“Vendetta” is episode eight of season one of Arrow.
In the previous episode, “Muse of Fire”, Oliver discovered that Helena Bertinelli was the vigilante who was targeting the Bertinelli crime family – her father’s organisation. In revenge for the death of her fiancée, who her father had killed to stop him going to the FBI. However, it was Helena who was going to do that. She had also realised that Oliver was the Hood, as she recognised how he fought. The two did seem to like each other, and this episode opens with them both in bed together, asleep.
Helena wakes up and slips out but not without Oliver noticing. Helena heads off on her bike and is about to shoot the leader of the Triad when Oliver drops down on her from above and knocks her aim aside. The Triad opens fire at them but Oliver gets Helena to safety and China White does the same with the Triad leader.
Helena isn’t happy that Oliver stopped her. She was going to kill the leader of the Triad, so that they would retaliate against her father’s organisation, which she has weakened so much that it will not be able to stand against the Triad’s onslaught. Oliver tells Helena that what she is doing isn’t justice but revenge. When Helena questions that what Oliver does is justice, he asks her to let him show her.
The first place they go is the Big Belly Burger where Diggle’s sister-in-law, Carly, works. She asks Oliver where Diggle is, as it’s late and they are in the Glades and isn’t it Diggle’s job to keep Oliver safe. Oliver tells Carly that Helena is tougher than she looks. Oliver tells Helena that he hasn’t been on a second date in a while and it feels good so far. She doesn’t seem to consider it a second date though.
Oliver says he only kills people when it’s absolutely necessary, not as his opening booth. He believes that the way Helena is going she is going to get someone hurt; if not Oliver’s mother, who nearly was, then Helena herself. Helena apologises about Moira, saying it was an accident. Oliver wants to show her another way to take down Helena’s father’s organisation without putting innocent people at risk, but she isn’t interested.
Diggle also isn’t happy as he tells Oliver that Helena is dropping bodies all over the city. Oliver explains that three years ago Helena was going to turn her father in to the FBI and had put everything she knew on a laptop. Which Helena’s father found, believed belonged to Helena’s fiancée, and had him murdered. Oliver thinks he can save Helena but Diggle doesn’t agree and says that it’s going to end badly. Oliver feels he has to try.
Walter returned from Australia, where he had gone after finding out in “An Innocent Man” that Moira had the Queen’s Gambit secretly salvaged and stored in a warehouse, after Helena nearly shot her by accident. Moira says it must have been a shock to find out that, and that her husband was murdered, but she didn’t lie to Walter to hurt him but to keep him safe.
Frank Bertinelli is speaking to Dina Salvati, Nick Salvati’s widow, saying he will find whoever killed him and make them pay when Oliver arrives. Oliver tells Bertinelli that he actually isn’t there to discuss their proposed business deal but to speak to Helena. Helena tells Oliver she isn’t interested in talking, but he mostly wants her to listen. Oliver takes them both to Sara Lance’s grave, and explained what happened to her and how he hurt people he loved through his actions.
So Helena accompanies Oliver to his lair. He wants to teach her how to shoot a bow – which she’s really bad at. Oliver says he wants to teach Helena something and she inquires if it’s the least effective way to shoot people. Oliver wants to teach her control, as the bow requires patience and discipline. And he demonstrates his skill with hit. Oliver also shows Helena his father’s list of people, and she recognises a name on it as someone in her father’s organisation who sells prescription drugs.
Tommy tells Laurel that he has booked them a table at a new, and really expensive, restaurant. She thought Tommy was going to be more frugal, as his father has cut him off. Tommy comments on how even Oliver has a job with the new nightclub he is setting up. So Laurel suggests that he ask Oliver for a job. She says it’s not the quality she most admires in Tommy but he does know the club scene and how to have fun.
Felicity Smoak arrives in Walter’s office and, after going on a fairly typical ramble for he about Australia and how kangaroos creep her out, says she has continued looking into Tempest, the company that Moira used to hide the Queen’s Gambit. Walter says that everything has been explained but Felicity tells him that there is something else. There was someone else digging into Tempest’s finances, someone really, really good. She shadowed the other entity and found a symbol which she shows to Walter, the same symbol in the possession of Michael Merlyn and on the book that belonged to Oliver’s father. Walter says he doesn’t recognise the symbol – he doesn’t – but tells Felicity that he isn’t happy about an employee prying into his wife’s business without authorisation and if it happens again he will have her suspended. Walter does start looking into the matter himself and doesn’t stop there.
Oliver has a proposal for Helena. They will go after the man on Oliver’s list who is in the Bertinelli organisation together, but they will do it Oliver’s way. Oliver doesn’t really rate guns but, because Helena is… less than proficient with a bow, he’s bought her a present. A pistol crossbow. When Helena asks of he has a spare hood as well, Oliver shows her something. Helena asks if it comes in purple. She likes purple. Apparently it does. This goes well but Helena may be too badly damaged to go for Oliver’s methods.