Even in the middle of the nuclear apocalypse, Arrow somehow managed to find time to fit in some Smoak family drama. It was genius, really. “Lost In the Flood” finally got to dive deeper into the reason why Felicity’s fugitive father hadn’t been in her life all these years, and it actually was quite the scandalous secret on Donna’s part. But hey, did I mention there was a legitimate nuclear apocalypse happening? Yeah, there were a few bigger worries taking form as well, so let’s get recapping, shall we?
Thanks to Damien Darhk’s nuclear hit on Havenrock and the tens of thousands of casualties that followed, he became so magically powerful that he was literally unstoppable. Diggle and Oliver tried their best to take him down at his nexus point, but he almost killed them instead, before leaving to take back control over Rubicon and to launch all of the world’s nuclear warheads.
In Darhk’s dome/ark, Lonnie Machin got away after killing Thea’s boyfriend Alex (and yeah, he was really, truly dead. RIP Alex). Malcolm found her grieving over Alex’s body and took her for a “time out,” because he knew that Machin was gunning for Darhk and that threatened their survival. But she managed to get an SOS message out to Felicity, who traced the text to The Glades, so Oliver and Diggle suited up to save her. They found a new sewer access point, which led them right into Darhk’s ark named Tevat Noah, the idealistic, underground neighborhood safe from nuclear blasts. But they were just a little too late, since Malcolm had already given Thea the little yellow pill HIVE uses on Ghosts to make them agreeable. Instead of leaving with Oliver, she fought him and held him at gunpoint.
Back at Felicity’s loft, Curtis was called in for tech help in keeping the rest of Rubicon’s codes away from Darhk, and he reacted just as well to meeting her “FBI’s Most Wanted hacker” father Noah Cutler as you’d expect. In a word: hilariously. He was finally able to put two and two together to figure out how Felicity came from Donna … but I digress, and this was no time for jokes, because Darhk called in his own backup hacker to join HIVE: Felicity’s ex-boyfriend Cooper Seldon, whom Darhk helped to escape from prison. Man, Felicity had so many blasts from her past waltz back into her life this week!
When Felicity came back to her loft to check in on Curtis and Noah after helping find Thea’s location, she was shocked to find her mom there. Donna was upset that Felicity didn’t tell her she was spending time with Noah, and felt betrayed, so Felicity was finally forced to come clean about how she works with the Green Arrow, and they needed Noah to help save the world from nuclear annihilation. She took the news surprisingly well, but regardless, all Smoak family drama had to be put on hold when Cooper managed to gain control to Felicity’s computer system. All hope seemed lost, until Felicity got the idea to piggyback off his connection and send an electrical surge through his computer, sending him flying clear across the room and giving HIVE some major technical issues at their own headquarters. Noah and Felicity then managed to take Rubicon offline so that Darhk couldn’t gain access to it. Victory!
However, now that they all had some downtime, it was back to the Smoak family drama show. Felicity wanted to get to the bottom of why, in the heat of the moment when arguing with Donna, her father said he had no choice in the matter when it came to leaving her and Donna all those years ago. When she asked her mother about it directly, Donna finally came clean: Noah didn’t leave them and disappear, Donna took Felicity and left Noah, disappearing from his life. She just let Felicity believe it was the other way around to keep her safe from her father’s lies and issues. Later, she told Noah to leave because it would be the best thing for Felicity, and although he wanted to stay in her life this time around, he ended up leaving anyways. That’s a lot for one girl to digest after literally saving the world from nuclear annihilation.
In Tevat Noah, Oliver and Diggle were forced to run and hide from Thea and the rest of HIVE’s Ghosts, but that became a lot more difficult once Ruvé Adams broadcasted a warning to all the citizens saying that the Green Arrow was attacking their home and jeopardizing their safety. While hiding out in a home, Oliver began to question if Darhk maybe had the right idea when it came to the world being too far gone to save, after talking with some of the Tevat Noah citizens who hadn’t needed to take any yellow pills to go along with Genesis. Darhk had given people more hope than Oliver ever could as Green Arrow, and he was really taking it to heart. But his questioning was short lived, since Thea arrived with Ghosts to attack Oliver and Diggle, and while trying to talk Thea out of hurting him, Oliver realized that they had to keep fighting and never give up to save the city and the world. His pep talk worked, and Thea helped Oliver and Diggle get the upper hand on Malcolm.
But how could we forget about Lonnie?! Anarky was still loose in Tevat Noah, and he managed to capture Ruvé and her daughter. He sent a broadcast of his own all over town, threatening to kill both of Darhk’s women and to blow the entire town off the map. Oliver, Diggle and Thea were forced to rely on Malcolm to help get all the Tevat Noah civilians evacuated while they stopped Anarky, even though Malcolm thought the world above them was about to be under a giant mushroom cloud. But since Oliver had hope (and Diggle had a gun to Malcolm’s head), they went with Oliver’s idea. Good choice!
Team Arrow found Machin down in the control room, and they tried to save Ruvé and her daughter, but an accidental shot hit the power source (made of extremely touchy dwarf star alloy) and all of Tevat Noah began to explode. Anarky stabbed Ruvé in the heart with an arrow, and her final words involved making Oliver promise that he’d save her daughter. Anarky escaped, and so did Team Arrow with Darhk’s daughter, just in time to watch Tevat Noah crumble from the safety of ground level. They hoped Malcolm was able to evacuate all the civilians, but they had no way of knowing.
Back at HIVE headquarters, Malcolm (who, of course, did get out safely) had the undesirable task of telling Darhk what happened to Ruvé and who had his daughter. His grief turned into anger, and he immediately decided to continue to try and gain access to Rubicon, even though there was now no safe place on Earth from all the nuclear blasts. Malcolm was horrified, knowing they would all die, but Darhk wanted to let the entire world burn in revenge. And his idea for how to get back into Rubicon? Get his hands on the person who took out his own hacker: Felicity Smoak herself. That can’t be good.
In this week’s island flashbacks, Taiana continued to be affected by the idol she and Oliver stole from Baron Reiter after trapping him in the caves, and she wanted to use the idol to free her home town from an oppressive government. But she took it too far, executing injured soldiers who were on their side, all just to get more powerful. And to make matters worse, Baron Reiter managed to escape the caves and found them with the idol, and he was ready to kill for it.
What did you think of “Lost In the Flood,” Arrow fans? Tweet me your thoughts at @SydneyBucksbaum!
Images: The CW
Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.
