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“Arrow” recap (4.14): Crack in the Foundation

Previously on Arrow, Mrs. Darhk decided to run against Oliver for mayor of Star City, Oliver found out he had a son with Berlin from Defiance who told him not to tell anyone, Merlyn found out about said secret son and decided to tell Damien Darhk about him as repayment for the whole sliced-my-hand-off-to-make-Nyssa-Ra’s-who-then-disbanded-the-League thing.

The main event tonight is the mayoral debate. Oliver is being prepped by Thea when Darhk’s wife, going by Ms. Adams and claiming to be unmarried, comes to “meet’ Oliver. He calls her a “darhk horse” and continues to slip in “light” references under the guise of friendly competition.

Thea warns Oliver that now that he has an opponent, she’s trying to find some dirt on public record about this “Ms. Adams” but so far has no luck. But also, she doesn’t want to poke around so much, lest Adams returns the favor.

In other important news, Felicity has a bridal shower invite for Oliver to inspect. And as soon as he opens it, he’s glitterbombed.

After the rehearsal, Team Arrow trails Mrs. Darhk but find that it was a setup. Mrs. Darhk is there long enough to sass them before disappearing, leaving an ambush team to fight them. they win of course, but Mrs. Darhk is gone without a trace.

Laurel brings her father some coffee at work, saying she’s worried about him; surely Darhk has figured out by now that he was playing double agent. (Spoiler alert: he has.) But he promises he’s surrounded by cops literally all the time, so he’s fine. He gets a call he has to respond to, and Laurel cheerfully offers to come.

She says they’re going to dinner after; Lance says he has a date, but Laurel would love to chat her potential future stepmother.

Speaking of Mama Smoak, she has been a busy bee in the Olicity Loft, decorating it to the nines…actually, no, the twelves. There are so many balloons it looks like theme is the movie Up. Oliver and Felicity hold hands and try to smile through the pain of having to see such gaudy decorations, and luckily they succeed long enough for Thea to come in and interrupt.

Thea pulls Oliver aside and says that Alex has been digging around on Oliver to see what “Ms. Adams” might find, she found an uncashed check for $1 Million from their mother to someone called Samantha Clayton. Oliver plays it off, and Thea asks if she should look into it, but Oliver is like NOPE NOPE NOPE.

Laurel, on the call with her father, is suspicious as to why her father, Captain of the SCPD, was called to deal with a B&E alone with no backup in the middle of the night. He promises her that he’s fine and that he doesn’t need her help or her leather suit, and she wishes he would just accept her identity already.

Lucky for Lance, listening isn’t one of Laurel’s strong suit, so she comes in and saves him from the collapsing building that definitely was not entered, and wasn’t broken until just now.

After this incident, Lance calls Mama Smoak to the police station. She is excited to be there because she thinks she was called in for an afternoon delight.

But he called her there to ask if they can take a break. He starts stammering out a lie, but Mama Smoak is no fool; she might not be a hacker like her daughter, but she’s not a bimbo. She gives him one more chance to come clean, and when he doesn’t, she storms out, saying it’s over between them.

Felicity sees her mother storm out on her way in to see Lance and asks what he did. He asks why he assumes it was him that did something wrong, and she points to his briefcase of notions and needs say no more.

Lance tries to explain why he broke up with her mother, but Felicity doesn’t care. A) She doesn’t want her mom to be sad, no matter what and B) She came to talk business. When “dispatch” called him to that B&E it was actually HIVE. She triangulates the call and sends Team Arrow to what she believes is a HIVE…well, hive.

The team splits up when they get to the factory hideout, fighting some mercenaries who are ruthless, strong, and not shy with a nail gun. The factory starts to crumble and the team heads out, but Speedy takes a detour to save the laptop the baddies were using. She has to run out of the building like she’s in a video game and gets out in the nick of time.

The Team brings Felicity the laptop, and she laughs in their face because there are NAILS in it. But Laurel says there were blueprints on the laptop, and they have to figure out what they were before HIVE strikes again.

Felicity gets a text from her mom and side-eyes Lance before heading out. Lance tells Oliver he’s lucky he doesn’t have to keep secrets from Felicity and Oliver guilty-faces because he knows he’s keeping a pretty big one from her.

At the Loft, Mama Smoak apologizes to Felicity for going overboard with the wedding stuff. The thing is, she’s been living vicariously through Felicity, afraid she’ll never find a love like Olicity’s. Oliver never lies, and he’s going to make a good father someday… And okay fine I get it, Oliver lied about having a son, but I feel like they’re bringing it up after it wasn’t an issue for weeks and shoving it down our throats once they remembered it was a thing. But maybe I’m just bitter because of the lack of Nyssa.

Anyway, Felicity tells her mom that maybe Lance is lying for a good reason, to protect her, and asks her to give him the benefit of the doubt, to trust him; advice I hope she remembers when this whole secret son thing blows up.

Thea finds Oliver again and asks about Samantha Clayton again; she ended up doing a little digging anyway and found out she and Oliver went to college together. Oliver admits he cheated on Laurel with Samantha, and that’s all Thea needs to put all the pieces together. She’s lowkey one of the smartest people on this show. Oliver panics, finally able to express his worries about marrying Felicity when he has this huge secret, but Thea assures him it’s for the best; it’s what Samantha wanted, and with Darhk on the loose, it’s the safest thing for little William.

Later, Thea preps Oliver for the debate. They have 20 minutes before they go live when Felicity gets a call from Curtis, whose help she had enlisted in decrypting the laptop. And the news he has isn’t good news: The blueprints on the mercenaries’ laptop? Are for the building they’re in RIGHT NOW.

Felicity knows where the bombs will be and will send the team out to find them, but first they have to evacuate. Oliver asks Felicity if she can hack the alarm system, and she says it might take a minute, but Thea just pulls the red handle on the wall. Old school.

They split up to stop the bombs, and Mrs. Darhk orders her mercs to kill Oliver Queen no matter what.

Team Arrow finds the bombs, but when Diggle tries to diffuse one he gets zapped. The mercenaries show up, including that one extra pesky one with the nail gun.

Speedy saves the Black Canary from an explosion, but then Laurel gets a nail to the head.

Laurel and Thea double-team the woman…fighting, of course. Unfortunately. They eventually all get out and everything is fine, and the debate goes on as planned.

Afterward, the local news declares Oliver Queen the obvious winner, but he’s not concerned with what the news and experts say, he wants to know how the people feel. Felicity tells him that he as at least one vote, and it’s the cutest vote at all.

That night is the bridal shower, and it has your typical amount of shower awkwardness, but it’s sweet. Captain Lance pulls Mama Smoak aside and comes clean: he tried to break up with her because he’s afraid HIVE is after him, and he doesn’t want her to get caught in the crossfire. She understands, so they kiss and make up, putting them both back on the “grave potential” list.

Curtis and his husband show up to the party, adorable as ever, and present Felicity with their wedding present a little early. It’s an implantable bio stimulant, and if it works the way Curtis hopes it does, it will help her walk again. The reason it’s early? He hopes it will work in time for Felicity to walk down the aisle.

I’ll admit; I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I can’t hate anything that makes Felicity look that happy. Plus, I can’t imagine it’s fun for Emily Bett Rickards to have to wheel around all the time. However, on the other hand, I was really loving how they had been handling Felicity being in a wheelchair. It was largely a non-issue. She had the one episode where she questioned her identity, but that had more to do with whether being on Team Arrow was worth the risk of death, less the “Ah my life is over” route some shows might have gone. And there was the adjustment period when she lacked confidence during her presentation rehearsal, but then finding herself again and owning it. I think Felicity “Ray of Sunshine” Smoak is the perfect person to rock the wheelchair for the foreseeable future. The idea of a differently abled character on a vigilante/superhero show is so exciting to me, so I don’t know how I feel about this superchip. But also, I feel bad hoping it doesn’t work. So, I’m torn.

ANYWAY. We end the episode with Darhk bringing Oliver’s son William to play with his daughter, a playdate I doubt would be sanctioned by little Billy’s biodad.

What did you think of “Code of Silence”? Do you miss Nyssa? I miss Nyssa.

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