Check out our Arrow episode recap for the third episode of the fourth season! Oliver and Diggle work out their differences while Thea and Laurel deal with Merlyn in Nanda Parbat. Check out our thoughts on the episode!
Don’t need the Arrow episode recap for Restoration? Click here to jump directly to Violet’s thoughts on the episode!
To see Josh’s thoughts on this week’s Arrow episode, Restoration, click here to get directly there!
Episode Recap of Arrow, Season 4 Episode 3: Restoration
Star City
This episode of Arrow begins with Diggle chasing down some more of the Ghosts in what looks to be a lumber mill. Felicity is doing her normal radio back up, when Diggle gets taken down by one of the ghosts. This ghost pauses for a second, seemingly contemplating what to do, and ends up letting Diggle go. Oliver then shows up for back up. The men get away; except for one that Felicity is able to pin down by remotely hacking a crane to drop some debris on him. Diggle and Oliver are able to get to him before he is able to use is cyanide pill. They try to interrogate him but the guy uses some sort of shocking device, which takes out Diggle briefly, and the Ghost flees.
Back at the Arow Cave, Felicity tries to bring the group together, reminiscing how it is back to the core group of three heroes, Oliver, Diggle and Felicity, and asks the two if they want to get a drink together like old times. Oliver seems up for it, but Diggle still seems untrusting of Oliver and opts to go home.
At home, a mystery intruder, who is an ARGUS Agent, confronts Diggle. This man tells Diggle that his brother was actually assassinated rather than just collateral damage like Diggle thought, and even gives Diggle the name of the person who put out the hit—Mina Fayad. This prompts Diggle to do some sleuthing, and winds up locating this girl. He gets caught through, and put into a firefight. He takes out a couple of soldiers but is forced to flee.
Meanwhile, Oliver and Felicity are at the Arrow Cave, and Felicity is analyzing the cyanide tooth Diggle and Oliver recovered early in the episode. A robbery comes through the police radio, and Oliver decides to check it out.
At the site of the robbery, it turns out there is a surprise for Oliver. Damien Darhk, earlier in the episode, met with Mina Fayad (the person Diggle is after) and she seems to be a part of the Hive group that has come up several times this episode. But the important part is that she recommended the “Villain of the Week” to Darhk, aptly called “Double-Down,” for his ability to create biological playing cards which he can throw Gambit-style. Instead of being explosive though, they are razor sharp, as demonstrated when Darhk has Double Down take out the soldier that escaped Oliver and Diggle earlier in the episode.
So back to Oliver, he is facing this guy, and seems to have the upper hand pretty quickly. But Double-Down makes a comeback and forces Oliver to flee, with one of Double-Down’s card in his arm.
Back at the Arrow Cave, Felicity is livid that both Diggle and Oliver decided to go out on their own without back up. She demands that they work their issues out while she goes to Palmer Technologies to investigate the playing card removed from Oliver’s arm. Diggle and Oliver talk, and it gets heated for a while. But they calm down, especially when the name Mina Fayad comes up. Diggle decides to try to trust Oliver again, and they go off to do some further investigating.
Meanwhile, Felicity visits her new pal/employee, Curtis at Palmer technologies, and tries to make up some excuse for the origin of this playing card. After some analysis, he determines that the cards have magnetite in it, which is the same material that helps homing pigeons find their way. Apparently this is good and bad news—it can be used to find the owner of the card, but the bad news is the owner can also find the card, which he does. He shows up, and attacks both Curtis and Felicity, and Felicity is forced to flee to the Arrow Cave, bringing Curtis with her. She of course has to admit that she is working with the Arrow, since she knows about the cave. But more importantly, Double-Down makes his way down there and continues his attack. Felicity picks up a semi-automatic machine gun and blindly shoots in he general direction of Double Down. After a few rounds of shots, it looks like Felicity manages to wing the villain, and he flees.
Oliver returns and seems kind of impressed that Felicity was able to fend the man off. Felicity reassures Oliver that Curtis only knows about her working with the Arrow and not the Arrow’s identity.
Later in the episode, Oliver and Diggle use the card to track down Double Down who is looking to flee the city. Diggle and Oliver stop him, and with a dramatic saving of Diggle by Oliver, he takes a card to the chest. Diggle seems to be happy with Oliver now.
Nanda Parbat
In Nanda Parbat, we see Malcolm Merlyn and Nyssa sparring. Merlyn is having a great time, but Nyssa lets him know if she were able to kill him, she would. We see evidence that Merlyn is using the Lazarus Pits, when a wound on him heals up immediately.
Thea and Laurel show up. Thea is still looking for a way to cure her rage. Laurel, meanwhile, has a coffin with her, and inside is Sara’s body, which Laurel hopes to revive. But neither Nyssa nor Merlyn thinks it is a good idea. Laurel is pretty insistent but so is Merlyn.
A little later Thea talks with her father, and asks for help subsiding this rage. He says the only way for it to subside is to kill the person who killed her. Unfortunately that person is dead, so Merlyn says the next best thing is to kill anyone, which will satiate this “hunger” for a time. Thea is pretty ticked off that this is the only solution. Merlyn, trying to be more helpful, tells her there might be a possibility, if they visit some wise sage in the “mountains,” and they will leave in the morning.
But the next day, Thea is attacked by what looks to be Assassins from the League. Thea takes them out—permanently–pretty handedly though, and seems to enjoy it by the look on her face. Merlyn shows up then and asks her how she feels. At this point Thea realizes that there is no sage, and that Merlyn doesn’t have a cure. After a fit of rage, somehow Merlyn then changes his mind, and decides to resurrect Sara after all. Merlyn thinks this will somehow help both Thea and Laurel’s conscience.
They prepare the ceremony, and Sara’s body is lowered into the pit. After some time in the water, Sara leaps out, much like Thea did when she was in there. She seems quite feral, and Merlyn has to sedate her.
Later, Sara is chained up, and Thea and Merlyn are concerned that she will not come back from this feral nature. While this is going on, Nyssa was up to some nefarious actions. An Assassin tells Merlyn something has happened. What happened was Nyssa destroyed the Lazarus Pits…
The Island
On the Island, Oliver is now a part of this militaristic group that is guarding these “slaves” working the fields. While guarding, one takes off. Oliver is able to catch the guy, and tells him to chill out. Another guard comes up though, and knocks him out with his gun.
Then another soldier says that some of the product they are farming has been stolen, and Oliver also learns that it is a drug called “Slam,” which is a mix of heroine and cocaine. The workers are rounded up, and a soldier executes one to make a point, so that the others will rat out whoever stole it.
Oliver steps in at this point, to seemingly try to stop the killing, but is forced to torture one man in order to get answers. Finally a woman admits to stealing the plant for medicinal purposes. The head soldier wants to execute her, but Oliver makes the case that they can’t keep killing all of the workers, so he will make her “disappear.” The soldier agrees, and Oliver takes the woman away from the camp, and fools the accompanying soldier into walking on a mine, and tells her he won’t kill her but she has to follow his lead.
Josh’s Thoughts: Arrow, Season 4 Episode 3: Restoration
It is finally good to see that Oliver and Diggle are finally getting back on the same page. While I understood Diggle’s frustration, Oliver’s plan was to never get anyone hurt, and given the gravity of the situation with Ra’s Al Ghul last season, I can see why Oliver felt this was the best move. Oliver really did have everyone’s best interest at heart. Maybe Diggle should have been informed about the plan, but I can also see why it was a secret. But now things seem to be getting better, which is a good thing. A fractured Team Arrow is a bad Team Arrow. As for the “Villain of the Week,” I thought he was a bit cheesy. He seemed like he should be a pretty simple villain for Oliver to take out. What I didn’t like about him though, is that he certainly helped up the menacing feeling of Darhk. The way Darhk takes care of him and Mina Fayad really makes it looks like Oliver will have his work cut out for him.
As for Nanda Parbat, I am wondering what is going to happen with Thea. She can’t continue this blood rage with Team Arrow, Oliver won’t allow it. Unless he makes an exception, saying she can kill the most vicious villains in order to keep her “hunger” in check.
I was a bit cloudy as to Merlyn’s willingness to all of a sudden revive Sara. He seemed dead against it, but then decided it was a good idea after Thea changed her mind, and thought it wasn’t. It was all a little perplexing to me. But the one thing I really found intriguing this episode—Merlyn mentioned that the only way to stop the hunger the Pits give is to kill he person that hurt you. In Sara’s case, does that mean this person would be Thea or Merlyn? The direct person is Thea, but it wasn’t her fault, as she was under the control of Merlyn. I wonder if this was a inadvertent foreshadowing of what is to come….
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 4 Episode 3 of Arrow: Restoration
Well, it was inevitable. Sara had to be resurrected in the Lazarus Pit so that she’ll be able to go on to join the Legends of Tomorrow. While there wasn’t any avoiding it happening, that doesn’t mean I have to agree with the fact that it did happen, or the circumstances under which it happened. I can’t believe that Laurel would actually want to go through with this, would want to put her sister through this, after she has already witnessed the bloodlust that Thea is experiencing — and Thea wasn’t even dead, much less dead for such a long time that Sara had been! I had thought that maybe when they visited Nanda Parbat, Thea and Laurel would learn some sort of cure for what Thea has been experiencing, and it seemed like Merlyn was presenting such an option in the supposed wise sage in the mountains. But then that turned out to be all made up, and we find out that there is no cure, except to kill the person who killed you, and if that’s not possible, as in Thea’s case, then you just have to keep killing people to keep the bloodlust urges at bay for awhile. (So what I get from that, is that Thea basically should be Dexter.) In Sara’s case, her killer was technically Thea, though Merlyn was controlling her. But as far as Sara knows, all she saw was Thea shot her, she didn’t know Merlyn was behind it. In spite of all this, Laurel still wants to go through with the ceremony, even though Sara would come out way worse than Thea, and would probably want to kill Thea. Then again, maybe Laurel figures she can get Sara to understand that Merlyn was her actual murderer, so that Sara will go after him instead. In any case, Laurel bringing Sara back was for purely selfish reasons, and she did so without regard for how the resurrection would affect her sister, despite knowing about the negative effects. I’ve never liked Laurel, and probably never will. This recent action of hers doesn’t help her case. I understand that Laurel is hurting from the loss of her sister, but she had no business doing this, especially with how long gone Sara was. I know that Sara eventually apparently makes a full recovery, since she will be joining the Legends of Tomorrow, but that doesn’t make what Laurel did right. I’m guessing it’ll be a bit of a long road to recovery.
As for Oliver and Diggle, I’m glad they finally kissed and made up, so to speak. I suppose all it took was Oliver taking a bullet, er, I mean, playing card, for Diggle to finally get over himself. But it seemed a little too sudden, nonetheless. I wonder if everything will go back to normal between them from here on out, or if Diggle will still struggle from time to time.
Well, guess we’ll see what feral Sara is like next episode.
Scenes from Arrow, Season 4 Episode 4: Beyond Redemption
Here are scenes from the next Arrow episode, titled Beyond Redemption:
