ARROW Season 4×20, “Genesis” recap

5 May

Welcome back, Arrowheads! With Laurel Lance dead, Team Arrow is hurting hard from the loss of one of their own, but are determined to take down Damien Darhk and the rest of HIVE. But how can they stop Darhk’s magic and whatever this so called “Genesis” plan is? And what will happen when Diggle faces his turncoat brother? And will we get any flashbacks this week? The answer to the last one, thankfully, is NO. The rest, though…

Layoffs. Some of the HIVE members are concerned with leaving Darhk to rot in jail and putting contingencies in place to handle him, when the subject of their talk comes in. He talks about his time in the slammer, and after getting a confirmation that Genesis is still in schedule, Darhk magic kills those concerned HIVE members. Their bodies are dumped and are found later, as the Team at Arrow HQ are thinking Darhk might be out settling old scores. Not that going after him is a priority, because they have to defeat his magic first, and Ollie gets a way to do that. Old buddy John Constantine pointed Ollie to someone who can teach him how to fight Darhk’s magic, so while he’s gone, everyone should just stay on call. Thea wants to take a weekend trip offered up by Alex. Oh and Felicity? She’s gonna hitch a ride with Ollie on his “magic camp” trip.

As for Diggle, he gets to visit Lyla and baby Sara in their hideout: a mobile semi truck. He knows he’s supposed to stand down until Ollie gets back, but after he leaves Lyla, he gets a ping on Andy’s location. He’s nearby, so he goes over to that location, and before we can get to the awkward family talk that happens when one brother betrays you and kills your friend, Diggle ends up chasing Andy, and trade off insults while shooting at each other. If you think something’s up with this, I got one other thing in this episode that’s more obvious.

Traps and Bluffs. Before we get to one character’s bad getaway, we go to nearby Hub City, where Ollie and Felicity get dressed up and visit a swanky private casino. They are supposed to play a few hands at a specific card table, and Felicity starts cleaning up. They are supposed to be waiting for a man, but after a while of playing, there is only a lady playing the table too. She cuts into their conversation, introducing herself as Fortuna, and that SHE’S who John Constantine recommended they see.

Thea wakes up in a house, in daylight (which is odd, because everything this episode has been at night…) and finds Alex cooking breakfast. He said she fell asleep during the trip, which is odd, considering we cut back to Diggle AT NIGHT still chasing Andy and getting a ring from Lyla about finding Andy too. Diggle doesn’t want to wait for ARGUS backup, so he corners Andy, and finds out, he was supposed to follow his brother…into a trap! Diggle gets knocked out, but why does HIVE want him taken prisoner for?

Andy: “Look, all I want is your HBO GO password and ID, bro! I think I’m entitled to that!”

A Few Lessons. Thea and Alex are taking a nice walk in a pretty nice residential neighborhood IN THE DAYTIME, when Thea starts noticing something off. The sounds of animals around the neighborhood seems not all that random. Alex tells her she might be just paranoid or tired, BUT…

Diggle himself is waking up to an odd place, but strung up by Andy to be presented to a soon to be visiting Darhk. Diggle is upset, and Andy’s response is to jab his brother with a pick in the side. After a little bit of torture, Diggle is being taken off the hook he’s been attached to, and he breaks out. He takes out the guards and handcuffs Andy. Diggle has the chance to kill Andy, but he doesn’t and gets out of there. He finds his way back to Lyla’s semi HQ, and is a mess. She gives him the third degree for going off to catch Andy alone, and he knows he screwed up. Of course, we’ll find out later he doesn’t know how much he did.

Darkness and the Light. At the casino, Ollie asks Fortuna for her help, and she takes him to a secret chamber in the casino…which puts them in a chamber not unlike the one Ollie sealed off on Lian Yu years earlier. How did the casino lead to this chamber? MAGIC! Anyway, Fortuna discusses Darhk’s magic, and says the key to fighting it is not by the same magic, but the opposite of it. Instead of darkness, it needs to be fought with light. So let’s do some training!

She throws around some magic darkness or something as a beginner’s course, then after he aces that, she ups the difficulty. He ends up seeing the bad guys he’s faced over the years, and the deaths that have occurred in between. He comes to dazed, and Fortuna tells him until he can fight the darkness he saw within him with light, training him further would be pointless. Hopefully he didn’t have to pay for that course.

“You know, I’m overdue for a boyfriend betrayal/murder this season. Cross my fingers on this one working out!”

Cages of All Kinds. Thea and Alex are back at the house as Thea is getting really suspicious now. She figured out those noises are on a loop like a recording, and by the time on the clock, it should be nighttime, but its not. And then she sees Alex down some vitamins, specifically ones that look like the pills Darhk uses to brainwash his people! That’s why you don’t get pills from the mayor you work for! So where is she?

Before we get there, Diggle is getting patched up by Lyla, and trying to figure out why Andy would torture him in the first place. Could be because Andy put a tracer on you and staged your escape so you could lead Darhk and HIVE to where Lyla is, Diggle…which is exactly what it is! The semi gets ambushed by HIVE, and eventually stopped by Darhk’s magic palm. They call for help, only to find ARGUS headquarters is under attack by HIVE, and Team Arrow is not responding, so Lyla tells Diggle to escape with Sara, so that Darhk can’t use their child as some bargaining chip. Diggle flies out of the back of the semi on a motorcycle with baby Sara in his backpack like Luke carrying Yoda, and Andy pursues them. He gets cornered by some HIVE goons, but gets a quick save by Felicity hitting them with a van. Andy flees, but Diggle hands off Sara to Felicity, and goes after him.

Brother’s Keeper. Back at the semi, Lyla holds off most of the goons until Darhk freezes her with his powers. He hopes to find Sara, but no such luck there, which leaves him to force something out of Lyla’s wrist. Before things can get worse, Darhk is hit by an arrow by an arriving Ollie, and in an ensuing fight, grabs Ollie and starts his little soul sucking trick. Only Ollie thinks outloud, “The Force?”, closes his eyes and focuses…okay, he doesn’t channel The Force and its not that movie, but he does get some positive power and sends Darhk packing.

Meanwhile, Diggle catches up with Andy and beats him down. He plans on taking his brother in to pay for his crimes, but Andy tells him as long as HIVE is alive, he’ll keep coming for his family. Despite Diggle not wanting to do it and because of Andy’s constant needling and threats, Diggle finally snaps and shoots Andy dead! Jeez! Ollie arrives to find Diggle looking over Andy’s dead body, saying he didn’t have a choice. Probably not, but still…

STOP! IN THE NAME OF DARHK!

What Is Necessary. Back at Arrow HQ, Ollie tells Felicity about what happened with Darhk and reveals why he thinks he was able to fight off the dark magic. He thought of someone who brought light to his life: her. Well, that’s sweet. Diggle goes to see Lyla coming to in the HQ, and tells her what happened, minus the whole murdering his little brother in cold blood part. As tough as this is, Lyla notices the wound on her arm and starts really panicking.

The reason everyone should be panicking is that it involves that Rubicon program ARGUS has that was almost stolen earlier this season. To secure it, Lyla had it downloaded into a chip implanted in her arm, which Darhk removed. It was a program meant to contain the world’s nuclear arsenal, but in HIVE’s hands, could control all those warheads. So HIVE’s big Genesis plan is to destroy the world, but how does Darhk and HIVE benefit from this or survive?

Cut to Thea running around the neighborhood, spotting HIVE soldiers, and running into a field…only to find its a hologram wall! That’s right, that underground facility we saw a while back is basically going to be home for HIVE while the rest of humanity is nuked to oblivion! Also, this means Thea is the star of her own Truman Show! Does this mean Malcolm Merlyn will get to talk to to her from the sky like Ed Harris does in that movie? We got three more episodes to find out!

–Comic book connections: Hub City is the home city of the DCU hero The Question. Fortuna seems to be a version of the DCU mystical character Madame Xanadu, not to be confused with the movie Xanadu.

–While there was no flashbacks this episode, did you notice in the flashes of dead that Ollie saw that Taiana was there, with the same glowing yellow eyes Ollie has when he turned light powers onto Darhk?

–Just give it up to David Ramsey for that performance throughout this episode, but especially that last act, where he’s dealing with what he just did to his brother, bad guy or not.

–Darhk had a lot of time to think about Bundt cake while in prison. Oh, and murdering his fellow associates too.

–Who doesn’t John Constantine owe money to is my question.

–Felicity’s reply when hearing about Genesis coming: “I don’t think so. Phil Collins said they’d never tour again.” (Also, who else was expecting a Star Trek II reference there?)

–“Oh, it’s been a while since I hit someone with this thing.”

–“Well he’s not coming to play gin rummy.”

–“Anyone else care to do something stupid?”

That’s it for now, but leave your comments and come back next week for the recap of “Monument Point”…