Arrow - Season 1 Episode 12 - Video Recap and Review - Vertigo

I love it when “that hood guy” gets pissed. It always makes for a great episode of Arrow! In the case of “Vertigo”, we found our titular hero attempting to take down a major illegal drug tycoon, The Count (Seth Gabel), after his little sis, Thea (Will Holland), got busted for driving all wonky under the influence of vertigo during the episode prior. By the way, you guys, vertigo looked like it absolutely sucked. Isn’t the point of an illegal drug to get, like, an “illegal” level of pleasure?

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The episode opened with a severely enraged Arrow (Stephen Amell) tracking a vertigo dealer. After pinning the fool up and convincing him to drop the name of his leader, The Count, Oliver found himself dealing with a disgruntled Diggle (David Ramsey). Diggle was more so concerned with getting Oliver to Thea’s trial, rather than taking down the entire drug business overnight.

Thea looked sharp enough upon her arrival at the courthouse, but all of the togetherness in the world couldn’t thwart the tough judge’s intention to squash her. As Laurel (Katie Cassidy) put it, the old man was up for reelection and the best way for him to collect votes was to appear tough on crime. Thus, Thea Queen, who’d inadvertently become the poster child for vertigo, would have to take the fall publicly for all of the bull the new super-drug was causing in Starling City.

McKenna Hall (Janina Gavankar) is an old friend of Oliver’s, and I have a feeling we’ll be seeing her quite a bit during the latter half of season 1. Oliver needs a new love interest now that Tommy (Colin Donnell) has Laurel on lockdown, and the love triangle concept is all but extinguished. As a member of the Starling City vice squad, Oliver enlisted the former party girl’s help in tracking this Count goon. Basically, he wanted to take the heat off of Thea by putting pressure on the police to nail the head of the operation. Unfortunately, they had known about The Count for a while, so Oliver would need to try harder.

We got our first glimpse of the ghoulish Count in the flesh when he took it upon himself to punish the man who’d squealed his secret at the start of the episode. After injecting a large dose of vertigo straight into the man’s bloodstream, he informed us that when the drug is taken as so, it triggers the pain receptors in the brain to go haywire. In other words, the man would suffer in excruciating pain for days until his heart popped. Yeesh, this drug sound like fun. Party? In the end, the man was given the choice to shoot himself or The Count in revenge. He chose to nip his own suffering in the bud. By the way, the role of The Count seemed like any drama geek’s dream to play. He was so dramatic! I mean, the muppet from Sesame Street is looking subdued next to him.

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Oliver visited Laurel and Tommy to ask for a favor. He wanted Laurel to speak to her father, Detective Lance (Paul Blackthorne), about calling in a favor to help Thea. Lance hates the Queen family because of Oliver, of course, but Laurel is Laurel. The truth is, Laurel enjoys Thea because she reminds her of her sister Sarah. Her father was closed to the idea at first, but relented once Laurel convinced him that Thea could use some real help after having suffered enough troubling loss in her young life. The deal that Detective Lance scored Thea seemed kind of awesome, considering the fact that the alternative was an adult sentence and legitimate jail time.

The deal was that Thea would take two years of probation, community service, and a guardianship deal working with Laurel, wherein Laurel would need to be held accountable for Thea’s actions. The bitchiness in Thea bubbled over at this point, and she threw the ridiculously generous offer back in Laurel’s face. She doesn’t need two moms. She’s already stuck with that lying meanie, Moira (Susanna Thompson). Funny thing about Thea’s contempt for Moira; her evidence may be way off, but her sentiments are kind of verified. I find myself getting annoyed when Moira and Oliver reprimand her for questioning her mother’s odd behavior. In an attempt to convince Thea to take Laurel’s escape route, Oliver revealed to Thea that it was actually their father who admitted to having failed them and Starling City in his last few hours of life.

Oliver set up another meeting with the secret Russian club he’s apparently a member of. Remember the old guys who run that shady auto garage with the underground lair? It seems as though they’re some kind of crime organization themselves, and that Oliver is somehow intertwined with them. This is all connected to the island sideshow act, obviously. What Oliver wanted was a hookup with The Count. Under the guise of wanting to meet to start working in the vertigo trade, he offered them police information gathered on The Count in exchange. In addition to the file, the Russians wanted Oliver to do them a favor; killing a man! Yikes. It appeared as though Oliver had obliged at first, nearly strangling a man; however, by the time he had the body tossed in his trunk for disposal, he basically switched him back on with the push of a pressure point. Neat trick! Where’d you learn that one, Ollie? As it turned out, we would make that discovery later in the episode.

The meeting with that drama queen, The Count, went awry, unfortunately. Just when Oliver thought he had him where he wanted him, ready to lead them back to the vertigo headquarters, the police showed up in full force to rain on their crazy parade. Amidst the firing of bullets, Oliver attempted to trail The Count, only to end up on the receiving end of a surprise attack. “No witnesses,” barked the loon as he injected a large amount of vertigo into Ollie’s chest. Hurry, Diggle! Back in Arrow’s warehouse lair, Diggle attempted to concoct the magical island remedy Oliver is famous for using, while Oliver writhed around like a rabid animal.

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Party?

At this point, I’ll cover the island flashbacks of the week, considering the fact that Oliver waned in and out of them while drugged. The mysterious criminal organization on the island ran some sort of a fight club among them for training purposes. Realizing now that the Asian soldier who’d trained him was working for them, a downtrodden Oliver was forced to compete against his old “friend.” It seemed like Oliver was made to be a potential new recruit, as well. That, or they were just mocking him. In the end, the man used the same deathlike sleeper hold trick Oliver had used on the Russians’ captive. Just before disposing of Oliver’s “corpse,” the man slipped a map in his pocket, triggered his reactivation pressure point, and tossed him into the river. Oliver awoke to find that his old “friend” was indeed a friend.

It had only been half a dose, but Oliver woke from his drugged-up stupor with the worst hangover of his life. Upstairs, the police arrived to question him after McKenna was forced to reveal that she’d seen him on the scene. Oliver told a half-truth, of course, admitting to setting up a faux meeting with The Count to get a good look at the guy for identification purposes. His story checked out, but Moira was still upset with him. Mostly, she was angry for ruining his father’s memory for Thea. When Thea appeared after having eavesdropped, Moira was forced to admit that she lied (sort of) to honor her late husband. Thea cracked and gave in to her mother’s apology, even offering one of her own. Then, just when he thought he was in the clear, Oliver passed out on the staircase due to the aftereffects of the vertigo hit.

Having reached a dead end himself, Oliver brought the syringe used against him to Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards). This time, he drummed up some ridiculous excuse about needing the chemical makeup of his friend’s new “energy drink” inside the syringe. He then wanted her to use that finding to somehow track the location of its creation. As usual, Felicity can’t resist a mystery, and she cracked the code within a few hours. Seriously, give that girl a damn raise, dude.

Back at the lair, Diggle refused to let Oliver go out hunting for The Count considering the reoccurring residual effects of the vertigo. Holding a tennis ball up to his face, he told Oliver that if he could shoot the ball out of his hand, he’d permit him to go. Knowing he’d hurt Diggle, Oliver dropped the bow, but left anyway. Ah, Arrow without arrows!

The Count’s men were no match for Arrow’s martial arts skills, although he was a little clumsy. Honestly, The Count was kind of a bust when push came to shove. Oliver quickly turned the tables on the freak, injecting him with his own drug; however, just before he could give a fatal dose, Detective Lance burst in with his team to stop him. He demanded Oliver unhand the villain, claiming that if he killed The Count, he’d only be proving people like his daughter Laurel, who find Arrow to be a hero, wrong. Detective Lance always figured him to be a killer, anyway. Arrow gave in and fled. Later, we caught our last glimpse of The Count, who’d barely survived. According to the doctor, no one had ever survived an overdose like that, and The Count went from loony to absolutely insane.

In the end, Thea stuck her foot in her mouth and thanked Laurel by taking the job. Okay, so this is why they seemingly irrationally wrote out Laurel’s sidekick, Jo. Now Thea has a role model.

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The episode closed with Felicity asking Oliver to meet with her in private. I thought she’d reveal that she figured out his identity because, I mean, why wouldn’t she have done that by now. Instead, she confessed to having been working with Walter before his disappearance. She brought Oliver Moira’s copy of “the book,” leaving Oliver with the revelation that his mother is, indeed, involved.

What did you guys think of Arrow Season 1 Episode 12, “Vertigo”? Are all of these canonical villains going to pop up again bigger and badder in season 2? Will Felicity ever crack Oliver’s personal secret? Did you enjoy the craziness brought forth by The Count? Is Moira’s plot about to unravel?

Thanks for reading my Recap and Review of Arrow Season 1 Episode 12, “Vertigo”!