One man who isn’t on Darhk’s drug however is Andy Diggle. Established a while ago that his system was clear of it, his turn to the Darhk Side (snigger) was fuelled by his zealotry and fanatical belief in Damien Darhk as his “saviour”. John can’t let Andy’s betrayal go and despite being warned by Lyla to not try to go after him alone, he goes after him alone. This actually was the episodes greatest strength, splitting up Team Arrow to tell 3 different stories sans flashbacks; John going after Andy, Oliver’s quest to learn a way to counter Darhk’s magic and Thea’s vacation, which I’ll get to in a bit.
Firstly I’ll tackle Oliver. And Felicity it would seem as she had to be squeezed in their somewhere. Whilst watching the episode I found myself literally saying aloud “Time until she makes this about herself – 5, 4, 3…”. I was off by about 30 seconds but sure as eggs is eggs she inserted herself into Oliver’s quest. Invoking Constantine in name only, as the character will likely never be seen again on Arrow due to all kinds of rights issues, Oliver has received a tip of a shaman he can track down in Hub City to teach him how to fight Darhk’s dark magic. This shaman comes in the form of the immortal and beautiful Fortuna, who they encounter at the blackjack table. After revealing herself to Oliver and Felicity, she takes them into a back room, which isn’t a back room at all but simultaneously a shrine to some dark power and a recycled set from Lian Yu. There we’re given a vague idea of light and dark magics and that Oliver, empowered by the tattoo that Constantine gave him, can potentially tap into that light side and beat back the dark. This isn’t without problems though as Oliver has a lot of darkness in him. Whilst practicing repelling a dark magic attack from Fortuna, Oliver sees flashes of everyone he’s ever loved that has died over the course of the show, and it should be noted that whilst there were no flashbacks, we did see a shot of Taiana, her eyes all aglow. Something bad happened to her on the Lian Yu, something we’ve yet to see and frankly I can’t wait. We know Oliver promised her that if something should happen to her, he would go to Russia to deliver a message to her family. An as yet untold part of Oliver’s five years away is exactly how and when he learned Russian and became embroiled with the Bratva (Russian Mafia), so it looks as though Taiana’s days are numbered. Considering how many episodes are left in this season, I’m going to guess 19 (ARROW Season 4 final airs Wed. May 25). Anyway, Oliver is told that the darkness in him is too great and that he can never learn the power needed to defeat Darhk. We’re then treated to the show telling us how much light Felicity has in her and I found myself screaming internally at the possibility of having Felicity turn out to be some sort of chosen one to defeat Darhk. Thankfully that didn’t happen. Yet.
Back in Star City, John follows a lead on Andy and tracks him down to yet another abandoned building. After getting captured I genuinely panicked at the thought of John being turned by those yellow pills but instead, John managed to break free after being tortured back his brother. Turns out this was all part of Darhk’s plan as Andy had placed a tracker on John leading HIVE straight to their real target, Lyla. As head of ARGUS, now living in a mobile command unit on the back of a constantly moving semi-truck, Lyla has something Darhk wants and they go after it with full force, not seeming to care that baby Sara is in the mix too. Thankfully Oliver and Felicity arrive back in time to save the Diggles, including baby Sara but not before Damien Darhk pulls something out of Lyla’s arm. He attacks Oliver, once again with his dark magic, only for Oliver to this time repel it, oddly enough using the same glowing eyes that we saw Taiana have. Seems that Oliver is tapping into the power of light and that Taiana may not have died badly, but instead saving the day.
John corners Andy and is once again faced with the prospect of killing his younger brother, but this time it’s different. The threat to his family, to his wife and baby daughter have now been realised and when goaded by Andy, Diggle takes the shot. It wasn’t 100-percent his choice as it appeared Andy was going for his gun, something I wish the writer’s hadn’t done, but I guess they want to keep their heroes from being straight up killers, unless it’s self-defence (see ARROW Season 1 for just how short memories they think we must have).
Now Thea’s story is just weird. She goes on a vacation with Alex, a getaway to the suburbs or the country, we’re never told and that is kind of a problem. Straight away Thea feels that something is up. She can’t remember how they got there or even where “there” is. Alex passes it off as her just being exhausted. Thea then picks up that the bird calls and dog barking she can hear in the distance is on a 15-second loop. The slow building dread and realisation that something is off is thrown away thanks to Thea seemingly superhuman levels of focus. It’s then revealed that Alex is on the yellow pills (I knew it!) and that the quaint little town they are staying in a nothing more than a fake. A veritable Pleasantville built in an underground bunker by HIVE. For what reason?
Turns out the thing Darhk pulled from Lyla’s arm was Rubicon, the MacGuffin featured back in Episode 11. Turn out it’s not just a MacGuffin anymore. Specifically it’s was a sub-derma; implant containing a program designed to cancel out all nuclear launches across the globe and with a few tweaks, Darhk is going to use it to destroy the world. Rubicon is Darhk’s flood and the phony town is his ark. Finally, with three episodes to go, we know what the stakes are for the final battle.
Written by Nick Whitney, ARROW Beat Writer -- Click here to read Nick's posts
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