Arrow 4x11 Recap: "A.W.O.L."

A.W.O.L. 
Adjustments have to be made by Oliver and Felicity as she's now wheelchair-bound. Diggle and his brother must also team up in an attempt to face someone from their wartime past, Shadowspire. Lots of great character development this episode for more than one. Let's get into what happened.

 Diggle and Lyla are enjoying a romantic evening together when a colleague of Lyla's, Alan Chang, interrupts them and begins to tell her something, but then is further interrupted when he's shot and taken. John is shot in the process. The thing is, their not dealing with HIVE, they're dealing with something more military based. Eventually, he's found dead and he was tortured. Pulled finger nails, an eyeless socket, pretty gruesome torture. So they go to Amanda Waller who slips Lyla a USB with the information on who they're looking for: Shadowspire is a group of military men from Diggle and Andy's old war days.

Oliver's looking after Felicity to the absolute best of her ability, making sure she takes her medications and everything to ensure that she can have the best recovery possible. Felicity's worried about her no longer being valuable to the team, but Oliver knows the team needs her. Felicity's concern is that there is a lot on her mind at the moment and she fears it can cause an issue.

While Oliver's making sure Diggle's okay, Felicity's at the apartment alone and she's beginning to hear the voice of her former self, back from her college days. Her hallucinations are due to her medications and she's going to have to deal with them throughout trying to help Oliver.

The flashbacks this episode revolved around Diggle and Andy and their war days. And that propelled their relationship this episode. While in the past, Diggle thought that the army was working for Andy, he was actual part of the evil organization they're not fighting against. Andy was involved in Shadowspire, but after he was discharged, he was no longer with them. Andy says he never saw it because Diggle wanted to believe that the army had fixed him. However, despite their big argument, Andy says that he can help find the two missing ARGUS agents and he clues Diggle in on where they could be found.

The problem is, the building their hiding in has a high tech security system that only one person can get past: the one and only Felicity Smoak. Oliver calls her and asks if she can help, and she does, but she's got past Felicity talking to her at the same time, telling her to not fall for it and that becoming part of the superhero world has done her no good. She gets into the security system and allows the team to get in. Both of the ARGUS agents are dead, but Felicity trips something and the system becomes overloaded with too many requests, putting Diggle in a situation where he's almost hurt, but Oliver gets to him and helps. And in the background, past Felicity taunts that he's safe no thanks to her.

Oliver wants to make sure that Felicity's okay and know that she's not responsible for what happened. He also apologizes for pushing too hard for her to get back in the game when she wasn't ready, but he hoped that playing superhero would help things feel normal. But because of her injury, she feels that she can no longer be part of the team. While Oliver's telling her that she's one of the strongest people he knows and that she's an important part of the team, past Felicity is saying that she's bad for the team and that she should say that she's hearing voices, and when she yells at her hallucination to shut up and leave her alone, Oliver takes that as though it's towards him, and he apologizes and does as she wishes.

Laurel and Oliver are having a fighting session in the lair when he gets angry and starts to talk about it. He tells her that Barry traveled back in time when they faced Vandal Savage and that he changed the past, which in turn causes the past to fight back, but Laurel says that the only person responsible is Damien Darhk. Oliver has a hard time swallowing that, but Felicity makes her own choices and that's one of the reasons he loves her so much.

Past Felicity gets on Felicity's case, telling her to stop feeling sorry for herself and to stop pretending that the blonde hair and glasses is who she is. She's been hiding who she is for the past 5 years according to her. Her decision to be a hero got her in a wheelchair.

Since Andy's been part of Shadowspire, he knows that there's always something behind their actions. Everything serves as a distraction. Amanda has had anti-Shadowspire operations being done for a while, and that's why ARGUS was targeted. They want the Rubicon Access Codes. While the team is at the rail bench waiting for Shadowspire, they show up at ARGUS because that's their end game. Diggle gets in touch with Oliver by transmitting the monitor he's viewing to the lair using a few tricks he's learned from Felicity and Oliver's got to stop it.

While Oliver's waiting at the lair, Felicity shows up at the lair, also. She realized that she wanted to help people, and that's why the old her isn't her. It just created more anger in her. The person she is now, is the person she is and is supposed to be. And Oliver can't blame himself. They're going to stop Damien Darhk because it's who they are, it's what they do.

While ARGUS is compromised, Amanda's given 20 minutes before another person on her team is killed. When the 20 minutes is up, she starts talking about Lyla and how she was one of her most trusted, and Lyla says she left because Amanda doesn't value human life. This gets Amanda killed, and Lyla's life is the next on the line. The Team, minus Diggle, goes to help rescue Lyla, and it's during this mission that Felicity gets her codename: Overwatch. She's back with no hallucinations doing the badass computer work she does so well. While Lyla is trying to access the Rubicon codes, Felicity is locking her out. And Andy, who originally seemed to be betraying his brother as part of their plan, stops the leader of Shadowspire from shooting Diggle and they take them down with the help of the Green Arrow. Diggle finally got the glimpse of his brother he's been waiting for.

At the end of the episode, Felicity shows Oliver what the old her looks like and they both comment on how badass she was last night. There's no place they'd rather be after how much they've grown. And Felicity ensures the past stays the past by burning the photo of her former self. Oliver knows that her condition is said to be permanent, but he refuses to give up looking for a way for her to walk again because they live in a world where Barry has super speed, Sara came back from the dead, and Ray can shrink. There's some way to reverse it.

Andy and Diggle are making steps and the next step they make is him staying with Diggle and Lyla, and getting to meet baby Sara, which completed the character development of the episode.

Long recap for this one, but there was a lot of stuff to hit. This is definitely one of my favorite episodes for Felicity by far, as well as a favorite for Diggle and his brother. The focus was on them and it was split perfectly, with neither overpowering the other. Outstanding acting by Emily Bett Rickards and David Ramsey, in particular, who are such loved characters on the show and it's always nice to see them get an episode where they're the center. Really enjoyed tonight and it did not disappoint. Next week, Roy's back and the Calculator is the villain of the episode. Looking forward to Colton Haynes making an appearance, so I can't wait to see what brings him back. Hope you all enjoyed tonight's episode!