While we won’t be getting our backdoor pilot for The Flash this season on Arrow we do get a glimpse of its universe with two characters from the show appearing and mentions of not only Barry but two others that will be part of The Flash universe.

But before we meet Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) and Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes), we open up with Team Arrow minus Roy donning ski masks to break into Queen Consolidated’s Applied Sciences building. Felicity is hilarious in this sequence from first not donning her mask correctly to thinking that this plan is a bad idea even though it was her idea. Team Arrow breaks in using the Skeleton Key that the Clockman used a few episodes back. While everyone is setting up the explosives, Felicity debates on whether she should add bomber to her resume. Emily Bett Rickards was on fire this episode.

The next day, Team Arrow watches in the Arrow Cave as Isabel Rochev denounces the bombers on the news and vows to catch them. Team Arrow then needs to plan their next move against Slade.

We then are at Laurel’s apartment as she starts to piece the clues together to see if Oliver could really be the Arrow. According to her evidence wall, the clues seem to add up that Oliver is.

Back at Queen Mansion, Moira and Oliver meet with the family lawyer, Ned Foster. Foster pretty much tells them that they are broke and to protect what assets they have, they need to move it to a trust fund that Rochev and Wilson can’t touch. The only catch is that Thea also needs to sign this document in addition to Moira and Oliver. Oliver feels guilty for what happened with Thea and what happened with Queen Consolidated but Moira tells him not to blame himself and that it is up to him to convince Thea to sign. Moira also tells Oliver that his father and Isabel were lovers. From this scene the cold relationship between mother-son relationship seems to be thawing.

At Iron Heights Prison, Laurel asks her father if he knows who the Arrow is. Lance declares that he doesn’t and when Laurel asks if he knows who the woman in black is aka the Black Canary, Sara enters the scene and Lance tells Laurel that he doesn’t. As Lance gets taken back to his cell, he asks Laurel and Sara to take care of each other.

Team Arrow return to the Arrow Cave to once again start planning their next move against Slade but Slade in Deathstroke costume has broken into the Arrow Cave and a battle ensues where Deathstroke takes down every member of Team Arrow except for Felicity who has remained safe.

The fight with Slade has landed Sara in the hospital. Laurel goes to visit Sara where her doctor explains that she has a hairline wrist fracture. The doctor also tells Laurel that Sara has scar tissue that suggests injuries from a war veteran but Laurel tells the doctor that Sara was never in the military. When Laurel goes in to see Sara, she sees the scars on her back but Sara quickly puts her shirt back on. Sara blames her injury on a motorcycle accident and before Laurel can get an answer from Sara about where she got her back injuries, Oliver comes in a confirms Sara’s story of a motorcycle accident. When Laurel leaves the room, she starts to piece things together that based on the injuries that Oliver and Sara have that Oliver is the Arrow and that Sara is the Black Canary.

At Verdant, Oliver sees Thea to try and get her to sign but Thea is not open to hearing anything that Oliver has to say. Thea says that her life was pretty good and on track until this bombshell and that she is also disgusted that she tried to kiss her half-brother Tommy.

Meanwhile, Oliver returns to Queen Consolidated to find Wilson but instead there is Isabel. Oliver throws Isabel’s affair with his father in her face but she counters that she and Robert were soul mates and he was going to leave his family for her. But the day they were supposed to leave, Thea got into an accident and Robert went to her bedside even though Isabel told him not go considering that Thea was not his child. This news surprises Oliver. The next day, Robert terminated her relationship thus Isabel was fired from Queen Consolidated. Oliver realizes that Isabel wants revenge for Robert choosing his family over her.

Oliver tries to tell Thea that Robert knew that he wasn’t her father but chose to love her as his own. Oliver hopes Thea hearing this will get her to sign the papers to save their fortune but instead it makes her realize everyone in her life is a liar and moves out of the Queen Mansion.

At the Arrow Cave, Felicity tells Oliver, Sara and Diggle that Slade stole the Skeleton Key because now Slade needs something to help him make the mirakuru. Oliver asks Felicity to investigate a facility that could possibly house something Slade would need.

We then see the Starling City division of STAR Labs were we see Caitlin and Cisco doing inventory. Also there is Deathstroke who chases the pair around the facility. Cisco manages to stop Deathstroke for a moment with some sort of weapon and the two escape. Deathstroke doesn’t give chase as he found what he was looking for. Arrow and Canary arrive on the scene but see that they were too late. Also there is Laurel as she watches Arrow and Canary speed away on motorbike.

At STAR Labs, Felicity and Diggle go to investigate. Caitlin and Cisco can’t tell them what Slade stole as it is a secret. It is clear that Felicity knows Cisco and Caitlin because of her visits to Barry at STAR Labs. By the way, Barry is still in a coma but Cisco informs Felicity that Barry has lots of visitors including one Iris West. Cisco implies that Iris is Barry’s girlfriend. This disturbs Felicity as she realized that a guy in a coma has moved on.

At the Arrow Cave, Felicity hacks into STAR Labs big boss Harison Wells (to be played by Tom Cavanagh but doesn’t appear in the episode) files and learns what was stolen was a blood infuser that lets one person give a blood transfusion to many and the machine helps filter the blood. Oliver realizes that Slade will use this machine to inject his blood to the prisoners he sprung free to create his army. Felicity tells the team that this machine requires a lot of energy to use so it should be easy to find its location. Diggle informs Oliver that the Arrow got a call and that Laurel wants to meet him.

Meanwhile at Iron Height Prison, Lance is enjoying a quiet game of solitaire when a prisoner escapes and breaks into Lance’s cell and beats the crap out him as he blames Lance and the Arrow for putting him in jail.

At Arrow’s meeting with Laurel, Laurel starts dropping some heavy hints that she might know his identity based on how Arrow is always around to help her and her family but before the reveal can happen, Sara calls to inform her sister what happened to their dad.

When Laurel visits her father, she tells him that she knows who the Arrow is but Lance doesn’t want to know. He knows that he has changed his tune but Lance realizes that he doesn’t want to know because that would make him a real person who has a family and friends. Lance wonders what kind of life the man under the hood must have. After some threats to the DA, Laurel manages to get her dad out of jail and his job back.

With the collapse of his family, Oliver is looking down in the dumps. When Laurel goes to visit Oliver at Verdant, she sees Oliver looking blue and walks over and gives him a huge hug because it looked like he needed it and that he is important to her. Oliver returns the embrace.

Later, Felicity informs Oliver that the machine has powered up and gives him the location. Arrow arrives and sees the machine hooked up to the twenty prisoners and we see many of them with bloody eyes. All the tubes lead to a man in the center but it isn’t Slade but Roy. Slade and Isabel found him in a shelter in Bludhaven lost and that it is Oliver’s fault that he is this way for pushing him away after Roy told him he looks up to him. Arrow wants to unhook Roy from the machine but Slade and Isabel try and stop him with bullets and deflected arrows. But Arrow manages to avoid anything hitting him and is about to grab Roy to safety when Isabel points a gun at him. Before anything can happen, Diggle pumps several bullets in her stomach.

Island Flashback

This will be short and sweet. It basically focused on a dying Ivo telling Sara and Oliver that he has a cure for the mirakura that can turn Slade back to a human. It is on the freighter in his quarters. Ivo gives Sara the key and in exchange he wants Sara to shoot him dead. In the last episode, Slade cut off Ivo’s hand so now it is infected and it has traveled up his arm so he wants a quick death. Sara hesitates to shoot Ivo so Oliver does it instead as he wants to spare Sara from killing someone.

Back to the present, Oliver has taken Roy to the Arrow Cave to recover as a hospital is out of the question. One thing that Oliver managed to grab before leaving was a vial of the mirakuru and tells his team about Ivo’s cure but he didn’t give it to Slade but opted to kill him instead. Oliver gives Felicity the vial in hopes that they can replicate this cure. So Felicity goes back to STAR Labs in Central City to get Cisco’s and Caitlin’s help in secretly developing the mirakuru cure.

At Slade’s secret lab, we see his army up and about and one final member is lying on the table with bloody eyes and bullet holes in her stomach: it is Isabel Rochev and she has survived the mirakuru injection.

Now Slade’s army is up and running so how can Team Arrow defeat 22 super powered men? Hopefully, we get the answer next week.

One of the things I liked about this episode is Laurel’s reaction to knowing Oliver’s secret. I am not 100% sure how she was supposed to react. I didn’t think she would be pissed but knew she wouldn’t take with open arms. I liked how Laurel pieced it together to confirm what Slade told her. I liken Laurel knowing about Oliver’s secret how Lois knows Clark secret before in told her in Smallville. In Smallville, Lois found out Clark was the Blur through a kiss and read up evidence that confirmed what she knew. Even though Lois knew, she didn’t tell Clark she knew but instead saw her role to encourage him to be the best possible hero.

So I see that as Laurel’s role here. Laurel believes in what Oliver does and the best thing she can do is to be his friend and cheerleader.