“Salvation” is episode eighteen of season one of Arrow.
Felicity and Diggle are watching an article on the news about John Nickel, a real estate developer that the DA has decided not to prosecute regarding a fire in a building he own. Oliver is dangling above them on a bar. He says that Nickel is one of the wealthiest real estate developers in the city. And one of the dirtiest. The building of Nickel’s that burned down last bight had wiring that wasn’t up to code. Felicity suggests that perhaps Nickel didn’t know. Oliver responds by saying the same way he didn’t know about the seven people who have frozen to death in his buildings over the years. The DA isn’t doing anything and the police can’t because it’s the Glades. Oliver tells them that tonight they cross Nickel’s name off the list. He asks Felicity if she’s okay with that, for she seemed uncertain. Felicity looks at the news and replies ‘One hundred percent.’
Nickel is in his apartment when he hears what sounds like breaking glass. Then some other noises. He goes looking and grabs a kitchen knife. As he turns around, Nickel is knocked to the ground and someone stands on his hand so that he drops the knife, then drags him off. Then Oliver drops onto the balcony and enters the apartment to find signs of a struggle and Nickel gone. Nickel himself is being pushed, bound and gagged, into the rear of a van.
When Oliver returns Felicity asks if Nickel was just gone. He replies not gone, taken. Digg wonders if Nickel is on someone else’s list; Oliver thinks that’s definitely possible. He asks Felicity to come up with a list of everyone that has a grudge against Nickel. She says that will be a long list. She also mentions that Oliver went out all grr wanting to stop bad guys and now he wants to rescue Nickel. Oliver says he doesn’t like the idea of someone dangerous out there. Felicity gives him a look. He amends it to somebody else dangerous, as others typically don’t show Oliver’s level of restraint. When it’s suggested Nickel be crossed off the list, Oliver wants to find a new name and go after them. Digg suggests that Oliver goes home to be with his family. An idea that Oliver rejects. Then Digg offers to take Oliver out to dinner – and he isn’t asking.
Thea is making out with Roy, the young man who stole her bag in “Dodger”, in his home. There’s a knock on Roy’s door and he stops; when Thea mentions him stopping because of a knock on the door, Roy replies that they don’t all have butlers. Roy answers the door and a man tries to come in, but Roy stops him there. The man then looks at Thea and says she looks familiar, and has he seen her on television. She tells him probably, as she’s Thea Queen. Of course, he thinks Thea is joking. Then the man hands Roy a package and tells him tomorrow at 11 PM.
Thea asks Roy what is happening tomorrow, but he doesn’t want to say. When he’s distracted, Thea grabs the package and finds it contains a revolver. She asks Roy why he has a gun; he replies because he’s no good with knives. He’s going to hold up a liquor store, and the guy’s a creep who deserves it. Roy empties the bullets out of the gun, saying that nobody will know. Thea tells him that Roy has a job now, and doesn’t need to be a criminal. He replies he owes people who have much bigger guns. When you live in the Glades, this is the only solution. Thea is not pleased by this statement and tells Roy that plenty of people live in the Glades who have honest lives, and leaves.
Laurel arrives home to find her mother on the phone in front of a board full of clippings. Then Lance appears as well. In the previous episode, “The Huntress Returns”, Laurel had asked her father to at least look into what Dinah Lance had regarding Sara being alive. Lance tells Laurel that she did ask him into looking into it, and he made some calls. Laurel replies that he did more than that. Lance says Laurel wanted him to do this; Laurel said she thought what her father was going to do was to help her mother accept things like Laurel and Lance have. Lance says that the photo does look a lot like Sara and Dinah says she’s wearing the Starling City Rockets hat, which Lance bought her.
Digg and Oliver are eating, and Oliver says that he was hungrier than he thought. Then asks if Digg is waiting for him to finish before the lecture. Digg tells Oliver that he has spent a lot of time under the hood in the last few weeks. Oliver replies that it keeps his ears warm. Oliver is avoiding entanglements because people close to him get hurt. In the previous episode McKenna got hurt badly enough to need a year’s worth of physio thanks to Helena, and had left town to live with her sister.
Oliver asks Diggle if he thinks Oliver is losing his grip. Digg says it’s the opposite. Oliver is calm. Scary calm. Saying it didn’t end well for Helena or McKenna and Oliver tags on Laurel and Sara to that list. Digg tells Oliver that all he does is hood up, go home, then repeat, which doesn’t leave much room for an actual life. Oliver replies that he doesn’t need one. Various people’s phones have been going off during this. Digg points out that Oliver has described a bleak existence. Oliver replies that he’s used to isolation. That’s what worries Digg; Oliver may have been home for eight months but it’s like he never left the island. More phones go off and Felicity calls them, telling them to click the link she sent.
It leads to a website that Felicity says has an IP address in the Glades. There’s a video of Nickel tied up and with his mouth taped shut. The person shooting the video says that, if you live in the Glades, you know who this is. Nickel makes money off their suffering, and the police don’t do anything. He tells Nickel that he has a chance to state his case why he shouldn’t be punished, and removes the tape. Nickel says he knew there was bad stuff in his building, and he made a profit, but without him those people wouldn’t have a place to live and would be on the street. Oliver asks Felicity to trace the site. The person who has Nickel didn’t consider his argument compelling, and shoots him twice. He then tells the viewers that there are plenty of others who need to answer for their crimes.
Felicity tells Oliver that the website the video came from has serious encryption. Oliver starts suggesting something but Felicity interrupts, asking if she tells Oliver how to shoot arrows. Digg return and says that his contact at the NSA says the website’s code matches a crusader called the Savior, a former resident of the Glades. Last year the Savior hacked himself right off the radar. Oliver asks what happened a year ago, then a new video starts running on the site.
The Savior has ADA Gavin Carnehan, and he says that Carnehan’s job is to go after bad guys, but sometimes he doesn’t even bother bringing them to trial. Like the ones who killed the Savior’s wife a year ago in a bodega. That answers Oliver’s question about what happened a year ago. Carnehan had said there was not enough evidence, and the Savior asks if the death had happened in a nicer neighbourhood would there have been. The comment about the bodega leads Felicity to the Savior’s real identity, Joseph Falk. Falk tells Carnehan he has ten minutes to make the closing argument of his life.
Thea asks to talk to Laurel about something, but Laurel says she is a little busy – she looks to be working on the girl in the photo. Then reconsiders and apologises. Thea says she wants some advice. She’s dating a guy who could definitely be called a bad boy and, as Laurel has dated like a gajillion of them. Laurel disputes this, Thea gives her a look, and she admits that okay, she has. Her advice to Thea is to run, as fast as she can. Thea says that was her first instinct, then Laurel is interrupted. There’s a call from the Chinese embassy; they have the address in the U.S. of the girl in the photo.
Felicity tracks the physical location of the website and Oliver heads off on his bike. He gets there as Carnehan is pleading for his life, but there’s no-one in the building. Then Felicity says the address has moved. Oliver heads there too, using the rooftops, but it’s just an empty lot. Then Falk shoots Carnehan. When Oliver gets back, he tells Felicity it isn’t her fault. That they thing they do – sometimes they lose. However, the next person Falk takes is taken right in front of Thea – because it’s Roy. And his gun was empty.
Moira has a meeting with Frank and tells him that Malcolm wants Moira to find out who tried to kill him. Malcolm wants a target for reprisal and justice, and will not stop until he gets it. Moira says that this is good; Frank does not think this comes under the definition of good. Moira points out that Malcolm came to her, so he doesn’t know she is responsible for the attempt on his life. She wants to know how discrete Frank was in hiring the Triad and he tells her very discrete. Frank is sending his daughter away for a few weeks for her safety, and recommends Moira do the same. Moira says, as she leaves, that there is nothing she wouldn’t do to protect her children. Which ominously sounds as if she’s willing to throw Frank under the bus if needed.
On the island, Slade and Oliver are negotiating with Fyers for a way off the island in exchange for the circuit board Oliver took from Fyers’ missile launcher. Fyers says he needs time but can get a boat. Oliver starts telling Fyers he has an hour when Slade grabs the handset and says that what Oliver meant is that they understand it will take time but to move with dispatch. At the meeting, Fyers renegotiates. The circuit board, or he kills Yao Fei’s daughter; it was revealed in “The Odyssey”, although not to Oliver, that this was why Yao Fei was working for Fyers; Fyers had leverage (in the present, Oliver now has the same tattoo on his bag as Yao Fei’s daughter).
Laurel looks into the girl in the photo herself, and it isn’t Sara. Dinah reveals that she has guilt over Sara’s death. She also makes a comment about taking the red eye to Central City, and being home in a flash. Now, what could she possibly be referring to? Oliver finds out what the true meaning of isolation is, and what it can do to a person, and the meaning of the symbol in his father’s book and other places is revealed.