Arrow Season 7 Episode 2 Review: 'The Longbow Hunters'

The premiere for Arrow's seventh season was easily one of the best episodes in the entire series, which means they had a lot to live up to in the followup episode.

This episode let some characters that didn't get much to do in the premiere shine, which is titled 'The Longbow Hunters.'

The main story of the season is still obviously Oliver in prison, though this episode had him completely self-contained from the rest of the main cast.

Instead, we see him continue to survive in prison as he is now somewhat working with the inmate that befriended him last week.

Oliver approaches Brick after getting out of solitary confinement for a few days and tells him that he knows that Diaz got to him and wants information. Brick says he will not give him any information unless he proves himself by getting rid of the guard at the prison that has been a problem. Oliver tries to get blackmail on the guard by sneaking away to a computer in the prison, though I seriously doubt that old looking computer could handle the browser it had, but this does not work.

At the end of the episode, Oliver ends up taking a shiv given to him and gets close to the guard and stabs himself, claiming that the guard did it.

This was a way to save the guard's life, as Brick was going to have him killed if he didn't do something.

This was a pretty subdued plot in prison for Oliver, but a lot more was going on outside of it.

The Longbow Hunters appear for the first time this episode, which are named Red Dart, Kodiak, and Silencer, and start off by stealing a prototype battery that can be weaponized from ARGUS. Felicity is trying to get Diaz by any means necessary and is trying to work with ARGUS, who both Diggle and Curtis work for, but she keeps getting in the way, which caused a lot of conflict in the episode. This was kind of annoying to see, though she does start to understand at the end that Diggle hasn't forgotten Oliver, but rather is going about it a different way.

This storyline ends up with a big battle on a train as Diggle manages to get the battery back from the Longbow Hunters, but runs into Diaz and fights him. He had an opportunity to potentially get Diaz, but he had to choose whether or not to chance that they could get the battery back, asking Felicity to disconnect the train cars.

She refused, but Curtis steps in and does it. The episode ends with Felicity leaving and going to find help elsewhere, from the person that put Oliver away, the FBI's Agent Watson.

With the new Green Arrow now showing up at all this episode,Dinah has another mission in trying to watch over Laurel, who keeps getting away from protective detail. Dinah knows Diaz will be after her and trying to tie up loose ends with the Longbow Hunters in town, but Laurel ends up going after Diaz herself. Dinah follows and they end up begrudgingly working together to try and find him.

However, they instead run into Silencer, who can disable sound around her, making Laurel and Dinah's powers useless alone.

But when they attack her together with both sonic screams, they are able to break her barrier, though she escapes. There were some nice moments here between the two characters that have quite the sordid history.

The last story is the one that surprised us all at the end of the premiere, which is the future storyline on Lian Yu with William and Roy. In this, William mentions that both Oliver and Felicity left him, though we don't know when or why. We do find out that William ends up gay, referencing an ex-boyfriend in there.

Otherwise, we don't know much about what happens.

However, the arrowhead he was given has a GPS tracker that leads to a gravesite that they go find.

Within the box is Oliver's bow, which Roy finds a note on and burns it saying they have to go to Star City now.

While not as good as the premiere, 'The Longbow Hunters' was still a great episode that pushed forward multiple plots. I was hoping to see more about the new Green Arrow or Rene's connect to it, but that will have to wait.

I did really enjoy the Longbow Hunters themselves so far, with Kodiak's discount Captain America shield being pretty cool.

I'm curious to see how long until we see more interaction between Oliver and the other main characters, as those are always some of my favorites.

Wanna read more on this? Check these out: Arrow Season 7 Episode 4 Review: 'Level Two' (more); Arrow Season 7 Episode 3 Review: 'Crossing Lines' (more); Arrow Season 7 Episode 1 Review: 'Inmate 4587' (more); Superman And Lois Lane Confirmed To Appear In Big Arrowverse Crossover Episodes (more).

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