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“Arrow” recap (3.22): Til Death

Previously on Arrow, Felicity told Thea that Roy is actually alive, Oliver kidnapped Lyla to trade for Nyssa in his attempts to be Demon’s pet, and Ra’s told his new heir that Al Sah-him was going to drop the Alpha and Omega bioweapon on Starling City to get rid of all traces of Oliver Queen once and for all. Oh and also marry his lesbian daughter because he wanted to go above and beyond the usual murder and mayhem of most bad guys.

Ra’s is giving Al Sah-him more details on his plans to use the Alpha and Omega to destroy Oliver Queen and everything he knew, and in doing so reveals that it was Maseo who gave the bioweapon to Ra’s in the first place, so that he could become Sarab. Luckily, Oliver had his back to Ra’s in this moment, because his face betrayed him; it is now we know for sure that Oliver is not totally brainwashed, that the Ollie we know and love is in there somewhere.

Anyway, Ra’s says it’s settled; first Oliver will marry Nyssa, then he’ll kill everyone in Starling City.

Meanwhile IN Starling City, Felicity is chatting with Diggle from the safety of her lab while Diggle chases a kid, who leads him right to his gang of gun-wielding buds. Diggle smiles and is happy to see he followed the right worker bee back to the hive and slips in ear plugs just in time for Laurel’s new favorite trick: Caw caw, motherfuckers! (Or the Canary Cry, whatever.)

Together, the two of them kick the gang’s ass, but Diggle punches the last one with a little too much zeal, earning him a Felicity scolding when they get back to home base. Felicity says he might be in denial about how pissed off he is but Diggle says he’s not in denial, he’ll shout from the rooftops about how angry he is. His best friend kidnapped his wife! His infant child was left without supervision! The only queer character left on this show is trapped in a terrifying storyline! Of course he’s angry!

Felicity says he can’t take that anger out on common criminals and Laurel asks why the hell not? She asks Felicity how she can be so sanguine about this whole situation, and I find her choice of words really interesting. First of all, because “sanguine” isn’t a word you hear every day. But also because it means “optimistic” and “positive, especially in a bad situation” but it comes from the same root as “blood” and when people first used the word “sanguine” they meant “blood-thirsty.” And I think the juxtaposition of those two definitions describe Felicity to a T. She has a blood-thirsty type of optimism. She is relentless in her determination to see the good in people, she will fight tooth and nail for that last glimmer of hope. So right now? She’s clinging to the belief that the Oliver Queen they know and love is gone. She has to believe it, she has to hold on tight. It’s the only thing keeping her from falling.

Across town, Thea is packing to find Roy. Merlyn doesn’t bother trying to stop her, and even tries to give her permission she doesn’t want or need. Malcolm asks if she’ll come back someday and she honestly isn’t sure. All she knows is that she still harbors a lot of resentment for her bio-dad, and that she needs Roy right now.

In Nanda Parbat, Ra’s is having a family dinner, with his heir and his daughter, joking around with her like Nyssa is a blushing bride and not a prisoner. Nyssa reminds Ra’s that she’s still very willing to choose death as an option over marrying Oliver Queen, but he’s not letting her off that easy.

When Nyssa scoffs at his use of the term “daughter,” he says soon she’ll be a mother instead and Nyssa looks queasy. Ra’s says Nyssa will bear Al Sah-him’s child and will have no more say in it than her mother did, proving that he’s an irredeemable monster with a long history of monsterdom. Oliver is having a hard time keeping his unease at bay; faking a marriage is one thing, because what’s marriage? A ceremony, a promise, some paperwork. If one or neither of the parties believes in it, it’s not real. Marriage is what you make it. But Oliver Queen would rather have beheaded Nyssa than rape her. He excuses himself and says he needs some air, and his exit is distraction enough for Nyssa to swipe a knife from the dinner table.

When Oliver gets outside, a guard appears and Oliver hisses that he’s late, and the guard pulls back his mask to reveal it’s Malcolm Merlyn. And just like that, Oliver Queen is back. Our Oliver. With light and worry in his eyes, desperation in his voice. He says things are worse than they thought, and instead of months before his assent to the leader of the League, they have days. They need help. Malcolm points out that Team Arrow isn’t likely to take his word for anything, but Oliver has an idea.

Felicity goes to see Ray and he asks why she looks so glum and knows it must be Oliver-related. Ray says they’re still friends so if she does ever want to talk about it, it will only be a little weird, he promises. He asks her to sign something as VP of Palmer Tech and she does it without reading it, and gets a text from Merlyn that has her excuse herself. When she leaves, Ray smiles at the papers she just signed. It was a transfer of ownership document.

Maseo finds Oliver brooding alone and explains that he stole the Alpha and Omega from the truck before they blew it up and used it to get into the League. Oliver asks him if he wants to be set free once he’s the one calling the shots, but Maseo says his prison isn’t Nanda Parbat, but something much more metaphorical and more impossible to escape.

Felicity doesn’t love the fact that Malcolm Merlyn sent an SOS text and they all responded like they were Liars or something. When Malcolm comes in, he’s met with a three-person wall of sass and anger. Merlyn tells them then that Oliver isn’t brainwashed, that he’s been faking it, but Felicity doesn’t appreciate that people keep moving the target at which she should be aiming her optimism.

They ask why, if that were true, Oliver wouldn’t have let them in on that factoid, but he points out that they’re terrible liars and even worse under pressure. They start to leave, not willing to risk being tricked by Malcolm Merlyn yet again, until Tatsu comes in and says that their city is in danger. Felicity is pretty sure they’ve never met her before, but she explains that she is all too familiar with the bioweapon at play here. Merlyn tells them when and where to be if they want to help Oliver save Starling City.

Team Arrow watches a video of the chaos of the first outbreak, in Hong Kong, and is horrified the act of terrorism was kept under wraps. Diggle says seeing this made his decision for him; it doesn’t matter if he believes or not, he has to try to help on the off-chance this is Starling City’s fate. Laurel’s in too, though whether that’s her reason or if it’s because fighting is still the only way she stays afloat is anyone’s guess. But Felicity doesn’t think she can possibly go back to Nanda Parbat.

Which is probably for the best because Nyssa is about to turn into a human grenade as her anger reaches max capacity.

Ra’s goes to visit his daughter, and she asks him why he’s doing this to her, why he’s making her marry someone she doesn’t love. He tells her of the time he fell in love and made the woman his concubine (which made it sound more consensual than he made it sound earlier) and tries to give Nyssa the necklace he gave her mother when he found out she was pregnant. Nyssa is insulted; does he really think anything about that story or a necklace would make this any better? She throws the necklace aside and he grabs her face. He says she’ll marry Al Sah-him or suffer the pain of a thousand deaths. She clutches the hilt of her hidden knife and fights the urge to fight back.

Across town, Tatsu finds Felicity in her lab and tells her that while he was healing from his fight with Ra’s, he told her about Felicity. He said that Felicity was his last thought before he hit the ground. Felicity says Oliver is past saving but Tatsu says that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t try, because Tatsu didn’t try and now she knows there may have been a chance to get Maseo back, but she waited too long and now Sarab has taken over her husband.

Tatsu meets up with Merlyn, Diggle and Laurel to head to Nanda Parbat and as she sheaths her katana, she tells Merlyn it was passed down in her family to the first son of every generation. Merlyn helpfully points out that she’s not a son, and she says “No. I am not.” in a way that said she’s much more fearsome than a son could ever have been.

Felicity shows up at the eleventh hour, saying she’s going to come, but if this is a lie or a trap, she’s going to make sure Malcolm Merlyn’s death sticks this time around.

Tatsu leads them to Nanda Parbat, with Felicity joking about renting horses instead of scaling cliffs. They find the bioweapon distribution plane and Felicity says she just has to get within 50 yards of it.

Before too long, they’re swarmed with guards, and Felicity scurries to the plane to disarm it. An arrow hits her iPad so she throws the broken tech like a discus and is thrilled when the guy stops dead in his tracks.

But she then realizes Malcolm had hit him with an arrow at the same time. The plane starts to take off and Felicity says that she figured her gear would get arrowed, so she brought an atomic backup plan. The Atom takes down the plane and falls to the ground with its shrapnel, but Ray is fine and still in as good spirits as ever.

Sarab and Tatsu end up facing off, but before he can kill her, Tatsu fights back and stabs her ex-husband in the stomach.

Maseo shines through then, and thanks her for releasing him from his prison. Tatsu sings him the same song she sang to her son when he, too, died in her arms.

Ra’s appears with Al Sah-him by his side and stops the fighting with a simple, “Enough.” They failed, the plane was a decoy. Oliver tells them to surrender or die.

Oliver leads his friends to the throne room, and Felicity is trying to talk to him, but Oliver says if they speak they will die. But it’s not an order from an Assassin, it’s a plea from a friend who doesn’t want to see them beheaded.

Ra’s tries to figure out who among them betrayed him, and finds it a little too convenient when Tatsu points a finger at the dead Sarab. But Ra’s isn’t too mad; all the best weddings have a little mayhem beforehand. Ray smirks, saying he guesses there’s someone for everyone, but Oliver says he’s the one getting married, to Nyssa. He makes brief eye contact with Felicity, who can’t believe her ex girlfriend’s ex-girlfriend and her ex-boyfriend are getting married, not seeing the truth in his eyes.

Oliver’s friends-the lot of them, really-are sent to the dungeon, where Felicity laments Oliver’s marriage because everything else there is to worry about is too big for her already heavy heart to handle. Laurel says they can’t die here; this isn’t how Laurel Lance goes out, dammit! But before they can make an action plan, Diggle is taken out to see Al Sah-him. Diggle yells at him for taking Lyla, that Oliver might have had good intentions, but he has lost Diggle’s friendship, his trust, his respect. Oliver had just wanted to make sure they were okay, but before they can talk further, Ra’s sends men in to return Diggle to the dungeon.

Ra’s is inspecting Tatsu’s katana while Malcolm grovels at his feet, shouting that Oliver Queen is faking being loyal to Ra’s. Because Malcolm Merlyn is a coward. He will do anything to get his way, and more than that to stay alive. Al Sah-him is summoned and Ra’s questions his loyalty, but Al Sah-him points out that after everything he’s done, everything that happened, Oliver Queen would have nothing to go back to, so what even would be the point?

While all this is happening, Thea is pulling an Alison Hendrix and having her own relatively happy storyline, unaware anything bad is happening to her family and friends. Thea finds Roy in his new life and they reunite, in the biblical sense. Once they’re reacquainted, she tells Roy about Oliver and the League, and he asks why her first reaction was to run away. Thea points out that technically, this time, she didn’t run “away” so much as she ran to Roy, but she gets his point. He tells her he just wants her to be happy, and she says she knows. The next morning, she wakes up like an angel in the morning light.

And finds that she’s alone. She goes to the garage Ray had been working but he’s gone. He left her a bag with the Arsenal costume she had returned to him, and a note saying he wants to help Thea learn how to be okay on her own, to not run to find a dude to protect her, because she has proven she’s more than capable. She’ll have to get it tailored a bit, but I do hope Thea becomes the new Arsenal, because she WOULD look great in red, and because Team Arrow being more ladies than men would be pretty badass.

Malcolm is returned to the dungeon, and Ra’s tells him that for his attempted decrees of loyalty, his death will be swift. Ra’s tosses the bioweapon into the room and orders it sealed. Oliver’s friends cry out, beg him to snap out of it and save them, to not do this to them. But Al Sah-him just walks away from those who have been by his side from the very beginning as the door slams shut and the gas from the Alpha and Omega fills the room.

Al Sah-him dresses for his wedding, heir of the demon about to become the son of the demon. Nyssa walks down the aisle, looking beautiful despite her misery.

Part of the League’s wedding vows include the phrase-and I quote-“You will never be free. You will always be held captive by your love for each other.” Which is a fucked up sentiment if I’ve ever heard one, and literal in this case. Nyssa has had enough and makes one more attempt at her freedom, slashing her knife at Oliver. He stops her, and he meets her eyes, which are filled with white-hot tears of anger and pain. If they could speak telepathically, I’d like to think Oliver would have assured her then that he would never lay an unwanted hand on her, but instead he just moves through the motions of the ceremony until their marriage becomes official.

Down in the dungeon, Diggle tries to apologize but Felicity tells him it’s okay, and that it was a pleasure to have known him. Then Diggle, Felicity, Laurel, Ray, and Malcolm give in to the vapor prevailing the air and collapse.

What did you think of “This is Your Sword”? Do you think Oliver secretly inoculated all his friends? What are your Season 3 finale predictions?

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