Arrow Episode 4.05 recap featuring Matt Ryan as John Constantine
Picking up where last week left off, Sara is running around the city killing people all willy nilly. She targets a waitress but quickly bolts when the police arrive. At Oliver’s campaign headquarters, Thea introduces him to Alex Davis, his political strategist, who offers the advice of distancing himself from Laurel so as not to remind anyone of a potential scandal. On the island, Conklin confronts Oliver about the pack of surveillance equipment he found, taking him to Baron Reiter and calling him a traitor. Reiter doesn’t seem to care though and says if they’d both been doing their jobs they might have caught the man spying on them, that man being none other than John Constantine himself, who asks for a cigarette.
A detective takes a statement from the waitress Thea attacked when Laurel arrives on the scene and asks her father what happened. They both know that Sara is responible for this and Laurel says she’s looking for her and that she’ll find her. Felicity goes to see Curtis at Palmer Tech, interrupting the workout of the bronze-winning athlete (nerds can be fit too!) to see if he can clean up Ray’s final words. Captain Lance goes to see Darhk, who gives him an errand to run, connecting some sort of device to a federal server farm outside of town. Thea and Oliver spar in the Arrow Cave, talking about the political strategist she hired and his harsh but good advice. As they fight, Felicity chimes in to let them know a blonde woman is going crazy, so they suit up. Sara chases a woman out of a club only to be subdued by Laurel, though she breaks free and tries to attack her. Lucky for Laurel, Ollie happens to be standing nearby, but that’s when he notices the blonde woman they’ve been chasing is in fact Sara, who gets away.
Oliver quickly puts the pieces together in the Arrow Cave, kind of easy to figure out it was the Lazarus Pit in a world like this though, and Laurel defends her decision despite his protests. Back on the island, Constantine introduces himself while Reiter holds up a map they found on him featuring landmarks from the island. He tasks Oliver with scoping them out since he knows the terrain and tells Conklin to go with him, since he still doesn’t trust him. Constantine does a quick trick and gets out of his binds, taking a gun and holding Oliver hostage. John exits the tent with Oliver in tow and they head on their way to look for whatever it is he’s looking for.
Captain Lance comes back to the Arrow Cave, where he and Oliver both realizes they only had half the story on Sara. His true reason for visiting is the device Darhk gave him, which Felicity identifies as a RAT meant to erase pieces of data. They can’t get through the encryption quick enough though, so Oliver enlists Diggle to help Lance get to the server farm. Diggle, of course, is not keen on the idea and demands Lance explain how he came to work for Darhk. After hearing the story John agrees to help but only because it’s the best chance they’ll have at taking him down. Felicity and Oliver try to figure out a connection in Sara’s victims and she reveals to him the existence of Ray’s final message. She laments not wanting to go through that grief again and Oliver agrees, citing he’d love to see his mother, father, or even Tommy and talk to them for just another minute, but what is happening with Sara isn’t the same. Eventually they see the pattern, the women Sara is attacking look like Thea, and on the other side of town Thea gets attacked by Sara, narrowly escaping.
Thea lies in a hospital bed as Oliver and Felicity talk about the situation. She wakes up and explains that the pit filled her with this bloodlust and that Merlyn quinched hers momentarily when they were away. Laurel enters and Oliver immediately takes her into the hallway because he thinks he’s everyone’s dad. He tries chastising her choices, but Laurel plays the “you’re a hypocrite” card, which is super effective against Oliver. She goes on to say he doesn’t see her as an equal and that it’d be nice if every once in a while he cared about her life. Back on the island, Oliver and Constantine find the spot and John asks Ollie if he knows what Reiter is up to, which he says is more than just drugs. He’s after something bad people shouldn’t have access to, and pulls some plants out of the ground and shows Oliver a real-life magic trick. He opens the trap door under them and sends Ollie down.
Lance and Diggle manage to get inside the server farm and plug in the device, which promptly begins erasing people’s files. Laurel waits by Thea’s bed for her to wake up, which gives Thea the opportunity to explain why Sara is attacking her: It’s because she killed her. If Sara kills Thea, her bloodlust will end, but Thea’s never will because Ra’s al Ghul is dead. Back at the server farm, they watch the files get deleted until Diggle sees one with his brother’s name on it. An alarm sounds, prompting guards to enter but Lance covers by knocking out Diggle and telling them to call in the report. They quickly make an exit. At the hospital, Oliver and Laurel talk in the hall while Sara has somehow entered Thea’s room and stands over her. The tells Sara she wants her to end it, but Oliver hears the ruckus and runs inside. Sara chucks Thea across the room and leaps out of the window.
They bring Thea down to the Arrow Cave, since even hospitals aren’t safe anymore, where it becomes clear to Oliver that the pit may have brought back Sara’s body but didn’t restore her soul. Since she’s drawn to Thea, they can use her as bait, but Oliver isn’t keen on that just yet, though Diggle and Laurel agree to help. On the island, John and Oliver navigate a dusty tunnel where writing on the floor warns those not of pure heart to stay out, so he cuffs Oliver to a pole. Inside he finds an artifact, but Oliver soon joins him, since he also knows how to get out of cuffs. Constantine pulls on the scepter from the middle of the room and Oliver pushes him out of the way as a trap would have crushed him. Captain Lance goes to see Damien Darhk after his trip to the farm where he brings up the name Andy Diggle, prompting Darhk to imply that Andy may have gotten into some bad stuff while in Afghanistan, which stepped on HIVE’s toes. He also doesn’t know why Lance would care.
Thea stands in the barren Verdant club waiting on Sara to attack, which she does. Diggle gets Thea out of the room, while Laurel and Oliver try to subdue Sara. Laurel pulls a gun on her, but Oliver sedates her and tells Laurel they’re going to get her soul back, so he calls up his old buddy Constantine. John arrives at the Arrow Cave and explains what he’ll do to Sara and enlists Felicity to get him some supplies. Everyone stands around as they place Thea in the center of the room with symbols and candles all around. Ollie and Laurel agree to go to the other side to get Sara out and John begins the process. After a flash, the three of them wake up in a room that looks like Nanda Parbat and do some Scooby-Doo trickery by running into one door and out of another. Constantine finds the way through where they find Sara’s soul trapped in a version of the pit, guarded by assassins. Oliver and Laurel help her out as John fights off a faceless combatant, who appears to be wearing Ra’s al Ghul’s outfit, and they eventually free her from the gnarly hands holding her down. They all reapper in the Arrow Cave where Sara wakes up, herself.
Oliver thanks Constantine for coming and offers to help him any time he needs him, which seems to be setting the seeds for another “crossover.” John gives Ollie some advice about Damien Darhk, that being: Get out of town. Thea approaches Oliver after Constantine leaves and asks if they’re okay, given she lied to him. Ollie finally comes around and says he can’t be mad at anyone given his history of lies. In our final island flashback, Constantine explains that he hunts down these objects and stores them someplace safe (like in the show!) and warns Oliver that Reiter isn’t there just for drugs. He breaks off the top of the artifact and gives it to Oliver as proof and then uses the staff to transfer a tattoo from his own arm to Oliver’s stomach, a nice twist, and apparently something that will help Ollie in the future. Constantine offers to take Oliver with him, but he declines, though he does ask him to punch him in the face and complete his “escape.”
Oliver’s strategist coaches him before his big interview, just as Laurel enters and they realize he’s not going to take ALL of his advice. The pair hug it out and make up. Diggle watches the interview when a knock comes on his door with none other than Captain Lance standing there. He reveals to John he asked Darhk about his brother and found a file, which John reads in disbelief, finally finding out why HIVE wanted Andy dead. At Palmer Tech, Curtis chugs his 14th energy drink when Felicity enters and he reveals he cracked the message, revealing the full thing – Ray is alive and he’s in trouble.
You can watch a preview of the next episode, titled “Lost Souls” and airing on November 11, using the player below.
