Star City News: Desperate for Non-Tragic Stories
Oliver prepares for his debate with the woman he knows to be the wife of Damien Darhk, Ruve Adams, and a pun about a “Dark Horse” is thrown in somewhere. After they’ve concluded their Felicity shows Oliver her explosive glitter invitation for their engagement party.
When the Green Arrow follows the Darhk family limo, Adams reveals herself to him, making it known that they haven’t taken too kindly to being stood up by anyone. When she calls on her HIVE security unit, she makes her escape and ultimately leaves Oliver to stand around dumbfounded when the title screen arrives. The team then attempts to get to the bottom of the scheme to have Adams in the race for mayor, a role that had proved for years was not worth fulfilling.
We finally see Neal McDonough back in action as Damien Darhk after his relaxing vacation from evil-doing, as he informs his wife and his board of evil friends that “Malcolm Merlyn reached out” about a weakness of Oliver Queen’s. As the evil meeting begins, Damien pulls a Darth Vader kill via Skype on Thomas the Spaniard, who throws him shade about his wife’s ability to win the election against Oliver Queen.
Quentin’s Not Good at Keeping Secrets
Oliver and Felicity arrive at home, completely overwhelmed by Donna’s insane event planning for their engagement party. Thea pulls him aside to ask about a check that was written by their mom to someone who never cashed it… something that Oliver (and we) already knows, as it’s the check written to Samantha in a bribe from Moira several years ago. Oliver decides to keep it under wraps and not make it Thea’s concern.
As we catch up with Quentin, we find that someone is trying to kill him. He and Laurel get caught in a building rigged for demolition, and they narrowly escape. Quentin later pushes Donna away when he feels she’s endangered, putting himself in the position of lying for the sake of protecting a loved on. The tables have turned on him after a half a decade of criticizing Oliver for doing the very same. Donna walks out on him after she tells him that she can tell he’s lying and doesn’t want to date someone who can’t be honest with her.
Donna admits to Felicity in a very emotional scene that she’s been going so crazy with the engagement party planning because she is living vicariously through her daughter. It’s a fascinating evolution of a character that, when introduced, most viewers would never have anticipated such emotional depth to see from, and clues in on just how damaging Felicity’s father was as a manipulative criminal of a human being. Felicity then convinces her in the remainder of the episode that Lance’s actions were for the sake of protecting her.
The crew sneaks into an office building to snag essential information from a laptop drive, when they encounter some crazy people with nail guns. Speedy narrowly escapes with the laptop as the building, like the one Laurel and Quentin got trapped in, collapses. Someone’s doing a real number on Star City’s demolition jobs. According to intel from Andy Diggle, this week’s villains are called “The Demolition Team” and they currently work for Hive, and are very good at blowing things up.
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Oliver’s Keeping Secrets Again
After the surfacing of Moira’s nine year old check to Samantha, Thea has used her own deductive reasoning to find out that Oliver actually has a son, and brings it up to him when she has him cornered while rehearsing debate questions. Of course, Oliver has a lot of internalized emotion while keeping this fact to himself, admitting that he spends a lot of time convincing himself that he was doing the right thing. While his noble protection of his long-lost son is validated, he goes full Spider-Man levels of guilt complex by asking “How can I marry Felicity if there is this lie in between us.” Despite the fact that Thea was under the impression that Oliver really did change this past year, she agrees that keeping William a secret is the only way to keep him safe. Of course, they’re unbeknownst to the fact that Malcolm Merlyn has tipped this information off to Damien Darhk anyway.
Prior to the debate, Quentin approaches Oliver, and humbly asks for his insight about how it is possible to keep the secrets for the sake of protecting loved ones, because as fate would have it, both of these characters are doing the exact same thing
This Debate is “Gonna be ‘Uge”
Oliver, in the 20 minutes before his debate, is preparing backstage when Felicity is called with intel that Hive just so happens to be planning on taking down the building they are all currently in. How convenient for the plot. Oliver and Felicity scramble to find out how to evacuate the building – Thea’s retort is hilariously pulling the fire alarm and declaring she “I learned that in high school.” It most definitely is a way to clear a room.
Diggle falls for a booby trap when trying to dismantle the bomb then becomes busy with one of the Demolition Crew, as does the rest of Team Arrow for several minutes as combat ensues in nearly every room the very cheesy looking theater.
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As the debate begins, Oliver just can’t resist making a really bad dad joke to his political opponent when they shake hands prior to moving to their podiums. At this rate, I really hope that the final confrontation between Damien Darhk and Oliver in this season is a bounty of quippy bad jokes, because the two characters happen excel at this pastime.
A Moment for Celebration
At the party, Quentin tells the truth for Donna after she’s had much confidence revived within her by the supportive work of her daughter, and he lays out everything about having worked for Damien Darhk with a gun to his head and to Laurel for quite some time. Meanwhile, Curtis secret gift is bestowed upon Felicity: an implantable biochip powered by that PalmerTech power cell… a very emotion inducing gift that can be capable of walk once again.
As his downtime slowly comes to an end, Damien Darhk gets back to business by somehow kidnapping William, Oliver’s secret son. Of course, he won’t be secret by next Wednesday.
FLASHBACK 4.14
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→) Ryder has the prisoners pulling a shawshank. The other prisoners want to kill Oliver because he killed Vlad..
→) Oliver tells them that Conklan forced him to try to kill Oliver
→) Oliver is questioned by Ryder about the contents of the map and the inscriptions on both them, and the stone. Apparently, this all leads to a treasure of unquantifiable power. Conklin makes an entrance questioning “magic mumbo jumbo,” and instigated Oliver into a fight.
→) Fight scene. Conklin’s dead.
Rating: (8/10)
Are you a fan of Arrow, The Flash and Supergirl? Check out Ally’s review of this week’s other episode in the DCTV Universe!
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At the end of every week, Evan and Allyson meet up to chat about the weekly happenings on our podcast TYF DC Debrief, available on several platforms! You can join the conversation with us every week on Twitter @EvGriff42 @AllysonAJ and @TYFOfficial
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