“Lone Gunmen” is episode three of season one of Arrow.
The episode begins with Oliver training and talking about his mission and his targets. One of the targets is James Holder, who installed defective smoke detectors in low income housing. There were many fires – and many deaths.
Holder himself is talking on his phone at night by a pool on the top of a building. It seems that a case has recently been settled in his favour. When Holder hangs up, an arrow shatters the glass he was holding. Holder tells Oliver that he has armed security who will come if he calls out. It seems that Oliver has already dealt with them. Oliver is telling holder about his crimes but there is someone else nearby, looking through the scope of a sniper rifle. The second person shoots Holder through the heart and another shot grazes Oliver. The sniper is some distance away and leaves before Oliver can do anything.
Back at his base, Oliver sews up the graze in his arm. When he stands up, he suddenly becomes dizzy, then rushes over to the box he brought back from the island and takes out what looks to be like some type of herb, which he washes down before passing out.
When Oliver passes out, he has another flashback to the island. At the end of the previous episode, “Honor Thy Father”, there was a flashback to just after Oliver arrived on the island. He had just finished building a cairn for his father when a figure in a hood – a hood that looked rather like the one Oliver was wearing at the beginning of “Pilot” – shot him in the chest with an arrow. In this flashback, Oliver comes too in a cave, being given the same substance that he just took in the present by the man who shot him. The man apparently shot Oliver to protect him – weird protection, but something at the end may help with that – but in a language that Oliver probably didn’t speak at the time. Which probably didn’t help. Also in the previous episode, Moira spoke to someone about the yacht being sabotaged and that someone had a symbol just like the one in the notebook Oliver filled.
One Oliver regains consciousness again he returns home to find that Thea has been brought home by the police. She and some friends broke into a store and tried on some dresses. When Thea was breathalysed, she was way over the limit – especially as she’s underage. Diggle makes a comment about how Oliver went to the bathroom and never came back.
Oliver, after Thea leaves the room, tells his mother that Thea is testing her. Which Moira points out is just like Oliver. He tells her that, at Thea’s age, his mother and father let him get away with murder. And that a bit less space and a bit more parenting would probably have been a better idea.
Detective Lance is at the scene of Holder’s murder. His partner, Lucas Hilton (Roger Cross, who played Travis Verta in Continuum), says that they have recovered at least one arrow from the scene. Lance points out that Holder was killed with a double tap through the heart and that the Hood (Arrow, so far unnamed) doesn’t use firearms. Hilton says that the Hood is crazy and that maybe he’s figured out that guns work better. Detective Lance isn’t convinced.
Oliver has tested the blood from his wound and found that it contained curare. The assassin had poisoned his bullets, a unique MO to a killer that Interpol has called Deadshot. Who is known to be very accurate with a gun. So, two people going up against each other, both of whom are excellent shots – albeit with different weapons. Oliver says that Deadshot has no honour, no morality and no code, and is just as dangerous as anyone on his list. So Deadshot is moving to the top of it. Deadshot, meanwhile, is tattooing the name of his latest kill on his body. He’s surprisingly neat at it.
Oliver brings Diggle and Tommy to the old Queen factory where his base is. Oliver tells them that it would be a great place for a nightclub. Tommy points out that Oliver lacks experience at running, well, anything. Diggle is definitely suspicious of Oliver after the latter saved his life with an improbable knife throw. Diggle does tell Oliver that he can’t do everything alone, which he realises by the end of the episode. The reason for turning the factory into a nightclub is to conceal Oliver’s base below it and give him an alibi for where he is.
Deadshot is in town to kill more than one person, so Oliver needs to track him down before he can kill all of his targets. Two of the dead have a connection to an auction that Steele is attending. So he may be a target as well. This is where Oliver realises that he needs help.