“Year’s End” is episode nine of season one of Arrow and the mid-season finale.
The episode opens with Adam Hunt, the first person that Oliver took down in “Pilot”, in what looks like a fairly crummy room. He’s on the phone with someone and is telling them that it’s a once in a lifetime offer and that he just wants to get back in. Then someone enters the room and Hunt tells the person on the phone that he has to deal with something. Hunt tells the unseen figure that, if he’s come back for a pound of flesh, he’s going to be disappointed. Then three arrows hit Hunt in the chest, killing him.
Oliver and Diggle are sparring and Diggle says that Oliver’s reputation is starting to precede him – all he has to do now to get someone to pay is to show up. When they finish, Diggle says that he needs to go to the mall to buy his nephew a Christmas present. Oliver says that he didn’t even realise it was Christmas. On the island, there were no holidays, and he had to forget stuff like Christmas. Oliver’s father used to throw a party every year and have Christmas trees in every room.
When Diggle leaves, he tells Oliver to go home, but Oliver has a flashback to the island. In “Damaged”, Oliver was captured and tortured on the orders of Edward Fyers to try to get him to reveal the location of the archer Oliver had encountered. Said archer had rescued Oliver, taken him back to the cave and left, collapsing the cave behind him. Now he’s returned. The archer congratulates Oliver on not being dead, even though Oliver says he ran out of food and water days ago. The archer has brought Fyers back with him and offers Oliver a knife, saying he can kill Fyers. However, he also tells Oliver that Fyers has a plane, which will allow Oliver a way off the island.
Back at the Queen mansion, Oliver speaks to Thea and asks why there are no Christmas decorations up. She tells him that they’ve been busy. Moira is throwing a dinner party, which Oliver joins, and Malcolm Merlyn comments on how crime is down in the city for the first time in five years. Police Commissioner Brian Nudocerdo says that it’s because of the efforts of his department. Walter suggests that perhaps the vigilante is having a chilling effect on the criminals. Oliver is asked for his own opinion, and he says that the vigilante needs a better codename than the Hood. Merlyn agrees and suggests Green Arrow; Oliver says that is lame.
Walter receives a call from Felicity Smoak and says he has to take it, leaving the room. In the previous episode, “Vendetta”, Walter had found an identical notebook to Oliver’s, and asked Felicity to look into it. Felicity says that seven of the names on the list have been visited by the vigilante, and one of the other names is Doug Miller of Queen Consolidated’s Applied Sciences division. So Felicity thinks that the vigilante might have Miller in his crosshairs. If bows had crosshairs. Which they don’t.
A police officer tells the commissioner about Hunt being murdered, and he shares this with the other guests. Oliver knows that he didn’t do it. At the scene of the murder, Detective Lance says that the black arrows are not consistent with the Hood. Plus, the Hood took Hunt for $40 million and it doesn’t make sense to then come back and kill him. So Lance believes that there is a copycat. Outside, Oliver is listening.
Diggle asks Oliver what he’s going to do. According to Oliver, the other archer is good. The arrows have a tight grouping and the killer probably used a compound bow. Oliver believes that they are a legitimate archer. If Oliver can track the arrow, he may be able to track the archer. So Diggle asks him what he will do; Oliver responds that he will do what anyone does who needs help – call a cop.
Lance receives a package at the precinct, inside which is a mobile. Which rings as Oliver calls him. Oliver tells Lance that he is the best bet they have to take down the copycat, but he needs an arrow from the murder to do so. Lance says that the police can handle it, but Oliver tells him he can do stuff the police can’t.
At Queen Consolidated, Walter speaks to Miller and tells him that security has red-flagged Miller as a possible target of the vigilante. Miller says that he thought the Hood only went after white collar criminals. This investigation is putting Oliver in danger; Merlyn speaks to Moira and tells him that they may need to have their associate deal with Walter. Something Moira doesn’t want.
Oliver decides to throw the annual Queen Christmas party and tells Moira, Thea and Walter that he will arrange it. It seems Oliver may have missed Christmas. It is not a huge success, at least from the Queen point of view, but some things do work out.
When the police commissioner tells Lance to pin the murders on the Hood, because he doesn’t want the city to think there’s a serial killer on the loose, Lance refuses – and gets taken off the case. Which means Lance has to help the Hood if he wants the killer caught.
More is learned about the island from Fyers during flashbacks; it seems it used to be a Chinese military prison for the most dangerous types of people. Nearly all of whom are now dead. Oliver approaches Felicity with one of his typically bizarre requests; they really don’t have a huge amount of believability. The identity of the copycat is revealed, and it’s a bit of a surprise. And Oliver learns that his father’s list is not a list that merely belonged to his father; there is an organisation out there even if he doesn’t know who they are yet.