‘Arrow’ Season Finale Recap: Nukes Are Launched, Riots Break Out

The Arrow finale picked up where last week’s episode left off. Darhk is at Felicity’s where she’s with her mother and Curtis. Darhk is in the middle of using her mother as leverage and has her by the neck when Oliver arrives. Felicity and her mother are safe for the moment and Curtis has been thrown to the side but Darhk’s henchmen come to make Oliver’s job more challenging. Oliver is able to fight them off but when it’s he and Darhk again, it’s not working. Just when Oliver is at the brink of losing, Thea enters holding Darhk’s daughter as hostage. She lets her go in return for Darhk releasing Oliver. Diggle shows up to help but instead allows Darhk to get away and with rubicon.

Oliver finds Curtis unconscious and they all carry him to the lab to be examined.

Oliver has a flashback to his time in the military and the fight between him and Taiana against Baron.

Lyla shows up to the lab to be of some assistance now that rubicon is offline. Felicity is having trouble detecting it but they’re all grateful it hasn’t been launched yet. She finally detects it in an abandoned building and the rest of the crew heads out.

The abandoned building turns out to be the headquarters for Genesis and by arriving they have unintentionally started the two-hour timer to launch all of the nukes. Lyla alerts the government about what’s happening. The first target is Star City, which they only have 45 minutes to get to.

Back in Oliver’s flashback, he fights with Baron but it is Taiana who defeats his darkness with hers, causing hers to grow.

Quentin arrives after getting an urgent call from Felicity. She asks him to take her mother safe place and tells him what’s going on.

Lyla and Diggle call their daughter who’s already relatively safe in a bunker, which they are planning to head to soon.

Oliver enters and asks Lyla why she’s sent her agents to city hall. Lyla explains that’s where Darhk’s central power is. Oliver thinks she should pull them out or they’ll all die but she stands by her decision.

Darhk and his daughter share a surprisingly sweet moment in his lair under city hall just as Lyla’s agents arrive.

Back in the lab, Oliver and the team are listening in as Oliver’s prediction is fulfilled. As Felicty finally breaks through Cooper’s firewall, Darhk’s disciples storm the lab and start shooting. Everyone starts fighting, even Felicity. Malcolm also shows up for Thea.

In the flashback, Taiana has been controlled by the darkness and attacks Oliver. His light snaps her out of it and she asks him to kill her.

Around the city, civilians are aware of the impending attacks and panicking. Felicity and Oliver talk about what’s happened and how discouraged they both are about the initial plans they’ve had all along. Curtis is making a speedy recovery and is up and walking already. He’s able to give Oliver a pep talk and tells him that without Oliver, he and his family wouldn’t still be here.

There’s rioting in the streets as Oliver tries to do for the civilians that Curtis just did for him. He is able to unite everyone and encourage them to believe that they will get through it. A nuke is in sight, so Curtis and Felicity head to the roof to redirect it manually with their own technology since they can’t hack into the system. They are successful, which the civilians see as an immediate return on Oliver’s promises.

Around 15,433 nukes are left, but by redirecting the first one they were able to copy it’s hard drive. They now know where Darhk is. Oliver, of course, tries to talk the team out of accompanying him, but they tell him that his speech inspired them too. However, Diggle and Lyla stay back to keep everything safe there.

Oliver again flashes back to Taiana. He fulfilled her request to be killed, right as he’s been spotted.

Diggle admits what really happened when he killed his brother. He’s been carrying around this guilt and even though Lyla still supports him, he’s not convinced.

Oliver gets to Darhk’s lair to find him very upset and impatient. They begin fighting in the streets and Darkh’s power is getting stronger and stronger. Malcolm and Thea are working on defeating his henchmen. Darhk reveals to Oliver that he’s really helping everyone by killing them because he’s sparing their life from pain. Oliver’s inspired constituents arrive and start telling Darhk to leave their town alone, to which Darhk laughs off before knocking them all to the ground. The hope of Oliver and the hundreds of citizens starts making Darhk’s powers fade.

The rest of the team find Cooper and see that he’s been shot. The only way for him to stay alive is to make sure rubicon is seen through. He apologizes to Felicity but she believes he’ll make the right decision. As soon as he stops controlling the missiles, Darhk can tell and can injure him from where he is with Oliver. As Cooper suffers, Felicity tries to stop the clock.

Oliver and Darhk are still fighting in the street. Diggle and Lyla arrive to help Oliver as more of Darhk’s seemingly endless henchmen come to his aid. It’s Darhk’s team against Oliver’s, which now includes the whole city.

It’s now 3 minutes until the missiles fire. Felicity is doing her best to shut the system down.

After even more fighting, it’s Oliver and Darhk one-on-one again. Darhk tries to intimidate Oliver by telling him that he doesn’t have what it takes to kill him, Oliver proves him wrong by stabbing him with an arrow. Since he is dead the timer stops as well.

Now that Darhk is dead, Quentin informs everyone he will be leaving town.

Thea expresses that she’s feeling like she needs to leave too.

Felicity is still positive about things but Diggle informs Oliver that he needs time away as well. Oliver understands and we see another flashback. He explains to the people that saw him kill Taiana about darkness and leads them off the island. Amanda arrives and reveals that he completed his mission. She tells him that sometimes “justice requires killing.”

Oliver visits Laurel’s grave and talks to her about what he’s been through. Felicity is there too and as usual is helping him see the bright side. He gets a call from a city council chairman and tells him there’s an interim mayor position available and he’s got it.

In the last moments of the episode, we see Oliver being sworn in as mayor as Diggle leaves his family to go back to the military.