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“Arrow” recap (4.23): Let there be light

Previously on Arrow, Oliver ran for mayor but was blackmailed to drop out by the Darhks, Damien Darhk built a HIVE of followers using magic and persuasion pills, Darhk killed Laurel for no good reason, Felicity stopped the end of the world save one missile that killed enough people to make Darhk superpowered, and Darhk busted into Felicity’s Loft to ask for her help.

We pick up where we left off, in Felicity’s Loft, with our precious hacker using her tiny body to shield her family and friends. Unfortunately, Darhk has supermagic, so he tosses Curtis across the room and pulls Mama Smoak towards him, excited to have more leverage than he thought he would. He starts to suck out Mama’s life force, but the Green Arrow swoops in to stop him. Darhk calls his HIVE buddies in to fight him and Spartan, while Felicity folds herself over her Mama the best she can.

Darhk starts to use his life-sucking power on Oliver, but Thea busts in just in time, threatening Baby Darhk and forcing Damien to release her brother. In a flash and a bang, Darhk and his Ghosts disappear.

Curtis is hit and the laptop with the anti-Rubicon software is gone, so the team regroups in the Arrow Cave to figure out what’s next. After they get Curtis stable (which is shocking considering he’s a queer POC, but I guess his manhood is enough to save him on this show), Felicity asks Oliver why his Care Bear Stare didn’t work against Darhk’s magic this time. But Darhk absorbed the deaths of tens of thousands of people, so not even Felicity’s inner light can save them now.

Felicity updates him on her findings: The good news is, Darhk hasn’t launched the nukes quite yet. The bad news is, she can’t find her stolen laptop and therefore can’t stop that from happening should he choose to. But before long she does ping the GPS and sends Team Arrow to HIVE’s old digs. Unfortunately, it was a trick, and only the laptop’s GPS is there; the actual laptop is nowhere to be found. And now? Well, now the missiles are launched. Over 15,000 of them. In two hours or less, the world will end.

Felicity asks Lance to save Mama Smoak, Diggle and Lyla say goodbye to Baby Sara. Things look bleak.

Lyla sends her Argus team to City Hall, despite Oliver’s warnings that they are no match for Darhk. It’s Lyla’s call, and this is what she wants her team to do.

In City Hall, in his secret evil magic cave, Darhk is sitting with his daughter, waiting to die. Argus busts in and Darhk takes them all out like they’re an invasion of flies that he is annoyed to have to swat away during a nice picnic. Team Arrow listens as Lyla’s team gets slaughtered, and Oliver knew this would happen, but even a broken clock is right twice a day, amiright?

On a more positive note, Felicity finally got through some firewalls, and they’re making progress on the Rubicon front.

But before she can fully get in, HIVE invades the Arrow cave. They fight, and Laurel’s empty costume mannequin falls to the ground, just as a slap to our collective face. Diggle has a PTSD flashback about Andy and hesitates, forcing Lyla to kill a guy for him. Of course the second Thea is in danger, Merlyn swoops in out of nowhere. Felicity continues to be badass since always. Once they win the fight, they survey the damage, and realize they’re almost out of time. Felicity gently lifts Laurel’s mannequin, saying that she misses her, wondering what she would think of all this. Oliver says she’d be stubbornly optimistic that they can still fight their way out of this, but even Felicity “Actual Ray of Sunshine” Smoak is running out of hope. Oliver laments his failings, saying that he came back from their suburban daydream to unite this city, but all he’s done is muck it up. He wonders aloud if his coming back lead to Laurel’s death, but Felicity won’t let him think like that.

When it comes down to it, Darhk and Darhk alone killed Laurel. The only people to blame are the writers of the show.

Curtis gets up and says that if all of them are out of hope, he can offer some. He’s not quite as jaded, he still has a lot of fight in him. He says sure they’re low on time, but they still have some. Star City is dangerous, full of inexplicable evils, yet people still live here. A certain type of people. A people with a drive to live, a people with a fierce pride in their city. He thought of leaving once, but the Green Arrow gave him hope, reminded him that this city is worth saving. So why not use that gift now?

Oliver takes Curtis’s advice, but this time it won’t be the Green Arrow giving the people hope. Dressed as Oliver Queen, he wades through the bedlam on the streets, hops onto a cab, and gives a speech about working together to survive, to protect Star City.

And then the nuke appears in the sky.

Curtis is excited, which confuses everyone, but Felicity understands. They put their nerdbrains together and use its nearness to hack the missile and redirect it, saving the city. Unfortunately, it was just one nuke, and there are still thousands of more on their way. They have to cut Rubicon off a the source, which seems to be located at a warehouse.

Oliver sends his team to the warehouse while he heads to City Hall to face Darhk. He tells his team that he’s not going to die tonight, so they all put on brave faces and get down to business.

Lyla asks Diggle why he froze when the Ghosts attacked, and Diggle confesses what really happened with Andy. Lyla understands, because Lyla is a rational human being.

The Green Arrow finds Darhk who is grumpy that someone else is crashing his Daddy/Daughter Waiting-for-Death party. Darhk fights Oliver, dragging him outside and away from his daughter, telling him to stop fighting the inevitable. He calls Genesis a global mercy killing. He’s saving everyone from pain.

But everyone doesn’t want to be saved from pain. And everyone shows up to tell him just that. The town rallies behind Oliver, telling Darhk to GTFO. Oliver shoots an arrow and actually nicks Darhk for once…everyone’s hope is weakening his power. But Darhk doesn’t only have magic on his side, he also has League of Assassins training. At which point I was hoping Nyssa would drop from the sky, but alas.

At the Rubicon Warehouse, Felicity and Thea find Cooper, bloody and bone-tired and hacking away to keep Darhk from moving the bullet inside him into his spine. Felicity asks to talk to him alone, and when he says that he’s still running Rubicon because he’s afraid of the pain Darhk will inflict if he stops, Felicity tells him to fight it. Tells him to be strong and brave. If he stops, maybe he’ll die. But if he keeps going, everyone will.

Felicity tells Cooper to be the man she fell in love with, and even just the memory of having been loved by someone as wonderful as Felicity Smoak is enough for him to muster up the courage to stop launching Rubicon.

He immediately is killed by the rogue bullet, and Felicity apologizes to him and gets to work.

Oliver and the rest of Team Arrow show up, but so does HIVE. Merlyn tries to get Felicity to go faster, offering mansplainy/unhelpful suggestions like “have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in again” so she ignores him and nerdbrains with Curtis again to come up with a solution.

Eventually, in the thick of the fight, Oliver gets Darhk by the lapels and Darhk smirks his cocky smirk at him, saying Oliver will never kill him. But Oliver doesn’t have a choice, not this time. When you find a way to stop the unstoppable, you have to try it. So he stabs Darhk right in the gut with an arrow. Appropriately, not unlike how Darhk killed Laurel.

After saving the world, quite literally, Team Arrow regroups to figure out what comes next. Lance tells Felicity that he’s going on vacation with her Mama. Thea is having an identity crisis and needs to separate herself from Speedy. She threatened a little girl and can’t stop thinking about what Laurel would say about that, so she needs a break to figure out who she is before she turns into Merlyn.

Oliver is sad, but he understands.

Once it’s just Felicity, Oliver and Diggle, Felicity tries to get them excited because it’s the OG Team Arrow, the Triple Threat, back together again. But the boys are still feeling rather broody and are unable to share the excitement of the girl who just saved their asses.

She beebops away, and Diggle tells Oliver that he has to take a break from being Spartan, too.

Oliver goes to the cemetery to talk to Laurel and says that Laurel was better than Oliver in every way, and that he knows she wouldn’t have approved of him going dark on Darhk, but that it’s over now at any rate.

Felicity is there, and reassures Oliver that it wasn’t murdering Darhk that stopped him, not really. It was the hope Oliver inspired in everyone, the unity he created.

Felicity says that people aren’t good or evil. There is a duality to all of us. He just has to learn to balance the light and the dark.

A government official calls him and gives Oliver a new direction in life…he is sworn in as the Deputy Mayor of Star City.

Papa Lance and Mama Smoak drive away, Thea mopes in the apartment she once shared with Laurel, Diggle dons his military uniform once again and says goodbye to his family.

Oliver goes down to the Arrow cave to look at the mannequins, suits without owners, memories and nostalgia. An uncertain future. But Felicity skips in and proves one thing is certain: She’s not going anywhere.

What did you think of “Scism”? What do you think next season has in store for us? Will Lyla team up with Oliver and Felicity? Curtis, too? Have we officially seen the last of Nyssa? Do you think Kara Danvers and Felicity Smoak are going to cross paths next year?

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