TV Month - Arrow Season 3 Episode 5 Review - The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak

It's that time again, where we look at the TV from the past week, and today we'll be looking at the past of Felicity Smoak, as, as with everyone else, it comes back to bite her

Episode 5 – The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak

It's rare that the flashbacks complement the story as well as they do with this one (not to say the don't complement the story, that's almost a given). So we have a number of plots today. Starting with the A-plot. Brother Eye (nice comic reference to Batman's OMAC satellite) is hacking power grids and gave Felicity's mother a ticket to Starling City so as he could use her as leverage to make Felicty steal an armoured car… what was the point of the power grid hacking again?

This was an interesting opportunity to look at Felicity's past, and we see that she had previous undergone an identity crisis, when her then boyfriend was arrested for crimes she helped him commit (although tried to pull the plug on him when she realised what he was doing) he later admitted (well, lied) to creating the virus himself, and hung himself before trial.

Felicity up until this point has been one of the lighter characters, not carrying too much baggage about with her, but character study works well for her, and goes into her relationship with her mother, who she hasn't really seen in 5 years.

Helping this plot along is Ray Palmer, the world's most generous boss. Seriously, what is it about Felicity that he likes so much that he gave his mother a watch that isn't in production yet (although that turned out to be an important plot point) and allow her to take a day off sick recently after taking a few days off to visit Barry Allen in Central City.

Anyway, so we've got subplots. We've got Thea using Malcolm Merlyn's money to buy an apartment for herself. Oliver is clearly not happy about it, because he still doesn't know that Malcolm willingly gave the money. The interesting thing is the whole event brings them closer together, much to Malcolm's apparent dismay. I wonder how long he'll keep secret from Thea that Oliver is the Arrow, if indeed he hasn't already told her.

We also have Laurel's subplot. To be honest, although sending a swat team to the bank made things worse, I don't see what other options she had. It's fairly standard protocol I'd think. Anyway, she finally realises that she has to open up to Ted Grant if she's gonna be able to work this off, and her training improves because of it.

Meanwhile Roy is having nightmares that he killed Sara. The worrying thing is he knew what her last words were, something which he couldn't have known unless he was actually there. I'm not convinced they'd pull this twist on this story, but it's an interesting possibility. Roy has constantly undergone identity crises. And think there's still more to get from him.

Rating 7.5/10

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