Recap / Arrow S 4 E 17 Beacon Of Hope

Brie Larvan breaks out of jail and invades Palmer Tech to demand the bio-chip in Felicity. Oliver needs a special ally to help rescue Felicity and Donna.

Tropes

• Absurdly Ineffective Barricade: Donna hugs a plastic WET FLOOR sign as a shield against the bees.
• A God Am I: Reiter makes a speech to this effect while ranting about the power the idol gives him. Or rather, that he'll become a god after sacrificing more people to it.
• Air Vent Escape: How Felicity, Donna and Thea escape the office with the bees outside the door.
• Arc Words: The episode title itself.
• Bait-and-Switch: What appears to be Felicity hacking away is revealed to be Brie.
• Beneath the Mask: Curtis is a touch frightened by Oliver's real persona that he hides behind the charming ex-playboy billionaire.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Now that Darhk's in prison, Malcolm tells him HIVE is content to let him rot. Darhk has no intention of doing so and begins assembling a power base in there. Malcolm's comments make him a Wild Card—he's show gloating over Darhk's predicament, but then contacts Andy Diggle on Darhk's behalf. So we have Darhk, the HIVE Council and Malcolm all pursuing their own agendas.
• Blatant Lies:
  • Curtis wants everyone to know that he's keeling over because he's got a fever. It's not because he just walked into the Bunker and discovered that his boss's former fiancé and his sister, ADA Laurel Lance, and whoever that other guy is are all famous vigilantes.
  • After Curtis returns to his husband and gets an earful for rushing off without explanation, Curtis pretends he was helping the police solve the crisis but—scary and exciting as it was—he now realizes that he belongs back home and there will be no more disappearing acts. Given the enthusiasm with which Curtis worked with Team Arrow, if he's not lying to his husband he's certainly lying to himself.
• Body Horror: Not only is a venom-carrying robotic bee trapped within Oliver, but it actually starts replicating itself. It takes Curtis' ingenuity and Laurel's Canary Cry to neutralize them. ^note It is implied the robotic corpses will later exit Oliver's body through his waste.
• Breaking the Fellowship: Felicity makes it abundantly clear to Thea that she's never coming back to Team Arrow, saying she can help save people more effectively as the CEO of Palmer Tech.
• Breather Episode: Everything is quiet on the HIVE front and the Villain of the Week is an over-the-top Flash supervillain. The following episode is the major death episode that was teased since the season premiere.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Brie Larvan, last-seen in the The Flash (2014) episode "All-Star Team-Up" returns.
  • Darhk encounters Murmur, Villain of the Week from "The Offer", while in prison.
  • Andy Diggle returns after a ten episode or so absence.
• The Call Knows Where You Live: Felicity's attempts to walk away from Team Arrow don't do much good when Brie attacks Palmer Tech.
• Celebrity Paradox:
  • A Star Trek Shout-Out was made by Curtis despite the fact that Susanna Thompson (Moira Queen), Neal McDonough (Damien Dahrk), Cynthia Addai-Robinson (Amanda Waller), Nick Tarabay (Captain Boomerang) and Jeri Ryan (guest star in Episode 2) have all appeared in the franchise either as major or minor characters. For added bonus, the reference made was "Borg", and Thompson, Ryan and McDonough played characters who were introduced as or later turned into Borg.
  • Curtis refers to the Canary Cry as "going Mariah Carey". Wentworth Miller, who plays Captain Cold in The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow, was in two of Carey's videos (and funnily enough, the Supergirl episode that aired the same week as this one also referenced Carey, along with featuring an appearance from the Flash).
• Chekhov's Gun: The tattoo he received from John Constantine stops Reiter's attempt at draining him.
• Combining Mecha: Brie's robotic bees can combine into a humanoid Killer Robot.
• Cruel to Be Kind: After listening to Curtis' casual remarks and jokes a short while, Oliver chews him out quite nastily, because he doesn't want him to have any positive illusions about what they are doing.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Darhk instinctively tries to use his defunct telekinesis to kill Malcolm out of pure habit.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: After Darhk's failed attempt to kill him with magic, Malcolm smirks and assures him that such performance issues are common at his age.
• Do Not Adjust Your Set: Donna is using her camera phone to do her makeup when Brie appears on both it and the computer monitor on Felicity's desk.
• Double Reverse Quadruple Agent: Turns out Andy Diggle is one of these for HIVE, and Malcolm is offering him a proposition.
• Dude, Where's My Reward?: Oliver bitterly brings up the fact that he can save the city, but not his relationship with Felicity.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Darhk gets Murmur under his thumb by threatening his grandmother, having him kill his two fellow inmates when they try to muscle Darhk a second time.
• Evil All Along: Turns out Andy Diggle just faked his Heel–Face Turn.
• Faint in Shock: Though he claims it's due to a fever, it's pretty obvious that Curtis passes out because he's having a Fangirl moment over his favorite masked vigilantes.
• Foil: Thea who is turned on by the thrill of risking her life, versus Felicity who just wants to save people and can do that just as effectively outside Team Arrow.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Curtis is pretty much a stand-in for Felicity in this episode. It's even mentioned by Team Arrow how similar they are.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Brie gets taken down by her own bees, once Curtis manages to hack them.
• Hollywood Hacking: Brie escapes prison by hacking prison records and changing her release date. Using the prison's own computers, no less.
• Hurricane of Puns: There are a ton of bee puns.
• Internal Reveal: Curtis finds out the entire Team Arrow's secret identities.
• Kick the Dog: Lampshaded when Laurel asks Oliver if he intends to kick any more puppies after barking at Curtis.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Darhk's poor treatment of his agents finally comes back to bite him, since HIVE thinks things will run smoother without him.
• Neck Lift: Reiter shows off his power by doing this to Oliver, but the effort drains him and he rushes off to find the idol without finishing Oliver or Taiana.
• Not So Above It All:
  • Quentin makes a Shout-Out (see below), and is offended that everyone is shocked by it.
  • Oliver makes a bee pun in the end too, when he quotes the episode title.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Reiter has one when he fails to kill Oliver.
  • Larvan has one when her bees turn on her.
• Offhand Backhand: Lampshaded during the sparring scene.
  Oliver: You've got to sense my presence even when I'm not in your eyeline.
• One-Man Army: In the opening sparring scene, Oliver takes on Diggle, Thea and Laurel at the same time and kicks their collective asses.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Malcolm shows up in Iron Heights to bluntly inform Darhk that HIVE is not devoting any resources to get him out of there due to his habit of killing operatives and his "hocus pocus" really not benefitting them; as far as they are concerned he can rot in jail, while they proceed with Genesis without him.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Everyone is bemused that Oliver knows who Harry Potter is (though he's ignorant of how it's a movie franchise as well).
• Revenge Before Reason: Brie has the data on the bio-chip, but discovers that Felicity was the hacker she faced in Central City and goes looking for payback instead of taking the chance to escape.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Laurel refers to Felicity as "someone" Oliver says that "she's not Voldemort".
  • Felicity gripes that Team Arrow are like tribbles.
  • Curtis compares the bees' adaptive nature to the Borg and says "Holy frak!" on seeing the Bunker.
  • Felicity directly refers to the events of the episode as "Die Hard with bees", and appears to be quoting The Godfather Part III when she starts griping, "Just when I thought I was out..." (they pull me back in)
  • Quentin compares the plan to take down the bees to Independence Day.
  • Brie threatens to reenact her favorite scene from My Girl with Thea (presumably the scene with the bees).
  • Donna compares her, Felicity and Thea's situation to the Panic Room.
• State The Simple Solution: When Brie explains why she needs the chip, Felicity points out that she could have just asked.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Perfectly sums up Curtis's reaction to the Internal Reveal.
• The Starscream: It's not exactly clear who in HIVE is calling the shots now that Darhk's in jail—presumably the other Partners. Oddly Malcolm doesn't seem to have made a power grab......yet.
• Swiss-Cheese Security: Curtis stumbles on the lair elevator and just takes it down. Apparently it doesn't even have a swipe card reader or key lock preventing an unauthorized person from using it (this right above an office that used to be full of campaign workers).
  Quentin: So, anyone can just walk in.
• Title Drop: "Beacon of Hope" has been mentioned at least three times. Once by Thea, twice by Oliver, and thrice by Felicity.
• Training Montage: The opening sequence.
• Weirdness Magnet: Quentin on having to deal with a swarm of robot bees taking a building hostage: "Yeah, that's my life now."
• We Need a Distraction: Baron Reiter provides one when he goes searching the tunnels for the idol, leaving Flashback-Ollie and Taiana free to rescue the prisoners.
• Wham Shot: Andy Diggle works for/with Malcolm.
• Workout Fanservice: Downplayed with the sparring scene—probably because there are two women involved, so having Oliver and Diggle shirtless would look strange.
• The Worm That Walks: The bees can group together and form a humanoid shape that's not at all a man in a leather costume.
• You're Insane!: Oliver to Reiter again.
  Reiter: Madness is a matter of perspective, Mr. Queen. Your morality blinds you from understanding what I have achieved.
• You See, I'm Dying: Brie reveals she has a tumor in her spine, and if she got it removed she'd be paralyzed, which is why she wants the chip.

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