Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Arrow S04 E22: Lost in the Flood

In the last episode of "Arrow," the town of Havenrock was nuked in order to save the much more populous city of Monument Point. The unavoidable death toll is in the tens of thousands instead of millions. The disaster has made Damien Darhk near invincible. He's powerful enough to kill Green Arrow and Spartan, but he doesn't, so they will live long enough to die in the armageddon when Darhk gets the rest of the missile codes. Rookie James Bond villain mistake - always kill the heroes, always.

Felicity is taking it hard, and she had a hard choice, she didn't want anyone to die. They're going to need help to keep the codes from Darhk, so she enlists Curtis, who more than a little starstruck by her hacker dad, the Calculator. I loved when he said to Felicity that she now made so much more sense, and also the WarGames reference. Of course, in retaliation Darhk enlists Cooper Seldon from "The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak" to work the opposing side of the hack. I loved the Eye of Sauron on the screens when Cooper took over the Team Arrow computers.

Meanwhile Thea is being held prisoner by dear old dad Malcolm Merlin inside Darhk's Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (yeah, I went there) after Anarky killed her boyfriend, who was not Dr. Davis after all. Anarky, who's hunting Darhk, may actually be more of a monkey wrench in his plans than Team Arrow. I am so sick of deus ex machina in these superhero shows of late, Anarky better not be the one to take out Darhk.

While Felicity is called away to deal with the domestic trainwreck that is her parents, and Green Arrow and Spartan discover Darhk's underground EPCOT, Quentin Lance is alone in the Arrowcave. It's during this time that Sara Lance returns from her time journey with "DC's Legends of Tomorrow." If you watched the season finale the next evening you know what happens when she learns Laurel has been killed. Like on "Doctor Who," Laurel's death is a fixed point in time and cannot be altered. Sara returns to the time stream.

On Flashback Island, Taiana is possessed of the power of Reiter's Khushu Idol, and planning to bring it home to her village to take revenge on the warlord there, a guy named Kovar. Interesting, the only Russian named Kovar in the DC Comics Universe is the superhero Starfire/Red Star, decidedly a good guy last I checked. Unfortunately, Reiter is still alive and isn't letting anyone leave with the idol.

Back at Darhk's Noah's Ark/EPCOT Thea been drugged and wants to kill Oliver. Merlyn steps in and says the most truthful thing that's ever been said in four seasons of this series. Oliver has always had an inability to do what is necessary. What's he going to do? It's already been established he's not going to kill Merlyn. Only John Barrowman. Cold hard truth. And right there, with those words, Merlyn takes the crown as Green Arrow's archenemy.

Inside the Ark, things have gone to hell, for exactly the reasons I had feared. Team Arrow has nothing to do with actively defeating the bad guy, again. While they stopped Darhk from getting the missile codes and foiling his plan, it's Anarky who makes the crushing blow. While the whole ark city is going up in white dwarf star alloy powered flames, little Lonnie Machin kills Ruve Adams.

As you can imagine, Darhk is at the end of his rope. And why he didn't kill Merlyn for his continued failures is beyond me. Malcolm and Oliver are just different sides of the same coin. As Darhk visits Felicity, Curtis, and Donna he promises to bring hell to them.

For my other reviews of the entire "Arrow" series, click here. And if you'd like to discuss this episode and anything else in the Arrowverse, please join the Arrow Discussion Group on Facebook.

Next: Schism, the season finale!

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