Previously on Arrow, Thea found out she killed Sara by way of Malcolm Merlyn and vowed that she will never again consider herself his daughter.
We begin with Nyssa interrupting her dad’s bathtime to tell him that Oliver is still alive and that she’s PISSED that the man who claimed to have murdered her girlfriend still walks free.
Ra’s says he knows, but he’s okay with it because Oliver didn’t kill Sara anyway. Nyssa asks him if he truly doesn’t believe Oliver’s confession or if he just doesn’t approve of Nyssa’s grief. Ra’s says he knows Sara was-is her beloved, but Nyssa accuses him of never having supported that love. He tells Nyssa that he knew Sara’s whole self didn’t belong to the League, that someday she would leave, and that any disapproval she sensed from him regarding Sara stemmed only from not wanting to see his daughter have her heart broken. But Nyssa doesn’t care about who really killed Sara; she has anger and she needs a direction to send it, and Oliver challenging her father is good enough reason to kill him in her book. To kill the man who had a part of Sara’s heart, preventing it from being fully Nyssa’s.
In the Arrow Cave, Merlyn is training Thea and Oliver, trying to get them to be in sync, to work in tandem, while also teasing Oliver about his weapon of choice.
After the session, Laurel compliments Thea’s skills, saying her style reminds her of Sara. Thea mutters something about being trained by the same League at the source and having to go shower, but can’t bring herself to look directly at Laurel, not now that she knows she’s the reason Laurel is an only child.
Upstairs, Roy tries to joke around with Thea but her secret is filling her up and she can’t contain it anymore. But Roy already knows, and also knows a little something about murdering someone without realizing what you were doing. He tells her she’ll get used to the guilt of blackout murder but she says that at least he doesn’t have to see the person he killed’s family every day, to see the pain they feel in their absence, to feel it himself. Thea says it likely won’t get easier and maybe she doesn’t deserve it to anyway.
Felicity, feeling a little outshined by all the other female bad assery going on in this episode, sets out to find her own storyline. She finds Ray Palmer in a half-zombie state, nearly blowing up Starling City in his quest to make his magic suit work. Felicity tries to get him to go to sleep but he says there ain’t no rest for the future vigilantes.
Laurel calls her dad to try to get him to talk to her, but he doesn’t answer. When she hangs up, she is surprised to see Thea has come to see her. Thea confesses to Laurel that Merlyn drugged her and had her kill Sara, and Laurel, surprisingly enough, takes it in stride. She understands that it wasn’t Thea’s fault, but what she’s having a hard time wrapping her head around is why Thea is still working with Merlyn if this is, in fact, the truth. Thea says they have to work with Merlyn, they don’t have a choice, but Laurel corrects her; she had no choice but to kill Sara under the influence of the drug. Her life is her own now, and so are her choices.
Laurel takes this information straight to Oliver, but before confronting him about it, she tells him that she can’t remember Sara’s smile, no matter how hard she tries. Every time she closes her eyes to conjure the image, all she can see is her baby sister’s dead body in her arms. Laurel says she wants to find who did this to Sara and Oliver says they will. Laurel calls him on his easy lies, and asks why she had to hear this news from Thea. Oliver didn’t think she’d take it so well and she’s like, “I’m grieving, I’m not irrational. Except that one time I hallucinated Sara, but whatever.” Oliver tells her what Thea had, that they need Laurel, and Laurel finds it suspicious that Merlyn always ends up finding a way to be under Oliver’s protection. She looks Oliver up and down and says she can’t believe she ever loved him.
Oliver goes to Thea to scold her for telling everyone but it was Thea’s secret to share, not his to keep, so she’s sorry not sorry. Besides, Thea says, they’re not in danger anymore. This is the least assuring thing Oliver has heard all day.
Across town, Laurel dressed as the Black Canary finds Merlyn and tries to fight him, but it’s a bit like an actual canary fighting a grown man and he just swats her away. But she wasn’t so foolish as to think she could beat him in hand to hand combat…she came prepared.
Before she can decide if she’s a murderer or not, the League descends and Nyssa takes Merlyn down. While her henchmen are taking him away, she tells Laurel that she admires her for fighting for Sara, but that she can rest now. Justice is served.
Oliver finds Laurel and scolds her for going after Merlyn alone but she gives absolutely zero fucks about what he thinks anymore. Besides, the League has Merlyn now. Oliver knows, because it was Thea that tipped them off. Oliver starts suiting up to go fetch him and his team is like, “Wait, what?”
But when Oliver says it’s for Thea, to save her from the guilt of having sentenced her biological father to death, Felicity gets it, and agrees to help.
Laurel is less understanding.
On the way to the helicopter that will take him to certain death, Nyssa taunts Merlyn and Merlyn taunts her right back. He tells her that her relationship with Sara cost her any chance of taking her father’s place as the Demon’s Head, and I’m not sure if he meant lesbians aren’t allowed to lead the League of Assassins, or if he meant that people with feelings aren’t.
Oliver shows up and fighting ensues. He manages to get Nyssa tied up, but she shouts for her men to take Merlyn away and the helicopter leaves without her. Oliver tries to reason with her, telling her that his isn’t justice, it’s vengeance, but she says tomato tomahhhto, Merlyn’s as good as dead, so maybe now she can finally sleep.
Oliver takes Nyssa back to the Arrow Cave and locks her in a cave. He asks everyone to leave, and on his way out, Diggle tells him not to sacrifice his own soul for his sister’s, but he doesn’t have to torture Nyssa even if that was his intention. Nyssa will gladly tell him where Nanda Parbat is, where she sent Merlyn, because she is sure that if he goes there, he will not leave with his life.
Upstairs, Laurel comments that it’s a little strange that Oliver randomly decided to hold someone captive, but Felicity says it’s not that weird; he has a whole prison on his deserted island.
Oliver comes upstairs with the information and everyone begs him not to go on another suicide mission, and Diggle even asks if there’s something else motivating him besides wanting to save Thea’s soul, but Oliver says he’s fine and it’s totally normal to want to get killed for real by the man who almost killed him not too long ago and he’s going, end of story. Before he leaves, he says goodbye to Thea, who also begs him not to leave, especially not if he’s doing it for her; because then all she’ll HAVE is guilt. At least now she’ll have guilt and a brother. But he, of course, doesn’t listen and says he’ll be back in a jiffy.
At Palmer Tech, Ray suddenly finds himself locked out of his computer. Felicity can’t stop Oliver from killing himself, but it’s not too late to save Ray. She says she’s holding the password to his computer hostage until he eats, showers, and sleeps.
After his shower, Felicity admires Ray’s-well, his everything.
She flirts with him in that accidental way she does and eventually gives into the abs and kisses him.
Laurel goes to visit Nyssa and bring her water. Nyssa promises that Merlyn will beg for death, and is surprised when it doesn’t seem to make Laurel happy. It surprises Laurel, too, but she’s realizing that once he’s dead, in some twisted way, it will just be another part of Sara that’s gone. She asks Nyssa, eyes full of tears, if she remembers Sara’s laugh. Nyssa smiles nostalgically and tells her of the first time she met Sara, that her father had done something meant to intimidate, and it had made Sara laugh, an innocent, genuine laugh. And that was the moment Nyssa fell in love with the Canary.
She would do anything to hear that laugh one more time. Laurel thanks her for giving her new piece of Sara, grateful to talk to someone else who loved her, happy to still be able to learn things about her sister even though she’s gone.
Oliver and Diggle storm Nanda Parbat and find Merlyn strung from the ceiling over a bed of coals, but it’s a trap and soon they find themselves in a cell of their own. Diggle prods Oliver a little more and Oliver finally confesses that while part of this mission was to save Thea’s soul, part of it is definitely a pride thing; he had been marching around so cocksure for years and Ra’s just shoved him off a cliff. It wasn’t something his ego could handle. Since they’re bonding, Diggle chooses now to ask Oliver to be his best man and Oliver agrees.
Back in Starling City, Roy takes Thea to stalk the family of the cop he killed. He tells her that he helps them out however he can. She asks him why he tortures himself but he says it’s actually cathartic, that it helps assuage the guilt a little, but Thea says it’s not the same. Maybe killing Sara wasn’t her fault, but if Merlyn dies, that’ll be on her. What does that make her?
Having absorbed some of Felicity’s genius just by being near her (or, you know, after actually getting some sleep), Ray Palmer has a breakthrough and finally knows how to finish his supersuit. He puts it on and takes it for a test flight. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Iron Man! No, it’s…Ray Palmer!
Felicity sleeps right through it.
Thea goes to talk to Nyssa, because there’s something she has to get off her chest. She tells Nyssa that she lied, that it was Merlyn’s fault Sara died, but it was Thea who loosed the arrows. She unlocks Nyssa’s cell and hands her a sword, telling the assassin that she’s free to take her vengeance.
At Nanda Parbat, Ra’s al Ghul calls Oliver before him and Oliver begs for Diggle’s life, but Ra’s didn’t bring him in his throne room to kill him. He brought him to ask him to replace him as the Demon’s Head.
What did you think of “Nanda Parbat”? Do you think Nyssa will try to kill Thea?
