Finally, it happened! No, no, not that. I’m talking about Laurel. Laurel was useful this week!
[dropcap size=small]’D[/dropcap]ark Waters’ wastes no time in getting going. We start at the beach, where a bunch of school kids are picking up litter and Ollie is just watching because the Green Arrow doesn’t dirty his hands with trash. When a H.I.V.E. helicopter starts shooting at everyone because Damien Darhk likes some trash with his beaches, Ollie and the team decide to out Darhk on national television. Also no one dies. Somehow.
While Diggle tries to get information on Darhk from his brother, who doesn’t talk (either because he’s still H.I.V.E. or he was always just a total dick), Felicity and her mum find Ollie’s terribly hidden engagement ring, and a conversation with Curtis at the following ‘holiday’ party leads Felicity to believe that Ollie was going to propose three months ago. Again, I don’t know how. Something about soufflé.
Damien Darhk crashes the party and kidnaps Felicity just as she is confronting Ollie. He also takes Thea and Diggle but it’s not their turn to matter this week.
It’s Laurel’s! Ollie skips off to trade himself for his loved ones, but Black Canary suits up anyway, and with a little help from Malcolm, who wears the Green Arrow kit because Ra’s al Ghul likes to dress up sometimes, she breaks into H.I.V.E. HQ, and Canary Crys the shit out of everything. Felicity, Diggle and Thea are locked in Darhk’s gas chamber, but Laurel shatters the glass with her first ever useful Canary Cry.
Ollie and Malcolm team up to explode Darhk, and everyone gets out, which is sort of underwhelming when you consider that this is the first time in a while they’ve been in real danger and you know at least one of them will die eventually.
But it’s not over yet. Ollie finally proposes to Felicity, and she says yes, which is great and all that, but it’s also not great. First, we know that when Felicity finds out about William, it’s not going to end well for them. Second, I still don’t like Olicity. And lastly, they get into a limo and happy Christmas music plays and you know something not great is about to happen.
While Darhk goes home to his family (what?!), his team of minions surround Ollie and Felicity’s limo and shoot at them some more. Ollie climbs out the window (because there’s no one shooting at the left side of the car), and drives the limo to safety, but then we watch as he drags a bloody and unconscious Felicity from the back seat.
Now, remember that flashforward where Ollie and Barry stand over a grave? The one that happens six months after the first episode this season? Well, it’s only been three months so Felicity’s probably fine. That’s that cleared up.
One of the many reasons season three didn’t work was that the ‘dead’ characters kept on not being dead, and it felt like there were no consequences. It’s a risky move if they choose not to kill off Felicity, but there is a way they can make it work this time. I think there’s a good chance that Felicity will be wheelchair-bound when the show returns in January, and we’ll finally get the Oracle we’ve been waiting for (not that I wish paralysis on anyone, just to be clear).
And speaking of things we’ve been waiting for, Laurel came into her own this week. The promo hinted that Ollie and Laurel might have to work as a pair, and while that wasn’t exactly what happened (in this case, the Green Arrow was Merlyn, not Ollie), the showrunners are obviously heading in the right direction with Laurel. Whether she and Ollie are together or not, we need more of the Green Arrow/Black Canary team-up that we love from the comics.
‘Dark Waters’ is somewhat predictable as mid-season finales go, but there’s enough in there to keep me excited for the rest of the season. Damien Darhk is as sassy as always, and it will be interesting to see how his family comes in to play. Laurel is moving towards something like the comic book Black Canary, and even the island flashbacks are following the comics now.
The writers know where they went wrong with season three, and are doing the only thing that makes sense. They’re pulling from a source material that we already know, and that’s fine by me.
Arrow and The Flash return in January. DC’s Legends of Tomorrow premieres January 21st on The CW.
