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Original Team Arrow: John Diggle, Felicity Smoak, Oliver Que

#OTA Hails to the Chief: Arrow Season 4, Episode 3 Review

StarCityBFFs StarCityBFFs #OTA = Original Team Arrow = Felicity, Diggle, and Oliver. And nobody else.

The Arrow fandom recently gave the CW network a lecture about using this description for a picture of Laurel as Black Canary. NO, and that's even before you get to the end of this review.

"Since when have you been such a badass?" says Felicity's new kindred tech spirit Mr. Terrific, who even before seeing the Arrow lair was catching on fast. "Since always," says fashion-forward, gun-slinging CEO of both Palmer Tech and #OTA.

Felicity Smoak
Felicity Smoak
Curtis Holt
Curtis Holt

This playing card metahuman hired by Damian Darhk to kill the Green Arrow must be a cousin of Captain Boomerang from the season 3 crossover, who also unsuccessfully stormed the lair and was taken down by the Arrow/Flash sisterhood.

The tattoos were a nice switch-up, though.

Double Down (metahuman)
Double Down (metahuman)

(Was anyone else hoping for Felicity in a casino, back when Oliver didn't really trust her in the field? That seems like 1,000 years ago. But surely she didn't lose all her poker knowledge since season 1, at least enough to fool Curtis. Unless she really didn't intend to.)

Oliver was the only person, on-screen or off, who was surprised that Felicity fended off Double Down by herself. In fierce leopard-print heels, I might add.

Felicity Smoak
Felicity Smoak

The same thing could be said for Felicity putting Oliver and Diggle in a time-out, like the 3-year-olds they were being.

Your best friend endangering your family is beyond the pale. Diggle had been stewing about it for 5 months, while Oliver was on vacation with Felicity and thinking of nothing but her. Out of sight, out of mind - until Laurel and Thea came calling, asking for the Arrow's help.

It's one thing to hold a justifiable grudge. It's another thing to be reckless with both your lives over it, and further delay finding the origin of HIVE, who killed your other brother.

Original Team Arrow #OTA
Original Team Arrow #OTA

Felicity told those guys to fix it. Which they did. Partly to continue protecting the city, and partly because they didn't want to be on the receiving end of Felicity's loud voice again any time soon.

#OTA out for drinks together, reaffirming their partnership: that's right up there with the scenes we wanted to see in season 4.

(Right up there, but not there. If I have to explain this to you, you're instantly on Arrow fandom probation.)

Ra's n (the numeric n), another guy who was a little afraid of Felicity after she stormed into his private chambers in Nanda Parbat and told him where to get off, did a lot of bad stuff, but two things he did right: 1) he had a Lazarus Pit-killing potion on hand, and 2) he told his daughter Nyssa about it.

Even though at this very moment Nyssa is getting tortured in a Nanda Parbat dungeon for pulling the plug on the Pit, I'm glad she risked it. I was getting really tired of people jumping in and out of that hot tub like it was spring break.

Problem is, Damian Darhk, who gets scarier every episode without even trying, is now the only person on earth - as far as we know - to possess water from the Lazarus Pit.

This poses a slight problem for Ra's n + 1, since there might be a competition between Nyssa and Thea about who tries to off Malcolm first.

Despite her blood lust, Thea is likely to try to kill Malcolm out of plain old anger against the World's Most Evil Father. Here he is, a year after Sara's latest death - how many has it been now? - setting Thea up to be a murderer again, this time in the name of "getting it out of her system."

"Normal father" is not a description that will ever apply to Malcolm, no matter how many good intentions he claims to have.

Nyssa, Malcolm, and Thea don't agree on much of anything, except this: resurrecting Sara from the dead is the World's Worst Idea. Malcolm warned her. Thea questioned her. Nyssa begged her not to do it.

Malcolm Merlyn (Ra's) & Nyssa Al-Ghul
Malcolm Merlyn (Ra's) & Nyssa Al-Ghul

If Caity Lotz's presence wasn't required on the Legends of Tomorrow cast, she as Sara wouldn't have wanted it, either. After all the betrayals of her family with Oliver, all the suffering on the island, all the killing as a member of the League of Assassins,

RIP.

Since the first moment I saw Laurel in the pilot, I've vacillated between annoyance and ambivalence. Last week it was disdain and disbelief.

Thea Queen & Laurel Lance
Thea Queen & Laurel Lance

This week was flat-out hatred, at her incredible selfishness. Who do I have to bribe on@ARROWwriters to guarantee Laurel is the one in that coffin (in the season premiere flash-forward)?

But that's Laurel: it's always and forever about me, me, me, no matter the cost to other people. I relish the inevitable Oliver smackdown when he hears not only what she did, but that also that she lied to him and Diggle about where she was going, and why.

And with whom. Talk about somebody being tempted to kill somebody.

Laurel Lance & Malcolm Merlyn (the new Ra's)
Laurel Lance & Malcolm Merlyn (the new Ra's)
Story9
Cast8
Direction8
Characters8

Header photo credit: amellynation.com

Coming up next, episode 4 "Beyond Redemption"

Arrow 4x04 Promo "Beyond Redemption"

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