fires at him, commenting that they are an ineffective projectile. This from a man using a sword. The First doesn’t consider Oliver a threat. Oliver barely defeated Malcolm; how will he fare against the man who trained him. Oliver didn’t come alone. Nor did The First. Sara and Oliver have to flee and The First says that if Sara doesn’t return willingly, she will stay and bury her family.
Oliver is going to look after Laurel and Felicity is going to tell Lance to get out of town for a few days. This doesn’t work. Felicity thought saying that the League of Assassins was after him sounded less crazy in her head. Lance doubts that. Felicity tells him that Malcolm Merlyn was apparently a member. He wonders what he did to get them angry at him. Well, that’s a little difficult to explain. When Felicity returns, Sara decides to head out. She’d rather he found out she was alive than ended up dead. Lance is now a little jumpy after Felicity’s visit, but Sara approaches him without a mask or costume. The meeting is a bit emotional.
On the freighter, Sara gets put in a cell. She is later dragged out of it for reasons that can be easily imagined – an attractive woman dressed in her underwear and a dressing gown. Another man intervenes. He doesn’t give orders to the crew, but the captain does, and the captain works for him. He may not be as nice a person as it might seem, as he appears to be a little too dedicated to his cause. And another word for that is fanatic. There is very little of Oliver’s past, until the very end. On the freighter, at the end of the previous episode, “Crucible”, he had been hauled from his cell and discovered that Sara was still alive. By that point, Oliver thought she had been dead for a year.