‘Arrow’ ‘Lost Souls’ Recap: Welcome Back Palmer

Oh “Arrow,” how you vex me.

As the credits rolled on “Lost Souls,” I found myself extremely confused. The show has been in a rut for some time now, between the botched ending of last season’s Ra’s Al Ghul plot and its almost slavish devotion to setting up the “Legends of Tomorrow” spinoff during this year’s opening arc.

Last week’s John Constantine chapter seemed to reinvigorate the show, managing to land the darkly comedic notes that keep “Arrow’s” grim storylines from growing too depressing while driving home the seriousness of Sara’s return from the dead. The show was fun again, but still serious enough to avoid camp.

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With Ray Palmer’s return in “Lost Souls,” I correctly assumed the show would continue to balance fun (because Ray is ridiculous) with tension (because Darhk is rounding into form as a terrifying adversary).

Unfortunately, the show tried to do too much in one episode, opting to mix in some Felicity-Ollie relationship drama that nobody asked for, and frankly, didn’t make any sense.

Judging by the endless swarm of #Ollicity tweets you can find across social media every Wednesday, Ms. Smoak is often considered the crown jewel of this series, and with good reason. Emily Bett-Rickards is marvelous in the role, and Felicity’s mix of social awkwardness, kindness and beauty have turned her into the Jennifer Lawrence of comic book ladies. All of my nerd friends want to date her, and if any of you are reading this and disagree, just remember I saved all those Facebook messages.

She is the closest thing to perfect this show has. So... I have to ask ... are the people who wrote this episode new? Have they watched “Arrow” before? Because the Felicity we see here, at least in the soap opera scenes that happen away from the rescue mission, is not the Felicity we know.

Felicity’s panic attack about her relationship with Oliver seems out of place, out of character and frankly out of nowhere. The entire argument that she is not the type of person to toss aside everything for a guy made no sense to me. This is not me saying Felicity isn’t a strong, independent female character. She absolutely is and she has proven to be something of a superhero in her own right time and time again (she’s dropped more than a few episodic villains over the years, her tech savvy and brilliance have saved lives no less than a half-dozen times, and she nearly filleted Double Down with an assault rifle a few weeks ago).

But, from what we’ve seen between her romances with Ray and Ollie, Felicity Smoak is not about halfway love. When she fell in with Palmer last year, she started pulling herself away from Team Arrow. Faced with the thought of losing Oliver to the League of Assassins last year, she drugged him, attempted to kidnap him in Nanda Parbat and nearly sacrificed all of Starling City just so they could remain together.

I just don’t understand why Felicity would panic about going headlong into a love affair when, well, we know that’s what she does. And that’s perfectly fine! Felicity’s loyalty and refusal to compromise what she wants are some of her most endearing traits. In a show where she is flanked by people who aren’t sure of their desires, her certainty is welcome.

We went through years of #Ollicity “will they/won’t they,” and the show already addressed her frustrations with their move to the suburbs and Ollie’s momentary abandonment of the Arrow guise. There just wasn’t any need for this issue to arise, especially if it was going to be a one-episode problem that was easily cured by a conversation with Momma Smoak. This whole b-plot was a misfire, and just seemed to be another instance of “Arrow” mining for unnecessary drama this season.

This might have bothered me less if this plot line happened in a ho-hum episode. The bigger problem here is that it distracted from an episode that was otherwise an insane amount of fun.

Ray’s return from the obviously not dead, and the mission to rescue him from Darhk’s clutches, marked a rebound for the series. The show has desperately needed to marry Darhk’s arc with the setup for characters who will appear in “Legends,” and “Lost Souls” accomplishes that. The break-in sequences at both Kord Industries and Darhk’s complex are the kind of fun/tense action sequences “Arrow” can produce when its humming at its best, and even the Felicity-Oliver drama seemed much more natural in those scenes.

Make Darhk look horrifying? Check. Establish Sara’s bloodlust struggles that will probably plague her as she wanders into the spinoff series? Check. Bring Curtis into another mission so he can continue turning into Mr. Terrific in a non-distracting way? Check. Give me more Brandon Routh so I can laugh? Check and mate.

The entire Palmer rescue plot effortlessly juggled “Arrow’s” plot burdens in a way the show has failed to do the entire season. This easily would have been the series’ best effort of Season 4, if not for the Felicity missteps.

Left In The Quiver:

• When given enough screen time, Damien Darhk is terrifying. I’ve complained often how “Flash” has done a much better job making Zoom seem like a world-ending threat (and after this week’s episode, I mean ... wow), but “Lost Souls” was a much needed step in the right direction for Oliver’s new nemesis. Every time he clashes with the Arrow it seems like Darhk is playing with his food, and that idea that he could kill Queen whenever he wants is starting to take hold. I saw a lot of comparisons between Flash-Zoom Round 1 and Batman-Bane Round 1 in “Dark Knight Rises” and/or the “Knightfall” comics. Darhk-Queen hasn’t gotten there yet, but it’s on the way.
• A Donna Smoak-Quentin Lance romance has a potential hilarity factor of 11. More please.
• I barely even noticed Laurel’s existence this week, and that’s a good thing. I know it’s unlikely that the Black Canary is the character who fell six feet under in the season premiere’s flash forward, but a boy can dream right?
• Maybe it’s just me, but when “Team Arrow” is functioning at its best (like the Kord Industries break-in) does anyone get a bit of a nostalgic tinge for Buffy’s “Scooby Gang.” The tone is different, obviously, but the balance of quips and punches had me flashing back ever so slightly.

@JamesQueallyLAT doesn’t want to keep complaining about “Arrow,” but the show is making that a difficult mission. Follow him for tweets about the Emerald Archer, “Flash” and Netflix’s “Daredevil.” He also writes about Southern California crime in the real world.

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