ARROW: “Left Behind” {Recap}

When we left off at the mid-season final, things in Starling City looked pretty bad. Oliver had fallen off a cliff and it seemed like – without the city knowing it – that life would stink when we returned.

Turns out, that’s all true. Th city’s overrun with bad guys and havoc not far behind. Luckily for the city, Team Arrow is picking up the slack.

At her actual job, Felicity has a hard time working with Ray as he wants to perfect his suit and protect the city, for all the obvious reasons that are close to hitting us over the head.

For Laurel, she’s doing her DA job and finding that all these recent arrests want out because Oliver can’t testify about the arrests. Not happening, at least just yet.

News tells them that Oliver’s probably dead, which Felicity doesn’t want to believe, even with Diggle having one of the most awkward conversations.

Our villain of the week, Brick (guest star Vinnie Jones) is protecting all the people that Oliver helped put in jail, and also being nasty to the one who wasn’t evil enough.

Thea’s worried (shocking!) but that quick conversation with Merlyn isn’t nearly as intimidating as Merlyn breaking into Team Arrow headquarters and telling them that Oliver’s dead because Ra’s al Ghul doesn’t allow prisoners.

Brick didn’t like one man from before, and Roy and Diggle find the body and now we see how devious Brick really is.

Righteously angry at Merlyn, Felicity says that he’s responsible for Oliver’s death and with that death it also means Merlyn can’t stay alive much longer.

Over the episode, Oliver’s been looked after by someone, and whoever that is is staying well hidden.

Thea’s worry about Oliver makes her seek out Roy to ask the Arrow for help. Awk. Ward.

Felicity’s feelings about Oliver are why she was snapping at Ray earlier, and between two conversations she tells Ray that she won’t be part of his death if he goes down this path.

Because Brick must show everyone how good he is at being “evil”, he breaks into a facility to steal all the evidence for those guys Oliver put away and they want to take it all and have all those charges dropped. Roy and Diggle do their best to stop it, but they’re just short of being able to.

One decent fight between Brick and Diggle later, Brick’s guys get away because Felicity made the decision to keep Diggle and Roy alive rather than keep the records out of Brick’s hands. It’s not an easy decision to make, but she made it and that’s going to force her out of Team Arrow for the time being. Diggle’s out too after all those men Oliver put away are released without evidence.

Mystery figure has Oliver in someplace that’ll bring him back. And that turns out to be Yamashiros – the couple that helped Oliver in Honk Kong years ago.

So with Team Arrow on the outs, Laurel takes up the mantle of protecting Starling and turns into the Canary for the first time, and she looks good kicking around some of the villains who were just let out of jail.