ARROW Season 3×20, “The Fallen” recap

23 Apr

Welcome back, Arrowheads! So, Team Arrow is dealing with all the fallout of Ra’s machinations to get Ollie to be the next League of Assassins president. Quentin has cracked down on everyone, Roy had to fake his death and leave town, and just when things couldn’t get more messed up, Ra’s stabbed Thea with a sword! Some companies refuse to take “no” as an answer when it comes to hiring people. I wonder how Ra’s new sales pitch to Ollie works out this episode.

Follow That Truck! In the flashback this episode, Ollie, Maseo, and Tatsu arrive at Shrieve’s base to see the Alpha-Omega virus being mixed and prepped to go. They follow the truck and take out the soldiers in it, only to find the vial isn’t inside. Where it is is a food cart in a densely populated area in Hong Kong. Maseo and Tatsu have a brief chat about leaving Akio to deal with the virus and whether that was a mistake (from what we learn later, it probably was). Ollie and company fight the men around the mystery food cart, and in the confusion, Ollie’s unable to stop the vial of Alpha-Omega from breaking open. Oops.

Hanging On A Thread. In the present, Ollie arrives at the loft to find Thea barely alive. He gets her to the hospital, and after flatlining briefly, Thea is revived but with more bad news for Ollie: its likely she’ll die from her stabbing sooner than later. Malcolm arrives to see Thea, and no sooner than that, Diggle and Felicity arrive to pay their respects, and notice that familiar League smoke signal outside. Ollie finds Maseo there, and after an expected punch to the face, Maseo says Ra’s has a way to save Thea’s life. Want to guess what the cost of it is?

Being brought in like that can’t be good for whatever health Thea has left.

Desperate Measures. Ollie starts packing some stuff from the loft, as Dig, Felicity, and Malcolm come in to wonder what that League meeting was about. He says he can save Thea, and Malcolm knows what Ollie’s talking about before he says it: the Lazarus pit at Nanda Parbat. They can revive Thea, but Malcolm warns this may change her into a different person, unlike say, what he did to her this season. He’s willing to risk it, but the rest of them are going with him. First, Felicity has to borrow Ray’s private jet for the trip, and there Ray admits he knows why she’s not quite in love with him: because she loves Ollie. I guess they’ll always have the memories of building a exo suit.

After making up an excuse to move Thea from the hospital, the group take her to Ray’s plane, despite Malcolm suggesting they try something else than the Lazarus Pit (to which Ollie says, “just shut up and get in the plane, wacko”). On the flight, Ollie reflects with Felicity on that night we saw he was in Starling a few years earlier (note he never brings up seeing her there), and whether all he did to avoid Ra’s offer brought this down on them (yeah, probably). They arrive at Nanda Parbat and Ra’s prepared a big welcoming committee for him outside. While Thea’s being prepped for the big ceremony (apparently just tossing her into the pool is not satisfactory), Maseo shows Diggle the sleeping accommodations. There, Diggle asks how he can help Ra’s destroy Ollie calls the League “cowards”, and Maseo says, “don’t call me a coward because my son died in my arms, buddy”. Awkward.

Lazarus Rising. So after some big ceremony thing, Thea’s lowered into the Lazarus Pit and after a bit, comes out. I mean, she leaps out and seems to be really wilding out. Once she’s subdued and had a bit to rest, Thea’s up, if slightly confused about certain things, but apparently its disorientation that will pass (apparently). Now Ollie’s going to have to give himself over to Ra’s, but Felicity is having none of that.

It’s not quite the Hot Tub Time Machine, but…

Making Peace. Felicity storms into Ra’s office (well, its where he keeps the Pit, so yeah) and apparently thinks she can chew out this Grade-A maniac and survive. Instead, he’s impressed and he tells her about how he was drafted into this life, in order to spare his family from death, but at the cost of never seeing them again. What Ra’s suggests is taking this brief time before Ollie takes his position in the League to spend that time with him. When the hell did Ra’s become an Olicity shipper? I think you may know where this is going, so…

Saying Goodbye. In Ollie’s chambers, Felicity shows up and tells him she knows she can’t convince him to not join the League, so she tells him how much he means to her. And then…

YEP. That just happened.

So, they have sex. And afterwards (luckily we had a flashback scene in-between to clean up whatever Olicity fans just had after that sex scene), Felicity talks to Ollie…and drugs him. Well, at least he’s not going to be totally angry about this development when he wakes up.

“This only ends one way.” Malcolm and Diggle arrive in Ollie’s room to ask what happened to Ollie (the drugging I mean, not the other thing earlier), and she’s convinced they can get Ollie and Thea out. Good thing Malcolm knows a way out, and collects Thea as they make their way out through some catacombs. Even Maseo helps, so good for him. But the group gets surrounded by League goons, and Ollie awakes in time to diffuse the situation because, he’s the heir to the Demon, remember?

So he manages to save his friends from execution and leads them out of the fortress. He tells them to go home, help Thea recover, and says goodbye to them. Well, not to Felicity, but not because she drugged him, but because they’ve done it way too much over the years. “Well, back to becoming the heir to a society of assassins for me!”, Ollie thinks.

Heir To The Demon. Back in Starling, a crying Felicity breaks the news to Laurel about Ollie joining the League, and really, he couldn’t deliver that news himself? That seems cold. Thea’s still laid out in the loft, her memory of the last few days a bit hazy, but Malcolm’s there, and he vows to help her get better. And if you doubt his results, look at Laurel’s sister and those hundreds of dead in the Glades for proof of–oh. Nevermind, she’s boned.

“Hello, Ms. Smoak. You may not know this, but I’m on the Olicity fan forums. My username is ‘OandF4EVA’!”

At Nanda Parbat, Maseo serves himself up to Ra’s for punishment in helping the foiled escape plan. But Ra’s spares him, because he needs someone close to Oliver through the League initiation, kind of like a sponsor helping a pledge into a fraternity. And like a fraternity, Ollie gets strung up in a public ceremony, gets branded in the back with a hot League emblem, and given a new name: he’s no longer Oliver Queen, but Al Sah-him, The Arrow, and Heir to the Demon. Also, do you want to put on some new League duds after getting your back burned like that? You could get an infection!

–Comic book connections: the Lazarus Pit is a frequent thing Ra’s uses to heal and extend his life, and yes, the immediate aftereffects are being crazy.

–So Ray and Felicity broke up, but considering he’s popping up in a new series (maybe) with some other faces in the Arrow/Flash universe, I’m sure he’ll recover.

–A shout-out to STAR Labs in this episode, which is nice as one of the docs there visited Starling in this week’s Flash.

–No Quentin this week, because he’s probably resting his heart from his Captain Ahab rampage from the last two episodes.

–“You’ll always be my brother.” Sniff. I got something in my eye.

–“Don’t need your helicopter. I need your jet.”

–“This time, let’s not say goodbye.”

That’s it for now, but come back next week for the recap of “Al Sah-him”…