ARROW Season 3×15, “Nanda Parbat” recap

26 Feb

Welcome back, Arrowheads! A lot has gone on in Starling City since Ollie has come back (again), and most of it involves family. Thea knows about his secret vigilante persona (which she takes well) and that Malcolm made her kill Sara (which she takes badly). I have a bad feeling she’s not going to handle this alliance with her crazy father against Ra’s al Ghul very well. Meanwhile, Ollie is becoming aware he’s part of a team now than just being a team leader, Felicity is full-on helping Ray Palmer with his ATOM exo suit, and Laurel’s dad is a bit broken by a number of things that have come to light. Things are getting really dicey around Team Arrow, aren’t they?

Debriefing. In the past, Ollie is finishing his debriefing by Shrieve, and is informed Maseo and his family will be taken to Tokyo, and from there, Ollie can hitch a ride back to Starling. Ollie is chatting with the Yamashiros about finally being loose of Waller as they walk to a boat on a harbor, when Maseo notices something off. The harbor workers are armed, and pin Ollie and the family down. It seems they are ARGUS agents, and that maybe Waller’s not happy with letting them go (maybe?). As they try to escape, Maseo’s son gets separated from mom and dad, and is stuck with Ollie as Maseo tells his friend to get his son to safety. What happens afterward? Well, that’s something to hopefully find out about later, because…

Circling the Wagons. In the present, In Nanda Parbat, Ra’s is enjoying a bath when Nyssa comes in to inform him Ollie’s alive. Not only does Ra’s know this, but unlike Nyssa, knows he didn’t kill Sara. She still is all about the League code, and says he still needs to die. Back in Starling, Verdant has been locked down in preparation for the League’s arrival, and Malcolm is practicing down in the Arrow Cave with the Queen siblings. Unfortunately the more Malcolm seems to think he’s part of Team Arrow, the more the Team would like him to know otherwise. And Thea can barely talk to Laurel thanks to knowing she was involved in Sara’s death. She thinks she’s telling Roy something new when she brings it up, but surprise, he’s known too. He can see she’s not dealing with this so well, and talks about the cop he killed in that Mirakuru-haze last season. Only thing is, Thea has a need to talk to someone else.

“Apologies for the service here. Getting decent cable out here is a pain!”

Paying Visits. Felicity checks in on Ray, who has been, um, occupied with ATOM for the last week. In fact, he looks like a wreck, so Felicity tells him to stop working and she’ll treat him to a dinner. Meanwhile, at Laurel’s office, Laurel is trying to call Quentin up, when Thea comes by to tell her the truth about what happened to Sara. And while Laurel is shocked, she still is being a–should I say it?–a supportive big sister about this. But when Laurel goes to see Ollie later, he denies knowing anything up to the point she reveals what Thea has said. She can’t believe he would work with his sister’s killer, and well, someone forgets to tell both Thea and Laurel something important about why they’re aligned with Malcolm.

Sisters Know Best. Ollie goes to see Thea in their loft, and she doesn’t care if Malcolm is exposed for what he’s done, and more to the point, that he’s about to face justice. Cut to Malcolm getting ambushed by Canary Laurel, and before you think Thea sent Laurel to kill a far superior adversary, Nyssa and the League show up and snatch him away. Ollie arrives at the HQ to chew out Laurel for trying to take Malcolm on, but has to hold that for discovering the League is about to transport Malcolm out of the city. Ollie arrives and after a brief fight, captures Nyssa. Too bad Malcolm is taken away in a helicopter during all of this.

“You like talking to animals? You certainly got the hair for it, boy.”

“I will tell you where Nanda Parbat is, because you will die there.” With Nyssa imprisoned in Arrow HQ, Ollie suggests some alone time to get where Malcolm is being taken. Both Nyssa and Ollie know where, being Nanda Parbat, but Nyssa is the only one who knows where it is. She voluntarily gives that info up, knowing he’s probably not going to survive the trip. And once he tells the Team about going to retrieve Malcolm, and they respond with the same incredulous lack of understanding, he has to remind them all (or at least let Thea and Laurel in what he should have mentioned earlier) that Malcolm still has the videotape of Laurel killing Sara. He thinks Malcolm won’t use it to save his skin by sacrificing his daughter, but then again, Ollie knows what he’s already done to Thea. So, off on another suicide mission you go, Ollie!

Gone Traveling. Felicity heads back to Ray’s place to give him a break with a dinner, as long as he also gets a shower. Ooooohhhh… Diggle heads home to chat with Lyla, and knows he wants to go help Ollie to make up for not being with him on that first fight with Ra’s, and is kinda cool with that and borrowing an ARGUS jet. Thea doesn’t want Ollie to leave, but he thinks her feeding Malcolm to the League is something she’ll live to regret. While I scream at the TV, “No she won’t! Let him die!”, Diggle tells Ollie he’s coming along, unless he plans to walk to Nanda Parbat. Speaking of which, at that particular place, Malcolm is getting to see his old master Ra’s again. While he doesn’t give up Thea, Malcolm gets to snivel and beg for his life to be spared, which is a wonderful pleasure for me to watch.

“I’m Commander Shepard, and I have the best costume at Comic-Con!”

Entering Nanda Parbat. While Laurel and Nyssa have a nice moment remembering Sara, Ray has finally cleaned up and Felicity is relieved (although him shirtless is not working in her favor). So much so, they have a kiss. And another. And…

Cut to Nanda Parbat, as Ollie and Diggle approach and plan a stealth entrance that goes bad immediately. So they start cutting through some League henchmen before reaching Malcolm, who’s strung up and getting his feet warmed on hot coals. Hey, this seems too easy, right? Well it is, because the chamber closes up, locking Ollie and Diggle up, while Ra’s is there to welcome them to his home.

Deals With Life And Death. Ray wakes up in bed with a naked and sleeping Felicity, and leaves to finish something involving ATOM. It’s the last big piece he’s figured out to bring the exo suit operational, and he tests it out by flying around like Iron Man. Really, not even a little bed chat before taking off, Ray?

Roy on the other hand, takes Thea to see something that he’s been doing. He’s been keeping tabs on the family of the cop he murdered, and he kind of hopes this will get her past her angst. What it does instead is make her head down to Nyssa’s cell, confess her part in Sara’s death, open the cell, and offer Nyssa a chance to take revenge. Before we see how that turns out…

Ollie and Diggle are chained up in a cell, and talking about a few things. One being that Ollie got rattled by his battle with Ra’s so much that he wanted to face him again and defeat him by going to Nanda Parbat. The other thing was Diggle asking Ollie (his new “brother”, awwwww) to be the best man at his wedding to Lyla, if of course, they get out alive. Ollie is then brought out of the cell to see Ra’s and asks that Diggle be spared, in exchange for his own life. But Ra’s has a surprising counter-proposal to give: he doesn’t want to kill Ollie, but make him the next leader of the League of Assassins! Duh-duh-duhhhhhhhhhhh!

–Comic book connections: Obviously this ATOM armor can’t shrink (not yet, maybe?) like the comic book Atom can. And the comic book Atom doesn’t have rockets to fly with.

–So Nyssa may not be allowed to run the League, but Ollie is? I can only guess how this will play out for the remainder of the season.

–Really, I know Nanda Parbat is far away, but its able to be reached in the span of a few hours? And how did Laurel know where to find Malcolm? I’m just saying, there’s a lot of narrative shortcuts that are hard to ignore on this show.

–Ollie finally shoots a guy with a flaming arrow. So there’s a plus in their Nanda Parbat sneak-in plan.

–“My friends call me Dig.” OW.

–“I’m really into the Dutch masters this month for some reason.”

–“Well, he has a whole prison on Lian Yu. I probably shouldn’t have said that.”

That’s it for now, but come back in March (around the 18th or so) for “The Offer”…