Arrow - Recap: Coloring with The Count

Holding a grudge seems to be as toxic as vertigo on Arrow. “Unfinished Business” brought back fan-favorite villain and all-around lunatic, The Count (Seth Gabel), for some ultra drug-induced fun. Tensions ride high as we lead into the last few episodes of the show’s premiere season. Will Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) be able to prevent the infamous “Undertaking” from swallowing up The Glades? Honestly, this show has gotten pretty dark. Your guess is as good as mine! I'm stressed. I could use some vertigo right about now.

The episode began with a party girl hopped up on party favors, in this case vertigo. Bowie and Jagger were all for dancing in the street, but this girl danced her way onto a bridge. Club-goer road kill sent Detective Lance (Paul Blackthorne) on the hunt for the drug’s dealer. Unfortunately for Ollie and Merlyn (Colin Donnell), the girl’s entrance bracelet was traced back to Verdant, Oliver’s club. Two former delinquents were easy targets in a drug investigation, but Detective Lance was willing to give Tommy the benefit of the doubt considering the fact that he is his daughter Laurel’s (Katie Cassidy) boyfriend.

Oliver and Detective Lance both got the same idea. Vertigo was The Count’s personal abomination, and only he knew the true formula. Somehow, the kook must have been manufacturing this new super-powered strain from the safety of his cell at the local mental institution. Remember, the last time Oliver and The Count faced off, the villain ended up injected with a massive overdose of vertigo, sending him spiraling into legitimate insanity. I mean, he was always kind of a wacky bastard, but any sort of semblance of a cohesive intelligence had been singed out of his brain. Oliver hit up the now crazy Count first, realizing immediately that the man was out of his mind. He sure recognized the vigilante, though. The mere sight of “Hood Guy” sent The Count into a tirade. He hates Arrow. I appreciated The Count's childlike crayon drawing of Ollie's bloody death, though. Lance arrived shortly after and put things point blank.

Lance: “You could have just said he was nuts.”

Is it just me, or is Detective Lance sporting a Detective Dick Tracy accent as of late?

So, Oliver, just how crazy has The Count become?

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Oh, okay.

Someone else had to be behind the latest killer strain of vertigo, and Oliver would enlist the help of Diggle (David Ramsey) and Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) in tracing the drug back to its creator. The trio thought up a very clever scheme; lacing money with tracking strands that would eventually lead them back to the head honcho. Setting up the cash was Felicity’s role, of course. Diggle donned some thug-wear and did his part, too!

Diggle: “A person of color has successfully purchased your drugs.”

Eventually, the makeshift homing device led Oliver to the scene of a drug deal. From the safety of a limousine, a mystery man watched as one of his dealers sold some vertigo to a few bums, desperate for a high. Oliver flew in mid-deal, arrows ricocheting everywhere. Ollie’s gotten very good at blowing things up using his pinpoint precision, huh?

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Afterwards, one of the men who managed to procure some vertigo wandered his way into the damn Starling City aquarium. Completely obliterated, he managed to finagle a gun away from a security guard and turned a fun night with the fish into a hostage situation. From the basement lair, Felicity and Oliver watched as footage showed the super-high dude firing random bullets off into the air. Okay, the idea of bullets being fired in an aquarium is pretty terrifying. It reminds me of that scene from Jaws 3-D when he manages to sneak into the aquarium through the pipes and ends up breaking down the tank glass. Jaws (I know, I know. That’s not his real name.) was so crafty. Oliver, after brewing up an ancient remedy from island herbs, made his way to the scene, ready to shoot a concentrated dose of lucidity into the guy. Unfortunately, the man overdosed before he could help him. He hadn’t failed the city. The city had failed him. Oliver, torn up over the decision he’d made to let The Count live in the first place, was livid.

Word had spread that The Count had flown the cuckoo’s nest after manhandling his doctor. The Count had, allegedly, been faking insanity, plotting his revenge from the confines of his padded cell. For Oliver, this was legitimate proof that the lunatic was behind the recent string of drug related deaths.

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Meanwhile, Detective Lance had acquired some information that led him to believe Tommy Merlyn was indeed behind the drug deals going on at Oliver’s club. After his partner pulled some records, Lance became privy to the fact that Tommy had used about $10k for undisclosed reasons. Buying large batches of vertigo, perhaps? Laurel was appalled that her father would refuse to trust her judgment, but Lance was more so looking to help Tommy out as much as possible, rather than allowing some other uncaring cop to nail the former party boy. After doing some more digging, Lance uncovered that Tommy had most likely used the money to bribe a crooked city inspector from having to check out the club. Of course, Tommy knew of Oliver’s secret lair. Detective Lance, the perpetual thorn in Arrow’s side, did not. After catching wind of the fact that Lance was coming for them, Tommy pulled one over on the detective. Oliver sat quaking as Lance forced him to key in the code to the lair. In the basement, the team of officer’s found nothing but alcohol in storage. Tommy had hidden everything.

Afterwards, Tommy confronted Oliver regarding the way his friend had misjudged him. Oliver seemed to have believed that Tommy might have been guilty judging by his history. Tommy called him out on his hypocrisy after all that he'd kept secret for Ollie. Oliver kills people like it’s a video game. Is bribing a man really that bad, all things considered? It seems as though Tommy was nowhere near as ready to accept Oliver’s baggage as we’d assumed. In the end, he quit working for the club. What was a serious job for him was obviously nothing more than a cover for Oliver’s alter ego.

After sifting through the autopsy reports on the latest victims, Oliver and Felicity managed to discover that the new strain of vertigo contained the kind of anti-psychotics found in mental institutions. The Count had duped them all. He’d never left the place. In fact, he was using the unique drugs available there to concoct his more devastating new creation. Oliver took to the tunnels beneath the hospital. There, he discovered The Count babbling, confined to a chair and hooked up to wires. Something was amiss.

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Throughout the episode, Diggle had been researching his own personal burden to bear. Deadshot was still on the loose, and his presence on this earth was enough to keep Diggle awake at night. Deadshot had killed his brother, of course. Enlisting Felicit’s help in private, he managed to uncover a connection. Deadshot used an underbelly agent to help him acquire new targets. Diggle handed off the information to a friend in the military, along with Deadshot’s true identity. Unfortunately, his own personal vendetta prevented him from coming to Oliver’s aid during the aquarium hostage situation. Oliver found himself on the outs with both of his confidants.

Before we close the episode, let’s take a trip back to the island paradise! Shaggy-haired Oliver Queen watched as Slade (Manu Bennet) and Shado (Celine Jade) finished up an absolutely badass series of martial arts sparring. Oliver sat toying with a bow, drudging up some belly laughs from the other two. Handling a bow of that caliber would require actual strength. Because Slade’s attempts at training Shaggy-haired Ollie had failed, Shado decided to give it a go. For hours, she had Oliver sit, slapping a bowl of water. *slap* *slap* *slap*… Oliver continued on, frustrated. Shado also recalled the true tale of her father’s mission. He’d been a rebel general who took the fall for the Chinese government’s massacres, landing him on the prison island. Now, Fyre’s was using him as a scapegoat again for his latest missile project. In the end, all of the slapping paid off. The diligence had garnered Ollie the strength to pull back a bow like a pro, completely unbeknownst to him!

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The Count was still, well, out of his ever-loving mind. It was his doctor who had revived the drug, looking for quick and easy cash. A diagnosis on The Count’s liver at the time of his overdose sold out his special formula, and the doctor had easily managed to create a synthetic version. “The Hood” found himself knocked unconscious and strapped into another chair. There, the doctor and his goon force-fed him a concentrated amount of the drug, sending him into a detrimental stupor. Diggle to the rescue! Making up for slacking earlier, Diggle arrived and had Oliver’s back. I appreciated Diggle’s use of a defibrillator as a weapon. The poor goon found his brain’s fried. “Clear.” My favorite moment this week was probably Oliver’s three-arrow shot at the doctor. Hey, if he was too drugged up to fire accurately, he might as well have used a bunch of arrows at once, right? It did the trick. Finally, Ollie made his way back to The Count to finish the job.

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He let the man live. Knock, knock… no one’s home.

The episode closed with two father/ child moments. Laurel met up with her father at a bar, only to discover that he’d switched to coke. As in, soda not cocaine. Maybe it was time for him to start letting his grudge against the vigilante ease up. Tommy, on the other hand, had wandered unknowingly into dangerous territory. He asked for a job working for his father a.k.a. “Other Hood Guy.”

What did you all think of Arrow Season 1 Episode 19, “Unfinished Business”? Are you sticking around for Season 2? Were you happy to see The Count return? Will Tommy and Ollie patch things up, or is this it for their friendship?

Thanks for reading my Recap and Review of Arrow Season 1 Episode 19, “Unfinished Business”!