Hope for Olicity
The past few episodes of Arrow have seen a softening of these two towards one another. Grief has overshadowed everything, and professionalism while dealing with Team Arrow business. But gone are Felicity’s bitter snarks and Oliver’s mournful looks in her direction. In fact, Felicity is back on the team, unconditionally! This week, though, we saw some significant movement towards a possible reconciliation for these two.
After Oliver announces he plans to travel to Hub City to meet with an associate of Constantine’s who can teach him how to defend himself from Darhk’s magic, Felicity insists on going with him. Why? Because she’s worried about him. And because he doesn’t have to do everything alone. He doesn’t really argue, realizing that the help is appreciated. And it turns out, the help is needed. The contact is in a swanky underground casino and no one is more at home at a blackjack table than Felicity Smoak.
It’s Felicity’s natural light that draws their contact, Esrin Fortune, to reveal herself and offer to assist Oliver. After his inner darkness causes him to fails the test Fortuna sets for him, he tells Felicity that he’s accepted that he can never rid himself of that darkness. It was just as she’d told him when they broke up. Felicity tells him that she spoke out of hurt and that he’s not perfect but she isn’t either. Oliver can change, he can become the light. Her faith seems to bolster him. It also indicates that perhaps, she might be ready to forgive him and perhaps consider a reconciliation in the future.
This is even more clear when he tells her later that thinking of her helped him find his light and repel Darhk’s magic. Love will help save the day, mark my words.
Hope for Oliver
Oliver has had a rough go of it in the last half of this season of Arrow so far. The implosion of his relationship with Felicity knocked him back quite a few steps, especially when it caused him to wonder if he was always destined to revert to being the same dark man the island created. After all, Felicity told him he couldn’t change, right?
When she took back his words, it was the first time Oliver considered that he could perhaps fight the darkness and hold onto the light. It wasn’t about borrowing Felicity’s light, which he has always counted on, but finding his own inside of him. He’ll need this hope, this light, this life inside of him if he wants to defeat Darhk and save everyone. After tonight, I feel like he can probably do it too.
Diggle losing hope
In the aftermath of Laurel’s death, Diggle isn’t doing very well. He’s obsessed with atoning for Laurel’s death, still believing he’s the primary cause of her death. He traces that cause directly to Andy so he believes the answer is to confront his brother once and for all.
Dig won’t listen to anyone else about not going after Andy alone and ends up chasing him directly into a trap. After his brother tortures him (TORTURES. HIM.), Dig manages an escape where Lyla gives him a tongue lashing about not listening. He really is turning into Oliver! Of course, they both soon realize the reason Dig got away so easily is because Andy put a tracker on him, leading him, Damien, and the Ghosts directly to Lyla and baby Sara’s safe house/heavily armored semi-truck.
Dig straps baby Sara to his back and takes off on a motorcycle, compelling Andy and the Ghosts to give him chase. This leaves Lyla for Darhk and he seems ready to do her damage. He’s doing something to her arm when interrupted by Oliver. They fight and when it appears that Darhk and his mojo have the upper hand, Oliver repels him. He did it by thinking of Felicity and all the good things in his life.
Felicity gives Dig an assist by running over the Ghosts, and Dig hands off the baby before chasing his brother down one last time. Andy makes it clear that he won’t ever stop terrorizing Dig’s family. Poor Dig has finally heard enough and gives in to the taunting, shooting and killing his brother. It leaves him a wreck and even Oliver isn’t sure what to do to make him feel better. Lyla tries to comfort him, but then more pressing matters surface: Darhk took the implant out of her arm!
What’s in the implant? Oh, only some technology that makes it possible for Darhk to take control of the world’s nuclear missiles. Genesis is a flood, and Darhk’s flood is a nuclear holocaust. But if there’s a “flood”, then there’s the “ark”?
Thea needs some hope
Alex whisks Thea away for a much needed vacation. However, not everything is right in Pleasantville. In fact, the perfection of the little suburban neighborhood that she wakes up in after falling asleep in the car on the way out of town is disturbing to her. Something isn’t right and she can’t quite bring herself to relax. The nature sounds outside are on a loop, there’s no wifi (Felicity would hate this place)… even Alex seems off.
When Thea discovers Alex is taking special vitamins provided to him by his new boss Ruvè, she realizes things are very, very wrong indeed. Those are the same pills Darhk gives to his Ghosts to make them easy to control. Alex, therefore, is being controlled by Darhk. She runs out of the house, but before she can reach freedom, she slams into an invisible wall. As she presses on the barrier, she realizes it’s a generated field.
The camera pulls back to reveal the entire neighborhood is in a dome, buried underneath Star City. This is Damien Darhk’s ark, a place that will remain safe when he enacts his “flood” upon the world. Remember the nukes that he now can control? That’ll be his flood and he will launch those nukes, not just at Star City, but everywhere.
Damn, this guy is evil.
