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"I understand that you're hurting... and I know what it's like to want someone... but not be able to be with them. How you wish things could be different, but they can't. I can't be with you. I can't be with anyone. I have to be alone."
Oliver Queen to Carrie Cutter about his struggle with his dual life

"Draw Back Your Bow" is the seventh episode of the third season of Arrow, and the fifty-third episode overall. It aired on November 19, 2014.

Synopsis[]

Plot[]

Oliver, Felicity, and Diggle are seen driving through the streets as the Mirakuru-enchanced soldiers wreak havoc. Oliver orders to stop the car and steps out. A henchman is seen holding a red-haired woman up by her throat. Oliver saves her by quickly shooting and taking the henchman down. He and Diggle jump back in the car and the woman is seen looking at the arrow.

Present day: Detective Lance and The Arrow have found Isaac Stanzler, who is killed and dressed up in a similar costume as The Arrow. Oliver recognizes it as an attempt to get his attention. Detective Lance gives him the arrow that killed Isaac. Oliver notices it has a red spade like tip.

Felicity looks for Ray Palmer and sees him working out bare-chested on the salmon ladder. Smitten from what she sees of him she tries to remind him off the press conference he is supposed to attend. Palmer invites her to accompany him to a dinner for a business meeting. Felicity seems hesitant, however Palmer shows her that he bought a dress for her already.

Palmer Technologies

The birth of Palmer Technologies.

Oliver and Diggle are investigating the killing of Isaac Stanzler. They quickly conclude it is not Sara's killer. Oliver gets annoyed at Felicity for being sloppy in her duty since she is flirting with Palmer. Palmer proudly presents that he renamed Queen Consolidated and is now called Palmer Technologies. An angry Oliver breaks the tip of the arrow and finds a note in it. They quickly recognize there is an address on it. The two break into the apartment and find it romantically decorated, with the walls covered with sketches and news articles about The Arrow. As they investigate, a woman is watching them from another building. On a huge shrine there are several pictures of the Arrow, his arrows, and another spade like arrow. Oliver realizes the arrow point is actually a heart. They hear a ringtone and answer the cell phone laying on the table. The woman is excited that she sees Oliver again and asks if he has gotten her a present, referring to the slain Isaac Stazler. She tells him of her desire to be with him and fight and kill with him together. She then sends him a picture of a mob boss with a bomb vest. Oliver mentions he will find her. She taunts him and says that is the idea after which she leaves.

Thea is having auditions for which a DJ to perform in her club. A guy named Chase shows up with enormous levels of confidence. Thea is bewildered and tells him to audition like everyone else. Chase says he does not do auditions and Thea asks him to look for a job elsewhere.

Carrie's SCPD officer review history

Carrie's SCPD officer review history.

In the Arrow Cave, Roy is still distracted by the knowledge that he killed a cop, mentioning he feels like a fraud while working as a vigilante. Oliver tries to comfort him with no success. Felicity finds the identity of the woman, she identifies her as Carrie Cutter, a former SWAT police member. She manages to identify a bag of fertilizer in the background and the team finds out Carrie practices gardening at Sherwood Florist. Oliver obviously has problems with Felicity working with Palmer, as she mentions she will not be helping because of the dinner.

Sherwood Florist

Sherwood Florist.

Oliver and Roy break into Sherwood Florist and Oliver tells Roy to look for the mob boss as he will deal with Carrie. The two split up and Roy gets startled as an arrow gets shot close to him. Turning around he sees a smiling Carrie Cutter. Carrie stealthily overpowers him and she steals his earpiece. Using his earpiece, she begins to stalk Oliver and tells him they should be together. Oliver manages to find them as Roy lays knocked out on the floor and she uses the mob boss as a hostage (making him stand on a chair with the bomb vest and a wire detonator around his neck) and begins to tell him she wants to be with The Arrow. As Oliver refuses, she kicks the chair away and flees the scene. Oliver lets her escape and saves the mob boss instead by shooting the wire detonator.

Back at the Arrow Cave, Roy is angrily striking the wooden dummy. Oliver tries to calm him down after which Roy tells Oliver he is disappointed with himself after Carrie fooled him with her deceit despite all his training and weaponry. Diggle studies Carrie's file and informs Oliver that Carrie became obsessed with a coworker, after which she received therapy and quit the police force. Diggle then goes to Felicity and informs her that Oliver is troubled by Felicity and Ray being together a lot. Felicity tells him that there is nothing between her and Palmer, however if there was, Oliver should be the one to talk about this not Diggle.

Oliver talks with the psychiatrist who treated Carrie, Avery Pressnall. Avery reveals she diagnosed Carrie with attachment disorder, causing stalking and attention-seeking behavior. This refers to an inability to form real lasting relationships. Carrie pushes everyone away and fixates on one single person who she feels mirrors her emotional state.

Felicity comes to Ray wearing the dress and he is impressed with her appearance. He gives her a diamond necklace of $10 million to which she agrees to wear trying to play down her eagerness to possess such a valuable jewelry.

Carrie visits Kirby Bates, a hacker who mentions she has not contacted him for a while. She mentions she was busy. He shows her the algorithm he developed that has measured the response times of The Arrow to all the places he has been active. He has traced the base of The Arrow to the nightclub Verdant. Carrie sits on his lap and begins to kiss him after which she kills him by stabbing him with an arrow in the neck, saying that she is already spoken for.

Captain Lance investigates the killing of the hacker and informs The Arrow about it. Arrow then talks with Diggle that he is troubled by Felicity's moving on and getting closer with Palmer. He is mentioning he cannot be with her while being The Arrow.

Carrie Cutter

Carrie at Verdant.

Carrie enters Verdant during its grand re-opening and walks straight past Roy, who talks with Thea about the DJ who is messing it up. Thea tells the DJ to move after which Chase shows up. He makes fun about the situation and agrees to help Thea for a big payment. Thea agrees and he takes over, making the crowd dance.

Diggle gets informed about the algorithm and warns Oliver that Carrie is possibly in Verdant. Oliver calls Carrie, who sits at the bar and gets served by Thea. Carrie makes fun about him using a nightclub as his base after which she begins to make flirting remarks. Oliver tries to persuade her to meet him outside the nightclub in an attempt to get her away from Thea. Carrie agrees, but warns him she will kill everyone in the club if he does not show up.

Carrie makes the Arrow meet her at the place he saved her during the attack of Slade's army. She shows up and calls him her lover, to which he says he is not her lover. She mentions he will be soon be after a night with her. She says she wants to be with him and calls him a hero. He tries to follow the advice of the psychiatrist and reason with her and convince her by telling her the truth that he cannot be with anyone. She says he is lying to her and angrily tries to shoot him.

He swiftly evades her shot and easily disarms her with a shot of his own. She angrily attacks him and the two fight.  He uses his bow and knocks her down. She kicks the lock of a grate and they both fall down and land on train tracks. Felicity and Diggle are unable to see where they are as the signal is lost. The two of them keep fighting. However, when Oliver loses his bow Carrie stealthily uses her handcuffs to cuff him to the tracks.

She says she did not want this while Oliver tries to reason with her. However she prepares for both of them to die together as a train drives towards them. Oliver dislocates his own thumb and pulls her off the tracks just in time. She is shocked as she realizes he saved her again, seemingly thinking he did love her.

Oliver later ices his hand as he tells Diggle that Carrie was recruited by the Suicide Squad, hoping that she might do some good instead of being in prison. Diggle explains Felicity heard what he said to Carrie and knows Carrie assumed it as a lie. He mentions he has to tell her how he feels before it is too late.

Thea is seen counting the money made during the re-opening. Chase shows up and tells her he saved her. She offers him his cut, however he kisses her and says she can keep the money as a gift.

Ray visits Felicity in her office and thanks her for helping him with the deal. As he helps her remove the necklace, the two share a kiss. Oliver, who was coming to talk with Felicity, sees it and walks away. Ray excuses Felicity and says he meant to keep it platonic. He then walks away and leaves a confused Felicity behind.

Oliver angrily messes up a table in the Arrowcave. Roy checks on Oliver, who tells him both of them need something. They then visit Diggle, Lyla and Sara for dinner. Ray is seen checking out a design for an armoured suit.

Boomerang

The mortal boomerang.

An Asian man is seen walking through an alley when he realizes he is being followed. He tells the man following him to back off. The perpetrator then kills him with a boomerang-like weapon.

Cast[]

Main cast[]

Special guest star[]

Guest starring[]

Co-starring[]

Production[]

Preparation ran from September 8 until September 16, 2014. Filming ran from September 17 until September 26, 2014.[1]

Trivia[]

  • This episode is tied with Midnight City as the lowest rated episode of Season 3 with a rating of 7.8 on IMDb.
  • The bag of fertilizer in the photograph is labeled "NPP". This may be a reference to an earlier name for the DC Comics company, "National Periodical Publications".
  • For the opening sequence of the episode, the arrowhead is modified to one of Cupid's heart-shaped ones. It would later be reused in the Season 4 episode, "Broken Hearts".
  • This is the only episode of Season 3 in which Laurel Lance does not appear at all.
  • The episode's title may be taken from the lyrics of the 1961 Sam Cooke song "Cupid", which opens with the lines, "Cupid draw back your bow/And let your arrow go/Straight to my lover's heart for me/For me".
  • The Arrow and Arsenal find Cupid with a hostage at Sherwood Florist. In the comics, Black Canary once owned a flower shop of the same name in Seattle.
  • At the end of the episode, Diggle comments that the Suicide Squad found Carrie to be "even nuttier" than the woman who was previously on the team. This is an indirect reference to Harley Quinn
  • In the flashbacks, Tatsu refers Oliver as a 外人 ("gaijin"), meaning evolving from "foreigner" to something with a more ostracizing tone, "outsider". Oliver later counter-argues that Tatsu herself is also a gaijin, as she is from Japan but lives in Hong Kong.
    • Interestingly, in the DC comics, both Katana and Green Arrow are members of an organization named the Outsiders.
    • The meaning of "gaijin" was revamped in the 19th century, originally only intended as an abbreviation for the word 外国人 (gaikokujin, "foreigner"); it is now a term with a negative connotation but is still used to only describe people from foreign countries, not just anyone who does not belong or is isolated.
  • The name of the psychiatric hospital Carrie was admitted to is called St. Walker's. In the comics, Saint Walker was a key member of the Blue Lantern Corps.
  • At the very end, it is revealed that Ray Palmer is building a mechanical suit codenamed the A.T.O.M. Exosuit, a direct reference to his comic book alter ego, Atom.

Gallery[]

Promos[]

References[]


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