“Time of Death” is episode fourteen of season two of Arrow.
A man wearing a Bluetooth earpiece is entering the lobby of Kord Enterprises. Over the earpiece, another man is giving him instructions, timed to the second, and there is a second man with another earpiece. They enter the lift and change out of their suits into janitor’s clothing, taking a cleaning cart as they leave. The man giving them instructions tells them that timing is everything. They ambush some people with a case that has a fingerprint reader, which the man on the other end of the earpieces opens remotely, and a cylinder is removed. On the way out, they are told to wait without moving, but one doesn’t and they bump into a security guard, who goes for his gun and gets killed. The man running the operation doesn’t give the impression – given he is timing things down to decimals – that he is the sort to tolerate this type of imprecision. Security now knows they are there, and the SCPD are called, with Lance one of the cops arriving outside. A protest of some type appears within seconds and the two change clothes again and disappear into the crowd.
Sara, Diggle and Oliver are sparring – in the previous episode, “Heir to the Demon”, Nyssa al Ghul released Sara from the League of Assassins – and Dig accidentally clocks Sara. Which results in the three of them comparing scars. Felicity, who is watching, tries to join in with a scar of her own. She should probably have remained quiet. Oliver is throwing a welcome home party for Sara; it’s a Queen family tradition that when you come back from the dead, you get a party. Sara asks about the Lance family tradition of holding grudges forever. Laurel did not take it well when she discovered that Sara was alive, blaming Sara for everything bad.
The two robbers from earlier are with the man who was directing the operation. He uses the book War & Peace as an example of patience. He was not happy with the man who moved early, instead of waiting. And kills him.
At the Queen mansion, Thea and Oliver welcome Sara, Lance and Dinah. Roy and Sin are there and Sin rushes over and hugs Sara. When asked if the two know each other, they say not – but of course they do. Thea doesn’t know that, though, and Sin covers up with a very odd explanation. Oliver mentions Laurel and Lance says she isn’t coming. Laurel needs time. As Lance did, when Oliver returned. Lance apologises to Oliver, saying he isn’t a killer (well…) and it gets awkward afterwards until they re-join the party.
Moira is also there, and Oliver isn’t happy to see her – Felicity had revealed to Oliver that Malcolm Merlyn is Thea’s father – but Moira tells him it’s her house and if Oliver doesn’t want to pretend to be mother and son, he shouldn’t throw parties in her home. Lance gets a call – work, about a homicide in the Glades – and when Oliver gets a call from Felicity, he knows it’s about the same thing.
Oliver, as the Arrow, along with Sara, as Black Canary, meet with Lance who shows them the evidence. Sara says it’s an odd knife and Lance tells her it isn’t a knife, it’s a minute hand. From a clock. The representative of Kord Enterprises told Lance that what was taken was a skeleton key. Oliver knows what that is, a military tool intended for codebreaking foreign intelligence targets. Queen Consolidated was working on something similar, but Oliver shut it down when he realised it could have other uses. Such as breaking into a bank vault. Any bank vault.
Lance arrives at Laurel’s; she is regretting giving him a key. He wants her to move past it, to try and reconcile. No, not with Sara; Lance and Dinah. He would like a family dinner. Laurel is okay with that idea.
Two men are breaking into a bank vault – the man running things has evidently got a new accomplice – and he tells them they have 90 seconds. Then tells them to get out, with 20 seconds left on the clock, because he’s just spotted Oliver. The two are gone when Oliver arrives, and the man hacks into Felicity’s transmission. Telling them that a bus is going to collide with a train, and Oliver can’t be in two places at once. He didn’t know Sara was with Oliver. Sara goes after the thieves; they get away but not with the money. Oliver managed to stop the bus from being hit by a train.
Sara’s presence is making Felicity feel a bit inadequate. She even tries working out, and gets advice from Sara and a question from Oliver as to what she is wearing. The Lance family dinner – which Sara asks Oliver to attend too – could also have gone a lot better. Thea knows that something is up between her brother and mother, and keeps questioning Oliver about it. And Oliver gets a heck of a surprise at the end.
In “Tremors”, Oliver managed to talk Slade out of blowing up Ivo’s freighter, saying they would capture it instead. On the island, the three of them are watching the freighter, and Slade and Sara are arguing about the guards and how they can get close enough to board the ship, when Oliver tells them to shut up. Both of them. And listen. He heard a plane – a small one – and the three try shouting at it to get the attention of the pilot. Then it’s hit by a SAM. The pilot is only barely alive, when it crashes, and the radio is useless. There is a connection here, though.