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“Arrow” recap (4.10): Anarchy!

My Arrow recaps will continue because Nyssa will definitely be back again someday, but I’ll also be recapping Legends of Tomorrow, following that bisexual badass Sara Lance where’er she goes. So keep an eye out for that recap tomorrow!

Previously on Arrow, Thea set a man who loved the anarchy symbol but hated spelling things correctly on fire (and his name was Anarky), Darhk threatened Oliver’s loved ones when Oliver tried to stop his evil plots, Oliver proposed to Felicity, Felicity said yes, and Felicity was immediately punished for that decision by way of a myriad of bullets.

We return to the Arrowverse four months from “now” but in a scene we’ve visited once before; Oliver and Barry at someone’s grave, Oliver vowing to kill the man responsible.

Just to make sure a healthy amount of fear for Felicity’s life is ramped up to overwhelming, we jump to “now,” where Felicity is being worked on at a hospital that I hope is in no way affiliated with Mercy Grace Seattle West Grey Sloane Memorial Hospital for the Disaster Prone and Over-Dramatic. At the same time, we’re seeing the Green Arrow going ghosthunting, but as usual, Darhk’s Ghosts vanquish themselves before giving up any information.

Back at the Arrow Cave, Laurel comes in to tell Oliver that Felicity is going in for another surgery and that he should go see her before she does, but he thinks she’d rather he get Darhk, so off into the night he goes.

But it’s okay, because not only is everyone else at the hospital, but FELICITY IS ALIIIIVE.

And better yet, she’s smiling. Her energy is turned down to about a 2, but she’s still the same old Felicity, assuring the worried faces around her that everything is going to be fine.

Back at HQ, Diggle goes to find his brother, whose muscles must be nearly atrophied from still being in that damn cage, and starts getting punchy with him, desperate to get answers about Darhk.

Unable to get Ghosts to talk, Oliver goes to Captain Lance and asks him to give up his undercover gig and tell him where he’s been meeting Darhk. Oliver starts to storm out with a hatefire in his eyes, and Lance asks if he’s back to “dropping bodies,” a hint of disapproval in his voice. But Oliver assures him it’s a singular body he’s after.

Oliver goes to the place Lance used to meet Darhk and finds a bunch of Ghosts in the entranceway, already busted. He also finds a big red anarchy symbol, so he knows exactly who he’s dealing with.

And that someone is Manchin, who is after Darhk because he auditioned to be a Ghost and got rejected, and his sensitive male ego was hurt. Well also his face almost got burned off, but that was Thea’s fault, not Darhk’s. Thea and Laurel ask Oliver how he found Darhk’s lair, but he’s too busy to answer questions.

Diggle goes home and his wife is like, “Hey, am I ever going to be able to leave this apartment?” Diggle chuckles nervously and changes the subject by telling her how he punched his brother and weirdly it didn’t make him more cooperative. Lyla tells him to calm down and treat Andy like the brother he is instead of an animal in a cage, despite the fact that he’s living in a literal cage. Diggle thanks her for being the smart one, always, and goes off to take her advice.

On the way to the hospital to visit Felicity, Thea admits to Laurel that she’s worried Manchin will be mad about the whole setting-him-on-fire thing. Laurel is supportive and assures her it’ll be fine.

Thea confesses about the time Darhk sucked the bloodlust out of her and how she thought that was the end of us, but now she realizes her bloodlust created an evil villain, so she’s feeling guilty. Laurel tells her they can talk about it more at home in the bed they share and heads into Felicity’s room where she finds her dad and Mama Smoak practically canoodling.

Lance tries to sputter excuses about why he didn’t tell Laurel but she doesn’t care, she’s just worried about him now that Darhk is no longer, well, in the dark about him being a mole. Lance is more worried about his daughter because the Lazarus Pit is dried up and he would like his little canaries to keep singing.

Back at the Cave, Team Arrow figures out (thanks to a tip from the SCPD) that Machin’s foster parents’ blood was found at HIVE, and that they have been missing for a few days. They think maybe he’s staying in their house, so they try to do Felicity’s thing to find him-and have a bit of a hard time.

They get it eventually and go to his childhood home, where they find it in a state even the Gallagher brood would call messy, and all the pictures on the wall have scratched out faces. They hear a TV in the living room and creep up on Machin, who is wearing a burn mask. He’s surprised they’re not Ghosts but is down with killing them anyway. He’s especially pleased to see Thea, who Oliver saves from an automatically appearing gun party.

Everyone hides and I know it’s serious, and they’re being shot at but LOOK!

THEY’RE SO ADORABLE!

Everyone splits up and try to avoid all the booby traps, and eventually Machin gets Thea alone. He starts spewing crazy villain babble about how Thea saved him but Laurel shows up to save the day.

The Team takes him to an abandoned warehouse. Thea says she wants to put Machin-awaymaybe to a prison on an island-somewherebut Oliver wants to know how he found Darhk without Lance’s intel. So the Green Arrow interviews him-violently.

Thea interrupts the interrogation to say that Felicity’s surgery didn’t go well, and Oliver has to get to the hospital right away, so he does.

Diggle goes back to Arrow HQ and apologizes to his brother, and talks to him like they’re actually siblings. Andy fully buys into Darhk’s plan to reset the world, but Diggle says that’s not what this is about. Darhk hurt Felicity, a woman he describes as “better than you and me put together” which is true no matter which characters you insert into those two positions. Except maybe Sara and Nyssa because the two of them together is everything. Anyway, Andy finally gives in and mentions that sometimes Darhk talked about something called Stonehaven.

In the warehouse, Machin calls Thea “Speedy” and watches her struggle to stay calm while he rambles on about his baptism by fire, his phoenix rebirth.

Anarky asks Speedy why she won’t just kill him, and she says she can control herself. He taunts her to the point where she has an arrow pressed into his throat, but before she can figure out if it’s a line she’d cross, she hears sirens and splits.

Oliver runs to the hospital, where he finds a fuming Mama Smoak, pissed he hasn’t been there. She tells him that Felicity’s doctors said they can’t fix her; the spinal damage was permanent, and Felicity will never walk again. Oliver doesn’t believe in the word “never” and is distracted by the TV showing news of Laurel arresting Manchin.

So instead of going in to see Felicity, he gives in to the call of the green hood and catches up with Machin’s paddywagon. He sets Anarky free and simply says, “Make sure he’s dead.”

Laurel. is. pissed.

But Oliver doesn’t like it when someone accurately points out when he was wrong, so he tries to compare him setting Anarky loose with Laurel letting Sara escape while she was still feral. The two situations are so different, Laurel doesn’t even know where to start, but Diggle sends her away so he can tell Oliver he has a lead on Darhk. When Oliver calms down, Diggle reminds him that regaining his humanity (and sense of humor) is why Felicity loves him, and he has to be especially careful not to lose that now that Sara is back in the game.

Across town, Thea finds the campaign manager…whose name is…wait, I know this…Will? Jake? Hold on… Alex! His name is Alex “White Bread” Davis. Yawn. Anyway, Thea breaks up with him because she’s not so sure she can control her anger but he’s a Nice Guy so he tells her she’s made of steel and will wait until she’s ready to be with him.

Thea goes to the Arrow Cave to find a cloud of grumpiness hanging over everyone. The tracker on Machin went dead, so they’re at a standstill. Thea tells her big brother he needs to be with Felicity, and having no more excuses and being unable to say no to those doe eyes, he relents.

At the hospital, despite everything, Felicity Smoak is still smiling.

He apologizes for being so MIA, but she understands, assuming he wasn’t on vacation in Bali. Oliver admits that he’s worried that if he had just killed Darhk when he had the chance, Felicity wouldn’t be in this position, but she waves the thought away. She tells him that he can still get out of the whole “for worse” thing, what with her being paralyzed now, but he promises her that’s not why he hasn’t been around. He gives her back the engagement ring the nurse had to take off her and promises he’ll be there for her no matter what.

Oliver tells Laurel that even though they’re the ones who go out and fight tooth and nail every night, Felicity is stronger than all of them, and Laurel wholeheartedly agrees.

Team Arrow finds out that Machin has Damien Darhk’s wife and kid tied up and busts in. Anarky is all about chaos but this whole “capture me, arrest me, set me free, capture me” thing is getting old. Laurel and Diggle save the family while the Queens tag-team Machin. They have to split up when Darhk shows, Oliver obviously taking Darhk while Thea secures Machin to a tree.

Darhk and Oliver fight, but when Oliver says he saved Darhk’s family from Machin, Darhk says that he’s earned a few weeks to live, and implores him to enjoy it.

Thea has the chance to kill Machin but doesn’t take it, and when he gets free and knocks her down, he doesn’t kill her either but runs away instead.

When she gets home, Thea invites Alex over for a drink, saying that he was right, she’s stronger than she thought she was and that she’s in control. THANK GOD SHE HAD A MAN TELL HER. Ugh. Whatever, Thea’s a badass, I’ll let White Bread go untoasted for now.

BECAUSE FELICITY. IS. ALIVE.

Oliver asks Felicity if she wants to go to Bali, and Felicity tells him that unless Darhk is in Bali, they’re not going anywhere. Oliver asks her how she got to be so strong, and even though the correct answer to, “Since when are you such a badass?” is, “Since always,” she’s probably on a lot of pain meds and doesn’t have the energy to deal with ManPain Oliver, so she just credits him for her strength.

On the road to nowhere, Damien Darhk cradles his daughter and has a glaring match with his “wife.” She’s pissed he let the Green Arrow go because something called “Genesis” is almost ready, but Darhk isn’t particularly worried.

Flash forward again to four months from now, finally moving past the bit at the graveyard. Oliver gets into a limo, where Felicity sits, dressed in black, stock-still, with tears in her eyes. But alive. She tells Oliver he has to, “Kill the son of a bitch.”

Which is a lot coming from Felicity.

Any guesses as to who is in the ground, now that we know Felicity is safe?

How did you like “Blood Debts”?

What started as a joke after one of my recaps has sort of taken off, so if you want to, you can tweet along with me and some other AfterEllen readers using the hashtag #cawcawmfs. If we get enough people to play along, I’ll start doing tweet roundups at the end of my recaps!

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