'Arrow' Season 4 Episode 9 'Dark Waters' Mid-Season Finale Review

Non Spoiler Review- A crazy mid-season finale that may be one of the best episodes of the season if not the entire series with a huge cliffhanger and some exciting twists and turns. Unfortunately a weak point for the episode was the flashbacks, which have been very lack luster this season. Aside from that the episode made for a thrilling mid-season finale.

*******There will be Spoilers from this point on*******

Highlights of the episode

1. Is Felicity dead?- The big cliffhanger of the episode is the question of whether or not Felicity is dead. The episode ended with an attack on Oliver and Felicity by HIVE and Oliver manages to escape and pulls Felicity out of the limo and as you can see above he holds her in his arms where Felicity appears to be lifeless and the episode seems to point that she will be the one in the grave. However, I think this is very misleading for many reasons. First of all, at the beginning of the season when it flash forwards to that scene of Oliver in front of the grave said it occurred six months later and 'Arrow' occurs at real time and so it hasn't quite been six months in the continuity of the show and even if it had and suppose Oliver is just revisiting the grave it doesn't make sense that Barry would arrive and apologize  for missing the funeral if that had occurred four months earlier. Also I included a gif because if you look at the gif included above you can see Felicity move her head by herself. So this definitely suggests that she is certainly still alive for the moment. Now it's very possible she could die but I think it's very unlikely she is the person in the grave unless she survives and dies later. We'll have to wait and see in January when the series returns however and I think it's very likely Felicity will survive as last year the series "killed" off Oliver only to have him survive when the series returned.

2. Darhk's grander plans?- The episode also subtly reveals more of what Darhk is up to although I'm still very confused what all of this means, It shows Darhk showing a board of some sort these  corn fields and saying that the algae they used for the gas chamber made the air breathable here. I have literally no idea what this could possibly mean as it's extremely subtle and doesn't reveal too much.

3. Darhk has a family- A very intriguing reveal saw Darhk celebrating Christmas with his family. The big reveal about this was that Damien Darhk has a family which also means a weakness Oliver might be able to exploit since Darhk hasn't held back kidnappingand almost killing Oliver's friends.

4. Darhk will go to great lengths to stop Oliver- One thing that makes Damien Daehk such a great villain for the series was that he won't hold back in his battle against Oliver and will harm his loved ones without blinking an eye. I think this proves that Darhk is significantly a larger threat than Oliver has been lead to believe. I'm curious to see how this will affect Oliver's side of the battle and if he will stop holding back at this point.

5. Oliver proposes- Throughout the episode Felicity learns more about Oliver's original intentions to propose and asks him about it and at the end of the episode Oliver finally asks her and she says yes although the happy moment is short lived before they are attacked by HIVE. If Felicity does survive I'm curious if she will learn of Oliver's son as he is still keeping that a secret from her.

6. Laurel and Malcolm team up- During Oliver's attempt to save his friends by offering himself in exchange for them, he has a back up plan to have Laurel and Malcolm, dressed in the Green Arrow suit, come in to save them. I thought it was interesting to see Merlin utilize Oliver's arsenal in a very different way and doesn't hold back at all. It was cool to see the two of them fighting HIVE's soldiers and it made for some great action.

7. Oliver saves Malcolm- Malcolm tries to confront Damien Dark dressed as the Green Arrow and manages to find brief success before Darhk begins to use his abilities to choke Merlin and Oliver arrives to stop it and Merlin and Oliver then help each other against Dahrk and manage to subdue him and they think he is possibly dead but Darhk uses his powers and survives somehow, I'm curious to learn what he did as he recited some words before the explosion and survived.

8. Oliver outs Darhk publicly- It was very interesting when Oliver decides to reveal Darhk as the leader of HIVE on the news telling them about his intentions to destroy Star City and this had some huge repercussions as Darhk went after the Oliver cared about but it was interesting to see Oliver fight Darhk on another front.

9. Diggle's troubled interrogation- A small subplot of the episode showed John Diggle tries to get some information from his brother but Andrew doesn't want to cooperate. It was especially interesting that Andrew is no longer under Dark's influence and is still not cooperating. It made for some great dramatic tension for Diggle's character and I'm curious to see this arc further explored this season.

10. Laurel learns about her father's involvement with Darhk- I never realized that Laurel had no idea her father was working with Darhk. I just assumed she knew since she's a part of Team Arrow but never really thought about the fact she may not realize this was going on. I think that her reaction was interesting as it made since she would be angry about it but she seems to have quickly forgiven him when Quentin turned against Darhk later in the episode.

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