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Arrow ‘Eleven-Fifty-Nine’ Recap

MAJOR SPOILER
WARNING!

Well,
fellow Arrow fans, tonight was the
episode we have been waiting for

since the Season 4 premiere. I’m going to warn you, I have not been this

emotional over a character
death ever. This was an
extremely heartfelt and beautifully
directed
episode.

Diggle discovers Andy in the apartment, wandering
through the
dark. Diggle
questions Andy on his activities, to which Andy responds ‘he
didn’t want
to wake up Sara’ as he holsters a
gun in his pants. He then also
tells John about how H.I.V.E now knows he is
alive, and that Malcolm appeared
to
him and presented him with an opportunity. There is a military convoy
coming in
from the shipyard, and
Merlyn wants Andy to hijack it.

Remember that
totem that Vixen
seemingly destroyed? Well, you can
visit it in the arrow cave!
After studying the idol, Oliver states that he
recognizes it from when he was on

Lian Yu. Thea gets a text about Ruve’s acceptance speech, and Oliver
decides as
a gesture of good faith,
he will go. After Ruve gives her speech she shakes
hands with both Oliver
and Laurel, Ruve congratulates
Laurel with her work on
the Damien Darhk trial, and talks about how
impressive she finds Laurel’s work

ethic. She tells Laurel that when she becomes mayor, she would like to bring

Laurel in as the D.A of Star
City. Not only a huge career opportunity for
Laurel, but a way for Laurel to
get in on the ‘inner
circle’.

Arrow 'Eleven-Fifty-Nine' Recap
Image: The
CW

Laurel and Thea stay back in the
arrow cave, while
Oliver heads to the pier with Diggle.
Andy proceeds with the
plan to help hijack the convoy… but he’s really
acting as a double-agent. He

texts John when the convoy passes by John and Oliver’s location. John and

Oliver successfully stop
Merlyn’s men from taking over the convoy, and Andy
jumps out of the drivers
seat. Andy seems extremely
pleased that they stopped
Merlyn’s plans, but Oliver seems suspicious and
says it was ‘too

easy’.

While Oliver, Diggle and Andy talk on the pier… Laurel and
Thea
face some trouble in the
arrow cave. Malcolm infiltrates the loft with some of
his loyal league of
assassin members, and after
fighting Thea himself, Malcolm
manages to escape with the idol. Oliver,
Diggle and Andy return to the arrow

cave and Laurel tells Oliver that Malcolm stole the idol. Oliver discusses
with
both John and Laurel
about his suspicions of Andy. Diggle tells Oliver to give
Andy a chance, as
he is probably terrified of
Merlyn and H.I.V.E and just seems
nervous because H.I.V.E may be out to get
him. Oliver pulls Laurel aside
and he
discusses his suspicions with her. She tells him that he should know
better than
anyone about
getting in between siblings. Oliver and John just got over a major
hump in
their friendship, and Oliver
accusing Andy of conspiracy would certainly
jeopardize that.

Laurel
meets with her father to talk
about the job
opportunity presented to her by Ruve Adams. She also realizes
that she can’t
play a dual
role if she were to take the D.A position. She cannot be Ruve’s
District
Attorney and The
Black Canary.

Oliver and his
team follow Andy’s lead and head to one
of Malcolm’s secret bases.
Moments
after the team steps in, they realize it’s a trap. A wall separates
Oliver and
Andy from the
rest of the group. Andy jumps in front of a rigged bow, and is
struck in the
shoulder with an arrow. He took
the arrow that was meant for
Oliver. The team heads back to the loft and
Diggle patches up Andy. Andy

apologizes to Diggle about the mission being a failure and how he should be
the
one to blame for the idol
going missing. Diggle says it doesn’t matter if Darhk
has the idol. They
separated the orb from the idol and
one is worthless without
the other. Oliver pulls Diggle to the side to
discuss how Andy may be a

breach in their security. Diggle disagrees, telling Oliver to give him the

benefit of the doubt. Laurel
heads to Iron Heights, saying she is going to
authorize a ‘D.A’ search to
see if she can find the idol.
Diggle and Thea head
to find some intel on Merlyn’s location. Oliver tells
Diggle that he needs to
‘run
down a lead’ and he sends Andy home.

Arrow 'Eleven-Fifty-Nine' Recap
Image: The CW

Malcolm takes the idol to
Damien Darhk, and
Damien tells
Malcolm that the idol is missing a piece and that he must find it.
If
Malcolm succeeds in getting missing
piece back to Darhk, Malcolm and Thea
will be spared when GENESIS runs its
course on Star City.

Laurel
journeys
to Iron Heights, where she has members of the SCPD search the
prison for any
illegal items.
Damien plays with Laurel’s mind, talking about Lance’s
testimony and how
he should do what any good father
does and ‘protect his
daughter from the dark’.
Chills.

Meanwhile, Andy begins looking

around Diggle’s apartment as if searching for something important. Oliver

confronts Andy, asking what he
is looking for. Andy claims he is searching for
H.I.V.E surveillance
devices, but Oliver doesn’t buy it. He
pins Andy against
the wall, and demands him to start talking. Just as Oliver
is about to begin his

torture, John walks in and points his gun at Oliver. Oliver lets Andy go,
and
John orders him to
leave.

Diggle later meets Oliver in the arrow cave,
stating that Andy
is John’s business and for
Oliver to stay out of it. They go
back and forth arguing to a few minutes
about ‘the darkness’ inside of
Andy
and Oliver and how just because Oliver cannot escape his darkness, it
doesn’t
mean that Andy
can’t. Diggle leaves, enraged.

Laurel comes in and talks
to Oliver
about how she is considering
turning down Ruve’s offer. Oliver tells
Laurel she should go for it, that
being a District Attorney is what
she has
always dreamed of. He tells Laurel that Star City needs a hero
without a
mask.

Back at
Iron Heights, Murmur hands out library books to the
different inmates.
Hidden inside the books, are knives.
One of the prisoners,
while traveling back to his cell, turns and stabs one
of the guards. The rest of

the prisoners are let out of their cells, including Damien Darhk, and they
take
the prison guards
hostage.

Arrow 'Eleven-Fifty-Nine' Recap
Image: The
CW

Oliver and his team head out after seeing the
prison
riot on their surveillance videos of
the place, including Laurel who has
decided to suit up ‘for one more’.
Captain Lance distracts the police
outside
the prison, so that Oliver and his team can sneak into the prison.
Despite
Oliver’s wishes, Andy
meets them inside. The team briefly splits up, taking on
multiple prisoners
who rushed to Damien Darhk’s
aid. Merlyn comes in, and
challenges Thea to a rematch. They fight for a few
moments, and then Merlyn pins

Thea against the wall. He tells Thea that she will never defeat
him,
and then he runs off down
the hallway.

Damien orders one of his prisoners
to kill one of the
guards. Before the guard can commit
the deed, he is struck
with an arrow. All the members of team arrow pour
into the room, and begin

fighting the prisoners. Damien pulls out a gun, and points it at Andy. He
tells
Oliver and Diggle to drop
their weapons, or he will kill Andy. After a moment’s
hesitation, they both
comply. Darhk turns to Andy and
asks him if he ‘has
it’.

Andy smirks, and pulls out the missing orb
to the idol. Diggle
comes to
a horrid realization that Oliver was right the entire time and that
Andy had
always continued to serve Damien
Darhk. Darhk reveals that he knows
that Oliver is The Green Arrow. Not just
because he made the connect with
Andy
and Diggle or Thea being Merlyn’s daughter. He tells Oliver that when
Darhk
held William hostage
and Oliver came to rescue him, he recognized the
fatherly look on
Oliver’s face. In fact, he knows
everyone on the
team’s secret identity. Thea comes in and shoots Damien in
the stomach with
two arrows,
but Darhk merely laughs. He presses his blood onto the idol, and
then takes
one of the prisoners lives,
binding him to the idol permanently.
Damien regains his mystical powers, and
he uses them to choke the
members of
team arrow.

He throws Thea and John against the wall, and
then he sets
his sights on
Laurel. He tells Laurel that he made a promise to her father, and
that he
was going to keep it. He uses his
power to freeze Oliver, rendering him
useless. He stabs Laurel with one of
the broken arrows, and begins to
laugh.
Laurel collapses in Oliver’s arms, and Damien
escapes.

Captain Lance is
cuffed to a chair
at the police station, when one of his fellow officers updates
him on the
situation at the prison. She tells
him that one of the vigilante’s
got hurt in the fight with Damien Darhk.
She tells him it was The Black
Canary.
Lance gets extremely flustered, and begs to speak to his Lieutenant
so he can be
freed for just
an hour or so.

Oliver rushes Laurel to the hospital, and
the nurses
immediately get to work on her.
She survives the surgery, and the
nurses say she is going to be fine.
Felicity comes to visit the team,

overwhelmed with sadness. The nurses bring Laurel into a regular hospital
room,
and the team goes in to
visit her. They all say a few words to her and then
leave Oliver and Laurel
to talk. Laurel asks Oliver to
get something out of her
pocket in her costume. Oliver pulls out her wallet,
and finds the photo of her

that he had on Lian Yu with him.

Laurel tells Oliver that she hopes
he
finds love with Felicity
and even though Laurel herself was not the love of
Oliver’s life, he was
always the love of hers. She then
asks Oliver to promise
her something. The camera pans from an outside view,
so that we do not know what

it is she asked him to promise her.

In the hallway, Thea walks up to
John
and Felicity and tells
them that she spoke with Captain Lance and he is on his
way. Just when they
think everything is going to be
okay, the nurses rush into
Laurel’s room with a crash cart. She began
convulsing, and then she suddenly

stops breathing. They attempt to use the defibrillator on her multiple
times,
but it failed. At 11:59,
Laurel Lance (The Black Canary) took her last breath
and passed
away.

Team Arrow breaks into a set of
hysterics, and Oliver
stumbles out into the hallway, overwhelm with
paralyzing guilt and agony. He
looks
up to see Captain Lance coming down the hallway, and the two make eye

contact. Lance stops and braces himself
against the wall, realizing what has
happened. He slowly collapses on the
floor, too overcome with grief and
shock to
speak.

Flashback Oliver

Tianna ran
out of the
cave, pretending to
be crying. She told Reiter’s guards on the surface about
how Reiter and
Oliver were attacked by something.
Reiter’s men hurry into the
cave, and several are shot by Oliver. Tianna
kills the one guard on the surface.

Oliver comes out, and tells Tianna they must bury Reiter in the cave using
the
C4 they have in the room.
Tianna discovers Oliver’s picture of Laurel while
Oliver rigs the C4. She
promises him that is she makes it
off the island and he
does not, she will find Laurel and tell her about how
much Oliver loved her. If

Oliver survives and Tianna does not, Oliver will go to Russia and find
Tianna’s
parents and tell them
the same. (Hmmm… is this how Oliver learns his
Russian??). They blow the
C4, closing the cave on Reiter and
his few remaining
men. Inside the cave, Reiter kills all of the men trapped
with him and then uses
their
life force to power his idol. It creates an explosion in the wall, and the

scene cuts out.

A
Few Thoughts.

For weeks, maybe
even months, I have followed
discussion threads about who
could possibly be in
the grave. Several of them mentioned Laurel, but I
remained in denial thinking
it
was going to be someone else. When Captain Lance walked in and made eye

contact with Oliver, that was the
moment when my heart sank and the tears
started flowing. It was such a
powerful and emotional moment that
required no
words. Stephen Amell and Paul Blackthorne…just wow…amazing
performances by
both of
them.

This episode was truly devastating, but it was also
beautifully
directed and the actors all did
a phenomenal job. Every single one
of them. Katie Cassidy in particular, was
especially amazing. The on
screen
chemistry of the cast of Arrow is extremely clear, and it is
a very
beautiful thing.
Though this episode was very heartbreaking, it did have some
beautiful
moments. I loved seeing Laurel and her
father visiting the old Chinese
restaurant that Sara and Captain Lance used
to visit.

Also, I’m

extremely curious as to how Damien has an idol extremely similar to the one
that
Reiter has. Could Darhk
have ventured out towards Lian Yu in his centuries of
living? The flashback
sequences are definitely getting
very, very
interesting.

Overall, Eleven-Fifty-Nine gets 10/10 from
me. The storyline
was very
suspenseful, and I really as guessing and changing who I thought was
going
to die until the minute that it
actually happened. Andy betraying them was
a huge plot twist, as I really
was convinced that it was
Damien Darhk
that Andy was betraying.

So what is Damien going to do
now, since he is
roaming free?
Hmm.. we will just have to wait and see.

Arrow
will return
on Wednesday, April 27th in the
episode titled ‘Canary Cry’ at
8PM/EST on The CW.

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