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“Arrow” recap (4.1 & 4.2): Rising Star (City)

HI HELLO WELCOME BACK TO ARROW. Sorry I didn’t give you guys a recap last week, but A) it was super straight and B) it was the beginning of New York Comic Con, where everything was geeky and queer and nothing hurt. So, welcome to your first Arrow recap of the season, where I shall combine both episodes into one to prepare us for what will hopefully be the first (and not the last) episode with both queer female characters in it next week.

Previously on Arrow, after Captain Lance spent the season being grumpy and terrible, Roy turned himself in as the Arrow and then faked his own death, Oliver lied to everyone while undercover with the League of Assassins, Damien Darhk threatened to be the newest Big Bad, and Felicity and Oliver rode off happily into the sunset, finally together.

Unlike Peyton and Lucas, however, Oliver and Felicity didn’t disappear forever. We open on Oliver running in a green hood, but instead of being suited up and chasing bad guys, it’s just a sweatshirt and he’s just running through Pleasantville. He jogs into his home that he shares with Felicity, the two of them drowning in suburban bliss.

We see a lighter side of Oliver, smiling like some kind of Stephen Amell, and he even makes a reference to his Past by using his Arrow voice to tell Felicity she has failed this omelette. It’s really freaking adorable. Felicity is running Palmer Industries remotely while planning brunches and it’s just great.

Meanwhile, Laurel and Thea are on a motorcycle chasing after armed robbers.

Thea is loving every second of it. Laurel is just doing her duty. Thea wants to be called the Red Arrow now, Diggle finally has a mask of his own, and Laurel is still Canarying away in her sister’s memory.

They seem like they’re doing okay, but this particular group of hellions is giving them trouble and they’re starting to feel in over their heads. These baddies, called “Ghosts,” are taking over the city bit by bit. Laurel wants to call Oliver for help, Diggle would rather ask literally anyone else. Thea is somewhere in between.

Here’s the deal with the Ghosts: They are plentiful, they are organized, and they have cyanide capsules in their teeth so they are never taken alive to be interrogated. Captain Lance is still convinced they have everything out of control, and that their newly branded Star City is just fine.

A meeting of Very Important Individuals is interrupted by Dum Dum Dugan, strolling in and introducing himself as the leader of the Ghosts. He wants the city to die in order to be reborn. He wants to kill it and throw it in the Lazarus pit. He’s creepy and very rude to the only woman in the meeting and also he was super insane on Desperate Housewives so just generally not a man to be trusted.

Back to suburbia, where Felicity is chugging mimosas trying to power through talk of slow-cookers and preschool applications for kids they haven’t even talked about talking about yet.

When Felicity gets up to refill her mimosa, the couple Olicity is brunching with asks Oliver to see the ring-and sure enough, he whips out an engagement ring. It’s his mother’s ring, and he’s planning on using it to propose tonight. When Felicity comes back, she drops the bottle of champagne, but Oliver’s vigilante reflexes kick in and he catches it. Still got it.

In Star City, Laurel is walking with the District Attorney when she drops dead because her coffee was poisoned. Chaos ensues, Laurel calls Diggle to keep an eye on all of the Very Important People, Ghosts start invading, Lance is cornered. The Very Important People that Thea and Diggle find are hella dead, but after a quick costume change, Laurel saves her dad.

Lance quotes Monty Python and says his shot shoulder is “just a flesh wound.” Making jokes to his daughter in the face of danger? He’s come a long way since we’ve seen him last.Meanwhile, in Pleasantville, Oliver and Felicity are settling down to a peaceful, fancy dinner at home. Oliver puts the engagement ring in a soufflĂ© and is going to propose when the doorbell rings. Thea and Laurel are at the door, desperate to reconcile Team Arrow.

They debrief Felicity and Oliver in this gorgeous living room and it’s like watching a wrestling match in a rose garden. Laurel says they need the Arrow, but Oliver says the Arrow is dead. They beg and they plead, so Oliver looks to Felicity, ready to actually take her advice the first time for a change. Felicity doesn’t know why they’re not halfway back to Star City by now. So off they go.

Felicity uses her new position of power to get a limo to take them back to Star City. Diggle is waiting for the rest of his team when they get to the cave, but he’s none too pleased to see Oliver again. Oliver promises he’s just here to help for this one specific problem, not to beg for his forgiveness, not to take over his team. Diggle concedes, because the city is his #1 priority.

Oliver starts giving out orders, and when no one moves, he apologizes; old habits die hard. But Diggle basically is like, “What he said,” and everyone moves into position.

Felicity has already hacked half the universe before Oliver knows what’s happening because she’s the best and she missed this so much. But also he realizes that she has more information than he does and now knows she’s been helping the team on the down low behind his back.

Oliver broods around and Felicity is worried-she prefers yelly-angry to silent-angry. But Oliver is silent because he’s piecing together all the weird lies Felicity told that he now knows was because she was secretly helping Team Arrow. (Because they literally could not function without her.) Felicity says that she didn’t need to quit helping to fully be present in a domestic, happy life. Unlike him, she has the capability of not being wholly absorbed in vigilantism. She can hack into the mainframe of top-secret government facility while waiting for a bundt cake to cool. After the life they lead, she was bored when it was nothing but brunch and banana bread. She misses having a purpose. But she likes being together no matter what.

Oh also before he disappeared into the suburban ether, Cisco had made him a brand new suit if he wants it. He says he won’t be here long enough for that but Felicity and I laugh and laugh because it’s the first episode of a brand new season.

Diggle goes home to try to rekindle the fire of his anger for Oliver by looking at Baby Sara, but Lyla comes in and is the voice of reason as always. She forgives Oliver and understands his motives, and encourages Diggle to do the same.

The Big Bad is actually Damien Dahrk, leader of the Ghosts, and he’s angry at them for not successfully taking down Team Arrow.

Team Arrow preps for their next attack, and Thea’s excitement makes Oliver worry that she’s getting out of control. Thea says she’s just a better fighter now, but Oliver isn’t so sure. Even Diggle admits she’s aggressive, but says Oliver was the same way once, and just needed a little discipline.

Oliver is feeling that Diggle doesn’t want him to be back, so Felicity gives him an out, says they can go home, but Oliver knows Felicity missed this and wants to stay. Oliver admits that Lance wasn’t wrong about him, that the only way he knows how to fight darkness is to be darkness, but Felicity-Bringer of Light-knows there’s another way.

Felicity gives Oliver his new suit and sends Team Arrow off to save the train station from some bombs. Laurel even saves a boy who realizes all of a sudden that girls can be badasses too.

Oliver train jumps and chases a man who is confused because he thought the Arrow died. Damien Dahrk tries to suck the life out of Oliver, but Diggle jumps in to save him, despite his anger.

With the help of Felicity, Oliver hacks into the emergency broadcast system and tells Star City that darkness can be destroyed by light, and that he intends to be the city’s symbol of hope. He’s going to fight for the city. He is the Green Arrow.

Meanwhile Damien Dahrk worships and bleeds for some statue god, saying words in probably-Latin and glowing a little. Captain Lance himself pays the Big Bad a visit, and reveals that they’re more tangled than they should be.

Across town, Felicity feels a little bad about displacing Thea but is glad they live in the Loft now.

DON’T WORRY, THOUGH-THEA HAS BEEN LIVING WITH LAUREL. *GAYDAR STARTS PINGING*

Anyway, Felicity was moved by Oliver’s speech, and says that she believes he can be a hero without his darkness. They kiss and I actually love it a lot. But the engagement ring is buried now, out of sight, soon to be out of mind.

Flash forward to six months later, and Oliver is standing over someone’s grave. Barry Allen shows up, apologizing for missing the funeral. Oliver says he’ll kill “him”-presumably the person who killed the person in the grave. Oliver asks to be left alone, and Barry obliges, leaving Oliver to cry over the grave. And I swear on everything good in this world, if that dead person is Felicity, FIRES WILL BE SET.

Eh hem. On to Episode 402, which takes place in the present, not in this mysteriously devastating future.

This episode opens with Laurel and Thea kicking ass and taking names. Diggle and Green Arrow are there, too, and they call into Felicity, who really wants a code name. When they get back, the team expresses their frustration by the never-ending stream of ghosts. Oliver is more concerned with his sister’s ruthlessness. He’s afraid she’s going to end up killing someone, but she assures him she’s got everything under control.

When it’s just Oliver and Felicity, he tells her she looks nice (because she does). She says she’s excited because it’s her first day back at Palmer Tech, and she gets to be the big boss in real time.

And Oliver Queen-formerly of the Grumpyface Brigade-got her a FERN. And PACKED HER LUNCH. I almost died from the cute. They’re on their way to competing with Castle and Beckett for favorite hetship.

A friend of the Queen family, Jessica Danforth (which sounds like a comic book name if I’ve ever heard one) and her daughter have dinner with Oliver and Thea. She announces that she wants to run for mayor, which makes the Queen kids balk; the last three mayors have been killed. But Jessica knows the city needs a leader, and she’s willing to step forward.

At Palmer Tech, Felicity attends her first board meeting. She opens with a joke, but it’s not well-received because apparently the room is full of SOULLESS MONSTERS. The Head Board Member says that the financials are bad, but a dude named Holt has an algorithm to aid them in the best tactics for workforce deduction. Felicity sees through the fancy words and says she doesn’t want to fire anyone, she wants to protect Ray’s legacy. But Board Member McBuzzkill is insistent.

In the town hall (or wherever they have those big important gatherings), Danforth announces that she’s running for mayor. People seem excited, but she’s talking for less than a minute when shots are fired. Thea goes toward the gunshots while Oliver goes after Danforth.

The guns were set up as a distraction, and even though it looks like it’s being shot by a ghost, there is no Ghost there. Meanwhile, Oliver swoops in and saves Danforth from her fake body guard, much to her surprise. Oliver remembers his spoiled rich boy past and jokes about self defense classes before running off after the baddie. Outside, a vehicle separates them and the baddie slips away into the night.

Team Arrow figures the baddie probably wasn’t a Ghost, because he wasn’t wearing a mask and he left behind prints. There’s something weird about the fingerprints, but Felicity will keep working on it.

In the meantime, Oliver goes to visit Captain Lance, saying he’ll help with protection detail, but Lance doesn’t want a vigilante’s help. He needs someone who will step out of the shadows and provide more than just back-alley protection for the city. He wants someone to give hope to Star City. And the Green Arrow doesn’t fit that bill.

Felicity is trying to prep herself to break people’s hearts and yells at Holt for coming up with this algorithm. Holt swears he originally designed it to work out a way to get everyone raises, but the board convinced him to change it to find out who should be fired instead. A woman comes in at Felicity’s behest, and knows by the look in Felicity’s eyes that she’s fired. The woman says they thought Felicity coming back was a symbol of hope, but they were wrong. Felicity looks like she’s being stabbed in the heart.

While on patrol, Diggle tells Laurel that Oliver said something about Damien Darhk having a “hive of followers” and also that the organization who killed his brother was called HIVE and he doesn’t think it’s a coincidence. They bond over keeping secrets about their dead siblings and Laurel reminds Diggle that it didn’t go so well for her.

Darhk tells the new baddie that his audition to be a Ghost didn’t go well and only pays him half what he was owed. Baddie wants another chance, and Darhk will give it to him, but he warns him that HIVE doesn’t believe in third chances. (Is it me or if it’s called a HIVE shouldn’t his men be called Bees instead of Ghosts?)

Anyway, upon further inspection, Felicity gets another clue from the prints: Baddie’s hands were covered in a patented residue from a closed-down paper mill on the Darhk side of the city. Oliver and Thea suit up and make their way there.

One homeless dude points them to another homeless dude who has some sort of anti-mask vendetta, which pisses Thea right off. So she breaks his arm. I think it’s a reasonable response, but Oliver yells at her. He drags her by the ear back to the Arrow Cave and yells at her for being too ruthless as of late. They fight and she ends up going at him like a feral cat.

Oliver finally admits to her that the Lazarus Pit changes people. She had seemed fine right after, so he didn’t see the need to worry her, but now maybe it’s a thing they should talk about. Thea growls at him for leaving when he knew this could be an issue. Laurel is confused, not having known about the Lazarus Pit in the first place, and Diggle is concerned for the future of Team Arrow and their angry little Arrow.

At Palmer Tech, Felicity continues to grump about her too-long list of employees to let go when she notices Holt himself on the list. Holt tries to make light of it, saying he and his husband (yes! HUSBAND!) can go on vacation now, and even jokes he sort of fired himself.

Oliver visits Jessica Danforth in her protection bubble, and she echoes Captain Lances desire for someone to inspire the city. Oliver is more concerned with where her daughter is right now. Jessica calls her daughter, but everyone sent to protect her is super dead and she herself is missing.

Danforth reaches out to the press, begging for her baby girl to be returned to her, and Darhk sees it and is PISSED. He says Baddie lacks the discipline and precision he requires of his ghosts; this Baddie is nothing but Anarchy and he won’t stand for it.

At their SHARED APARTMENT, Laurel asks Thea if she’s okay. Thea swears she’s fine, but Laurel won’t hear it. She instead asks about Nanda Parbat.

Thea gives her the Cliff’s Notes: Ra’s killed her, Oliver used the Lazarus Pit to bring her back despite the risks. Laurel understands; she, too, would do anything to save her sister…

In the Arrow cave, Felicity if running around, overwhelmed. Diggle is angry all the time, Thea has Pit Fever, Felicity herself has to fire perfectly lovely humans. But this time, Oliver is the one with the message of hope. He says they just need time, that they’ll figure everything out, that they’ll get back into the swing of things.

Meanwhile, Little Danforth is tied up, being ranted at by Baddie, who uses THE SACRED PINKY SWEAR to trick her and break her finger. Evil. Before he can cause more damage, though, Team Arrow busts in to save the day.

Felicity still wants a code name (which is especially funny since most of us know she’ll get one someday), Laurel and Diggle take the daughter to safety, and the Arrows Green and Red take on Baddie.They fight him, and eventually Thea sets him on fire. Oliver is mildly horrified by this turn of events, and opens a pipe to put him out, and when Thea realizes what she did, she looks panicked herself.

After mother and daughter are reunited, Jessica Danforth announces that she’s withdrawing her candidacy for mayor…someone without kids needs to do this job, needs to be the hope Star City needs.

Felicity goes back to her board members and tells them she hired back all the people she fired. She says Holt has a project that is going to save the company, and the board gives them six months to present this miracle. And though Holt doesn’t actually have a plan just yet, Felicity is sure he can come up with one.

Thea is moping on her couch when Oliver stops by. Thea realizes now why he was worried, but he takes on some of the blame, since he didn’t warn her this was possible. He promises that the new him is more forthcoming with vital information. Laurel comes in and says she’s taking Thea on a relaxing spa weekend to try to get her back to her old self, but as soon as Oliver is gone, she admits they’re going to Nanda Parbat. She says it’s because the League will know what they’re doing, but Thea knows that’s not the only reason they’re going.

Baddie ends up killing the people taking him in, and took Darhk’s words to heart and left an Anarchy symbol in his wake. Oliver tells Felicity he’s going to run for mayor. And Laurel takes Thea to Sara’s grave. And we all know where that storyline’s going.

What do you think of the season so far? What do you think the chances are of a Nyssa/Sara reunion before Sara joins her fellow Legends on a time-traveling adventure?

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