Throughout the entire fifth season of Arrow there have been stories dealing with politics. In the flashbacks, Ollie deals with the politics of being a Captain for Bratva, and the relationship Bratva has with Kovar. As The Green Arrow, he’s had to negotiate the politics of bringing in new recruits, suddenly there are more voices and opinions than ever before in his ongoing battle with evil. And of course, Ollie is now the mayor of Star City, wading through the world of actual politics, with Thea and Lance both by his side. In each of these areas, Ollie has made mistakes, but he seems to be improving in all of these areas of his life.
Yet at the end of the last episode ‘The Sin-Eater’ Oliver learned that his tenure as mayor is in trouble. Prometheus let the Anti-Crime unit know that it was The Green Arrow who killed Detective Malone. Ollie was forced to reveal the truth about how Malone died as well as both his and Adrian Chase’s roles in covering up the truth. When Prometheus realized his plan to either have The Green Arrow arrested or forced into hiding had failed, he went to plan B and told all of Star City about the cover-up. Apparently if Prometheus can’t take down The Green Arrow, he’ll target Mayor Oliver Queen instead.
In the promo for next week’s episode, ‘Fighting Fire with Fire’ Prometheus’ plan comes to a head. Oliver has to face impeachment proceedings. If he loses, he will be fired as Mayor, something Prometheus clearly wants. And this sparks the attention of another thorn in Ollie’s side that he has not yet been able to stop. Vigilante returns, targeting him as the Mayor. It would seem that according to Vigilante, an impeachment hearing means that Mayor Queen is a criminal, even before the verdict is rendered.
If Vigilante is targeting Mayor Queen, there’s a good chance he does not yet know that Queen is The Green Arrow, who he fights if he has to but usually seems like he would rather join up with. At least if he can convince The Green Arrow to kill all criminals again. Meanwhile, it means that Ollie is facing an enemy he has yet to defeat as The Green Arrow, but he is doing it as himself rather than his heroic alter-ego.
This also seems to call into question Vigilante’s identity. Since he showed up around the same time as D.A. Adrian Chase, who was Vigilante in the comic books, most fans have assumed they are one and the same. But Chase has been a pretty solid partner of Queen’s since they first met. And he was a part of the same cover-up that Ollie is being impeached over. Ergo, it seems unlikely that he is trying to kill Queen for a crime that he himself was a party to. Perhaps Chase has been a red herring all along and Vigilante is actually someone else.
Arrow returns to the CW with ‘Fighting Fire With Fire’ on March 1 at 8 pm.
