This episode of Arrow, titled A.W.O.L., takes a break from the hunt for Darhk, and deals with Felicity’s current condition and her dealing with it, along with Diggle dealing with an old enemy. Check out Josh’s recap of the episode, followed by both Josh and Violet’s thoughts about the episode!
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Episode Recap of Arrow, Season 4 Episode 11: A.W.O.L.
This week’s episode of Arrow starts off with Diggle and Lyla walking home. An ARGUS agent shows up and asks for help from Lyla, but then a military-like group shows up and takes the agent. Diggle and Lyla try to help, but the men get away.
Oliver, meanwhile, takes Felicity home, and he finally seems to be willing to talk to Felicity. Felicity wants Oliver to save the city, while Felicity wants to take a break. Oliver gets a text from Diggle though, and Oliver meets up with Diggle at the Arrow Cave. The team tries to locate the taken agent without the help of Felicity.
Diggle has a talk with his brother, and they seem to be on better terms.
Moving to a flashback, we see Diggle and his brother working together with a military group. Their goal is to stop an arms dealer. They come under attack on their way to the mission, and are pinned down. Diggle breaks away from the group to lay a claymore and gas can, which the truck eventually drives over, destroying the vehicle.
Back with Felicity, she takes some of her medication, and she starts hearing voices–sounding like herself. The voices are giving her a hard time about her medication. Then we see it–a dark haired version of herself. Felicity is having a hard time dealing with this hallucination of herself.
Laurel, meanwhile, has arrived at a crime scene and the agent, Chang, has been found dead. Tortured, it seems. Diggle and Lyla visit Amanda Waller, who is giving no information about Chang. But Lyla was slipped a flash drive by Waller…
Back at the Arrow Cave, Lyla goes through the flash drive, and there are two more agents missing, from a group called Shadowspire. They are a military group that was up to no good.
Back to the flashback, Diggle and Andy are recruited by another soldier to work as a war profiteer, but Diggle and his brother decline. Diggle is proud of Andy for declining the offer.
Meanwhile, Diggle back in the present gets angry with Andy thinking he was working with Shadowspire. The two argue, and Andy tells Diggle he only sees the world as broken. But Andy provides a tip to find the other two missing agents.
Oliver and Laurel move to investigate one of these issues. They come across some security measures, and Oliver calls Felicity for help. Her hallucination tries to talk her out of helping, but real Felicity helps anyway.
Diggle, Laurel, Thea and Oliver move in. The ARGUS agents were found dead, and Oliver is trapped in a container due to Felicity making a mistake. Diggle is also captured by the group. Oliver blows his way out of the container with an explosive arrow, and the team makes its escape.
Oliver returns home to Felicity, and Felicity is not doing well. Oliver tries to tell her she didn’t do anything wrong. Oliver tries to tell her that he was hoping to make her feel normal. Felicity puts her foot down about being a part of the team though. She is pretty distraught about her injury. Meanwhile, her hallucination shows up again, telling her she is no good for the team while Oliver tries to say she is good for it. She screams, “SHUT UP!” and Oliver takes it as being at him. Then she says, “Can I be alone for a little while?” This causes Oliver to get up and leave.
Andy is then taken to ARGUS, and Waller talks to him about Shadowspire, and is upset that Shadowspire was able to steal some high tech weapons. Andy tells Waller that that was just a distraction for something else.
Laurel and Oliver, meanwhile, are training together, and Laurel tries to tell Oliver that this isn’t his fault. Oliver seems to think that all this is his fault, due to the time change that Barry caused when fighting Vandal Savage. Laurel tries to reassure him that this is all Darhk’s fault.
Oliver gets a call from Diggle, to stop Shadowspire from stealing some rail guns. The team sits and waits, but is not seeing anything. But Shadowspire is breaking in somewhere. That place turns out to be ARGUS itself. Lyla is able to trip an alarm, and Diggle see what is going down. Andy gives Diggle an, “I told you so”. The leader of Shadowspire is looking for some device, and Waller refuses to assist.
Back at Oliver’s place, Felicity deals with her evil hallucination. She talks about Felicity’s transition to blond, after her boyfriend’s death, and tells Felicity this is not the real her.
Back in the past, Diggle gives Andy a hard time for talking to members of Shadowspire, but Andy pays it off as just harmless chit-chat. Then Andy tells Diggle to treat him like a real brother.
Felicity visits Oliver at the Arrow Cave, who is trying to figure out where Shadowspire is hitting. But Felicity seems to be getting back to normal. Oliver is happy she seems to be doing better. Oliver then gets a hint about Lyla being held by Shadowspire.
At ARGUS, Waller is executed, and Lyla is the nest person in line if Shadowspire doesn’t get what it wants. Diggle is about to head in, but Andy tells Diggle he needs to help.
Oliver, Thea and Laurel move into ARGUS to help. Meanwhile, Shadowspire finds Andy, and Andy offers to help the boss, Lt. Joiner. Joiner talks to Andy, and Andy tells Joiner that Diggle is moving around the ventilation shafts, and Lyla will talk if they get Diggle. Diggle gets caught by Shadowspire, and is brought to Lyla. Diggle tells Lyla to give up the codes Joiner is looking for.
Felicity tries to help block the codes, but says that Thea and Laurel need to provide backup in case she is unable to help. “Dark Felicity” shows up again and tries to interfere, but Felicity blocks her out. Oliver makes it to Diggle, and Andy turns on Shadowspire. Diggle also joins the fight when freed by Oliver, as does Lyla. Shadowspire is taken down, and Diggle thanks his brother for the help.
Back at the Arrow Cave, Lyla and Oliver mourn Waller’s death. Diggle thanks Felicity for her help. Diggle, meanwhile, has to decide what to do with Andy now.
Back in the past, Chang talks with Andy. Then we see Baron Reiter, known from the flashbacks with Oliver, giving Andy a cut for his work.
Back home, Oliver and Felicity talk. She shows him some photos of her “dark” self. They both talk about their own personal growth. Felicity decides to celebrate her moving on by burning her dark haired photo. Oliver tells Felicity that while they shouldn’t live in denial about her condition, he will do everything he can to help her walk again.
Andy is taken home to Lyla and Diggle’s house. It looks like Diggle is loosening up.
Josh’s Thoughts: Arrow, Season 4 Episode 11: A.W.O.L.
This episode of Arrow partially felt like a filler episode. I enjoy Diggle’s character, and like it when aspects of his character come to the surface, but I thought that the show is currently in the midst of a crisis with Darhk, and the whole team decided that they should put that on hold. I guess it makes sense, given the dangerous weapon that Shadowspire was looking for, but story-wise, I feel like it put a damper on things.
I did enjoy Felicity’s storyline though. Recovering from her injury has to be traumatic. I wonder if this “Dark Felicity” was just a construct for viewers to understand her internal struggle though, or was she legitimately losing her mind? If she was going crazy, I would worry about her status on the team. Just because she was able to push this aside for now, doesn’t mean it won’t reappear again. I have a feeling it will reappear again too, as it seemed really nice and tidy how quickly Felicity was able to push her to the side. I was half expecting Felicity to have stolen these “Rubicon Codes” in the episode, once Shadowspire was defeated.
But this episode seemed to be one of redemption for people. Andy seemed to earn his redemption helping Diggle and Lyla when things got rough. What I wonder about is Waller though. Is she really dead? That seems like an odd move, and her death seemed to be rather abrupt. I am going to guess we will be seeing her again, one way or another.
I hope we get back to the Damien Darhk hunt next episode. I really want to see some resolution there. I guess we will find out next episode!
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 4 Episode 11 of Arrow: A.W.O.L.
Based on Damien Darhk telling Oliver at the end of last episode that he would give him a few weeks to spend time with his loved ones as payment for the Arrow Team saving his family, I had a feeling that was an excuse for the show to step away from the Damien Darhk storyline for at least a couple episodes, and have some one-off episodes. It turns out that feeling was right, since this episode was not related to Damien Darhk in any way. I don’t really like when there’s a continuing story arc going on, and it gets interrupted. However, this was a pretty interesting episode since we were able to concentrate on Diggle improving his present relationship with his brother, Andy, and also gave us a chance to see both Diggle and Andy’s past in the form of this episode’s flashbacks focusing on them instead of on Oliver. All of this extra attention on Diggle is making me think more and more that he’s the one in the grave.
This was also an interesting episode for Felicity. I found it a bit ironic that of all of the Arrow Team members, her position is the only one that wouldn’t be affected by paralysis, since being able to walk is not essential to being a hacker, yet she doesn’t think she’s any good for the team. If she were anyone else on the team, then yes, being paralyzed would pretty much eliminate their effectiveness, since they would no longer be able to fight. But physically, she’s still able to exercise her computer skills. However, it turns out that she’s unable to do so mentally, thinks to the hallucinations that her pain medication causes. I’m glad she was able to overcome her self-doubt, and re-join the team by the end. I hope that she is able to continue to think positively and realize her value to the team.
As for Amanda Waller, it was surprising to see her shot dead. I certainly didn’t see that coming. But as we’ve seen many times on this show, pretty much no one stays dead (except for Tommy).
Can we get back to Damien Darhk yet?
Scenes from Arrow, Season 4 Episode 12: Unchained
Here are scenes from the next Arrow episode, titled Unchained:
I havent started the series yet, should I start?