Arrow season 7, episode 15, “Training Day”, sees Team Arrow undergo training as newly deputized agents of the Star City Police Department. Oliver Queen urged his teammates to be patient in finding a way to adjust their tactics to conform to police procedure. Of course Oliver has never been known for his patience or practicing what he preached and soon found himself butting heads with Captain Dinah Drake. She, in turn, was more determined than ever in the face of obstruction from the anti-vigilante Mayor Pollard to make the deputized vigilante program work.
At the same time, Black Siren, who’s still masquerading as the Laurel Lance of Earth 1, was contacted by Ben “Bronze Tiger” Turner. It seems that Turner had witnessed the murder of Ricardo Diaz in the solitary wing of Slabside Penitentiary and wanted to cut a deal regarding that information. After Black Siren made arrangements for Turner to get to visit his son, Connor, he pointed the figure toward Star City’s new Green Arrow.
Meanwhile, in the future of Star City 2038, Mia Smoak and William Clayton struggled to work together in finding the obsolete electronics they needed to play a message that Felicity had left for them on a mini-cassette. Mia’s temper pushed them into trouble, even as she found herself trying to bail herself and William out of the problems caused by his lack of street smarts. Thankfully, the two siblings finally found a way to balance their respective strengths and accomplish their mission. Here’s everything that fans are wondering about in the wake of the conclusion of “Training Day.”
5. How Will Diggle Wind Up Adopting Ben Turner’s Son?
When Bronze Tiger sees his son, Connor, for the first time in years, the usually stoic Ben Turner is all smiles, hugging the young boy, whom he calls “my little hawk.” Given Connor’s age and nickname, it’s not much of a leap to guess that he grows up to become Connor Hawke in Star City 2038. This seems particularly obvious in the wake of the recent revelation that Connor Hawke is John Diggle’s adopted son.
This does raise the question of how Diggle will wind up adopting Bronze Tiger’s son in the future. Perhaps Ben Turner’s parole will be approved soon (Black Siren promises she’s working on it elsewhere in the episode) and he’ll wind up serving alongside Diggle on the newly deputized Team Arrow? Unfortunately, this does also suggest there will be some tragic circumstance that will lead Diggle to adopt his teammate’s son and raise him as his own.
4. How Did Black Siren Discover Emiko Is The New Green Arrow?
After he’s allowed to see his son, Ben Turner reveals to Black Siren that he saw Ricardo Diaz set on fire by someone who was dressed like Green Arrow but who wasn’t Oliver Queen, guessing that it’s the new Green Arrow. This leads Black Siren to confront Emiko with the fact that she knows about her status as Robert Queen’s daughter and the new Green Arrow. It’s unclear, however, where Black Siren got this information. The most logical explanation is that Felicity let it slip during one of her brunch dates with Black Siren, but this seems horribly out of character for the increasingly secretive Felicity.
3. How Did Emiko Discover “Laurel” is Black Siren?
When Black Siren reveals to Emiko that she knows all of her secrets, the new Green Arrow reveals that she knows some big secrets as well. Specifically, she addresses “Laurel Lance” as Black Siren and asks why she thinks Team Arrow will trust the word of the former supervillain from another Earth that has been impersonating Laurel Lance for over a year. Again, it’s unclear how Emiko learned this information, though the most likely answer is that she was given this information by Dante, whose connections at ARGUS would likely know about Black Siren’s status as a fugitive from another Earth.
Page 2 of 2: More Questions From Arrow Season 7 Episode “Training Day”
2. Why Would Black Siren Think She Could Blackmail Emiko Over Ricardo Diaz’s Death?
When Black Siren confronts Emiko over her murdering Ricardo Diaz, it’s clear that she has blackmail on her mind. She speaks with mocking concern about how she knows how that Emiko has endeared herself to both Oliver and his team. She then says that “family dinners are going to be a little bit more awkward” if they were to find out that Emiko had killed Ricardo Diaz in cold blood.
It’s unclear just why Black Siren thinks this would be the case. Not one week earlier in “Brothers and Sisters,” Black Siren was helping Felicity Smoak to facilitate a plan to kill Ricardo Diaz. Later in the episode, when Oliver realized what was going on, he said that he wouldn’t stand in the way of his wife’s actions and that he would trust her judgement if she felt that Diaz did need to die in order for them to be safe.
While Oliver Queen may talk a good game about not killing his enemies and trying to turn over a new leaf from his early days as a more violent vigilante, he’s also developed just enough awareness to be aware of how hypocritical it’s for him to lecture anyone on killing in the name of revenge. As such, his response to Emiko killing Diaz would probably be to offer her support and an ear if she felt the need to talk about it. The rest of Team Arrow, with the possible exception of Dinah Drake, would probably be the first to buy Emiko a drink for finally ending the threat that Diaz posed once and for all.
1. Where Do Felicity’s Coordinates Lead?
Most of the flash-forward sequences to Star City 2038 this week focused on the developing relationship between Mia Smoak and William Clayton. The two only recently learned of their status as siblings, with Mia apparently having been raised in secret with her existence being kept from all but her father and mother’s closest friends. William Clayton was similarly isolated, his grandparents having apparently thwarted all of Oliver and Felicity’s efforts to reach out to him over the years, causing William to grow to adulthood thinking he’d been abandoned by his father and stepmother after his grandparents won custody of him.
When the two lost scions of the Queen family finally locate a mini-cassette player capable of playing the tape that Felicity had left hidden for them inside of her Rubik’s cube projector, they find a message. In it, Felicity apologizes for keeping the two apart and for having made a mess of their lives, though she does say it was ultimately necessary to keep them safe from her and Oliver’s enemies. She then gives them a set of coordinates, with the instructions to pass the location on to Star City’s vigilantes before getting as far away from Star City as possible. Naturally, Mia and William agree to ignore that final instruction.
Mia recognizes the coordinates and says that they are somewhere inside the Glades - the gated community in the center of Star City in the future of 2038. She doesn’t say what the coordinates lead to but she does say that they are going to have to go into the Glades in order to get bottom of the mystery behind Felicity’s whereabouts and the bombing plot that could destroy all of Star City outside the Glades. Doubtlessly, the effort to sneak into the Glades will lie at the center of the flash-forwards in the next episode of Arrow.
