No small task.
Season 4, Episode 6:
Lost Souls
Felicity convinces Oliver to launch a desperate rescue attempt to recover a miniaturized Ray from Damien's captivity. Meanwhile, Sara finds herself giving into the bloodlust of the Lazarus Pit, and Oliver thinks it's a good idea if Felicity takes some time off with her mother Donna.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Thea, Laurel, and Sara, during the climatic fight in the H.I.V.E. building.
- Badass in Distress: Ray Palmer, although he's more of a Science Hero with only minor badass skills.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Ray looks pretty good for a guy whose been the size of a French fry for six months, presumably without access to any kind of hygiene products.
- Call-Back:
- Felicity has become so wrapped up in trying to rescue Ray her friends have to force her to rest and have a shower. The same thing happened with Ray when he was wrapped up in building the ATOM suit, with Felicity having to force him to stop and rest/bathe.
- Oliver said how much he misses the vodka back in his old base with Diggle.
- We're reminded again that Felicity dyes her hair blonde.
- Came Back Wrong: As with Thea, Sara has trouble controlling her bloodlust, inflicting a savage beating on a security guard at the Kord warehouse, and later neck-snapping a Ghost.
- Celebrity Paradox: Ray acknowledges the existence of the James Bond film series in the Arrowverse. Colin Salmon (Walter Steele) was a prominent member of its supporting cast during Pierce Brosnan's tenure as the character.
- Clark Kenting: On meeting Oliver, Curtis raises a hand to block the top half of Oliver's face to see if he is the Green Arrow, then decides that Oliver's jaw looks different.
- Code Name: Felicity finally gives one to Diggle ("Spartan") because Curtis is taking part in the mission and is on their radio net.
- Combat Pragmatist: Sara is shown firing a Beretta 9mm pistol before closing to hand-to-hand combat distance.
- Concealment Equals Cover: That sofa in the lobby should not have been able to stop rifle rounds, or even pistol rounds.
- Contrived Coincidence:
- The Ship Tease between Quentin and Donna could come off as this, as they only meet each other by just happening to sit next to each other at the same bar.
- Darhk wasn't searching for Ray's signal; he intercepted it through sheer luck.Darhk: Of course, what some call luck could also be called destiny.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Once again, Oliver is no match for Damien Darhk, and needs to escape with a flashbang. However, the objective was merely to distract him, not to actually defeat him.
- Damned by Faint Praise: The best that Curtis can say about what Felicity got from Donna is her blonde hair, which Donna doesn't get is an insult and just says that Felicity dyes it.
- Dramatic Unmask: Darhk attempts this on the Green Arrow, only to find he's not chained up like he should be.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Oliver briefly gets "Chatty Cathy" from Felicity for inviting her mom to see her and texting with her beforehand. He is not amused. Thea, Sara, and Laurel are.
- Epic Fail: Apparently Felicity's utter inability to cook is an inherited trait, as Donna puts chicken into the oven following Oliver's instructions and it somehow comes out raw.
- Escape Artist: Oliver is able to escape from Darhk's chains twice—however the first time he was chained up by Diggle disguised as a Ghost, and the second Darhk was using his magic to strangle Oliver with the chain, and got distracted when the flashbang went off.
- Evil Is Petty:
- Darhk is offended that Quentin calls his magic "mumbo jumbo" and for that, he makes sure that he'll be the one to summon Quentin from now on.
- He also breaks one of Green Arrow's arrows, just to be a dick.
- Foregone Conclusion: We pretty much know that Oliver will survive being forcibly drowned by one of the slave laborers.
- Good Is Not Nice: Team Arrow don't have any moral issues over stealing a device they need to restore Ray from a rival company. It doesn't help that Sara inflicts a savage beatdown on a security guard in the process.
- Hidden Depths: As before, ditzy Donna comes through with a well-needed pep talk to her daughter.
- I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: Oliver is still confused as to why Felicity would choose him over Ray Palmer, who matches her in brilliance. Especially now she is the attractive billionaire, the reverse of the situation when Felicity first met Oliver.
- It's All My Fault: Felicity blames herself for Ray's current condition, since she wasn't in town to pick up his distress calls. However it turns out there's more to the story—she's actually freaking out because she was so wrapped up in being with love with Oliver that she forgot everything else, which to her is a case of O.O.C. Is Serious Business.
- I Need a Freaking Drink:
- Oliver, after the disaster of a dinner with Felicity and Donna. He initially wishes he still had the trunk of Russian vodka from the old Arrowcave, but Diggle says "vodka's for wimps" and gives him Tennessee whiskey, which he says "puts hair on your chest."
- Averted with Quentin; Donna finds him in a bar, depressed over how Sara is leaving right after he got her back, but he's drinking soda.
- Is This Thing Still On?: While they're infiltrating the H.I.V.E. building, Felicity gets stuck into Oliver about inviting her mother to SC. Diggle opens his line, stating that he can hear everything. When Felicity asks if everyone can hear their conversation, Black Canary and Speedy simultaneously confirm this, while Sara snarks that she couldn't remember this much chatting when she was in Team Arrow.
- I Want Grandkids: Donna wants her daughter to pop the question with the handsome man who both loves her and can cook.
- Layman's Terms: A variation; it's not that Darhk can't understand the tech talk being thrown at him, he just finds science boring.
- Magic Versus Science: Averted. Darhk is a sorcerer, but he understands science including the 'how' of Ray's technology and intends on having his science team use some reverse-engineered Palmer tech for some nefarious purpose.
- Match Cut:
- From a hieroglyphic of a bird to a black statuette of a canary in the Lance home.
- From the leaf on the label of the Tennessee Whiskey bottle to a leaf on Lian Yu.
- Mr. Fanservice: On seeing Oliver for the first time, Curtis mutters to himself a reminder that he is married and Oliver is straight.
- Mythology Gag: Ray compares H.I.V.E. to SPECTRE. In fact, SPECTRE served as the original influence for both HYDRA from Marvel Comics as well as H.I.V.E. for DC Comics.
- Neck Snap:
- In the flashback, Oliver killed Vlad with a neck snap, after the former attacked Oliver at the prodding of Conklin.
- Sara does the same to a Ghost, showing she's not in control of her emotions as she hoped.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The Legends of Tomorrow trailer released before the previous Season Finales of both this show and The Flash (2014) shows that Sara has no idea that Ray is a Sizeshifter. This episode has Sara taking part of Team Arrow's rescue mission because he can't return to his normal size.
- Not What I Signed on For: Curtis mentioned that although he told HR he was looking for excitement; base jumping into Darhk's hideout isn't what he had in mind.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Diggle was somehow able to jump a H.I.V.E. operative and take his place without Darhk being any the wiser.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Felicity has a hilarious one when her mother shows up.
- She also has a not-so-hilarious one when she finds out that it's Damien Darhk holding Ray hostage.
- Out of Focus: Sara had the least amount of screentime of all the characters (mostly appearing during the fight scene), considering her storyline dealt with the effects of the Lazarus Pit.
- Put on a Bus: Sara is back on the team for only one episode before she decides that she needs to retire and leave town due to her Lazarus Pit-induced bloodlust.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: The crew were clearly unable to get Alex Kingston to make an appearance, but they also couldn't just leave out Dinah learning that Sara was alive again, so we just see the end of a phone conversation between them.
- Rescue Arc: The episode is centered on Ray Palmer's rescue.
- Reed Richards Is Useless: Lampshaded when Curtis tries to point out that what Ray has achieved has far greater scientific implications that just an Incredible Shrinking Exosuit.
- Relationship Upgrade: After initially turning down a request to date from Alex, Thea decides she wants something normal in her life and agrees at the end of the episode.
- Running Gag: Curtis has the usual confused reaction to Felicity's mother being so different from her.
- Ship Tease: Between Donna and Quentin at the end of the episode, as well as Thea and Alex (Oliver's assistant in his campaign for Mayor).
- Shout-Out: When Ray is told about H.I.V.E., he compares it to SPECTRE. note
- Sibling Team: Not just Oliver and Thea, but now the Lance sisters as well.
- Too Much Information: Team Arrow's reactions when Ray is talking about encountering cockroaches when shrunken down.
- Trojan Prisoner: Oliver and Diggle pull this off on Darhk to get Diggle inside and keep Darhk occupied while the rescue mission is going on.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Felicity had to stop Ray from talking about cockroaches due to her being freaked out by bugs.
- Xanatos Gambit: Conklin asks one of the prisoners, Vlad, to kill Oliver. Oliver gets the best of Vlad and breaks his neck, only to find the other prisoners watching, with Conklin feigning outrage alongside them.
- You Just Had to Say It: Curtis tells Felicity "It can't get any worse!" Cue her mother walking in.
