Arrow: Restoration Recap & Review

She’s baaack! Well, that didn’t take very long. We all knew Sara was going to be revived through the Lazarus Pit and true to Berlanti signature storytelling, Arrow didn’t waste any time with that reveal. But, Sara’s revival wasn’t the only “restoration”—get it?—on the latest episode of Arrow. Oliver and Diggle are forced to reconcile just in time to face off against Double Down, Sara is revived, and more on Arrow: “Restoration.” Spoiler alert.

Never Give Up

NeverGiveUp

Ever since the whole he-had-my-wife-kidnapped-and-my-child-endangered thing six months ago, Diggle is still having a hard time adjusting to having Oliver back in the Star City and working so closely with him again, rightfully so. The only problem with that is his mistrust for Oliver was starting to affect their working relationship—like almost getting the both of them killed. Ok, not really, I mean Green Arrow is the star of the show and all, so we already know he’ll never die. Nevertheless their obvious tension was starting to affect the jobs and that’s when Felicity had to get involved. It was apparent that they desperately needed to repair their relationship because they couldn’t go on any longer in their current state of dysfunction.

Speaking of dysfunctional, Lazarus Pit hopped up Thea and her traveling companion, Laurel, made their way to Nanda Parbat, while Oliver and Diggle held down the fort in Star City. Remember, last week on Arrow, Laurel got the harebrained idea to bring her sister, Sara, back to life using the magical powers of the Lazarus Pit. Too bad when Laurel and Thea arrived in Nanda Parbat, after witnessing a disturbing exchange between husband and wife—that’s Malcolm Merlin/the new Ra’s Al Ghul and Nyssa Al Ghul—via an intense sword fight fueled with hate, they both learned that neither of them would be getting what they’d hoped for. That meant Thea was going to stay crazy—because of the Lazarus Pit, just to clarify—and Laurel had to leave Nanda Parbat with Sara still dead as a doorknob.

Double Down

DoubleDown

Back in Star City, Diggle’s lack of desire to work with Oliver had finally gone too far when they both decided to deal with Damien Darhk and his H.I.V.E. organization foolishness on their own, nearly getting them both killed. A new associate named Jeremy Tell aka Double Down by way of good old Central City—home of the Flash—had arrived into town to help Darhk “take care” of the Green Arrow and his friends. And initially Double Down did in fact give the Green Arrow a run for his arrows…to say the least.

By the second confrontation with Double Down, Oliver and Diggle had made up and as Felicity put it “the OGs were back together” again, doing what they do best. And while it was fun to watch this week’s Damien Darhk contractor attempt to take out the Green Arrow with metahuman tattoo playing cards, mind you, once Oliver and Diggle had rejoined forces again, Double Down didn’t stand a chance. And off to the metahuman prison in Central City he went. So, there’s a likely chance that we may in fact see him again, on The Flash. It’s a thought.

The Restoration

Restoration

In Nanda Parbat, after a rage fueled verbal sparring with her dear old daddy, Malcolm, in which he actually tried to convince her that the only real way to cope with her symptoms post Lazarus Pit revival was to give in and satiate the bloodlust, Thea was faced with the reality that her trip to the foreign land was indeed fruitless. Basically, he told her to go on a killing spree to make herself feel better since she couldn’t exact revenge on the one person she really wanted to: Ra’s Al Ghul—that’s the original. He even sacrificed some of his own League soldiers in an effort to force her to satiate her deep desire to kill.

Of course, his fatherly advice/actions only made Thea angrier with Malcolm and wanting to retreat back to Star City to solve her problem on her own. But Laurel hadn’t gotten what she wanted either. That’s when Malcolm finally conceded to his baby girl, granting the wish to revive Sara as a means to show that he still had a heart and would do anything for his daughter; although, I’m still not really sure how reviving Sara is going to help Thea—she’s still hopped up on Lazarus Pit juice, so nothing has changed for her. Just saying. I guess A for effort, for daddy Malcolm. I don’t know.

Also this week on Arrow, after a scary run-in with Double Down at Palmer Technologies in which she tapped into some serious action style badassness, Felicity found a new confidant in Mr. Curtis Holt, who will probably show up in the coming weeks to help out with tech related issues regarding any metahuman run-ins and whatnot. This unofficial addition to the team comes just in time for the reuniting of the OTA or Original Team Arrow and upgrades to the Arrow Lair or Lair 3.0. Then too, and this one was huge, after Sara was brought back from the dead—clearly sans her sanity—Nyssa destroyed the Lazarus Pit. So, there’s that. And the plot thickens…

Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8:00pm EST on CW.