Arrow season 7, episode 3, "Crossing Lines", continued the show's trend of raising more questions without providing any answers. The latest episode of Arrow also lived up to its name, as we saw various members of Team Arrow behaving in ways that would have seemed impossible six months ago.
In the case of Oliver Queen, this meant bargaining with the same criminals he put in prison to get information on crime boss Ricardo Diaz. For Felicity Smoak, this meant forming an alliance with Samandra Watson, the FBI agent who put her husband in prison, in order to capture Diaz. And for ARGUS Director Lyla Michaels, it meant stealing classified information in order to get the proof she needed of a conspiracy within her own organization and lying to her husband about it.
Related: Arrow: 10 Biggest Questions After "The Longbow Hunters"
While the episode did put several questions to rest - including whether or not Agent Watson was on Diaz's payroll all this time or if Black Siren had aided Diaz's escape at the end of Arrow season 6 - it raised even more. It is still unclear what Diaz's ultimate goals are now that his empire has been destroyed or if he even has a goal beyond simple revenge on Oliver Queen. It is equally unclear just how the various members of Team Arrow are planning to stop him, or if they even can stop Diaz, given their current division.
8. Seriously - Who Is The New Green Arrow?
For the second week in a row, Arrow didn't offer an update on the new Green Arrow that has seemingly taken up Oliver Queen's mantle and is working down a list of evil-doers to protect Star City. Given the scenes in the episode centered around John "Digg" Diggle and his wife Lyla Michaels, however, it seems to have been confirmed that Digg isn't the new Emerald Archer. Lyla made reference to Digg refusing to take the job and their subplot centered around Digg's distress at Lyla keeping secrets from him. While it wouldn't be the first time one of Arrow's protagonists was a hypocrite, it would be totally out of character for Digg (whose main concerns so far this season are putting his family first and being a good soldier in his new job as an ARGUS agent) to fight his wife on her breaking the law for a good reason if he were still a vigilante.
Read More: Who The New Green Arrow Definitely ISN'T
7. What Is The New Threat Lyla Is Tracking In Secret?
The main subplot of Arrow episode 3 centering upon Lyla, Digg and Curtis Holt sees the three ARGUS agents traveling to Zurich to secure the records of a bank that caters to various criminal enterprises. After they've retrieved the records, Curtis discovers that Lyla made a copy of them without telling him or Digg. This leads Digg to discover his wife trading the information to a Swiss criminal at a secret meeting.
When Digg confronts Lyla about this, she explains that she discovered evidence of a conspiracy bigger than anything they had ever encountered before within ARGUS. When she tried to pass the intelligence she found up the chain of command, she was stymied by the top brass at the Department of Defense. This led her to investigate things on her own and make contact with sources who could give her the information she needed, but at a price. This begs the question - just what has Lyla uncovered and could it be connected to why Diaz seems to be getting help from someone inside the Federal Government in evading the FBI and ARGUS?
6. How Did Diaz Escape A Watery Grave In Arrow Season 6?
The final episode of Arrow's season 6, "Life Sentence," saw Ricardo Diaz escape from the FBI and Team Arrow after he was severely beaten by Oliver Queen and then blasted off of a rooftop by Black Siren's sonic scream, sending him flying several dozen feet and falling several stories into a nearby river. Somehow, he was able to evade the manhunt after this stunt, and was shown to be alive and well at the end of the episode. Many Arrow-heads wondered just how Diaz managed this as an ordinary human, given that a high-velocity impact into a body of water should have hurt him as much as if he'd fallen onto solid ground. Assuming he wasn't killed instantly by the impact or knocked unconscious, he'd still suffer extreme physical damage and, depending on the temperature of the water, go into immediate shock.
A scene near the end of Arrow season 7, episode 3 sees Diaz explaining to Kodiak and Red Dart from The Longbow Hunters that he broke every bone in his body when he hit the water after being blasted off of the roof. Ignoring that he seemed to be in remarkably good shape at the end of "Life Sentence" for that to be the case (he was sitting upright, on the floor, with a distinct lack of bruises while watching the news of Oliver Queen's arrest) one wonders how he was able to swim to shore. Or, if Diaz was assisted in escaping, who helped him? It can't have been The Longbow Hunters, because if it was them he wouldn't need to explain to them what had happened to him five months ago.
5. What Exactly Did Diaz Steal From The CDC Vault?
The main action of "Crossing Lines" sees Felicity "Overwatch" Smoak, Rene "Wild Dog" Ramirez, Dinah "Black Canary" Drake and FBI Agent Samandra Watson attempting to set a trap for Diaz and The Longbow Hunters in a laboratory at the Center For Disease Control (CDC) office in Star City. Felicity determined that Diaz had been looking at the CDC inventory records of a particular bio-compound used in protecting red blood cells from diseases like Ebola. Why he needed this, she couldn't guess, but she knew that whatever Diaz was planning couldn't be good.
Related: Arrow Season 7: New Cast, Character & Guest Star Guide
Diaz got away with a cooler case full of test-tubes, but it was never specifically stated what he had taken. The end of the episode saw Diaz working with a small centrifuge, creating a serum that he injected into himself before punching a brick wall and putting a dent in it with no noticeable damage to himself. Has Diaz created his own formula for developing super-strength? Or is the compound that he stole connected to Mirakuru - the miracle drug that turned Slade Wilson into Deathstroke in the Arrowverse and gave him super-strength and durability?
Page 2 of 2: Even More Questions About Arrow Season 7, Episode 3
4. How Bad Is It On Level 2 Of The Slab?
Oliver Queen spent most of "Crossing Lines" attempting to get a straight answer from former crime-boss Brick about an information broker called The Demon who apparently knew where Ricardo Diaz could be found. After several false leads Brick intended to use to get Oliver killed, Brick finally confessed that The Demon was down in Level 2 of Slabside Maximum Security Prison - the area reserved for only the worst and most violent inmates. After Brick gloated that there was no way Oliver would ever be able to reach The Demon, Oliver proved him wrong by attacking several prison guards with an illegal shank, earning himself a one-way ticket to the worst part of the worst prison in America. Doubtlessly we will soon find out, along with Oliver, just how bad Level 2 of "The Slab" truly is.
3. How Did Brick Get Access To The Demon?
One question this week's Arrow ignores is just how Brick, who is on Level 1 along with Oliver, was able to make contact with The Demon if The Demon is confined to Level 2. Perhaps it is as Bronze Tiger said, when Oliver questioned him about The Demon - "You don't summon The Demon. The Demon summons you." Or, as Oliver guesses at one point, there is no Demon and it's all just another one of Brick's lies to torment the vigilante who put him in prison? Of course, Bronze Tiger confirms there is a Demon, but his word can't exactly be trusted.
2. What Is Felicity's Plan For The Captured Silencer?
The end of "Crossing Lines" reveals that Felicity pulled a run-around on both Agent Watson and Dinah Drake, secretly capturing The Silencer with Rene Ramirez's assistance. It's clear that Felicity will try and get the information she wants about Diaz's whereabouts from The Silencer, but as good as she as at hacking computers, Felicity is no hard-boiled interrogator. So why keep the fact that they captured The Silencer secret from the FBI and the Star City Police? The answer may lie in the fact that Rene is a former Navy SEAL, who was dishonorably discharged after torturing a prisoner for information.
1. When Will Team Arrow Learn To Stop Keeping Secrets From One Another?
While this has been a problem on all of the Arrowverse series to one degree or another, the lack of honesty between teammates ultimately brought about the dissolution of Team Arrow during Arrow season 6. Nearly every member of Star City's vigilantes had at least one secret they kept from the team that later put people in danger, including Digg hiding a nerve injury that required him seeking out illegal alternative medicines in order to function in the field and Dinah hiding the fact that the hero called Vigilante was her former boyfriend Vincent. Every year it seems that our heroes have to relearn the lesson that honesty is the best policy and ever year audiences wonder if this will be the year that the lesson finally sticks.