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“Arrow” recap (4.22): Darhk Days

Previously on Arrow, Anarky returned and invaded Darhk’s Apocalypse Bunker Town and killed Thea’s boyfriend, Darhk stole Rubicon to begin said apocalypse, Felicity sent a nuke off-course and managed to save thousands of people, but tens of thousands still died, fueling Damien’s Darhk Magic.

We pick up where we left off, with Darhk absorbing the power from all those deaths and Oliver and Diggle showing up a little too late. They try to shoot at him, but he’s invincible now, so they get the hell out of dodge.

Down in Darhk’s Ark City-Arhk City, if you please-Merlyn finds Thea crying over Alex’s dead body. Anarky ran away, and Merlyn thinks Thea let him get away on purpose, so he has his guards grab her and drag her inside.

Felicity is in her loft watching the news about Havenrock and all the people she didn’t save.

Her dad comes in and shuts it off, telling her she can’t worry about Havenrock when there’s still a lot of work to do to save the world. Felicity instinctively hugs him, then berates herself for it, but agrees that she can’t Oliver around, she needs to get to work. Curtis shows up and is honored to meet The Calculator, despite the fact that he’s a wanted criminal.

Felicity tells Curtis that the nuke has to do with HIVE and Rubicon, and he’s on board to help. She gets a text and leaves Curtis with Noah to go to the Arrow Cave. The message Felicity got was from Thea, and after hugging Oliver to thank him for not dying, she traces the message to the Glades.

But Thea is far UNDER the Glades, where her father has tied her to a chair. Though with her defiant attitude and confident demeanor, she manages to make it look like a throne.

Merlyn has a solution for making Thea more…compliant. Because he will do anything to protect his daughter, even if she doesn’t want him to. Which I think is how you can tell that he’s a Pure Villain. He’s not protecting Thea for her; he’s doing it for himself. It’s not that he doesn’t want Thea to get hurt, he doesn’t want to lose Thea. It’s a subtle difference, but important, especially when it steers him to do things like literally take away her free will.

Anyway, Oliver goes to the Glades to find Thea but can’t see anywhere she could possibly be. But he does spot a suspicious sewer access point, so he leaps on down like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

When word gets out that two mysterious men in goofy outfits have arrived in Arhk City, Mrs. Darhk tells Merlyn that these vigilantes are here for Thea, and Merlyn is the one who kidnapped her, so it’s his mess to clean up.

Oliver and Diggle can’t believe there’s an entire city under the Glades, and Diggle compares it to Mt. Weather (which at first I thought was another The 100 reference, but then I remembered Mt. Weather is a real thing.)

In the very aboveground Star City, Felicity returns to the Loft to find Curtis drinking and having a new appreciation for Felicity. As she’s asking him to clarify, her parents come downstairs, mid-fight. Felicity takes Curtis’s beer and has a swig herself.

Mama Smoak doesn’t understand why Noah is there, so Felicity says she has news and has her mother sit down. Mama Smoak automatically assumes that she’s pregnant, but Felicity is mad. “Is that the only news a woman can have?!” But no, she’s not pregnant, she tells her mother that the world is under attack and that it’s up to her to stop it, because she’s been working with the Green Arrow for three years. Mama Smoak is stunned and mostly offended she didn’t know Felicity had been hiding this from her for so long, but is willing to wait until Felicity saves the world to discuss it further.

And Curtis for one is excited to watch the hacker duo work.

Down under, Oliver finds Alex’s body and is relieved when he finds Thea not too long after…until she points a gun at him.

Merlyn is on Thea’s heels, not even being shy about the fact that he drugged Thea. Oliver tells Merlyn that Laurel is dead because of him, but Merlyn’s not afraid; he’s sure Oliver would never kill him.

But they will fight him, and fight they do until Oliver and Diggle find a random house to hide in. They had just managed to convince the family that lived there that they just needed to lay low for a minute when Mrs. Darhk pushes a message through to everyone’s TV in Arhk City, like something out of The Hunger Games, and tells them that the intruders must be killed.

Above ground, Darhk hires Felicity’s ex-boyfriend Cooper to counter Felicity’s hacking, and though he’s good, he’s not as good as the tag-team efforts of Overwatch, the Calculator…and Curtis.

Still stinging a little from the fact that Felicity is bonding with her father, Mama Smoak takes credit for Felicity’s creativity. Noah snipes back at her, and they fight some more, but Mama Smoak stands her ground and sasses him right back.

Eventually, Cooper breaks through and talks to Felicity through the computer, sure he’s beat her, and Felicity and Curtis know this is bad news.

They hackfight for a while, but it’s not long before Felicity has the upper hand again. Cooper realizes he’s doomed about 3 seconds before his computer blows up and he’s thrown across the room.

They successfully got Rubicon offline.

Noah speaks algorithm to Felicity again, and she calls him “dad” and poor Mama Smoak looks like her heart is broken. She goes upstairs and starts stress-folding clothes, and Felicity comes to have a heart-to-heart. Mama Smoak confesses that when Felicity was seven, she took her daughter and ran, away from the man she was sure would hurt them. And that Noah probably let her believe he abandoned them so that Felicity would have one parent to believe in. But Felicity doesn’t hold this decision-or the lie-against her mother and promises that Mama Smoak could never lose her.

In Arhk City, the father of the house they’re hiding in tells Oliver and Diggle that they didn’t take the yellow pills. They believe in Genesis, because they think the world is beyond saving. So many vigilantes and superheroes have promised to make the world better, but none have come through for them. Darhk gave them hope.

Oliver worries that maybe Darhk’s followers aren’t wrong, and while Diggle is trying to convince him that there’s no way Darhk is right to want to DESTROY THE WORLD, HIVE men start knocking on the door…with bullets. Diggle takes them on while Oliver goes out back, and there he runs into Thea.

Oliver makes eye contact with his baby sister and begs her to fight this yellow pill. He reminds her that she is the kind of person never to give up, that if anyone can fight through this kind of mind control, it’s her. She’s survived worse, she’s overcome more, and as he talks to her, you can see Speedy trying to push through.

Finally, Thea breaks through and not a moment too soon. She shoots a weapon out of Merlyn’s hand and tells him that if he drugs her again, she will kill him so dead not even the fact that he’s a white man on the CW could save him.

In Arkh City’s control room, Anarky takes Darhk’s wife and daughter prisoner and demands Dahrk’s life for theirs. Diggle thinks this sounds like something they should let play out-either way, it takes care of one of the baddies they’re chasing-but Merlyn points out that Anarky can and will kill everyone down here. Oliver agrees; no one else has to die tonight. So Oliver tells Merlyn to take whoever he can out of Arhk City, despite his protests that above-ground isn’t safe because, well, nukes. Oliver promises the world won’t end, and when Merlyn calls him a fool, Oliver says if having hope makes him a fool, so be it.

In true villain fashion, Mrs. Darhk taunts Anarky from her tied-up position. She’s still sure the Darhks will win. When Team Arrow comes in, Anarky calls Thea, “Mommy” again before trying to stab Mrs. Darhk and end this quick. The Green Arrow and Speedy shoot off arrows at him, and one hits him, but one hits a tank of something that starts off a series of little explosions.

Anarky stabs Mrs. Darhk anyway, says goodbye to his mommy, and runs away as the control room collapses around them. Oliver realizes Mrs. Darhk is beyond saving, but he promises her that he’ll save her daughter and they all boot scootin boogie on out of there.

Team Arrow gets out of Arhk City in one piece, but where the Glades once were is now a crater the size of Sunnydale. Felicity panics until she gets confirmation that everyone is safe…and then panics only slightly less because while it’s great they’re all alive, Darhk is still out there.

Oliver says his job as the Green Arrow isn’t done just because they stopped Rubicon. He says the people still need hope.

Merlyn tells Darhk that his wife is dead, and his daughter is MIA but possibly still alive, plus Rubicon is offline. Darhk is fuming, and ready to let the world burn.

At the Loft, Mama Smoak tells Noah to do them all a favor and just leave. She says she knows he hasn’t changed, and that he’s dangerous, and I feel like maybe she knows something we don’t know.

She tells him that even he has to admit that him leaving would be the best thing for their daughter.

Curtis and Felicity are chatting, wondering what her parents are talking about. She explains that she thinks Mama Smoak kicked Noah out because she figured he’d go back to his Criminal ways eventually and that he would never change, and Curtis thinks this story sounds familiar.

Mama Smoak comes in and Noah leaves, probably for good, though they don’t tell Felicity that.

As soon as he’s gone, Darhk enters the Loft and Felicity, bless her heart, shoves her mother and Curtis behind her, like she can protect them with her tiny body.

And Darhk says he needs a favor from Felicity and promises that he’s about to deliver literal hell on earth.

What did you think of “Lost in the Flood”? Do you think Team Arrow will loop Nyssa in for the final battle against Darhk and Merlyn? I think it would be stupid of them not to. Heck, they should probably get Team Flash and Team Legends in on this.

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