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“Arrow” recap (4.21): Dividing the Light from the Darhkness

Previously on Arrow, Felicity found out that her absentee father was a master hacker that goes by The Calculator, Diggle killed his brother then lied to Lyla about how it happened, Thea got kidnapped by her brainwashed boyfriend, and Darhk gained full control of all the nuclear weapons in the entire world.

Team Arrow is running around in circles trying to figure out how to stop the literal Armageddon. Lyla blames Amanda Waller for the fact that the control of every single nuke was but that’s kind of beside the point since they have less than 21 hours to save the world. Oliver thinks Felicity can do it, but Felicity isn’t too proud to admit she needs help. More specifically, she needs The Calculator.

Diggle isn’t so sure they can trust this evil mastermind, but Felicity didn’t say they SHOULD trust him, just that it was something they were going to have to suck up and do if they didn’t want to go splat. So she’s running a search to try to find him, and she’s looking for Thea while she’s at it.

Diggle storms off to grump about this plan, but Oliver says they don’t have to trust Noah, they just have to trust Felicity. She was off the team for like two weeks and it all went to hell, they can’t risk losing her while they whole world is in jeopardy. Anyway, according to Oliver’s memory, they need to find a nexus where Darhk will likely be hiding out, so they need to follow the ley lines.

In Pleasantville, Thea is being held in her kitchen by armed Ghosts, making the tweets and woofs in time with the nature soundtrack. Merlyn comes in and tells her about Genesis and how he thinks it’s a great idea, and that it was because of him that she’s on the metaphorical ark. But Thea is not impressed and is still salty about being a prisoner and says she’ll be more or less quiet about it if she gets to see Alex.

Across town, Captain Lance goes to see Mama Smoak, who has a bit of a bone to pick with him. She was snooping through his things and found an affidavit that he’s supposed to sign swearing he didn’t know Laurel was the Black Canary. Because the thing is, he testified in court that he allowed himself to be Darhk’s puppet to save Laurel. And while that’s true, the police force will probably shout what we’ve all been shouting which is LAUREL WOULDN’T EVEN WANT THAT and hey guess what all that you did to “save” her got her killed. So. Thanks a lot, Q.

Mama Smoak doesn’t want him to lie-she’s already married and divorced a big liar liar-but he doesn’t want to blow his shot at being a cop and keep doing good. But Mama says that even if it’s a lie without any obvious negative consequences, lies are lies.

Felicity guides Oliver and Diggle through a building where she thinks her father might be hiding, but when they get there, it’s obvious someone up and left in a hurry. They check the video feeds and see that Noah got out just before Darhk’s goons came in, and they learn that Darhk put out a kill order on him.

Down under the dome, someone takes down one of the Ghosts and demands to see Damien Darhk, and the camera pans to reveal it’s none other than our old burn faced buddy, Anarky.

Felicity is tracking her dad, having conflicted feelings about the fact that his life is in danger, and finds a clue that she doesn’t quite understand: Ravenspur. What she does know, though, is where Darhk’s nexus is.

Mama Smoak comes home to see Lance signing a document and gives her a very impressive, “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed,” face, but he shows her the paper and she sees that he rewrote it. Now it says that, even though he had his reservations as a father, when it came down to it, he was proud of Laurel for everything she did as the Black Canary. And Mama Smoak is proud.

Felicity goes to Palmer Tech and gets yelled at by the head of her board, and she tries to explain that she’s saving the world without being able to say so and besides her mom is here and she doesn’t have time for him right now. Mama Smoak hugs her baby girl, and of course double checks for bees. Felicity asks her mom about Ravenspur, and Mama’s smile immediately fades because she doesn’t want Felicity going anywhere near her father.

Felicity is excited; she knew Ravenspur sounded familiar. And so Mama Smoak tells her that it’s a cabin they used to go to all the time…and then starts giving waaaay more details than Felicity ever needed to know about her sex life.

Mama begs her again to stay away from her father, but Felicity promises she has it covered. She also gives her mother one of those secret-end-of-the-world-is-nigh hugs that Will Smith characters are all too familiar with.

Felicity calls Oliver and sends him to Cyprus Cove, where Ravenspur is.

Somehow, though (probably because magic), Darhk’s men find Noah first. Oliver isn’t far behind, and Noah makes a run for it while the Green Arrow and Spartan take down Ghosts. He runs out into the street and sees that his daughter has become quite the getaway driver.

Felicity makes it very clear that they are saving the world, not having a take-your-father-to-work day, and that they have 12 hours to stop total world destruction. He jumps in to help toot suite, and she’s surprised he didn’t demand something in return first. He explains that he might be subjectively evil, but he likes being alive and he likes having Felicity alive. He doesn’t have to fiddle around for long before he realizes he needs a piece of equipment from Palmer Tech.

After making her father promise he wasn’t going to steal from her again, Felicity goes to Palmer Tech to get what he needs to stop a dozen+ nuclear missiles from launching. You can imagine her impatience when the head of the board interrupts her again, this time with security guards flanking him. He explains that the board decided that they don’t want to “practically give away” (aka make it accessible to people who need it, not only multi-bajillionaires) so they voted her off the island. She is HIGHLY insulted, and frankly, so am I.

In Darhk’s bubble, Thea finds Alex and starts running around like Chicken Little, trying to get him to see that the sky is falling, but Alex is calm and relaxed and thinks Genesis sounds like a swell plan indeed. Thea tries to snap him out of it, but Merlyn interrupts them; Anarky is taking down the filters that make it possible for them to breathe underground, so they have to stop him.

Back in Star City, Felicity storms into the Arrow Cave, FURIOUS about being fired before she could get the tech she needed. She wants to call in a bomb threat or something to empty the building, but Oliver says they can work together to get it out. Oliver goes incognito and sneaks Felicity and Noah into the building. Noah’s like, “Wee, this is fun” but Felicity’s all, “Nope, stop having fun, this is not fun, this is ~7.4 billion lives on the line stressful.

They trip alarms and get chased out by security, but Noah got 90% of the code using cloning software, so they’re a lot better off than they were before.

Merlyn takes Thea to stop Anarky, but won’t give her a weapon because he knows she’ll use it on him the first chance she gets. So Thea goes in and tries to talk Anarky down, but he calls her Mommy and even though he looks like he might listen to her, Merlyn interrupts and says he would have set off the bombs he placed no matter what Thea said.

Above ground, Team Arrow works together to stop the missiles. HIVE makes this difficult, but Felicity and Noah get to tip-tapping on the computers while Oliver, Diggle and Lyla hold them back.

Lyla says the President isn’t exactly thrilled that the fate of the world rests on a ragtag bunch of angsty non-metahuman vigilantes who are down a Canary or two.

Thea goes to see Alex to resume Operation Unbrainwash My Boyfriend but Anarky beat her there and knocked him out. He asks Thea a very important question: “Why are you always at the mercy of some guy?” She tells her that she’s more than just an assassin to be trained, an archer to be directed, a daughter to be bossed around. She’s Thea Queen, damnit!

She tucks his words away and then launches at him, because Anarky might be right, but he still knocked Alex out and tried to kill everyone, so he still needs to be taken down. Alex wakes up to see Thea fighting like a boss, but Anarky is a misguided male feminist and thinks that he knows what’s best for her to be an Independent Woman, so he zaps Alex with his lightning rod (not a euphemism). After Thea takes Anarky down, she lays atop Alex’s ambiguously dead body and apologizes, even though it’s not her fault.

Clock ticking, Felicity and her dad find they actually work well together under pressure.

They’re almost done with three minutes to go before Gloom and Doom when some Ghosts get by the Team Arrow barrier and start shooting at the techy duo. Noah dives in front of his daughter, taking a bullet for her and saving her, but failing to stop one of the nukes.

While Noah stops Rubicon from just restarting all the launch sequences, Lyla tries to evacuate the missile’s target, Monument Point, and Felicity looks more scared than she has ever looked, including all the times her own life was in danger. They get a hit about a gas leak in the mayor’s office, so the boys make a run for it, hoping to catch Darhk while Felicity tries to stop the nuke that’s currently flying through the air.

When they realize that they can’t hack into the actual missile, Felicity decides to move its target instead. So it tricks the missile’s GPS into thinking Monument Point is where, in real life, a town called Havenrock is. Because apparently it was too late to direct it to the middle of the ocean or something.

Lyla tells her it worked, and Felicity asks how many died. When Lyla says tens of thousands, Felicity is crestfallen. Heartbroken. Shattered.

Lyla tries to assure her that she did the right thing; that if the missile had hit Monument Point, millions of people would have died instead of thousands, but that does little to help Felicity Smoak, who was already bearing some the weight of Laurel’s death, and could crumble under the weight of tens of thousands more.

Across town, Oliver and Diggle break into the nexus and find Darhk, oozing magic, and not even a little bit upset to see them.

What did you think of “Monument Point”? Do you think we’ll see any Nyssa or Sara as the season comes to a close?

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