Events on Arrow Season 3 Episod 14 were split between old school Starling City and present day Lian Yu.
Did this make for a confusion hour of television? Not really, though things were a bit jumbled.
You can make sense of the time jumps when you watch Arrow online and, don't worry, we'll do our best to straighten it all out in the following Arrow review...
Via flashbacks, Oliver was tasked by Waller with infiltrating Queen Consolidated in order to get intel on a business associate who has been looking for the Omega bioweapon component.
While in Starling City, our hero saw Thea at his and their father’s grave - to meet with a drug dealer. But Tommy interrupted the deal and then warned Thea NOT to attend his “21 and over” birthday party.
Later, Oliver got into his family’s company. On the computer network, he found files his father labeled as “For Oliver” and “For Thea.”
He downloaded them (wouldn't you?) and - after seeing a young blonde staffer in glasses admire his photo on a desk - he was off to Tommy’s party, where we witnessed Diggle and his brother Andy in bodyguard mode. Awww, the good ol days!
At the shindig, Oliver came across Thea’s drug dealer, proceeded to follow him and ultimately snapped his neck/pitched him over a railing.
We then see alcoholic SCPD Detective Lance screaming at Laurel for wanting to move to San Francisco and for still having a thing for “rich bad boys.” He thinks his daughter is giving up on her mission to help people.
By hour’s end, she’s leaving CNRI and agreeing to have “just dinner” with Tommy.
Oliver, meanwhile, gets led away from the crime scene by Maseo, who disses his lame disguise.
When Oliver finally watches his thumbdrive, he watches his dad talk about “fail[ing] the city” and forming alliances with terrible people whose names he has listed in a book.
He tells his son to "save" Starling and "right" his "wrongs." Inspired, Oliver shows up at China White’s auction in time to save Maseo’s rear end and secure the Omega.
However, Oliver’s servitude to A.R.G.U.S. is not over. General Matthew Shrieve and his pet ferrets show up to say that Oliver has to first be debriefed in Hong Kong... and from there he can be on his own.
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Between raining sessions with Thea on Lian Yu, Oliver chooses to pay Slade Wilson a visit at the subterranean A.R.G.U.S. jail, only to discover that his nemesis has escaped.
He was freed by Malcolm in the name of forcing Oliver to regain that killer instinct.
In their first fight, Slade ends up locking Oliver and Thea in his cell. Fortunately, Thea is able to use her time frame to reach through the bars and release the lock.
Then, while on the hunt for Slade, Oliver comes clean about Sara’s death, how Malcolm drugged someone to kill her without even realizing what they were doing. He tells his sister that she killed Sara.
At that, Slade shows up and pulls a gun on Thea. But brother and sister team up to take him down and Thea has a chance to execute him, but she refuses to turn into the killer Malcolm wants he rot be.
She merely gives Slade a flesh wound before they put him back behind bars.
Back in Starling City, Oliver tells Thea not to reveal the Sara tale to Laurel.
Malcolm, meanwhile, is far from pleased that Thea knows - still, then again, Thea doesn't like him very much anymore anyway. In the name of besting Ra’s, she says through gritted teeth:
“I will be your student, your partner, your solider… but never again will I be your daughter.”