Recap / Arrow S 2 E 5 League Of Assassins

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In flashbacks, Sara is rescued from the Gambit’s wreckage after she spots a chirping canary and is locked aboard the Amazo. She gets moved to a private room by Dr. Anthony Ivo, a man wanting her help to save the human race. When Oliver is brought to her, she kicks him around and orders his silence.

Oliver arrives to the prison to find Adam Donner and Laurel prosecuting Moira. They offer a plea bargain consisting of life with the possibility of parole. Moira contemplates taking the deal, much to the shock of her children. Later, Thea and Oliver convince Moira to fight, reminding her they’ll love her no matter what secrets come out.

At the Queen mansion where Sara is staying, she and Oliver are attacked by a man dressed like Malcolm Merlyn, but it’s not him. The man escapes. Oliver brings Sara to the Arrowcave, where she reveals that the man is Al-Owal, a member of the League of Assassins with whom she trained in Nanda Parbat. Felicity finds that the dirt left behind by Al-Owal contains traces of pesticide from a now abandoned plant – a perfect home base for the League. There, Canary and Arrow brawl with several assassins, but caught in an uneven matchup, Canary and Arrow flee.

With the Lances in danger, Oliver will watch after Laurel, while Felicity warns Quentin. Returning to her apartment after dinner, Laurel notices that her door has been opened. Oliver investigates the scene, but finds only a knife indicating the League has moved on. Felicity’s warning to Quentin falls short, so Sara reveals herself to her father, who soon figures out she’s Canary. Sara brings him to the clock tower and fights off assassins there with his help and Arrow’s. She tells the one survivor to relay a message to Ra’s Al Ghul: her family is off limits. Sara informs her father it’s too dangerous for her to come home.

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Tropes Applying to This Episode

• Affably Evil: Dr. Ivo is kind enough to save Sara from being held in a cell and tortured by the crew of the Amazo, but he's fine with keeping the others in their cells, saying he needs them for his work.
• After Action Patch Up: After Oliver and Sara's battle against three Assassins, Oliver performs some stitching on her back. This time the trope is not used as a romantic moment, but more to show how Sara has Took a Level in Badass when Felicity points out that she's not even flinching.
  Sara: Pain and I came to a little understanding a few years back.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The League attack Sara's clock tower HQ. However Sara knew this would happen and prepared booby-traps to even the odds.
• And Your Little Dog, Too!: Al-Owal makes it clear that Sara's family will be targeted if she does not return to the League.
• Arrow Catch: Done Offhand Backhand by Al-Owal.
• Artistic License – Law: As is pointed out, there's an obvious conflict of interest in Laurel being involved in prosecuting Moira's case.
• Artistic License – Linguistics: The Arabic word for canary is 'canary', as it's a loan word for that language. Sara's (incorrectly pronounced) League name actually means "yellow bird".
• Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: Zigzagged; Al-Owal uses a sword but regards the arrow as as inefficient projectile. One of the other Assassins is able to Dodge the Bullet and derides Quentin's pistol as a coward's weapon, only to fall victim to his backup gun.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Felicity is able to track down the dirt left behind by Al-Owal in the Queen mansion to his hideout in an abandoned factory.
• Badass Boast:
  • Sara uses her history as an assassin to convince Diggle not to keep her from leaving.
  Sara: Dig, you may be a three-tour Special Forces veteran, but I was trained by the people that make the special forces look like a kindergarten class. So step aside or get put down.
  • Al-Owal says that Oliver barely defeated Malcolm Merlyn, so how well will he do against the man who trained him?
• Blatant Lies: Flashback-Sara lounging half-naked in Oliver's cabin on the Queen's Gambit while telling Daddy on the phone that she's with her roommate at college.
• Blunt "Yes": Inverted. Quentin asks Sara if she would've told him she was alive if the League never showed up. She wouldn't.
• Break-In Threat: On returning to Laurel's apartment, Oliver sees the door unlocked and enters to investigate. He finds a dagger stuck in the wall as an Implied Death Threat which he removes before Laurel can see it. This tips him off that Al-Owal might have gone after Quentin instead, so he goes to back up Sara.
• Broken Bird: Sara, and flashbacks show us how she got broken on the Amazo.
• Call-Back: Sara mentions being taken to Nanda Parbat, where Malcolm Merlyn said he spent two years after his wife died. Now it's apparent that he too was being trained by the League of Assassins.
• Catapult Nightmare: The first flashback ends with Sara waking up in a bedroom in the Queen mansion.
• Cat Scare: While in the Chinese restaurant, Sara grabs a knife and whirls to look behind her when a member of the staff drops something.
• Chekhov's Gun: Laurel is addicted to prescription pills.
• Cliffhanger: "Prisoners do not speak."
• Come Alone: Averted; both Oliver and Al-Owal are smart enough to have backup when confronting each other at the abandoned factory—Oliver has brought Sara and Al-Owal has two more Assassins.
• Deadpan Snarker: Quentin really gets to show off his skills in this episode.
  • When Felicity tries to warn him about the League of Assassins.
    Felicity: That sounded a little less crazy in my head.
    Lance: I doubt it.
  • During the fight in Sara's clocktower:
    Assassin: Guns are a coward's weapon. What are you without your sidearm?
    Lance: (pulls backup piece) The guy with a spare.
  • Sara shows It Runs in the Family.
    Diggle: It's your funeral, Sara.
    Sara: Wouldn't be my first.
• Double Aesop: Seeing Sara struggle to keep her secret from her family makes Oliver realise that his mother is acting out of the same motives—fear that her family will despise her once that secret is exposed. On seeing Quentin still accept his daughter after seeing her Neck Snap a prisoner, Oliver and Thea visit Moira and say they will stick by her no matter what secrets will come out. This gives Moira the strength to reject a guilty plea and go to trial.
• Dramatically Missing the Point:
  • On fighting a man dressed like the Dark Archer, Oliver naturally assumes he's a follower or copycat of the late Malcolm Merlyn until Sara corrects him. Turns out the Dark Archer look is the standard uniform of the League.
  • Knowing Laurel might be in Al-Owal's sights, Oliver takes her out for dinner and insists on walking her up to her room. Laurel assumes that he wants to resume their romantic relationship, and takes his rejection badly.
• Dramatic Shattering: Al-Owal smashes through the window of the Queen mansion to attack Sara and Oliver. Later Oliver smashes through the clock face when the Assassins are getting the better of Sara and Quentin.
• Facial Dialogue: Oliver's Reaction Shot when Sara tells her she's a member of the League of Assassins.
• Falling Chandelier of Doom: Used by Al-Owal as a distraction so he can escape.
• False Reassurance: While having dinner with Oliver, Laurel points out how she never touched the wine as proof that she's not an alcoholic, and so Oliver and Quentin's concerns are exaggerated. After Oliver leaves, she takes several prescription pills instead.
• Fan Disservice: Flashback-Sara being dragged around the prison ship dressed only in soaking wet lingerie and nightgown, and in the present day her Toplessness from the Back Covered in Scars.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Diggle only knows about the League of Assassins as a myth he heard in Afghanistan, yet Oliver reacts to The Reveal as if he knows full well who they are. It's not until Season 5 that we discover why.
  • Oliver tells Sara that he knows how difficult it is to come home. Turns out Sara wasn't the only one not to return to Starling City when they had the chance, for fear of how much they'd changed.
  • Sara tells Felicity that Oliver is lucky to have friends like her, and says that he hasn't always had good luck in that area.
  • Two lines said by Al-Owal: "The child of Ra's Al Ghul awaits your return" and "You think because you are the beloved you will be granted your freedom?" hint at the events of "Heir To The Demon".
• Futureshadowing: While adrift after the sinking of the Gambit, Sara sees a canary.
• Home Field Advantage: Sara has some traps set up in her clocktower hideout that even things out in the final battle.
• How We Got Here: The flashbacks show Sara's story from the sinking of the Queen's Gambit to the point in last week's cliffhanger when Oliver is dumped at her feet as a prisoner.
• I Am a Monster: Sara carries a lot of guilt for the person she had to become to survive. The final straw was when she had to cut the throat of a diplomat whose children then found the body.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: After Sara leaves, Ollie takes a bottle of Russian vodka from his wooden box and shares it with Diggle.
• Internal Reveal: Quentin discovers that Sara is alive, and Oliver finally confirms to Diggle that he did not spend the entire five years on Lian-Yu.
• It's a Long Story: Felicity's reply when Quentin asks why this "League of Assassins" would be targeting him. Unsurprisingly this hardly convinces him the threat is serious.
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: A family version. Sara has to leave town to keep the League of Assassins from coming after Laurel, Dinah and Quentin.
• Jerkass Façade: When Island!Oliver is dumped at her feet, Flashback-Sara is dressed in black and twirling a knife, and when Oliver asks how she survived she responds by kicking him.
  Sara: "Prisoners do not speak."
• Mythology Gag:
  • Professor Ivo is the creator of the Amazo robot that the Justice League faced in one of their first appearances, way back in Brave and the Bold #30 in 1960.
  • When The Canary takes out one of the Assassins with a trap in her base, she says, "You must be mindful of your surroundings."
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Oliver's face says it all when Sara tells him the League of Assassins is involved.
  • The man who trained Malcolm catches an arrow. That was coming from behind.
• Out Of The Shadows Reveal: Sara letting her father know she is alive.
• Percussive Therapy
  Diggle: How did it go with your mother?
  Oliver: Not well. Have you found someone for me to hit yet?
• Protect This House: In preparation for the incoming members of the League of Assassins Sara sets up the Clock Tower she's living in as a booby trap heaven. The traps don't completely stop the Assassins, but they do turn the tide to give an injured Sara, Quentin Lance, and The Arrow the advantage they need to win the battle.
• Pull the Thread: Felicity tries to warn Quentin about the League of Assassins, and when his daughter does the same Quentin realises that Sara must be working with the Arrow as well, which means she's the masked vigilante girl in the Glades, and that means she's been in Starling City for weeks now, making no attempt to contact her family in all that time.
• Red Baron: Sara mentions that the League makes you pick a new name, and she picked Canary (in Arabic). Al-Owal means "The First".
• Secret-Keeper: Quentin has to keep the secret that Sara is alive from Laurel and Dinah, because they would never stop searching for her, putting them at risk from the League.
• Shame If Something Happened: The DA tells Moira that they've confiscated all the emails and phone records between her and Malcolm Merlyn, and it would be too bad if something came out that would shake her claim that she was acting under duress the whole time.
• Shaped Like Itself: Felicity wants to know what the League of Assassins are, and anticipating this trope says, "And don't say 'A league made of assassins'."
• Sibling Triangle: Albeit an unwitting one, but Sara's return has raised the issues of the Lance daughters previous Love Triangle with Oliver. Laurel even brings up how Oliver got on the boat with Sara rather than her.
• Spare a Messenger: Sara spares a League member to take a message back to Ra's Al Ghul that her family is off limits.
• There Are No Therapists: But there is Diggle. Oliver realizes he needs to talk about his past, so he starts to open up about what happened during those five years.
• Toplessness from the Back: Used for Fan Disservice as Sara's back is heavily scarred from her ordeal over the past five years.
• Who Are You?: Al-Owal's reply to Oliver is: "A warrior, like you."
• You Can Never Leave: Sara swore allegiance to the League of Assassins and there's only one way to leave.
• You Have to Believe Me!: Felicity goes to warn Quentin that his life is in danger from the League of Assassins, but he's rather skeptical and as an armed police officer assumes he can handle any threat. Sara has come out of hiding to get him to take the warning seriously.

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