Arrow season 4, episode 11, “A.W.O.L.,” featured characters overcoming their pasts.
When a group of corrupt soldiers, Shadowspire, start taking out A.R.G.U.S. agents, Lyla is pulled back into the fold — bringing Team Arrow with her. And it turns out that Andy has a history with Shadowspire. Felicity, however, is struggling with her new normal in a wheelchair and starts seeing visions of her old self, telling her to stop with the self-pity.
This episode is our first real look at how Felicity is dealing with her condition. The last episode looked more at Oliver in the immediate aftermath as Felicity was tended to. Now with some time having passed, Felicity’s frustrations and fears are starting to come to the surface.
When Oliver tries to get her to help the team out behind a keyboard again, she accidentally triggers a trap and separates Diggle and Oliver. Though Diggle ends up fine, Felicity is guilt-ridden and tells Oliver she can no longer be a part of the team. Meanwhile, her goth hallucination prods and needles at her current feelings of weakness until she snaps, seemingly at Oliver, who is trying to comfort her.
Felicity being visited by her old, goth self is an evocative way for Felicity to deal with her feelings of helplessness and frustration and anger. Her old self trusted the wrong people, and she was left on the outside when Cooper turned out to be a criminal. The old Felicity represents everything she’s been trying to leave behind and is feeling again in her new situation.
Additionally, it’s her old self’s words about Felicity deciding to never rely on anyone else again after her ex-boyfriend’s “death” and a reminder of what playing superhero and helping others got her that brings Felicity back to herself. She gets dressed and, with Curtis’ help, returns to the Arrow cave. She gives an impassioned speech to Oliver about her old self being too angry to help people but not being that person anymore. So when the team goes back into the field, she is behind the computer again and is able to banish the ghost of her old life.
She does this symbolically as well when she later shows Oliver a picture of her old self and burns it. She is leaving the past in the past and is moving forward with her life. She’s found her calling and no doubts will keep her from it any longer.
While Felicity works to overcome her own past, the Diggle brothers also have the shadow of their past hanging over them, as it turns out that Andy was a part of Shadowspire while he was enlisted in the military. Though he lost touch with them after being discharged, he still knows how they operate.
Diggle and Lyla bring Andy to A.R.G.U.S. to speak with Amanda Waller about Shadowspire, and he warns them that the group is not after the guns the team thinks they are. And he proves to be right when Shadowspire attacks A.R.G.U.S. for some of its technology, the Rubicon. Waller, Lyla and other agents are taken hostage while Diggle and Andy are on the outside. Diggle contacts his team and then comes up with a plan with Andy to get both brothers in the room. However, Amanda Waller is killed before they can act.
Alongside Team Arrow, Andy, Diggle, and Lyla manage to overpower the Shadowspire agents. The Rubicon is safe for now, and Andy has earned more of his brother’s trust. In the end, Diggle and Lyla invite Andy to move into their home and meet his niece, baby Sara. Andy is moved to tears, and it truly seems as if the rift between the brothers may heal after all.
It does feel like Andy’s allegiances shifted a bit suddenly; while he’s still snarky, he offers his brother help on Shadowspire seemingly without reservation. And the threat to Lyla’s life has him desperate to help. The change isn’t unwelcome, as his nastiness was growing tiresome, but it did feel like a quick flip. Perhaps some humanity was all he needed after all.
Also worth noting
- Oliver is worried that Felicity’s injury was a result of him not telling Felicity about his son after Barry traveled through time and warned him against keeping the secret. He tells Laurel about this, but she tells him that the only one to blame is Damien Darhk — a sentiment Felicity later echoes.
- Baron Reiter is the leader of Shadowspire. The flashbacks are becoming relevant at last!
- Oliver promises Felicity that he will search for ways to get her walking again, as they live in a world with magic, superpowers and other crazy things.
- Felicity finally gets a code name: Overwatch. This is clearly a nod to EP Marc Guggengheim’s novel of the same title. Oliver also quips that he would have gone with Oracle but it was already taken. Does that mean Barbara Gordon exists in this world?
Watch a promo for the next episode
