Packing the line-up this season feels like an unsuccessful attempt to throw the kitchen sink at us. Even if it’s meant to teach us that Oliver is his own greatest villain, it’s a mighty longwinded lesson with little payoff. The most promising antagonist, the FBI agent investigating Oliver, has disappeared for most of the season. Wouldn’t it be more interesting to see Oliver take on someone who wants the right thing for his city, just as much as he does? An interrogation of Oliver’s shifting role as a man, mayor, and vigilante would be more engaging if it dealt with the ethical depths of how best to save a city, rather than calling everything an evil conspiracy and calling it a day. Once again it’s Oliver against the corrupt world, and we already know he will always be right.

Diaz attempts to get in with the Quadrant, a criminal organization we’ve never heard of before that appears to be manufactured entirely out of mafia clichés. They’re like a family! They have impossibly high standards, but once you’re in, you’re in for life! Unless you snitch, of course. Then they mow you down with a hail of bullets in broad daylight.

Perhaps the only engaging parts of this episode involve Diaz’s chemistry with Laurel. The actors would clearly excel with better material, and their magnetism almost makes us forget all the terrible things they’ve done. Are we repositioning Diaz to be redeemed? Perhaps the hometown villain will get cold feet and turn on his Quadrant brethren if they try to run the town into the ground.

Laurel spent most of the episode receiving compliments and putting men in their place, which is highly enjoyable, but it can only go so far. It’s also worth noting that Laurel is Captial-E Evil in this episode. We can tell because she gets a severe, dark brown wig and a bright red lip. The effect does little to hide her identity (which she only seems to care about on occasion), and mostly makes it seem like she’s single white female-ing Alex Danvers while taking her makeup cues from Felicity.

I love a bold lip as much as the next person, but it’s not enough to hang your hat on. At what point is Arrow going to really reckon with the other Laurel’s morals? The writers and Quentin have put a lot of effort into showing us the other side of her, in an attempt to get a redemption arc going. But it seems they’re more interested in twists and turns than character development, because she does something suspicious or dastardly every time an episode needs one more twist of the knife. This arc would really benefit from more interiority from Laurel. While that’s antithetical to red herrings, it would make her actions more understandable or at least comprehensible, in the way that Dinah’s or Rene’s were when they seemed to betray the show’s morality.