Arrow 8X5: Prochnos

You guys. How is S8 so good? I do not understand. What show is still good (if not better than the previous few seasons) at this point in time? I don't even know how to deal with it. Plus, you guys know that I am such a Roy whore. Fingers crossed he's back for the rest of the season.

So William and Mia are still here and, in what seems like an attempt to bond with them, Oliver brings them to Russia with him. However, he's determined to keep them away from the Bratva and his life when he was with them. That part doesn't go over so well.

The thing we need is held onto by a guy who spends all his time hanging out in fight clubs. Oliver and Anatoly head over and ask the guy for the plans. He claims if Oliver fights and wins, he'll hand over the plans. So he does. And he wins easily. However, the Bratva show up and claim that this guy doesn't have the authority to hand over the goods. They take Mia and Oliver hostage.

Anatoly, Laurel, and William track Oliver and Mia to a warehouse. Before they can get there, the Bratva threaten Mia, so Oliver tells all (even though Mia told him not to). The Bratva dude then insists Mia do the bell test. Oliver begs both her and the dude not to make her go through with it. But to no avail. She's got 60 seconds to ring the bell. And while she does fine (she defeats her captors), she's half a foot away from ringing the bell when the timer goes off. The dude goes to shoot her, but there are blanks in his gun. He just wanted to make sure Oliver was telling the truth.

After a bit of a cooling off period, Oliver's new plan is for him and Mia to form a fight club team, William to get them in the ring, and Laurel and Anatoly to steal the info. Unfortunately, the head guy decides before they even fight that if Oliver and Mia win, we're going to kill them anyway. They do win (against 6 guys, but that's probably no surprise), but they are prepared with some flash bangs (?) to get them out before anyone can stop them.

Meanwhile, Laurel and Anatoly go after head guy who's got the info. Anatoly stays back to cover Laurel. And she needs it. The dude knows that she's bad news is about to shoot her, when Anatoly shoots him first. They grab the info and book it.

We get a really nice send off to Anatoly. I would love to see him again, but if we don't, I'm very satisfied with the ending we got with him.

Elsewhere, John is busy trying to con Roy back onto the team (not that I mind). He claims he needs help with this one job while Oliver and Co are busy in Russia. But once they get there, Roy realizes he doesn't really need him. Thankfully, Diggle manages to convince him that in future, it's very important for him to be on the team to keep his bloodlust at bay. And by the end, he's decided to stick around. Huzzah!

And then, Laurel approaches Lyla who asks about the info. She claims she's decided not to hand it over. She really want to be a good person and part of that is doing the right thing and she doesn't think this is it. She tells Lyla that she should tell her family, which she refuses to do. But, Laurel brought them, so it's really unnecessary anyway. When Diggle questions her, she claims it's for the greater good, and tranq darts start flying into people.