Recap / Arrow S 1 E 22 Darkness On The Edge Of Town

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On the island, Fyers’ men, who are working for someone greater, plan to destroy a commercial airliner – an event that would in turn destabilize China’s economy. In front of Oliver, Shado, and Slade, Fyers forces Yao Fei to record a statement saying he takes responsibility for the missile. Fyers then shoots Yao Fei.

The Dark Archer murders numerous researchers at Unidac. Detectives Lance and Hilton realize it was the copycat and he has a connection to Merlyn Global. Thea and Roy overhear this and continue searching for the Hood. When Moira doesn’t give Oliver the truth about who took Walter, Diggle, disguised as the Hood, tranqs them and holds them captive. Moira reveals that Malcolm wants to level the Glades with a device that can cause an earthquake.

Felicity discovers the connection between Merlyn and the copycat, so Oliver devises a plan to break into Merlyn Global. After swinging through the elevator shaft, Oliver meets with Tommy, while Felicity, dressed as a Big Belly Burger employee, copies computer files and uploads a Trojan, which the police’s tech department traces back to her. Back in the lobby, Oliver threatens Roy to keep Thea away from the Hood for the safety of both of them. Thea gives Roy an ultimatum: either give up finding the Hood or lose her. She walks out on him.

Oliver tells Laurel he hopes he didn’t wait too long to get her back. From the street, Tommy sees Oliver and Laurel together. After his night with Laurel, the Hood fights with Malcolm, who says nothing can stop his plan. Malcolm knocks the Hood down and uncovers his identity. Diggle goes after the device, but it’s missing.

Tropes applying to this Episode:

• And Your Little Dog, Too!:
  • Fyers threatened to firebomb the jungle unless Yao Fei helped capture the others. Then Fyers threatens to execute Yao Fei's daughter and friends if he doesn't make the broadcast.
  • Diggle, posing as the Hood, pretends to beat up Oliver in front of Moira to force her to reveal what she knows about the Undertaking.
• The Anticipator: Malcolm is on the phone when the Hood enters the room behind him.
  Malcolm: Very well, I'll be in touch. Can I help you? (turns to face the Hood; continues talking to person on phone) No, I wasn't talking to you.
• Arrow Catch: Malcolm manages to catch the Hood's arrow during their fight.
• Bait-and-Switch: Oliver and Moira are apparently kidnapped by the Dark Archer, but it turns out to be Diggle posing as the Hood.
• Batman Gambit: Ollie has himself and Moira get captured by the Hood (Diggle in disguise) and lets himself be beat up by him so Moira can tell the truth about what Malcolm has planned.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted; Oliver picks up some bruises from Diggle beating him up even though he's pulling his punches. Felicity is not happy.
• "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: Subverted by Felicity, who finds hacking a distasteful term, but is perfectly willing to use it.
  Oliver: Are you hacking into the Merlyn Global mainframe?
  Felicity: Hacking is such an ugly word. No, um... Yeah, I'm totally hacking.
• Break the Cutie:
  • Roy breaks up with Thea, who then goes home to find Walter has just handed Moira divorce papers.
  • Tommy follows Oliver's advice to restart his relationship with Laurel, only to get a streetside view of Oliver and Laurel stripping off for sex.
• Brick Joke: Felicity is trying unsuccessfully to hack into the Merlyn mainframe. Ollie is apparently pestering her about it.
  Oliver: Anything?
  Felicity: Just for the record, I will pump my fist in the air and scream "Yes!" if I get anything.
  • Later, after successfully hacking into the mainframe and downloading the info.
  Felicity: (Pumping her fist in the air) Yes! (Looks at her fist) Wow, I really do do that.
• Call-Back:
  • When Oliver says he's going to have a chat with his mother about the Undertaking, it's pointed out she shot him the last time he did that.
  • Malcolm sardonically notes how he tried to kill the Hood around Christmas, only to have the Hood save his life later and now try to kill him again. "You really should make up your mind."
  • When Roy asks what Oliver would know about the Hood, Thea points out how the Hood supposedly saved Oliver's life in the pilot episode.
• Continuity Nod: In the island flashback, we find out the man Oliver left behind in "Dodger" was working for Fyers.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: With Merlyn not having the element of surprise or gear, Oliver puts a much better showing against him. The second Merlyn breaks his bow, however, the battle quickly ends in Merlyn's favor.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Roy has lost someone close to him, but refuses to say who. This fuels his determination to meet the Hood as he wants to be just like him, so he won't lose anyone else.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Oliver doesn't want to just take out Malcolm Merlyn because he thinks the Dark Archer will still be free to carry out his plan.
  • Roy can't see what Oliver would know about the Hood.
• Earthquake Machine: What Unidec Industries was building.
• Elevator Buttons Mash: Despite Felicity fanatically hitting the Door Close button, someone gets into the lift with her and Oliver, until the latter 'accidentally' knocks his papers flying so he has to get out of the lift to pick them up.
• Foreshadowing: Walter comes home from the hospital near the beginning of the episode and Thea gives him a huge hug and says she's "so glad you're home". His reply? "That makes two of us." With Moira standing right there...
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: Oliver has a collapsible pistol crossbow in a briefcase that he uses to swing across the lift shaft with Felicity.
• Hope Spot: Oliver thinks he's on the verge of stopping the Undertaking, so talks of hanging up the Hood and jumpstarts his relationship with Laurel. Only the earthquake machine isn't where he thought it was and Oliver ends up being captured by Malcolm.
• The Infiltration: Team Hood pulls this off to get inside of Merlyn Global's headquarters. Oliver goes into the building in his suit, looking for Tommy Merlyn for a meeting. He passes by a delivery girl with a burger (Felicity), who is led up to the right floor for the right security person (Diggle). Thereby, they all infiltrate the headquarters from different angles at the same time.
• Internal Reveal: Oliver and Malcolm learn one another's secret identities.
• Just Between You and Me: Fyers finally lays out his Evil Plan. He's going to shoot down a commercial airliner, grounding all air traffic to China and thus damaging their economy. A broadcast by Yao Fei claiming responsibility for this act will also imply a Military Coup and force him to serve as The Scapegoat.
• Kick the Dog: Fyers shooting Yao Fei in front of his daughter.
• Kicked Upstairs: Implied with Tommy. Quentin notes that he's been sent to answer his questions even though he's new to the company and so has the least knowledge of it's operations. Oliver finds him in a spacious corner office as befits a high-ranking executive, but when he asks what his job actually is, Tommy just replies, "I work closely with my father."
• Knight Templar Big Brother: Oliver gives Roy a Crushing Handshake and introduces himself as Thea's "disapproving older brother."
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Detective Lance hates Oliver for cheating on his daughter and for bringing his other daughter on the cruise she died on, so he's very reluctant to admit he's been a much better person as of late.
  Quentin Lance: Ever since Oliver's been back, he's been... different. ... I'll deny ever having said that.
• Master of the Mixed Message: Laurel calls Oliver on his Love Confession, pointing out that it doesn't mesh with his claim that he just wants her to be happy with Tommy. His actions certainly back this up; Oliver advises Tommy to get back with Laurel, only to end up in bed with Laurel himself.
• The Man Behind the Man: We get our first glimpse of Fyers' employer, a woman we only see from the back.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Brion Markov is the creator of the Markov Device, which can create earthquakes. In the comics, Brion Markov is the hero Geo-Force, one of the Markov siblings who are known for Dishing Out Dirt.
  • Ferris Air is referenced in this episode. Ferris Air is best known for being the company associated with Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris in Green Lantern.
  • Tommy asks Oliver "why so serious?" (a reference to The Dark Knight) when he visits his office.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • During the infiltration Felicity is caught by a security guard and Oliver runs into first Malcolm and then Thea, preventing him from coming to her aid.
  • First Diggle finds the crate holding the earthquake device is empty, then Oliver realises Malcolm is the Dark Archer when he catches an arrow fired at him.
  • Malcolm has one when he unmasks the Hood, only to find he's the son of his co-conspirator Moira.
• Properly Paranoid:
  • The desperate student Oliver left beaten, bleeding, and bound in a cave because he didn't know him, couldn't trust him... he shows up again as one of Fyers's men, and the only one not in a balaclava (because he needs to be comprehensible over the radio). Oliver has to be restrained from attacking the man in a rage because of all the guilt he felt over that decision.
  • Malcolm realised from the Trojan that Felicity put in his mainframe that someone was on to him, so he had the Markov device moved.
• Revealing Cover Up: The Dark Archer kills everyone involved in the development of the Markov device and torches all their computers. This would have been successful if not for the fact that the Hood knew who his co-conspirator was. Also, there were phone calls made between Unidac and Merlyn Global. And... screw it, it just wasn't a great idea.
• Scream Discretion Shot leading into the squeal of tires on Malcolm's car as he races from the murder scene.
• She Who Must Not Be Seen: All we know about Fyers Mysterious Employer is that she's got nice legs.
• Ship Tease
  Oliver: Hold onto me tight.
  Felicity: I imagined you saying that under different circumstances.
  (Oliver looks at her with a "What?" expression)
  Felicity: Very platonic...circumstances.
• Slipping a Mickey: Diggle offers to share his burger with the security guard he's working with. Next thing we see the man in unconscious.
• Swiss-Cheese Security: Even with Diggle on the inside, Merlyn Global is way too easy to break in to. For a random food order, for example, the person who ordered it has to come out; the person delivering it can't walk it in. The elevators require keycards that say who has access, so Oliver would've had an escort to take him to Tommy. Etc.
• Taught by Experience: Malcolm knocks out the Hood and then unmasks him. In "Year's End", he tried to unmask Oliver after defeating him, but as Oliver was still conscious he only got stabbed.
• That Came Out Wrong
  Felicity: The last time the Vigilante paid your mom a visit, you got shot, and I got to play doctor with you. (exasperated expression) Ahh! My brain thinks of the worst way to say things.
• Unit Confusion: Felicity says she's got a teraflop of data to go through. "FLOPS" stands for "Floating Point Operation Per second" and is a measure of processing speed, not a quantity of data.
• The Unreveal: Roy says he's lost someone; we'll never learn who.
• Wham Episode: Felicity has been found out hacking by the police, Tommy spots Oliver making love to Laurel, Malcom Merlyn exposes he's the Dark Archer and finds out Oliver is the Hood before he defeats him, Walter is divorcing Moira, and Yao Fei is killed in the flashback.
• What Does She See in Him?: On revealing to her father that she's seeing Oliver again, Laurel immediately lists all the reasons why this is a dumb idea. Quentin is surprisingly understanding.
• Wrecked Weapon: The Hood's bow gets broken during his fight with Malcolm.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
  • Why Malcolm kills Dr. Markov and his team, as well as Destroy the Evidence.
  • Fyers kills Yao Fei as soon as he's fulfilled his purpose as a scapegoat.

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