Arrow 6X22: The Ties That Binds

OMG. I enjoyed this episode so much. It was fun and exciting and tense and stressful.

So, we start with everyone (minus Dinah), being domestic and happy. Oliver and William are cooking for Felicity, Dig and Lyla are about to go to a show, Curtis is showing Nick Helix, and Rene and his daughter are watching a hockey game. Only Dinah is out trying to track down Diaz, but to be fair, she's the only one who's alone right now.

But just as Oliver is sitting down to eat, Anatoly texts him to get out immediately. As soon as he reads it, Diaz's guys attack. They run through the apartment with machine guns shooting at everything. Oliver manages to protect Felicity and William. And we see the same thing happening to everyone else on the 'team.' The only once seriously injured is Nick, so we all meet up and decide to work together to bring Diaz down.

Oliver meets with Anatoly who plans to help him take down Diaz. He tells Oliver when he'll be in transport, as that's really the only time Oliver has the possibility to get to him. They ambush the van, but Diaz escapes. Curtis follows him and they fight. Diaz is just about to kill him when he realizes he lost his USB and retrieves that instead of killing Curtis. But Curtis is still badly injured and ends up in the hospital.

The 'team' is sure that the device has all the info of the people in Star City that are on Diaz's payroll. They are sure if they can open it, they'll be able to take him down. But, we need to do that Felicity sniffer thing. This means Lyla has to go into the SCPD to attach it to one of the computers. Felicity is outside in the car working remotely. Just before the data is all transferred, Lyla realized they are caught. The 'team' comes in to save her, and Felicity rushes into the building to get the device. Diaz clocks her and is about to shoot her in the back of the head, but Oliver sees and shoots an explosion arrow at him and she gets away. Later, when they are all safe and back at Helix, Oliver tells her that she promised not to go in. And she told him he's just gotta deal with the fact that she married someone who is always gonna fight the good fight. I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically the gist.

Back at Helix, Felicity is busy trying to de-encrypt the data they stole from Diaz. But it's taking forever. Unfortunately, we don't have forever. Diaz has a hacker of his own and has tracked them down. The army has arrived. Oliver orders everyone out, but Felicity refuses to go into the program finishes running. Everyone else leaves. Oliver and Felicity push it until the last moment, but there is toxic gas in the building and they can't wait any longer.

Oliver drags them to top of the stairs where Diaz (with a gas mask) is waiting. Felicity has basically collapsed. Oliver is desperately trying to stay on his feet so he can fight Diaz, but he's not doing well. They decide to blow the building (oh yeah, Curtis set it up so we could self destruct if need be. And we need be. The building blows in stages, giving Oliver and Felicity just enough time to escape. But, of course, Diaz gets away. And the fucking data is lost. So we literally got nothing from all this.

Diaz has decided he wants to be head of the Quadrant. And after killing two of the them, he just sort of gets to be it? I think. 🤷‍♀️ And Oliver, completely out of ideas, meets with the FBI lady who is trying to prosecute him and begs her for help. She agrees on two conditions: that Oliver admit to being the Green Arrow- which he does; and they don't fucking tell me the second condition. Grrrrrrrrrrrr. I can't even guess which way it's leaning. Is she gonna wanna lock him up when this is over? Does she wanna bronze him in a statue? I have no idea.