‘Arrow’ season 2, episode 17 review: The Canary vs. the Huntress in ‘Birds of Prey’

For everyone wanting to see an episode geared very much around Sara Lance and the return of Jessica de Gouw as The Huntress, “Birds of Prey” on “Arrow” Wednesday night was right up your alley.

Most of the story was geared around Helena’s return to Starling City in order to try to murder her father, and she was not given that satisfaction when he was killed off elsewhere. Sara and Oliver teamed up together in order to ensure that she was eventually contained, and perhaps Helena learned a thing or two in the process. Has she seen the light? It is possible, since we don’t really feel like there is a capacity for great evil in her somewhere.

The biggest qualm that we have with the episode is something that we have long worried about: Whether or not the show is putting itself into the realm of make believe by making Laurel extremely blind to the fact that Oliver is the Arrow. How does she not know that Sara is the Canary? All she has is a mask! It’s the same body type, same blonde hair, and a voice that is clearly augmented. We can partially understand her being unaware of Oliver’s alter ego, but this one is a stretch.

Still, it only partially detracted from our overall enjoyment of what was still a very solid episode of the show. It gave us very little of Felicity or Diggle, but it did at least mark the end of Adam Donner’s time as Assistant District Attorney and show us Laurel getting her old job back.

Now, we turn to the most heart-wrenching part of the entire story in that discussion with Thea and Oliver in the end, where she realized that she was the most screwed-over character in the story. There is no one who tells this poor girl anything, and Roy had to force himself to break up with her just to make sure that he didn’t let his rage get the best of her. Then, right when she was done speaking with Oliver, Slade Wilson entered the fray. He now has Thea in his possession, and while we don’t know if it is early enough for him to try to hurt her, he will likely use this to draw out Oliver yet again.

What did you think about “Birds of Prey”: Did it soar, or fall very quickly to the ground? Share your thoughts with a comment below, and head over here to get some more news related to the show. You can also sign up to get some more news related to all things via our CarterMatt Newsletter.

Photo: The CW