Alrighty, the episode we finally find out who is in that dang grave.
Arrow S4E18 Eleven-Fifty-Nine Recap starts now.
Massive spoilers ahead. MASSIVE. Grab your tissues.
Andy “Man-Child” Diggle is creeping around John’s place in the dark, getting a gun out of the safe. Andy tells John that Malcolm approached him a couple of nights ago, and that HIVE knows that he’s alive. Malcolm wants him to help hijack a missile shipment, and Andy doesn’t know what to do. He’s scared to cross them by helping Team Arrow, but worried what the consequences might be if he does co-operate. Hmmm, something does not seem right here John.
Now that Team Arrow knows that Malcolm is involved with Darhk and HIVE, the stakes have been raised. One of those missiles would make a great get out of jail free card for Darhk. Oliver tells them about the idol they took from Darhk, he’s seen it before on Lian Yu, and knows how dangerous it is. They need to make sure Malcolm does not get his hands on it. Looks like a security upgrade is on the cards, if Curtis Holt can stumble in accidentally, anyone can. They make plans to use Andy’s intel to intercept the missile heist, and Oliver is not convinced that Andy is to be trusted. Good instincts, my man.
Oliver, Laurel and John goes to Ruve Adams acceptance speech for Mayor, and she introduces herself to Laurel. She informs her that the current DA is going to be her Deputy Mayor, and wants Laurel to become the new DA.
The missiles are in a truck, and Oliver and John watch the League very halfheartedly try and take control of the van. Oliver easily takes them out, with Andy helping from the back of the truck. Too easily, is what Oliver is thinking.
At the bunker, Thea and Laurel talk about Laurel taking the DA job, she’s not sure what to do. Thea talks about Malcolm, and she’s decided that their father/daughter relationship is over. Malcolm appears out of thin air and tells her that is decidedly untrue. He’s come for the idol, with a few friends. they refuse to hand it over and fight the League members off while Malcolm goes for the idol. Thea stops him, and they fight. She hesitates to kill him, and he knocks her out. By the time Laurel fights the rest off, Malcolm has gone, and the idol has gone with him.
Oliver and John rush back to the bunker, but Malcolm is gone. John decides to go to Andy and see if he can give them anything else, but Oliver is unsure. John leaves, and Oliver tells Laurel what he’s thinking about Andy, that he’s playing them. She advises him to be sure before he accuses Andy of something that he and John can’t come back from.
Over a Chinese meal, Captain Lance assumes that Laurel will be refusing the DA’s job. He tells her that she’ll be going over to the dark side, and that she’ll have 24 hour protection as the DA. The Black Canary will be done, there’s no way she can do both. And he’s come to love what she does as the Black Canary.
Andy calls through a tip that he has eyes on Malcolm in a deserted warehouse, they make their way there, but it’s a trap. Oliver and Andy end up trapped in an arrow rigged room, and Andy takes an arrow for Oliver. So he is on their side after all? Andy tells them that Malcolm will be headed for Iron Heights next.
Malcolm takes the idol to Darhk in prison, but there is a piece missing. A stone has been deliberately left off the idol, and it has no power without it. Darhk dismisses Malcolm, and tells him to come back when he’s found it.
John fixes Andy up, and he thinks he’s a dead man now that Malcolm knows he’s on Team Arrow’s side. Everyone he loves is now a target. John lets him in on the secret of the missing piece, and tells him that he was the one who hid it. Oliver overhears, and warns John that the less people know about that the better. Even after Andy took an arrow for him, Oliver is still not sure of Andy. Laurel decides to go to the prison and order a search as the DA.
Oliver sends John and Andy home to rest, and tells them he just has to run down a lead and then he’ll head home too. Next we see Andy he is searching John’s place, and Oliver appears in the room and asks him what he is doing. Andy tells him he is looking for surveillance bugs, but Oliver is not having it. He presses his thumb into Andy’s wound, and tries to get the truth out of him. He’s really looking for the stone for the idol. Andy doesn’t break, and John arrives and pulls his gun on Oliver. He tells him to get away from his brother, and Oliver tries to warn him that he is not to be trusted.
John confronts Oliver at the bunker, and Oliver lays the whole story out. It’s all been too easy, and Andy has had his fingers in everything. Oliver thinks John has a blind spot, but John says Oliver is the one that convinced him that Andy could come back from the dark. John said that Oliver managed to do it, but Oliver says he never managed to come back from it, not really. John tells him this self righteousness, and being stuck in a big puddle of miserable is what lost him Felicity.
Laurel had no luck at the prison, but Thea has hacked in to the prison security system and is monitoring the cameras. Laurel and Oliver talk about the DA promotion, and she tells him that she isn’t willing to give up being the Black Canary. Oliver replies that the team is falling apart, and this is what she has always wanted. Maybe she needs to go back to the path she was on, before the Black Canary.
At Iron Heights, Murmur is passing out library books to all the prisoners on Darhk’s block. Every book has a shiv in it, and at Darhk’s word they starts to attack the guards. They end up in the mess hall, with several guards as hostages. Team Arrow see what’s happening on the monitors, and gear up. Laurel decides she’ll be the Black Canary, one last time.
At the prison, the suspended Captain Lance arrives, and does his best at distracting the police, even punching out Lieutenant Pike. The team uses the distraction to get in, and John has brought Andy with him as backup much to Oliver’s disgust. They fan out in order to hit the mess hall from all sides. Laurel and Thea take out a few prisoners, and then Malcolm appears. Laurel continues on, and he and Thea fight again. She can’t beat him, but he can’t kill her, even though he comes close.
Darhk hear’s the vigilantes coming, and he did warn the police that if anyone entered, he’d kill the guards. He gives the order, but Oliver and the others arrive and the fight is on. Darhk stands back and watches, merely an observer. A gun gets kicked his way and he pulls it on Andy, who is currently in a headlock. Oliver and John drop their weapons, and Darhk asks Andy if he has what he asked for. Andy pulls out the stone and hands it over. He tells John that he’s been tracking all of John’s movements, and once he found out it was John who hid it, he knew just where to go.
Darhk puts the stone in to the idol and gets ready to get his mojo back, but Thea arrives and shoots two arrows into his stomach. He pulls them out and uses his own blood to try and activate the power of the idol. It doesn’t work and Andy kills two guards on Darhk’s orders, and he absorbs their life force. Know he’s switched on, and uses his powers to stop everyone in their tracks.
Darhk releases the prisoners, and he reveals that he has worked out who they all are, which still totally surprises me, the masks are not that good a disguise. Really. Darhk throws Thea and Diggle aside, into the wall. Darhk tells them he’s been waiting for this moment for a long time, and begins to address Laurel. He made a deal with Captain Lance that he wouldn’t harm Laurel if he helped him, a deal which Captain Lance reneged on. Oliver manages to break the hold long enough to fire an arrow at Darhk, but he catches it.
Darhk asks Laurel to give her father a message, he wants her to tell him that he’s a man of his word. He stabs Laurel in the torso with Oliver’s arrow and blood starts to pour from her mouth. Oliver can only watch as Darhk leaves, but runs to her side as soon as he is gone. He picks her up and runs for the hospital.
At the hospital, an emergency doctor takes over her care, and tells Oliver to leave, they are both in their Arrow gear, and Laurel does not need that kind of circus right now. Oliver goes, as the trauma team arrives.
Captain Lance is cuffed to a desk at the SCPD after his assault charge, and an officer tells him that Darhk has escaped, numerous guards are dead, and the Black Canary has been injured badly. He begs for her to get the Lieutenant on the phone, that he needs an hour and then he’ll surrender himself back in to custody.
Felicity arrives with the others to the hospital, where Laurel is still in surgery. Diggle is distraught, he blames himself for trusting Andy, when Oliver warned against it. Laurel comes back from surgery, and she’s gonna be okay. If not Laurel, then who is in that grave???
They all go in to the room, and they tell her how much they love her. Laurel tells them she’s realised that being the Black Canary makes her feel alive, and now she knows what she wants to do. They leave to let her rest, but Oliver refuses to leave her side.
Laurel asks him to get her pouch, and the old photo of her that Oliver used to look at on Lian Yu is in there. She keeps it to remind her of how things used to be, when things were simpler from them. She tells him that she’s so happy he found the love of his life in Felicity and hopes he finds her way back to her, but Oliver will always be the love of hers. He asks why she’s telling him this now, and she tells him tonight is a reminder that anything can happen. She then tells him that she needs him to promise her something.
The others are outside, and Thea tells them that Captain Lance is one his way. They are suddenly pushed out of the way by the surgeon and a crash cart. Laurel is seizing, and despite their best efforts, they can’t revive her. Team Arrow watches on in horror as the doctor calls the time of death, 11.59pm.
Oliver leaves the room, and meets Captain Lance rounding the corner. Lance sees Oliver’s face and stops in his tracks. His face falls, and he collapses to the ground.
Well, shit. I was sure it was going to be John Diggle in that box, and that would have been tragic enough. I did not see Laurel’s death coming, and that was a big shock. She’s a character that has been much maligned, and thinking back, a lot of that was deserved. She had some shitty moments, and could be super irritating. I’ve felt that this season she has really come in to her own though, and her and Oliver’s relationship as friends is what has kept the team going. This episode was a return to the dark side of Arrow, and it was great. I didn’t miss the smart arsey comments and funny faces from Felicity, or the cheesy villains that have been popping up lately. Honestly, that’s what The Flash is for. This was OG Arrow at it’s best, and it’s a shame we had to lose an OG cast member to get back to that. The White Canary is gonna be pissed when she gets back from the future, or the past. So is Tumblr for that matter.
Vale Black Canary
