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“Arrow” recap (4.3): Into the Pit, Out of the Refrigerator

Previously on Arrow, Damien Darhk had a HIVE of Ghosts terrorizing Star City, Thea was suffering from PTPD (Post Traumatic Pit Disorder), and Laurel decided to take Thea and her sister’s corpse to Nanda Parbat for answers and a miracle.

We open mid-crime, as usual. Though today it’s not going so well. Diggle gets cornered by a Ghost, but the Ghost doesn’t shoot him, he just runs off. Oliver falls off his bike and they almost lose the baddie, but Felicity hacks a crane and blocks his path so the boys can catch him. Felicity says it’s like #tbt to the days of the OG Team Arrow (she literally says “OGs” because she’s the cutest) and is the happiest little hacker in all the land.

Diggle rips out the Ghost’s death tooth so they can ask him questions but apparently he’s part electric eel because he zaps Diggle and gets away.

Meanwhile, at Nanda Parbat, Malcolm Merlyn is sparring with none other than the great and powerful NYSSA AL GHUL.

Well, HE calls it sparring, but Nyssa would kill him if she could. They’re interrupted when Laurel and Thea show up with Sara’s body in tow. Nyssa stands in stunned silence and Merlyn is like aw HELL no. He says Thea wasn’t totally dead when they threw her in, and that despite it being called the Lazarus Pit, it hadn’t actually been used to raise someone fully from the dead in eons, if it ever had been done at all. So his answer is a hard no. But we all know what Laurel’s response to, “Laurel, no” usually is. #LaurelYES

In the Arrow Cave, Felicity runs the Ghost tooth for DNA, and suggests that OG Team Arrow go out for drinks while they wait for the results.

Oliver’s game, but Diggle is decidedly not. He grumps out, and Oliver decides he’s done trying to win Diggle over.

Diggle goes home to find a stray ARGUS agent there instead of his wife and child. The agent gives Diggle the name Mina Fayad, saying she is connected to his brother’s death. And the reason he’s showing up now is because it’s convenient to the plot she’s in town.

Mina goes to meet Damien with her secret weapon. Damien asks the weapon to prove himself, and he peels his playing card tattoos off his body and throws them at the Ghost from the first battle of the episode, killing him dead. The Dealer says that this guy was free, but he’s going to charge more to kill the Green Arrow and his squad. Damien Darhk likes what he sees and agrees.

At Nanda Parbat, Laurel is cuddling with her sister’s coffin. She is not going to give up trying to save her sister. Nyssa shows up and says Laurel’s being selfish, and Laurel says of everyone, she thought for sure Nyssa would be the one person on her side in this. Nyssa says her father used the Pit to live longer than any man should, and that she watched him suffer side effects that she wouldn’t wish on Malcolm, let alone her beloved. (She says that: “beloved.”)

Nyssa is afraid that it won’t be Sara that comes out of the Pit, but a monster. Laurel believes Sara’s spirit was too strong to be stopped by something as silly as death. Nyssa says that no matter how much they both miss her-and oh, how they do-Sara’s gone. She’s accepted it, Laurel should do.

At Arrow HQ, Felicity gets the results of the test on the cyanide tooth, and it only has half the genetic markers a human should have. She reasons this means he should be good, but I reckon it’s possible he has DNA that her standard tests aren’t equipped to measure.

Diggle goes after Mina on his own while Oliver goes to stop a robbery on his own and neither plan ends well. Diggle is shot at and barely gets out alive, and Oliver comes face to face with the Dealer. Mina gets away from Diggle and Oliver just barely escapes the Dealer. It’s chaos.

Meanwhile, Thea and Merlyn have a father/daughter chat. Merlin insists he’s doing what’s best by not throwing Sara in the pit.

After all, doesn’t she feel it? The bloodlust? Thea looks at him like he just named a feeling she didn’t have a word for. He explains that the waters restore and they take; they gave her life but they want to claim some in return. Merlin says the only reasonable solution is to just kill some people. Thea would rather not. She asks for actual fatherly advice, and he says there’s a man in the mountains who can help her quell her craving to kill, and they’ll go in the morning. A little next to normal, but close enough.

Oliver slinks back to the Arrow Cave, and Felicity cleans his wounds, yelling at him for taking on a metahuman by himself. Oliver asks her to explain, and she says Central City is missing a metahuman, and Cisco calls him Double Down. (I still would have gone with The Dealer, but whatever. Naming metas is Cisco’s thing.) Felicity then turns on Diggle and yells at him too and says she’s tired of them fighting and that they need to stop letting their fragile male egos get in the way of asking for LIFE SAVING help when they need it.

She tells them to sort out their shit before someone dies. They give in because Felicity is not someone you disobey. The boys talk it out, but only for a minute, because feelings are hard, and then they exchange bad guy stories, Diggle even fessing up about HIVE and showing Oliver the picture of Mina.

Felicity takes Double Down’s card to her new buddy, Curtis, at Palmer Tech. She asks him to look at it and tell her about his findings. He also tells her he can look at her phone, because it’s acting up, a lot of weird numbers flying around on it, but she says it’s probably fine. (It’s probably not fine.)

Back in his lair, Damien is falling apart at the seams. Things aren’t going according to plan. He tells Double Down to try to kill him, but the cards don’t hit him; he stops them before they get the chance. Because apparently Damien Darhk is a metahuman with telekinesis. He uses that power to throw a card-blade right into Mina Fayad’s throat. RIP.

Thea wakes up on Nanda Parbat to the sight of two assassins at her bedside. She kills them both and almost revels in it, and Merlin comes in to congratulate her. She realizes now that HE’S the man on the mountain and that there is no cure for her. Merlin says her murder thoughts will go away for a few weeks now, and he says it all chipper like he’s proud of himself for finding this “solution.” Apparently the only thing that would have actually cured her was killing Ra’s, but that’s out of the question now. So she’s stuck with this…condition.

Thea runs into Laurel’s room, waking her up and begging her to take her home. Merlyn follows her and insists he was just trying to help, but Thea tells him where he can shove his “help.” But Merlyn is desperate to stay on his daughter’s good side, so he offers to help Sara after all. Which is actually the most dad-like thing he’s ever done; felt bad for one thing and overcompensates with another.

In Star City, Felicity tracks Mina’s cell, but when Diggle and Oliver get to its location, all they find is Mina’s body. Diggle blames himself; if he had trusted Oliver from the get go they’d have more answers by now. But Oliver tells him not to fret, he’s here to help now. They’ll find the answers to who killed Toby’s mom. I mean, Diggle’s brother.

At Palmer Tech, Curtis jokes about Felicity’s name, saying it means, “the ability to find appropriate expression for one’s thoughts” which is the opposite of everything Felicity is, but felicity also means “intense happiness” which Felicity both seeks and exudes, so I think it works. Anyway, Curtis says that the card has a chemical in it that makes it act like a homing beacon, but the problem is, it works both ways, so Double Down found his card/them and busts in. Felicity protects Curtis and he says she’s a badass and she agrees. She admits she works with the Green Arrow and leads him down to the Arrow Cave. Once down there, she uses a machine gun she barely knows how to use and it’s weirdly adorable.

Oliver and Diggle come back and find Felicity and the Cave disheveled but standing. They track Double Down and go after him.

At Nanda Parbat, Laurel and Thea lower Sara’s kind-of-gross-but-not-as-decomposed-as-I-would-have-expected body into the Lazarus Pit. Nyssa comes in and is pissed and scared and sad. It’s one last round of Laurel, no/LAUREL YES and Sara is dropped into the waters of the Pit. After some chanting and bubbling and silence and worried faces galore, and despite the fact that no one thought it would work…out comes a very alive Sara Lance.

Maybe a little TOO alive, though. She launches out of the pit with unnatural agility, growling and hissing like a feral animal. In a heart-stopping moment, she locks eyes with Nyssa, then turns to go after anyone/everyone else instead. So maybe a part of Sara is in there after all. Some League guys tranq her, and as she starts to calm down, Laurel runs to her and holds her until she passes out. Nyssa looks like someone ripped her broken heart out of her chest and stomped on the pieces.

The Green Arrow and Diggle stop Double Down’s car, and he tells them that was a bad choice; he was about to skip town. But Oliver and Diggle have questions. Double Down says he’s more scared of the big guy than them and chucks some cards at them before disappearing. Oliver took a flying card for Diggle, and Diggle thanks him, their bromance rekindling slowly but surely.

OG Team Arrow finally goes out for that drink and Felicity points out that they’re going to have to relocate HQ. Luckily, Oliver has had a surprise in the works that might just solve that particular problem.

Felicity goes to check on Curtis, who is excited to be working for someone who is helping the city in more ways than he could have imagined. Felicity’s phone freaks out again, but this time instead of a jumble of numbers, it also spells out her name.

At Nanda Parbat, Laurel goes to talk to her sister, who is chained up and still wild.

Laurel isn’t worried though; Thea was the same way when she first came out. She’s sure it will work out juuuust fine. An Assassin comes in to say something is wrong, and the gang goes back to the Lazarus Pit to find that Nyssa has destroyed it. She’s always had plans to kill Merlyn, and now she knows that when she does, it will be permanent. She had to stop the madness. Nyssa turns on Laurel and says that Sara’s death was Merlyn’s fault, but whatever happens next is on Laurel.

Okay, let’s unpack this. I knew Sara was coming back, because I’ve seen the Legends of Tomorrow trailer, but what I DIDN’T know was that she was coming back in the third episode of this season of Arrow. I figured the episode before the mid-season break, she’d come back at the very end, and then be 100% on LoT. I figured Nyssa would be MIA. I’ve been burned too many times before, I guess. BUT GUYS. Sara Lance is back. Granted, she’s feral and not speaking yet, but she’s BACK. She’s NOT DEAD ANYMORE. And NYSSA. Nyssa is here! And having Big Feelings about it! And still calling her “beloved” and everything! While it’s possible Sara will have lost her bisexuality in the Lazarus Pit, I sincerely hope the writers of this show know better and will continue to explore her connection with Nyssa in some way. This is their chance to undo the damage done by the dead queer woman trope; I’ll take an undead queer woman. As long as they keep her alive this time.

I still somehow doubt there’s going to be a beautiful heart to heart and sweet lady kisses, but it’s not an impossible dream anymore.

What do you think the future holds for Sara/the Nysara ship? Am I a fool to hope they’ll do this right? What did you think of “Restoration” overall?

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