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“Arrow” recap (4.17): The Bee’s Knees

Previously on Arrow, Felicity went to Central City to stop a girl who could control little tech bees, Felicity was given an implant to help her walk again, and Felicity left the team because being around Oliver was just too hard. Spoiler alert, this episode is about Felicity.

We open in prison, where the Queen Bee is tip tapping and hacking into the security system, bumping up her release date to right about now.

In Star City, Team Arrow training is in full swing. Oliver points out everyone’s flaws and knocks them all down. He wants to go again, but the girls are tired.

They remind Oliver that the streets have been quiet since Darhk was arrested and that they should take it easy. Before Oliver can argue more, Thea gets a text from Alex saying he got a job offer from Mrs. Darhk; Laurel suggests he applies to Palmer Tech because she heard there was a PR opening…from…somewhere… The girls get an awkward look on their faces, but Oliver doesn’t mind that they’re still holding Feminists of Flarrow Book Club with Felicity. In fact, he’s happy about it. So happy he makes a Harry Potter reference, which is about as happy as it gets.

At Palmer Tech, Felicity is worried that the chip that made it possible for her to walk again will be too expensive to be accessible, and will be battling against execs who would love that very fact. Felicity is in the middle of sending feverish Curtis home when Mama Smoak swoops in, in all her glory, spelling “break-up” wrong and asking her for some mother/daughter time. Felicity is already overwhelmed when suddenly Thea comes in to ask about Alex. Felicity decides to put off her board meeting to talk to the ladies because she’s salty about their backward priorities.

Quick check-in on Darhk. Malcolm goes to visit him in prison and tells him that HIVE is going forward with Genesis, but has no plans to save him. So Darhk manipulates a fellow inmate to get a message out instead.

In the Arrow Cave, Laurel talks to Oliver to make sure he’s doing okay.

He’s mad at himself for not bouncing back from this like he has multiple brushes with death, but this is a different kind of pain, a deeper kind, a kind that can’t be healed with Advil and a hot bath. But she’s there for him if she needs him; he doesn’t have to go through this alone.

The Palmer Tech board starts to get antsy when suddenly a man name Phil starts to bleed from the mouth and then BEES FLY OUT OF HIM. The Queen Bee hacks the computer feeds and tells them she wants a microchip, but they tell her that the only working one is inside Felicity.

So Queen Bee hacks her way into Felicity’s office, who panics at the idea of someone else inside her mainframe without her permission.

Felicity knows the girl’s name, Brie Larvin, and know that she’s after the chip in her spine. Brie jams communication and swarms the entire building with tiny mechanical bees.

Curtis, home and being waited on by his husband, sees Palmer Tech on the news and freaks out. He knows he needs to get help that’s not the police, so despite his fever, he rushes out of the apartment.

In Arrow HQ, Oliver remembers Felicity talking about a bee lady in Central City, so the team starts to suit up…when Curtis stumbles in. He one by one recognizes Oliver, Laurel, Lance…then passes out.

When he wakes up, he is so excited. He recognizes everyone and can’t believe he knows the Green Arrow and his team. Well, except Diggle. Curtis runs around in circles like a puppy in a treat store, making bee puns and drooling all over Felicity’s computer, completely immune to Oliver’s attempts to get him to focus. Finally, Laurel breaks through the tornado of excitement to ask if he can hack the bees.

Curtis is so excited to help he can barely stand it.

Meanwhile, Felicity, Thea, and Mama Smoak are crawling through air vents, running away from bees. One stops in front of them and says hello, and Felicity recognizes Curtis’s voice – he did it!

(p.s. Best line of the episode-and there were a LOT of great lines-was when Mama Smoak asked, “How do you know that bee’s name?!”)

But Curtis’s control doesn’t last long, and soon the bees form a Bee Warrior that fights back with a fury. Oliver gets stung, so they head back to the Arrow Cave. But there, they realize that he didn’t just get stung…one of the bees got INSIDE him, and it’s multiplying.

Queen Bee corners Felicity, Thea, and Mama Smoak, get taunted by Brie (and, in another classic Mama Smoak moment, when Brie calls Felicity “Glasses,” Mama strokes Felicity’s glasses protectively), who is poking through all of Felicity’s things on her desk. But, now that she knows Brie isn’t with the board members, Felicity has a plan.

In the Arrow Cave, Curtis might have a solution to their infestation problem, but his plan would require some sort of sonic resonator, and he doesn’t know where on earth they would get their hands on something like that. Laurel smirks; she has just the thing. So the Black Canary screams at Oliver, which is probably cathartic and definitely effective.

Meanwhile, Felicity opens a secret elevator, stops between floors, and blows through a wall to get to the board room and sneak them down to the “panic room” aka the old Arrow HQ, because she’s a badass and always well be, even if she never goes by Overwatch again.

Felicity tells Mama Smoak to keep the board members safe and closes the elevator, staying behind with Thea.

Brie brings the girls into Felicity’s office and threatens Thea, causing Felicity to subtly but definitely move to be in front of Thea. THEA, who has been trained to fight by two different people who were also trained by professional assassins. Because Felicity is the best one, that’s why.

In Brie’s Villain Expose, she explains that she loves bees because they’re underappreciated and dying out and that she has a tumor wrapped around her spine. She also proves that she’s truly evil by MAKING A MY GIRL REFERENCE, only one of the most traumatic movies I’ve ever seen, adding to my already pretty intense fear of bees.

Back at the Arrow Cave, Curtis is feeling proud of himself, but Oliver knocks him down a few pegs, scolding him for wanting high fives. Laurel pulls him aside and tells him to stop kicking the puppy.

But Oliver wants to scare Curtis out of wanting this life. He doesn’t want him to think being a vigilante is all rushes of adrenaline and fun adventures. Look what this lifestyle did to his own relationship. But Laurel says that he can’t blame the Green Arrow for his relationship problems; his relationship ended because of a choice Oliver Queen made.

She tells him that life’s not fair and that he needs to quit whining about his manpain STAT. She tells him that he’s a beacon of hope in this city and that he needs to make sure to keep a little bit of that light for himself.

Holed up in Felicity’s office, Felicity expresses her frustration at all the violence in her life. Thea says of course she doesn’t love all the violence, but she does love being a beacon of hope for the city. (I love when Laurel and Thea use their book club bonding moments on unsuspecting people, with the same words but totally separately.) Felicity says she originally quit being Overwatch because of Oliver, but she has a new perspective, and she doesn’t think she’s meant to be in the center of this much chaos.

Felicity is trying to hack the bees when Brie comes in; she got the blueprints she was looking for, but she also found the code that Felicity used to send her to jail. And she is not pleased.

Curtis makes a bee-frying arrow and sends Oliver off to Palmer Tech. He shows up and fights the Bee Warrior, which knocks Thea unconscious, so Felicity cradles her in her arm while Oliver uses Curtis’s arrow to try to take over. But the arrow doesn’t work; what ends up working is Felicity smashing a lamp and electrocuting the bee warrior because she’s been badass since always.

This buys Curtis enough time to take control of the bees for real this time, and he uses them to knock Brie out. (And Felicity calls her a “Bee-atch,” which is probably the only bee pun I didn’t roll my eyes out all episode.)

When Oliver gets back to the Arrow Cave, he thanks Curtis for his help and apologizes for yelling at him. Brie is in a coma from the bee venom, which Curtis deems “comforting and horrifying” which is usually how beating the bad guy ends up. Oliver says Curtis is always welcome to help out the team, now that he’s in on the secret.

After Curtis leaves, Laurel applauds Oliver for being kind and even apologizing. But he’s just trying to take her advice. To be a beacon.

When Curtis gets home from his stint as a vigilante, he tells his husband that he’s done being a superhero. Which I understand but kind of hope isn’t true because I love when Felicity and Curtis nerd out together.

At Palmer Tech, Thea helps Felicity puts her office back together and asks her how she can walk away from the rush you get from stopping bad guys.

But Felicity wasn’t it in for the rush; she was in it to make a difference. And she actually has an idea of just how to do it. An idea she ironically got from Brie. She’s going to be a beacon, too. Star City is going to forget what Darhkness is with all these beacons.

Malcolm meets up with what he calls Damien Darhk’s “ace in the hole” and that Ace turns out to be Andy Diggle.

What did you think of “Beacon of Hope”?

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