It's The Arrow Alumni Reunion! Arrow Season 4, Episode 12 Review
Shado, Roy, Tatsu, Nyssa... Basically everybody showed up this week for "Seasons 1-3 Greatest Hits," minus Tommy and Amanda, who are now both doctors on Chicago Med.
Parkour by Oliver/Green Arrow and Roy/Arsenal, just like the old days. Roy and Thea in impossible love, just like the old days.
Malcolm Merlyn trying to be Father of the Year by honoring Thea's wishes to no longer feed her blood lust, even though we know he's always looking out for #1 and it's only a matter of time before we find out what he's up to.
Just like the old days.
But the episode's big reveal - actually the worst-kept secret on Arrow social media for months - was that The Calculator, played by Tom Amandes, is Felicity's father. Here he is, sitting next to Oliver at the Palmer Tech new product launch. Clearly, he's been stalking his daughter - villains don't "keep tabs on" people - all these years.
Something tells me he might already suspect Felicity is the genius behind the keyboard that derailed his...uh, explosive...plans. (If she really does reverse-engineer his tech and her company turns a profit, he's gonna be impressed, and pissed.)
You don't have to be on the roof with a sniper rifle like Deadshot/Floyd Lawton to be a killer Overwatch.
In other news, jail-breaking Nyssa has this Lotus, a Lazarus Pit antidote she got from Tatsu in Kyushu, an island in SW Japan that really does exist and is worth visiting as an adventure tourist - if interested, DM me for travel details.
Damian Darhk's powers could counteract hers, Thea knows from experience, but she is understandably unwilling to have anybody she loves owe Damian Darhk a favor.
So, it's either Lotus or death.
Crazy thought: what if it's Nyssa in the grave that we saw foreshadowed at the end of the season 4 premiere? Hear me out.
Nyssa and Laurel have the heart-to-heart we already know is coming in episode 13 and let's say Nyssa ultimately decides to give Lotus to Oliver freely, rather than force him to kill Malcolm to get it. Malcolm kills Nyssa, since he's furious that a) she knew about the antidote and held it hostage, and b) during her traitorous escape she killed a bunch of his assassins.
Again.
Team Arrow then buries Nyssa in Star City because she has no other family.
Felicity would be at the funeral, too, but feels anger more than devastation, which rules out her mother or Thea dying. Oliver grieves - Nyssa is his ex-wife, of sorts - but somewhere between now and then he figures out the difference between blame and responsibility.
Diggle wasn't kidding when he said Oliver Queen's superpower was to figure out a way to blame himself for everything.
If this episode wasn't already busy enough - in a good way, because this was one of the best episodes of Arrow since the season 4 premiere - we have Damian Darhk's wife Ruvé Adams running against Oliver Queen for Star City mayor.
(Trivia: Ruvé is also the first name of Neil McDonogh's wife in real life.)
Damian Darhk had no choice but to sic his evil wife on Oliver Queen because, really: what's it going to take to get this guy out of the mayoral race, if paralyzing his fiancée for life didn't work?!
But Damian is at a disadvantage because he hasn't been on comms hearing Overwatch watch over this complex cast of characters with absolute perfection. He also didn't see the hospital scene last week, in which Oliver put Felicity's engagement ring back on her finger, saying, "For better, for worse."
Forget the matching tablecloths, people. That was the wedding right there.
Coming up, episode 13 "Sins of the Father"
