Warning: major spoilers ahead for Episode 22 of Season 4 of Arrow.
The end is nigh for Season 4 of Arrow, and the stakes are higher than ever before for Oliver and Co. The nuclear explosion last week was possibly only a sample platter of what is yet to come from the devious mind of Damien Darhk. Despite massive setbacks in this week’s “Lost in the Flood," Darhk is more determined than ever to destroy the world. Unfortunately for Felicity Smoak, he knows she is just the person with the skills to help him to do it, so she’s now stuck in an impossible situation that will force her to make a big sacrifice no matter what path she chooses.
The death of Damien Darhk’s wife, combined with his ignorance of whether or not his daughter survived the destruction of the Ark, has worked to rather thoroughly knock him off his rocker. For the first 21 episodes of Season 4, he had a sort of twisted logic that made it understandable why he might have attracted a certain brand of follower. Now, he just wants to blow the world and everybody in it to smithereens. The problem for him is that Felicity managed to outhack his best hacker and lock him out of the Rubicon program that would allow him to launch the nuclear weapons. The episode ended with Damien Darhk showing up at Felicity’s loft with nothing left to lose and no more caution to throw to the wind. Just some demands.
Normally, it would be easy to say that nothing that Damien Darhk could do would be enough to convince Felicity to give him access to Rubicon. In an regrettable twist of fate, Darhk happened to drop by when Felicity had guests. Now, he has Donna, Curtis, and probably even Noah to use as leverage in persuading Felicity to unlock Rubicon. Considering there’s still one whole episode left in the season, we can probably count on Felicity helping Darhk in order to save her family, as Star City hasn’t even had its annual city-wide crisis yet, and things are going to get worse before they get better. That will likely involve Felicity being forced into choosing which impossible option she will be able to live with.
In a perfect world, Felicity would hold her head high, quote the “needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” line from Wrath of Khan, and refuse to unlock Rubicon for the supervillain. Arrow has never been a perfect world for any of the good guys, however, and Felicity’s heart likely isn’t so hard that she could watch her parents and her pal die in front of her when she has a choice that could save them, at least until they get nuked. Besides, she spent months in very close quarters with Oliver, and his love of making deals with supervillains is so strong that it may be contagious. She just has no good option.
Whichever choice Felicity makes next week, we can bet that she probably won’t have a happily-ever-after sort of ending in Season 4. She was already shellshocked by the role that she played in the nuclear devastation of Havenrock; whatever she does to resolve her current problem in the finale presumably won’t make her feel any better. Season 4 has been a hell of a crucible for Felicity Smoak, and we have to hope that she won’t lose herself before the end.
To see what Felicity does in her impossible situation, tune in to the Season 4 finale of Arrow on May 25 at 8 p.m. ET on The CW. Check out our breakdown of what we know so far about Season 5 for a peek ahead of what’s to come, and take a look at our summer TV premiere schedule to see what you can watch over hiatus.
