Oliver heads to Russia in search of a weapon to kill the Monitor with. Laurel considers Lyla and the Monitor's offer.
Tropes
- Always Someone Better: Mia confesses to Laurel that she doesn't feel like she can live up to the Golden Age of Arrowverse heroes, such as herself and Oliver.
- Apologetic Attacker: Lyla genuinely apologizes for her duplicity to Diggle and Oliver, as they get tranquilized, presumably by ARGUS snipers.
- Badass Boast: Oliver's reponse, when Laurel points out that the cage fighter is twice his size? That gives him half a chance! And he indeed puts him down extremely easily due to superior skill.
- Big Damn Heroes:
- Anatoly and Laurel come busting in to free Oliver and Mia...who, by that point, are already free.
- Later, Anatoly shoots Oleg In the Back when the latter has Laurel on the ropes.
- The Bus Came Back:
- Much like he did with Tatsu and Thea, Oliver reunites with his close friend Anatoly, reaffirming their status as blood brothers and leaving things in a good place before Oliver’s death.
- Roy too, but he’s actually sticking around for more than an episode, despite his initial reluctance.
- Call-Back:
- Oliver and Mia shooting arrows in tennis balls is one to the first season.
- Mia having to fight past people to ring the bell is one to Season 5 where Oliver has to do the same.
- Roy is once again working as a mechanic and using "Jason" as an alias.
- Several others to Oliver’s time in Russia: him fighting in the fight club pre-Bratva initiation, Anatoly teaching him the useful Chekhov's Skill of how to dislocate his thumbs, and his alias of Kapushion. Oliver also repeats his long-held toast of prochnost which he picked up from Anatoly.
- Anatoly also refers back to a conversation with Oliver in the S2 flashbacks.Anatoly: Do you remember the first thing I taught you?
Oliver: Living is not for the weak.
Anatoly: Your children are not weak, Oliver. - Anatoly references being on the wrong side of history the last time he saw William.
- Oliver refers to no longer having a Bratva tattoo due to Adrian Chase removing it.
- Call-Forward:
- Mia mentions Laurel saving her in the flash forwards towards the end of Season 7.
- Diggle mentions William finding Roy on Lian Yu in the Season 7 premiere and Roy rejoining Team Arrow in the future, getting a handle on his Bloodlust in the process.
- Character Development: Laurel's Heel–Face Turn is completely cemented by the end of the episode, when she refuses to hand over the plans to the Monitor-killing energy weapon and even tells Oliver and Diggle that Lyla is in league with the Monitor, citing that there was no point in becoming a better person in the first place if she's just going to flip on the people who trust her, even in the face of the prospect of getting Earth-2 back.
- Secret Test of Character: Some fan theories, however, insinuate that this was deliberately engineered on the Monitor's part in order to prepare Laurel for the Crisis, which would be in accordance with the effects of antimatter waves on universes from the comics, meaning the Monitor would've been unable to restore Earth-2 to begin with.
- Cliffhanger: The episode ends with Oliver, Diggle, and Laurel being knocked out by Lyla's snipers.
- Continuity Nod:
- Oliver mentions Anatoly having gone to the Maldives, but Anatoly mentions that with Diaz dead, he had no real need to stay in hiding.
- The Don: A thug named Oleg has taken Anatoly’s position as Pakhan of the Bratva.
- Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment: Mia tells Earth-2 Laurel how she's heard so much about the great Black Canary, obviously conflating both Laurels.
- Dramatic Irony:
- Roy threatens to leave for a place where “even William can’t find [him]”. Of course the viewer knows that it’s William who eventually finds him on Lian Yu after years of self-exile.
- When William asks about Oliver's ability to dislocate his thumbs, Oliver suggests his children ask about something a little less painful. Mia asks about Lian Yu, where Oliver has suffered some of the most profound suffering of his entire life.
- Et Tu, Brute?: John need only utter less than a sentence to see how deeply shaken he is by his wife’s deceit. Oliver seems shocked as well for that matter.
- Everyone Has Standards: Laurel is disgusted by Lyla going behind her friends and husband's back.
- Failure Hero: Mia points out that every time she tries to fill her father's shoes, she ends up failing in some way. Laurel encourages her.
- Fight Clubbing: Alexi Burov runs one with the Bratva's blessing, and after he gets killed by Oleg, the latter runs it himself.
- Foregone Conclusion: Roy’s insistence that his helping would be a one time thing led the viewer to believe he’d leave for Lian Yu at the end of the episode, in accordance with the flash forwards. Seems John’s plan of Screw Destiny seems to at least partially work with Roy as he agrees to return to The Team for a bit longer.
- This is zig-zagged, however, since it hasn't yet been made completely clear if the Bad Future has been averted, but there have been numerous indications that it has, given Rene and Dinah were made aware of Mia's existence twenty years before the flashfowards and Future Team Arrow informing Present Team Arrow of the status of Star City 2040. However, it's entirely still possible that Roy would've gone to Lian Yu even in this new timeline.
- Foreign Language Title: The episode's title means strength in Russian. Doubles as Call-Back since it's also the Arc Words for Season 2.
- Guest-Star Party Member: Anatoly for the duration of the episode.
- Heel–Face Turn: Anatoly has genuinely, finally turned his life around, now working as a bartender (even though he doesn't seem to have many customers). At the end of the episode, he and Oliver rekindle their brotherhood.
- Hidden Depths: William can speak Russian, which impresses Anatoly.
- Honorary Uncle: Anatoly quickly takes a liking to Oliver's kids and even tells Oliver that he would like to be their "fun uncle".
- I Choose to Stay: Roy decides to stick around with the team after the succesful mission with John.
- I Gave My Word: Alexi Burov fully intended on honoring his deal with Oliver to give him the plans for the Pulse Wave Generator. Unfortunately, Oleg has other plans and kills the man.
- Internal Reveal:
- Earth-2 Laurel exposes Lyla as an affiliate of the Monitor to Oliver and Diggle, after learning it herself.
- Roy learns about everything crazy currently going on, like the future kids and the impending destruction of the multiverse.
- Oliver reveals Anatoly that he no longer has matching tattoos with him. And he also learns about the future children, off course.
- Also, Oliver begins sharing all the dark stuff happening throughout his life with his kids.
- Like Parent, Like Child: Anatoly is quick to point out how similar Mia is to Oliver.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Roy flies into another bloodlust, almost beating a Bialyan soldier to death. Fortunately, John stops him.
- Oh, Crap!: Lyla is shocked to see Oliver and John at her supposedly private meeting with Laurel.
- Reformed, but Rejected: Anatoly at first doesn't trust Laurel, which is ironic, since he himself used to be a criminal, as she points out. He changes his mind by the end of the episode.
- Reluctant Hero: Roy is initially not willing to get back into action, having found peace working as a mechanic. He later changes his mind.
- Running Gag: Anatoly once again choses a "favorite American", this time Mia.
- Screw Destiny: Having learned of Roy's epiphany that eventually made him able to control his Lazarus-inspired bloodlust, Diggle has the audacity to try to kickstart it two decades early.
- Secret Test of Character: Laurel suggests that Lyla reveal her affiliation with the Monitor to her family. When Lyla refuses, Laurel reveals that Oliver and John are present and have heard everything they've said.
- Shooting Lessons From Your Parents: Oliver trains Mia in archery.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- While Mia wins in the end, this episode shows that taking down men twice her size isn't always easy and nearly gets her killed two times.
- Oliver wants to keep Mia and William safe like any father would and shield them from his unsavory history in Russia. However, Anatoly points out to Oliver that they are full grown adults (from the future) and should not be treated like literal children.
- Three Lines, Some Waiting: Three plot lines appear in this episode:
- Oliver, William and Mia dealing with things in Russia.
- Roy and Diggle stealing some plutonium in Bialya.
- Laurel thinking over Lyla’s offer and questioning if she has really changed.
- Training Montage: Oliver trains Mia at the start of the episode, including teaching her to shoot tennis balls.
- Wham Line: After refusing to accept the Monitor's offer, Laurel suggests that Lyla come clean to her friends about her own work for Novu.Lyla: Not yet.
Laurel: Then this is going to be kind of awkward. [John and Oliver show themselves] - What You Are in the Dark: Laurel ultimately refuses to betray her friends to restore her Earth, feeling that she couldn't live with herself if she did.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are:
- John encourages Roy that he is strong enough to fight his bloodlust and that his friends are there for him.
- Simultaneously inverted and played straight. When Mia tells Laurel that she feels that she isn't good enough and will never be able to live up to the likes of the Green Arrow and the Black Canary, Laurel tells her that they are just as flawed as anyone else, clearly thinking back to her time as Black Siren while doing so, and also gives Mia a bit of a pep talk that pushes her to insist on staying in Russia to help Oliver.
- Anatoly has a heart-to-heart with Oliver, where he encourages him that he should also share his dark side with his children and not shut them out.
