Plus we’ll get to see a new metahuman and see Felicity Smoak packing heat to try stopping him. Sounds like fun, no?
It’s just like old times with the original Team Arrow chasing bad guys. Diggle lets a Ghost get the drop on him, but the guy doesn’t shoot. The bad guy evades Green Arrow too, but Felicity Smoak is able to stop him using remote control on some industrial equipment. That’s badass! Diggle stops the Ghost from taking his cyanide capsule by yanking out his tooth (ouch), but he uses some kind of taser to escape.
We switch locales to Nanda Parbat, where Nyssa al Ghul and Malcolm Merlyn are sparring with swords. She’s not really sparring, and though she cuts Malcolm on the neck, he merely dips his hand in the Lazarus Pit and uses its water to heal the wound. Conveniently, Laurel Lance and Thea Queen are also there to ask about the Pit. Laurel demands that Malcolm use it to bring Sara back, but he refuses, saying that Thea wasn’t dead when the Pit saved her. What Laurel is asking is the stuff of legend, and he firmly says no.
Felicity examines the tooth, which John calls the best lead they’ve had on the Ghosts in a while. The DNA sequencer will take a while, so she suggests the three of them go for margaritas. John sternly replies that he needs to get back to his family, and Oliver remarks that neither apologies nor time are helping, and he’s done waiting for Diggle to come around.
Alas, someone is in the Diggle house. It’s an A.R.G.U.S. agent, but he comes in peace, and with some info on the person who ordered the hit on John’s brother. Her name is Nina Fayad, and as luck would have it, she just landed on a flight from Markovia.
We don’t wait long to meet Ms. Fayad, as she’s meeting with Damien Darkh. She has a bodyguard with her, one who claims to play cards, mostly. Darkh wants him to demonstrate his talents on the Ghost who chose running over suicide, and the guy can peel the playing card tattoos off his skin and use them as thrown weapons. Ladies and gents, meet Double Down! Darkh agrees to pay him to take out Green Arrow and friends.
Someone else who loves Sara deeply, Nyssa, has a talk with Laurel, warning her that even if the Lazarus Pit works on Sara, she could return to life as a monster. Laurel responds that she has to try, hoping that the part of Sara’s spirit that they love is what comes back.
Felicity’s analysis of the tooth reveals something strange: half of the Ghost’s DNA markers are missing, which should be impossible. She also learns of a robbery in progress, and Oliver wants to tackle it since he thinks the police in Star City have been pretty crappy as of late. The call is made to Diggle to assist, but he’s busy tracking Fayad and ignores Felicity’s call. Oliver says he trusts Felicity to be his backup.
You might have guessed this, but it’s Double Down who’s committed the supposed robbery. He thanks Green Arrow for coming to him, and the two start fighting. Meanwhile, a guard finds Diggle, which turns out badly for the bad guy, but the noise alerts Fayad’s guards. That means we get to watch Green Arrow and John in their separate battles, though Oliver has to bug out after Double Down simply overwhelms him with a steady stream of cards, leaving one in his right arm.
Thea asks Malcolm about why she’s been so bloodthirsty, and the answer is typically Merlyn: because the Lazarus Pit contains parts of the souls of previous users, the only way she can defeat her bloodlust is to give into it by killing people. She refuses, screaming at Malcolm while asking if there’s another way. He mentions a sage high in the mountains with healing gifts and tells his daughter they will leave to find him at first light.
Team Arrow gets the scoop on Double Down, an honest to goodness meta who is missing from Central City. Felicity lectures the boys about their unwillingness to have each other’s backs, and essentially forces them to talk it out while she heads to Palmer Tech. Diggle says he hasn’t been able to move forward, even after months. Oliver understands why he lost John’s trust but can’t comprehend why he hasn’t been given a chance to earn it back. Sighs. They talk about the meta, and Oliver says he mentioned a new player called Fayad. Light bulb!
At Palmer Tech, Felicity asks Curtis Holt to look into the card left in Oliver’s arm, giving him a not very convincing story about playing poker. Outside straight? I think not. Holt shows her some of her inventions, including contact lenses with full HD displays and … T-spheres! Unfortunately, they spontaneously explode. She asks Curtis for a complete work-up on the card, looking for anything strange.
Diggle levels with Oliver about the hit on his brother and the connection to Fayad. She’s a little busy getting lectured by Darkh, who asks for another demonstration from Double Down. How about trying to kill Damien himself? Double Down obliges, but Darkh is powerful enough to stop the card in mid-air and then send it to kill Fayad before wounding Double Down.
Asleep in Nanda Parbat, Thea senses danger. She’s under attack by two of Malcolm’s assassins, though she quickly kills them both. Then she realizes the truth: there’s no healer, and Merlyn sent those men to their death, knowing what would happen. She’s furious again, though Malcolm claims he did it for her, as this will slate her thirst for killing for weeks. This is the weirdest father-daughter relationship of all time.
Thea tells Laurel that they have to leave now, because Malcolm isn’t going to help either of them. Desperate or devious, he gets them to stay by promising to use the Lazarus Pit on Sara after all.
Green Arrow and Diggle track Fayad’s phone, but of course, they find her dead with a card in her mouth. John blames himself for not trusting Oliver with his mission two years ago, but Green Arrow vows that they will get answers together.
Since Curtis is a genius just like Felicity, he can track Double Down’s cards. However, he thinks it’s more likely the owner will be able to track the missing card, and right on cue, they find themselves under attack. To Holt’s surprise, Felicity gets them into a secret elevator and kicks Double Down long enough to escape. The villain follows them to the Arrow Lair, where Felicity holds him off with an automatic weapon — even wounding him, it appears. Double Down drops a light on Curtis’ head with one of his cards and flees Green Arrow and Diggle are surprised to find that Felicity held Double Down off by herself. She gets back to tracking the meta and finds that he’s on the road, probably heading back to Central City.
In Nanda Parbat, it’s ceremony time. Nyssa asks Laurel to stop, and Thea also looks pretty uncertain, but she lowers her sister into the Lazarus Pit. The waters bubble as everyone looks on. TENSE FACES! Oh crap, it worked. Sara leaps out of the Pit, almost feral in nature, and Malcolm is forced to sedate her.
More classic old school Team Arrow as GA and Diggle blow the engine of Double Down’s car. Even after a bolo arrow, he gets off one last card meant for John, but Oliver jumps in front of him, taking it in the chest. Double Down won’t answer questions about his boss, saying he’s more scared of him than the heroes, so John knocks him out. Green Arrow’s kevlar vest means he’s okay, and that move seems to have won John’s trust back. Later, the OTA (Original Team Arrow) has a toast, and since the Arrow Lair’s location is now known, Oliver hints that he has a surprise for them. Arrow Lair 3.0, we’ll see you next week. Felicity checks on Curtis and finds he’s actually excited that his boss works with Green Arrow to make Star City a better place. And why does Felicity’s phone always act so funny when she’s around Holt?
A chained up Sara snaps at Laurel, and while she justifies it by saying Thea was the same way at first, Malcolm warns that they are in uncharted waters. An assassin summons Merlyn to the other chamber, where Nyssa reveals that her dad told her a way to destroy the Lazarus Pit if it ever fell into the wrong hands. Now when she kills Merlyn, he won’t be coming back. As Malcolm has her taken away, she screams that whatever happens to Sara now is on Laurel’s hands.
Meanwhile, Five Years Ago: Oliver stops one of the workers from running, though he is taken aback by the other guards beating him. Asking about what the people are doing, he’s told they are harvesting slam, some kind of heroin-cocaine hybrid. Some of the crop is missing, so the guard leader orders all the workers rounded up and tells Oliver that all they understand is violence.
None of the workers will sell out whoever stole the drugs, so the leader executes one of them. Ollie suggests pain instead of killing, and he starts torturing one of the workers. A woman finally ‘fesses up, saying she stole the drugs to ease the pain of the workers who had been beaten. The leader wants her killed too, but Oliver suggests he take her somewhere no one will find her body.
Of course, it’s a plan to save her, as Oliver leads the other guard assigned to go with them into the minefield we saw last week. Ollie tells the woman she needs to trust him if she wants to stay alive. Too bad he didn’t say, “Come with me if you want to leave.” In an Austrian accent, maybe.
Best Comic Book Reference: The T-spheres, hands down. It also seems Holt may be scrambling technology that gets too close to him, which would be a play on Michael Holt’s invisibility to technology from the comics. Mister Terrific could definitely be on the table.
Final Thought: Some tidy conclusions to loose ends tonight. Possibly even a little too tidy, considering Sara is back and the Lazarus Pit is now off the board. The drama was always going to be what happens to restore Sara to some semblance of normal life, so her subplot isn’t over yet. Double Down was a decent villain, though, and while this wasn’t the best episode ever, it was a necessary one.