Arrow S2:E17 Beacon of Hope Recap starts now!

Spoilers Bee Ahead

The episode opens on Brie Larvan (Emily Kinney, The Walking Dead) in Iron Heights Prison, hacking into her file and changing her release date to the 29th of March 2016. Brie was sent to prison after Felicity Smoak helped the Flash take her down previously.

In the Arrowcave, the team is sparring and Oliver takes Thea, Laurel and finally Diggle down. He tells them that they need to keep up their endurance, things may be quiet since they took down Damien Darhk, but it won’t always be that way as H.I.V.E. won’t stay down for long. Laurel takes him aside and tells him it’s okay if he misses Felicity, but he needs to stop taking it out on the team and relax for a change.

At Palmer Tech, Felicity and Curtis are reviewing the blueprints for the chip she has in her spine, Felicity is not pleased that the chip costs a quarter of a million to produce. It makes the chip a luxury only the very rich can afford, and there were 12,000 new spinal injuries in the current year. Curtis tells her that he’s brought it down from three quarters of a million, he’s not sure how much more he can cut it. Curtis starts to sneeze all over the place, and Felicity insists that he go home and get some chicken noodle soup in to him. Donna Smoak arrives and she wants to do lunch but Felicity has a board meeting to attend. Thea rocks up next wanting to talk about a job for her boyfriend Alex.

Malcolm Merlyn goes to Iron Heights prison to visit Damien Darhk. He tells him that H.I.V.E. have decided they don’t need him anymore and prefer that he is in prison. They have decided to move forward with the Genesis program without him.

At the Palmer Tech meeting, the board is waiting on Felicity, who has decided she is in no hurry to placate them. A board member begins to have stomach pains, and collapses to the floor. He suddenly spews forth a swarm of bees from his mouth. Brie Larvan enters the boardroom and threatens them with a larger bee attack, unless she can have the bio-stimulant chip currently located in Felicity’s spine.

Felicity is talking to Thea, and Donna is checking her makeup on her phone camera, when Brie appears on all the screens at Palmer Tech. She shows them the board members behind her, and asks to talk to Felicity, or the board gets it. Brie signs off, and Felicity knows just who she is of course. The one thing Felicity has going for herself right now is that Brie doesn’t know it was her that hacked her bees last time. Donna wants to get Felicity out of Palmer Tech, but they can’t get a phone signal out of the building because Brie has jammed communications. Meanwhile, a massive swarm of bees circles the Palmer Tech building.

At home with his hubby Paul, and a bowl of soup, Curtis is watching a news report, and is increasingly worried about Felicity.  He takes off to try and help, only telling Paul that the Police have failed so there must be another way.

Captain Lance arrives at the bunker, and Oliver tells him and Laurel about the Flash’s previous fight with Brie. Lance tells them that Donna is there too, and they go and suit up.

Felicity gets another warning from Brie, this time she gets ten minutes to give over the chip. Thea sticks her head out of the office, and the bees are already making there way in to the building. Felicity pulls off a vent cover and tells Thea and Donna it’s their only way out. They emerge in a utility wing, but the bees are still after them. They hide themselves in a cleaning closet

Curtis shows up to Oliver’s empty mayoral office, using the tracker that was given to him when he helped rescue Ray Palmer to find the Green Arrow. He accidentally opens the door to the lift to the bunker underneath. “Secret lair!”, he exclaims.

When the lift hits the bottom, Team Arrow draw their weapons at the unannounced intruder. “Holy frack,” Curtis says wide eyed. He sees Oliver all suited up, and says “You’re-?”, then sees Laurel, and Diggle. He announces that he’s about to faint, but it’s totally because he’s sick, not because he’s having a fan girl moment.

At Iron Heights prison, two thugs under the control of a creepy lip stitched dude called Murmur attack Damien Darhk. He gets a few shots in but eventually starts to get the shite beaten out of him, until a guard arrives and breaks up the fight.

Curtis is awoken with smelling salts by Oliver, and freaks out when he realises it was not a dream. He says hi to Laurel, and Captain Lance, recognising them from the news. Diggle? Nope no idea. He geeks out over all their tech and computers, and Oliver asks him to focus and tell them how he found them. Curtis gets on the computer and starts going through all Felicity’s files, and gets a quick handle on the situation. He offers to have a crack at hacking the bees, and Oliver agrees.

Curtis manages to hack a bee and communicates with Felicity, and they are all shocked to see him in the bunker. He tells them Team Arrow is on their way, but loses control as they arrive outside the building to meet the girls. The bees form themselves into a man like figure and he attacks. Oliver gets stung, and the girls manage to get back into Palmer Tech unharmed. The others take Oliver back to the bunker where he is in a great deal of pain. The bee has injected itself into Oliver and is currently working at replicating itself inside him

Felicity gets a new message from Brie, and gives her another five minutes, due to the Bee Man interruption. She notices that Brie is messaging her from her office, which is a good thing as she is not with the board members. And then, she gets an idea.

Curtis tells them that the only way they can change the bees behaviour is by introducing a new frequency to confuse them. Unfortunately, they would have to have a sonic projector, and wouldn’t you know it, Lauren’s Canary suit has the sonic scream. Curtis is blown away by laurel’s tech, and gets her ready to scream. It works, smashing almost everything in the bunker in the process, and the bees wipe themselves out inside Oliver.

At Palmer Tech, Felicity has the idea of using the elevator that went to the old Arrow bunker to get out of the offices. It is not designed to stop on the way down, but Felicity stops it manually and uses some of Curtis’ T-Spheres to blow out the concrete wall into the conference room. Her plan works, and she shepherds Donna and the board members in. Brie arrives with her bees, and Felicity sends the elevator down, without her and Thea inside.

She forces them back into the office and demands that Felicity hands the chip over. Brie starts to lecture them about bees and accidentally reveals that she has a tumor wrapped her spinal cord, and needs the chip so that she can walk after the surgery she needs. Felicity agrees to give her what she wants, and tells her where she can find the blueprints.

Curtis makes some jokes after getting rid of the bees inside Oliver, and Oliver cracks it telling him that this is a very serious job, that people’s lives depend on them. Laurel tells him to back off, and asks whether he might like to kick a puppy instead. Oliver tells her that he needs to know how this life is, and that the only time he has been content was when he and Felicity where in Ivy Town, away from all this. Everything has pretty much gone to shit since then, so he’s not in the mood for a high five okay?

At Iron Heights, the two prisoners arrive to take on  Darhk again but this time Murmur kills them. Darhk made a few calls and found out about Murmur’s grandmother, the only person he loves, and threatened her life. He asks Murmur to pass on the message he had trusted him with earlier, and I’m hoping he has access to texting because um, stitched lips are not so good in conversation.

Back at the lair, Curtis is still trying to hack in to the bees. They change their behaviour whenever anything changes, like a Borg, and he comes up with the idea of uploading a virus to them the next time that they upgrade themselves.  Curtis loads a computer virus onto an arrowhead, and Oliver is impressed.

Felicity manges to hack into the network, but is interrupted by Brie. She has the blueprints, but while in the system, recognised some of Felicity’s coding, and knows that it was her that sent her to prison.

Team Arrow heads to Palmer Tech, but the Bee Man arrives behind them. Their shots and the Canary Cry, have no effect  but they make it into the building. Oliver ties Brie up, and checks on Felicity. Bee Man is here again and he takes out Thea, throwing her in to a coffee table. Oliver has shot his arrow, and the virus begins to upload into the bees. He and Bee Man fight it out, but Oliver gets taken down. Felicity is the only one left standing and smashes a lamp, and shoves the electrified end into Bee Man’s chest, shorting out all the bees. They drop to the floor, and Bee Man is no more. Everyone gets up, but Brie has escaped and shoots Oliver in the chest.

Meanwhile, Curtis has a sample bee to study, and is working at hacking in to it. He has everything ready when suddenly he and Captain Lance hear buzzing. The bee he was studying has managed to adapt and is after them. They are chased around the bunker, and numerous things get smashed, and Curtis manages to throw a few Olympic standard athlete moves in. Lance manages to squish it with a coffee pot. Curtis races back to the computer and finishes his hack into the bees and takes control. The bees turn on Brie and sting her until she is unconscious.

Back at the bunker, Curtis is shocked that Brie is in a coma, and while happy to get some praise and an apology from Oliver, thinks that this life is maybe not for him. He’s beginning to feel unwell again, and finding everything out, he’s worn out. Oliver tells him he’s welcome back anytime, just as long as he keeps the property damage to a minimum this time. Curtis goes home to Paul, and apologises for running off and not telling him where he was. He promises he won’t do it again, he saw enough to know that he belongs at home with Paul.

Thea tries to convince Felicity to return to Team Arrow, but Felicity has decided to use Palmer Tech to do good. That she doesn’t need Team Arrow to make a difference in the world.

Malcolm is talking to a mystery person inside a limo, he received the message from Darhk, telling him about this particular person. “He said you were his ace in the hole. Is that what you would like me to call you? Or do you prefer Mr Diggle?” Oh hell no, it’s that man child Andy Diggle. You better not be betraying our John again! Motherflipper!