Arrow ‘Taken’ Recap

I will most certainly say
that this weeks episode
of Arrow has thrown multiple twists and
curve-balls at me. My heart has

gone out to Oliver more than it has ever gone out to a favorite character of

mine on a
show.

‘Taken’ began with Oliver, Felicity and Paul (Curtis’s

husband) attempting to teach Felicity
how to walk again. Last episode, Curtis
gave Felicity a new microchip that
would help her gain the ability to
walk
again. She struggles, and expresses great frustration when she is
unable to do
so.

As she and
Oliver are exiting the building, Damien Darhk appears,
interrupting Felicity
and Oliver’s heart-to-heart
moment. After making a few
quirky comments to both Oliver and Felicity, he
tells Oliver to check his phone.

Oliver sees a live video of William, playing with some toys on a table.
Darhk
reveals that William thinks
that Darhk himself is a friend of his mothers. Darhk
then states that he is
currently holding William
captive. He tells Oliver that
the only way for Oliver to safely get William
back is for Oliver to drop out of

the mayoral campaign.

After Darhk leaves, Felicity asks him who
William
is. For a moment, Oliver
hesitates, and then he reveals that William is his
son.

Image: The
CW

 

Once
Oliver and Felicity
are back in the Arrow cave, Oliver explains to Felicity that
the only reason
he never told her is because he
wanted to honor Samantha’s
(William’s mother) wishes. Just as they are
about to continue their

conversation, the rest of Team Arrow appears. Oliver explains to them that

Damien Darhk came to him and
Felicity and that Darhk is holding his son hostage,
and will continue to do
so until Oliver drops out of the
campaign. At first, a
wave of shock seems to have passed over Team Arrow at
the fact that Oliver used
the
words ‘my son’, but after that moment they realized what it was they had

to do. In those moments, it
didn’t matter to them that Oliver had kept this
great secret away from
them. What mattered most was that
Oliver needed his team,
and they needed to rescue William. Following this
revelation, it is revealed to

Felicity that Thea, Malcolm and Barry all knew about how Oliver had a son.

Felicity continues to mask her
emotions, and agrees to help by contacting Barry
and the Central City Police
(CCP) to help with the search
for
William.

Samantha then arrives in Star City, meeting Oliver in
his
campaign office. She begins
to harp on Oliver about the location of William,
asking him what he could
possibly do that the police force
couldn’t do in the
search for William. Oliver reveals to Samantha that he
is The Green

Arrow.

Oliver states that he knows someone who can help, and she
resides
in Detroit. Her name is
Vixen, and she also possesses mystical abilities just
like Damien Darhk
himself. Oliver travels to Detroit,
and locates Vixen. After
watching Vixen kick some serious butt (love this
girl), Oliver tells Vixen that

he needs her help. Vixen comes back to Star City with Oliver to help him get
a
lock on Damien Darhk’s
location by using her mystical powers to summon her
animal
abilities.

Vixen is able to successfully
track down William’s
location, and Team Arrow springs into action. Laurel,
Thea and Diggle
successfully
take out a bunch of Darhk’s GHOSTS. Oliver and Vixen go in for the
prize,
and go directly for Darhk. Darhk
uses his powers to immobilize both Vixen
and Oliver. During this brief
fight, Darhk is extremely intrigued by
Vixen’s
charm that she wears on her neck, enabling her to summon her animal
abilities.
It’s clear he
has seen something like it before, which means that Darhk has
been studying
magic for quite awhile. We know
that he was once a friend of Ra’s
Al Ghul and has been around for decades,
but I’m wondering how it was
that he
came to discover his mystical abilities. Sure is something to think

about!

After losing
the battle with Damien Darhk, Team Arrow flees back
to the Arrow cave in an
attempt to regroup. This time,
Detective Lance is with
them. Darhk calls Oliver on his phone once more,
telling him that the deadline

has moved up once more and Oliver must drop out of the campaign by
nightfall.
While Oliver begins to
battle with himself, Vixen comes to a revelation. She
states that she is
able to access her magical powers
because of her trinket, so
Damien Darhk must be the same way. Lance
discloses that he has seen Darhk pray

to some sort of artifact a couple of times, and he agrees to draw it for
Vixen.
While Vixen and Lance go
to work, Oliver calls together a press
conference.

He announces the
suspension of his campaign, and
that he is
fully endorsing Ruve Adams.

The following morning, Vixen
presents new
information that
a friend of hers, who is a college professor, recognized the
artifact that
Damien Darhk has. In order for it
to work and to harness the
proper power, it has to be aligned at certain
points on the Earth, almost as if

harvesting its power from somewhere deep in the Earth. Felicity cross
references
the locations they have
already discovered Darhk at in conjunction with the
‘special’ points on
Earth, to figure out which one
Damien is more than likely
hiding at next. Once again, they are able to
successfully figure out where

Damien Darhk is hiding.

Damien then calls Oliver, telling him that he

will meet Oliver with
William at a certain time and location. As Oliver is about
to agree with the
arrangements, his team stops
him. They tell him that it could
be a trap, and with the new information
Vixen has provided they may be able
to
stop Damien Darhk once and for all. Oliver leaves the choice up to
Samantha. She
tells him to bring
William home and to take down Damien Darhk.

 

Team Arrow then

launches an ambush on Damien
Darhk’s new location. Laurel and Thea take out the
GHOSTS, while Oliver
heads into position. With Darhk’s
men distracted, Vixen
sneaks into Damien’s house. She uses her powers to
steal Damien’s artifact,
and
flee outside. (I loved Damien’s one-liner of ‘well… that happened’).

However, separating Darhk from the
artifact did not halt his ability to harness
his powers. He was able to
migrate outside, where he used his
powers to try and
kill Oliver, Laurel and Thea. William appeared in the
doorway, begging Darhk not
to
kill The Green Arrow and his friends.

Vixen harnessed every last bit

of her magical abilities, and
smashed Damien’s artifact. Almost immediately
after destroying it,
Damien’s powers vanished. Oliver
defeated him in a simple
hand-to-hand combat, and he was arrested by the
Star City Police.

After

this great victory, Oliver said goodbye to Vixen. I really hope we will get
to
see her come back on the
show, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing her! I also hope we
get to see a taste of
how she and Oliver know each
other. He mentioned early in
the episode that they had a run-in with each
other ‘last year’. Perhaps when

he was infiltrating the League of Assassins? Regardless, I would love to
find
out and I really hope we
get to see her again!

The most shocking moment
of the episode then
occurred.

Detective Lance
revealed that the police
questioned William while the hospital was looking
at him. Apparently Damien

Darhk was not the one who abducted William. Rather, it was a man who was
missing
a hand…. and we all
know who that is. MALCOLM!! (Yeah, this was something I
DEFINITELY did not
see coming at all)

The
episode concluded with Oliver
recording a message on a laptop to William. In
the video, he states that he is

William’s biological father, and that he is also The Green Arrow. He wants

William to have a normal
childhood, which is why William will not see the
recorded video until after
his 18th birthday. He’s keeping
William away because
he wants him to live his childhood life to the fullest,
and not have to look
over
his shoulder ever five minutes to make sure danger is not right behind him.

He closes the laptop, and we see
Felicity rolling into the room.

In a
major, game changing moment,
Felicity takes off her engagement
ring and tells
Oliver that she is the one who needs space from Oliver, not
just William. She is

incredibly hurt by all the lying, and also by the fact that Oliver has
failed to
include her in any of
the decisions regarding William in his life. Just as
Oliver is about to
respond, a clicking sound is heard.
The camera zooms in on
Felicity’s feet, and we see her slowly start to
stand up. She exchanges a

surprised glance with Oliver, realizing that Curtis’s device actually
worked.
However, the look of
surprise slowly fades away as Felicity turns her back to
Oliver and walks
out of the room, closing the door
behind her.

What does
this mean for our favorite pair? I really,
truly love the relationship between

Oliver and Felicity. Their relationship is so much more than an every day
fairy
tale romance. It took
them three years to develop this beautiful, loving
relationship. It has
never been easy for them, but they
have always managed to
pull through. I really hope that they are able to re-
kindle that flame, and that

we will see Felicity walk down that aisle and marry Oliver
Queen.

The
Merlyn
Tales

Earlier in the episode after Oliver reveals to his team

that Malcolm was one of the people
that knew about William’s existence, Thea
states that she would get in
touch with Malcolm. Malcolm meets
Thea in her
apartment, where he upfront lies to her about telling Darhk
about William. I
feel as though
Malcolm really could be a great father if he put his mind to it.
It is clear
that he loves Thea, just as he
loved Tommy. We’ve seen him in
moments where he is more than capable of
unconditional love. I would
absolutely
love to see more from Malcolm’s past, and how he came to be the
kind of person
he
is.

Later on in the episode when it is revealed that William was taken

by a man who was missing a hand
and not by Damien Darhk, Thea heads to her
apartment to meet Malcolm once
more. Malcolm tries to deny it at
first, but Thea
calls him out on it. He then begins to say that Thea has no
idea what is coming
their
way, and he did it for her. He has always done what he has for the two of

them. He then storms off, claiming
that he would rather Thea hate him and remain
alive…. then love him and be
dead.

If Malcolm is
pretty shaken up about
what is ‘coming their way’, I’m extremely curious.
It is not easy to rattle a

guy like Malcolm’s cage. The writers and actors of Arrow sure do
have
an amazing, awesome way
of keeping me on the edge of my seat wanting more and
more!

John
Barrowman has spent years developing
this character, and I
love every last bit of it. I have a feeling we are
going to be seeing a lot more

Malcolm, and I can’t wait to see what happens with Malcolm

next.

Dark-ness
falling?

It would appear as
though with Damien’s source of
power now destroyed, he is just
your everyday
Joe. Appear so. I don’t think we have seen
the last of Damien
Darhk yet.
He’s extremely calculating, and the writers of Arrow do
love to
surprise us. I once again give
kudos to Neal McDonough for his
performance as Damien Darhk so far this
season. He has brought a lot to the

stage with this super villain, and has really created an amazing character

here.

Image: The
CW

 

Flashback

Oliver

Reiter and his man have finally
finished digging into the
cavern they have been working on. Just as the
entrance is cleared, we are shown

what appears to be a possessed form of Conklin’s body speaking some sort of

ancient, foreign language.
Reiter and his men clear the room, leaving only
Oliver with Tianna and the
rest of the island prisoners. The
possessed body
looks over at Oliver, and Oliver’s tattoo that was given to
him by Constantine
begins to
glow. Conklin’s body nods to Oliver, telling him that he has
permission to
pass. (It seems as though the
ancient language Conklin’s
possessed body was speaking was similar to the
language used by Constantine and

Darhk himself in earlier episodes… I wonder what that is all

about!!)

Reiter and his men re-
enter the room once Conklin’s body
disintegrates into the wind. Reiter
makes the comment that he knew Oliver
would
be able to handle the situation, before handing Oliver a flashlight.
We then see
Oliver peer into
the entrance of the cave, revealing a rather large, open
cavern. Remember
how earlier I mentioned that Damien
Darhk’s artifact had to be
lined up with certain points of the Earth in
order to work properly? I wonder if

this cavern is something along those lines.

I can’t wait to see
where
these Flashbacks are going
and how they tie in to the current day situation.
Maybe we will get a touch
on how people like Damien Darhk
and Vixen were able to
inherit their artifacts to harvest such
powers?

So, what

now?

With Felicity and Oliver on a temporary break, it looks
as
though times are about to
get complicated for Team Arrow. Hopefully it won’t
last too long and it
will just be a brief matter of time
before everyone is
happily reunited again.

Even though Damien Darhk
may be temporarily out
of the
picture, I’m curious as to what angle Malcolm is playing right now. Will

Malcolm attempt to take over
H.I.V.E now that Damien Darhk is, seemingly, out of
the way? It is certainly
something to think about. Team
Arrow knows that William
was taken by a man who was missing a hand… and
they all know who that is. It

seems as though they may be going to war with Malcolm once more! (Talk about
a
VERY interesting plot
twist)

I’m sure Ruve Adams won’t be too happy
with the fact that
her husband is
imprisoned…especially with a certain police
Captain that used to work for
her
husband…hmm…

Phenomenal job to the
entire cast and crew of
Arrow on this episode
tonight!

Arrow
will be taking a temporary Hiatus, and will be
returning on Wednesday, March

23rd.