‘Arrow’ season 4, episode 9 (winter finale) review: Oliver and Felicity’s big moment; Damien Darhk’s scheme

“Arrow” season 4 had done many things going into the midseason finale on Wednesday night, but there was one question that many still had: What exactly was Damien Dahrk’s endgame? We knew that he wanted Oliver Queen dead, but what beyond that? It seems to be something he would like to refer to as a cleanse, destroying most of Star City and then getting an opportunity to start it again. It’s about as evil a plan as you are going to find, but that makes some sense. Darhk’s a pretty horrible dude, and tonight in particular he chose to single out Oliver Queen as his rival more so than the Green Arrow.

Is it fair for you to wonder right now whether or not he actually killed Felicity Smoak in the closing minutes, only a mere scene after Oliver finally proposed to her and she said yes? Sure. The show wants you to wonder, but we feel like the odds of her actually dying are slim to none. It’d be really odd for the show to kill her off without her really learning in this timeline about Oliver’s kid for one, and we didn’t necessarily see her breathe her last breath.

What this does do is anger and perhaps galvanize Oliver to go after her in a much more extreme and intense way than we have seen so far, and from a viewer perspective that is very interesting. Despite this episode being set at Christmas, everyone was still angry in one form or another. Diggle couldn’t get through to his brother, Laurel had to come to terms with Quentin’s alliance with Darhk (temporary as it may have been), and Felicity learned that her mother was dating Laurel’s father. Awkward?

Our main feeling on the episode is that entertaining as it may have been, we’re still not sure that we left the episode feeling even remotely surprised; the proposal felt a little forced, and the story perhaps would have flowed better if given more room to breathe. As for Darhk, at least we know now just how evil the guy truly is. Grade: B+.

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