'Arrow' Season 8 Episode 2 combines Laurel's survivor's guilt with Oliver's mission to tell a story that's both emotional and engaging
'Arrow' Season 8 Episode 2 'Welcome to Hong Kong' picks up right after Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), John Diggle (David Ramsey), and Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy) made their last-minute escape from Earth-2 while the universe was being destroyed.
The trauma of seeing a whole universe annihilated is clearly weighing on everyone's mind in the episode but no one more than Laurel, who just lost her home and everyone she ever loved.
The episode itself is extremely tight, moving from scene to scene like a true action thriller. Even in the most emotional moments, the pace doesn't let up and it's an engaging watch from start to finish as Laurel's struggle with survivor's guilt gives the story an extra touch of humanity.
When the episode begins, Laurel refuses to believe that her universe has been destroyed. She's convinced that she can try to get back to Earth-2 and save someone, literally anyone who may have survived the parallel universe's death and she refuses to accept when Oliver tells her that there's nothing left.
"There's no one left to save," Oliver says. "The only thing that we can do right now is prevent this from happening again by doing what the Monitor tells us."
"Screw the Monitor, Oliver, and screw you too," Laurel retorts. "None of this would have happened if you hadn't shown up on my Earth in the first place. All those people that you saw die? They weren't real to you."
"They were just copies of the people that you love. But that was my home. And those people, those are real people who are counting on me," she says.
Though Oliver is shaken by Laurel's words, he returns to his mission to find a mysterious scientist who is working on recreating the deadly Alpha-Omega virus.
That plotline develops very quickly, mirroring Oliver's journey in season three by pitting him against gangsters and soldiers with his old friend Tatsu Yamashiro / Katana (Rila Fukushima) back by his side.
Simultaneously we find out that Laurel truly doesn't have a home to go back to anymore. Though we already knew this fact, that doesn't mean it's any less devastating for the hero when she finally finds evidence that her universe is truly gone.
It's only with the help of Lyla Michaels (Audrey Marie Anderson) that Laurel finally manages to accept her world's fate and even then, she has trouble seeing how she could ever truly move on from this tragedy.
"How am I supposed to move forward when everyone I've ever loved is gone?" Laurel asks, breaking down with tears flowing freely.
"By not giving up," Lyla tells her. "By doing the right thing. We honor the dead by fighting for the living. This world needs you too."
With Lyla's encouragement, Laurel returns to Oliver's side, just in time to save Tatsu, who was about to be killed by the gangster assassin China White / Chien Na Wei (Kelly Hu).
She's not entirely over what has happened but Laurel is ready to continue the fight so that no one else has to go through what she has faced and that makes her even more of a hero than she was before.
'Arrow' Season 8 Episode 3 'Leap of Faith' will air on The CW on October 29.
