Arrow Midseason Finale: More Than One Friend Betrayed Oliver

Arrow's midseason finale may have started out mushy-gushy with Oliver (Stephen Amell) and Felicity's (Emily Bett Rickards) wedding reception, but things quickly took a turn for the traitorous when Quentin (Paul Blackthorne) relayed some very bad news: The FBI found a witness in their vigilante case against Oliver, and it was someone on the team.

After putting the whole team under surveillance to catch the rat -- and mistakenly accusing Dinah (Juliana Harkavay) thanks to her Vigilante connections -- the traitor ended up being Rene (Rick Gonzalez), of all people. As it turns out, all you have to do is threaten the custody proceedings of a good father, and he folds like a house of cards. Honestly, do these people have no shame?

Thea (Willa Holland) convinced Oliver to look at the situation through a more forgiving lens, which allowed Oliver to forgive Rene and call the whole team back together to suit up for their face off against Cayden James (Michael Emerson). Unfortunately, tempers were running hot on all sides of this conflict (don't spy on your teammates Oliver!) and Rene broke rank on the mission, forcing Oliver to kick him off the team. From there, Dinah decided to quit too, and Curtis (Echo Kellum) followed.

This breakup might hurt more than a million Olicity breakups combined. Sure, Original Team Arrow is a fan favorite group, but the new team holds a special place in our hearts. How can they all protect the city if they don't do it together?

In other news, we finally know Black Siren's (Katie Cassidy) tragic backstory!

People aren't born evil (at least we'd like to think so), which is why we knew something terrible had to have happened to Earth 2 Laurel to draw her to the dark side. As it turns out, she never really knew her father growing up. He was killed by a drunk driver on her 13th birthday, and she never really got over it. We're sure everyone's heart broke for her, but we kind of have to be a teeny-tiny bit glad about it. If she didn't have such deep-seated daddy issues, she might have actually killed Lance when Cayden James asked her to.

If you were hoping for a redemption arc though, you might be waiting a while.

The last few seconds of the episode revealed that Black Siren had placed a camera in the Arrow Cave when she broke in a few months ago, with the objective of spying on Team Arrow to find the best way to break them up. Party to this plan was a whole posse of villains, including Anatoly (David Nykl)! That guy is officially on our naughty list this Christmas...

Arrow returns Thursday, January 18, 2018 at 9/8c on The CW.

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