Arrow "The Secret Origin Of Felicity Smoak" Review

Felicity's mom shows up in town just as a mistake from Felicity's past rears it's ugly head on this week's Arrow. (Mild Spoilers!)

Synopsis: When Starling City is brought to a halt by a cyber attack, Oliver and Felicity (probably mostly Felicity) have a challenging time containing it. Because timing is never what it should be, that's when Felicity's mother Donna (Charlotte Ross) decides to drop in for a surprise visit.

High Points

• That opening montage was amazing
• Felicity's mom has got it going on 
• Sauron's Eye takes over the city's power grid
• Insight into Felicity's past (The Lisbeth Salander of Starling City)
• References to Santa Presca (Bane!) and Coast City (Green Lantern!)
• Brandon Routh's Palmer continues to shine. His interactions with Felicity are always a treat.
• Love Roy and Daddy Diggle in action
• Ted Grant is ready to teach and hopefully Laurel's ready to learn
• IS THAT REALLY SARA'S KILLER? Holy shit!

Fuck Gilmore Girls, it's all about the Smoak Girls!

Low Points

• Hacktivists are huge pussies (Not a good look Felicity)
• Laurel is becoming aggressive as fuck (Call in the Riot Squad!)
• Pretty obvious who was behind the hacking

Verdict: Arrow was without everyone's favorite hacker last week, so it's great this episode was centered on Felicity. Looking into her MIT past was not what I expected. The episode was originally titled "Oracle" and I was praying she was roommates with Barbara Gordon in college (A guy can dream can't he?). Instead Felicity was a goth hacktivist with a douchey boyfriend (Barbara would have been much cooler). Along with her backstory, Felicity's mom was introduced and she was much different than her genius daughter. It was a cute look at what makes Felicity who she is. Action-wise this week was slow and so was moving the overall narrative for season. I was gonna give the episode another 7.0, but that final moment that possibly revealed who killed Sara (My number one guess) bumped the score up to an 8.0 out of 10. Did he/she/it kill Sara? We will have to wait and see.

Thanks for reading. What did you think of Felicity's mom? Did you like Arrow's 5th episode? Sound off in the comments. Make sure to check out our reviews every week and follow our live action tweeting of every episode @Caped_Informers and @cstrand73.