Arrow is cornered by a SWAT team in Laurel’s office with no means of escape. A lady vigilante swoops in and saves Arrow. She has blond hair. Could it be Felicity?
Barton Mathis, a serial killer that Quentin put away, has escaped from prison following the earthquake. He is known as the Dollmaker, as his M.O. is pouring polymer down his victim’s throat, giving her the appearance of a doll. Quentin is told by order of the Lieutenant not to pursue this case, or he will be arrested.
While Arrow helps Quentin investigate the resurgence in Dollmaker murders, Arrow sends Roy to look into the new lady vigilante. Quentin and Arrow trace down the hotel room that Mathis is staying at, but then they get there the room is empty. A phone rings, and the Dollmaker forces Quentin to listen on the phone while he kills a girl.
The only lead Arrow and Felicity can come up with is that the new victim and one of the old victims use the same brand of skin cream. They determine that the Dollmaker is targeting women who shop at a particular boutique. Only four shops carry this particular skin cream, so Felicity volunteers to go to them all in hopes of drawing out the Dollmaker. During the stakeout, Quentin confides in Arrow that every girl he couldn’t save on the Dollmaker’s first killing spree reminded him of Sarah.
Her plan works, but too well. She is grabbed by the Dollmaker, but Arrow and Quentin save her, losing the Dollmaker in the process. Quentin is arrested for obstruction after almost catching the killer. Seems the Starling City police department is more worried about vigilantes and cops going the extra mile to solve cases than the deadly criminals.
In the sappy family portion of the episode, Oliver has five minutes where his family means everything to him. He goes to Moira’s hearing. The defense lawyer wants no bail, but the D.A. wants the case to be for the death penalty. Oliver promises Moira that he will get her out of this. I’m pretty sure this is one thing Oliver or Arrow can’t do.
Meanwhile, Laurel has called in favors she hasn’t even earned yet to get the charges against Quentin dropped. She tells him to stay away from Lt. Pike, and to stay away from the Dollmaker case. Heading to his car, Quentin is tazed and kidnapped by the Dollmaker, finding that he also has taken Laurel. Quentin thinks Laurel is guilty about somehow causing Tommy’s death, but he can’t figure out why.
Roy is on the lookout for the new lady vigilante. He gets a tip that she is friendly with a tough girl named Cin. Roy asks her about her friend, but Cin takes off. Roy chases her into a clock tower before she knocks him out. When he comes to, the lady vigilante is there. She asks him if “they” sent him. He doesn’t know what she is talking about, and then he gets a text from Thea saying that Laurel was kidnapped. The lady vigilante reads this text and tells Cin to let him go. She takes off.
Based on surveillance at the police station, they have linked the Dollmaker to an abandoned chemical factory in town. The Dollmaker is there with Quentin and Laurel. He is going to make Quentin watch as he turns Laurel into a human doll. Just as the polymer is about to go into her throat, Arrow comes to the rescue. The lady vigilante shows up to, and tries to take out the Dollmaker, but is trapped beneath a bundle of pipes. Arrow traps the Dollmaker, but the lady vigilante escapes. The Dollmaker is apprehended however. This time I thought maybe the lady vigilante could be Shadow.
Laurel confesses to Quentin that the only reason Tommy was at her office the night he died is because she refused to leave after they were told to evacuate. If she had left when she was supposed to, Tommy wouldn’t be dead.
Moira meets with her lawyer, telling her she is not afraid of death, and has made peace with it a long time ago. Things are good with her family, and there are certain things that can never be known. Ever.
A man comes to retrieve the lady vigilante. He says that Ra’s Al Ghul wants her back. She doesn’t want to go back, but the man will not lie for her. She kills him instead. Now I’m thinking it’s neither Felicity or Shado.
The flashbacks to the island show that Oliver had formed a relationship with Shado. Slade warned him about getting too close to her, as it could serve as a distraction. While on a stakeout to see who is on the island, Oliver and Slade see a boat in the water. It starts firing in the direction of where Shado is.
Oliver races down there to save her, and in all of the blasting, it looks as if Slade may have been killed. His hand was definitely on fire. Shado was never shown dead or alive. Oliver awakens inside a jail cell in some sort of prison. It is still not known if Slade or Shado are alive. The camera pans out to show that Oliver is on the boat they had seen earlier, and it is pulling away from the island.
