Arrow’s “The Promise” is very similar to season 1’s “The Odyssey” where we spend the majority of the episode on the Island but when we were in the present day, it was quite the doozy.

We open the episode exactly where we left off and that is with Slade and Oliver meeting each other again for the first since the Island. Slade is at the Queen Mansion because he has contributed to Moira’s mayoral campaign because he sees some similarities between himself and her like having to pick up the pieces again and rebuild oneself. To celebrate Slade’s contribution, he has brought over some special Australian rum that seem to spook Oliver

We then flash to the Island where we see Oliver train by running around the Island shooting arrows at carved out and painted targets in trees. We also see him to the Island version of the salmon ladder and we see Oliver get progessively get better at everything, Slade comments that Shado would have been proud, to which we see Oliver look a bit guilty at that comment.

Back at the their plane headquarters, Slade and Oliver come up with a plan to invade the freighter while Sara is concocting some foul tasting concoction to combat whatever Ivo has planned.

In a private conversation, Oliver and Sara debate about what to do with the stash of Mirakuru that they have as they don’t want Ivo to get his hands on it. They decide to destroy it and Slade agrees. At night we see Oliver and Sara burn the box that contains the Mirakuru. Sara tells Oliver that he needs to kill Ivo before he has the chance to spill that Oliver is the reason why Shado died. Oliver doesn’t want to be an executioner but Sara says that if Slade finds out and unstable that he is they will be killed instead.

Later the three toast to their last night on the island with that Australian rum that we saw at the beginning of the episode. While asleep, Oliver has a nightmare where Shado repeatedly asks why he didn’t save her while stabbing him continuously. Oliver wakes with a start but recovers as everyone prepares to take over the freighter. We see Oliver take Shado’s green hood and Slade take the Deathstroke mask.

Part of the plan is for Oliver to light a pyre from a distance using a lighted arrow. As Oliver makes the shot, we think he will hit it but he misses and he gets some ribbing from Slade while Oliver blames the breeze for the miss. Oliver tries again and hits his mark.

This distracts Ivo from removing the eye of Knyazev, a prisoner of the freighter whom we met in “Keep your Enemies Closer”. As two of the freighter’s henchmen descend on the island, they give chase to Oliver who trips and falls therefore letting him get caught. I should mention that there was a scene where Ivo was talking to someone in the outside world about a woman’s medical condition and how she isn’t getting better despite Ivo telling them that he has a potential cure.

Oliver is brought back to the freighter as a prisoner and is reunited with Knyazev and meets more prisoners like the Rev, Thomas Flynn and another big burly prisoner that blames Sara for what Ivo has done to them.

The henchmen then take Oliver to Ivo who wants to know where Slade and Sara are. When Oliver is not so forthcoming, Ivo injects him with some truth serum. Ivo questions him again and it looks like Oliver is spilling the beans to their plans like how the pyre was a distraction and that Slade and Sara are on the freighter now in its engine room. However, we learn that the concoction that Sara made up was for Oliver to take so combat the effects of things like truth serum; Oliver just has to act all drugged which he replies that it won’t be a problem.

Everyone on the freighter is rushing to the engine room and when Oliver takes out his guards, then everyone is on high alert. We see Sara and Slade use the parachute they acquired from the last episode to infiltrate the freighter.

Sara, Slade and Oliver reunite. Oliver dons the hood and arrows and Slade puts on the Deathstroke mask. Oliver goes after Ivo with Slade asking him not to kill him as he wants the pleasure of doing so. Slade goes off to take down more of the bad guys while Sara frees the prisoners. When she does that burly guy is not so pleased and almost chokes her to death but the Reverend Thomas Flynn knocks him out.

Meanwhile, Ivo has called someone from the outside world. Her name is Jessica who at first doesn’t recognize Ivo’s voice but when he identifies himself at Anthony, Jessica seems to get a bit confused and keeps on repeating how she knew an Anthony and he was a doctor. This is where I am going to theorize that Jessica is Felicity’s mom while Ivo is her dad. In “Heir to the Demon” Felicity doesn’t exactly describe her mom as crazy but I took it as read and she stated her father abandoned her. With Ivo being on the freighter for his research, it seems like he was there for a while. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Back to the action, Oliver finds Ivo and is going to kill him for killing Shado but he states that he may have pulled the trigger but Oliver aimed the gun at Shado. Oliver still wants to kill Ivo but Ivo says that he can but what would Slade think of Oliver and we see that Slade has heard the whole thing. Oliver admits that it is true and this enrages Slade and he uses his strength to beat up Oliver. Oliver tries to reason with Slade on how he only just recently called him a brother. But Slade can’t be reasoned with.

Some timely explosions let Oliver escape. We also see what Sara and the prisoners had to endure and that is a lot of gunfire and explosions. Eventually, Oliver and Sara meet up and he tells her that Slade knows the truth. Sara says that they can’t win this fight and everyone should just jump ship and swim to the Island. When everyone goes to do just that, Slade stops Oliver and throws him back into the freighter’s prison. The freighter’s captain tries to stop Slade but Slade just uses his strength and enhanced healing to take him down and declares that the freighter is now his.

Back on the Island, Sara and the other prisoners have made it but wonder where Oliver is. We see Oliver on the freighter and Slade forcing Ivo to show him how he shot Shado. When it looks like Ivo is going to shot Oliver as forced by Slade, he instead does something to Ivo like I think chop his hand off.

Slade then approaches Oliver and says that he won’t kill him until he learns what it is like to feel the despair that he has felt when something is taken from you, this he promises him.

In the present day, Moira asks about Slade’s personal life and whether or not he has kids. Slade says no and when Moira asks if Slade has anyone special, he says he did but she died. Oliver talks about how when they faced tragedy, they learned to move on but Slade pretty much says that moving on his stupid.

Throughout, Slade makes some veiled reference about Oliver’s time on the Island and the circumstance around it under the guise of reading about the Queen family in the papers. When Slade comments on the art work in the Queen Mansion, Moira offers a tour and goes to prep the house for it. In that moment, Oliver decides to go after Slade with an ice pick that he intercepts and tells him “not yet kid” and Oliver drops the ice pick. This is when Thea comes home and Moira wants her to give the tour as she sees how rude Oliver is being to Slade.

While on the art work tour, Oliver covertly calls Felicity. We see in the Arrow cave, Roy being trained by Sara on how to shoot an arrow. I am not quite sure why Roy needed to be shirtless but hey I am fine with that. When Felicity picks up the call, no one is on the other line but Felicity puts it on speaker anyways and Sara immediately recognizes Slade voice. Sara assembles the troops (i.e. Roy and Diggle) to take down Slade before he can kill Oliver and his family. Felicity stays behind to help give the location of the Queen family via thermal cameras.

At the Queen Mansion, Diggle is outside with a pretty big gun to make the kill shot while Roy is responsible to leading Moira and Thea away from Slade and not to engage him in a fight.

As the art tour concludes, Thea is surprised to see Roy as she thought they were meeting at Verdant. Moira introduces Slade to Roy and the two share a Mirakuru handshake. Sara too joins the party to Slade’s surprise. Slade realizes that he has no chance to exact his revenge so he calls it a night. Oliver sees Slade out and realizes that Slade is behind Cyrus Gold and the man in the skull mask. When it looks like Diggle is going to make the kill shot he is knocked out.

Slade says that Diggle is alright and is not dead yet and he also remind Oliver of the promise he made to him 5 years ago about killing him after he learns of despair.

Later Moira calls Oliver out on his rudeness and if he is going to continue that way then he should no longer visit the house. As Oliver leaves, we see that from the point of view of Slade who is in front of several monitors that shows footage throughout the Queen Mansion. Slade used the art tour to place cameras along the way. As we Slade, he is without his eye patch and there is this huge gaping hole where right eye is supposed to be.

We have a week off but then we get introduced to the Suicide Squad!!!!