This week's episode of Arrow, "Restoration," was pretty much split into two storylines (not including the flashbacks). In Star City, Ollie and Diggle still struggle to work together after Diggle felt betrayed. In Nanda Parbat, Laurel and Thea have brought Sara's body to be used in a Lazarus Pit while Thea also seeks answers about her aggressive behavior after having gone through the pit herself.

All this and more happened in the episode so let's dive into the big developments. Of course, there will be spoilers below.

Oliver and Diggle

Things still tense between Ollie and Diggle. Felicity finally makes them sit together until they work things out after each is almost killed going out alone. Earlier, an ARGUS agent visited Diggle’s house and gave him information on who hired Deadshot to kill his brother--Mina Fayad. She conveniently had arrived in Star City to meet with Damien Darhk.

Ollie and Diggle compare notes and find out Mina Fayad hired a metahuman, Double Down. When they discover Mina is dead, Diggle says there’s nothing more he can do. He’s been trying to find answers for the past two years. Ollie says he’s been doing it wrong since he’s been doing it alone.

They later face Double Down and Ollie takes a “bullet” or a “metahuman tattoo playing card.” Things are pretty much smoothed over between the two.

Felicity and Curtis Holt

When Arrow fought Double Down, he was able to get one of his deadly playing cards he's able to peel off his arms. When Felicity and Curtis are trying to see if they can track Double Down by one of his playing cards, it turns out he can track them faster. He attacks them at Palmer Industries. They take a secret elevator down to the Arrow Lair 2.0. Felicity is able to fend him off with a machine gun but now he knows about her connection to Green Arrow. They may need a third lair if Double Down tells Damien about it. Ollie mentions later he may have a surprise for them.

It should also be noted that Curtis, while continue to try to develop some new tech to help save Palmer Industries, has started working on the T-Spheres. It's meant to be a communications device but it's not stable. It has a tendency to spontaneously explode. We can probably expect to see these developed further as Curtis gets closer to Team Arrow. Later we see he's excited to find out his boss is helping to try to make the city a better place.

We also saw Felicity's phone continuing to act up. She's getting some strange activity. Chances are it may have to do with the return of a certain presumed character?

Thea and Her Urge to Kill

Laurel and Thea took Sara's body to Nanda Parbat. Malcolm tells them using the Lazarus Pit on Sara in this way hasn’t been done in ‘ages.’ This is why Nyssa didn’t ask her father to use it. There would be no telling who or what would come out. Malcolm mentions there's an old wise sage in the mountains that might be able to help Sara. Later, Thea is attacked while sleeping. She easily kills them and almost seems to like it. She finds out there isn’t an sage. She’ll be compelled to kill until she kills the one that hurt her. She can’t because Ra’s is already dead. So to deal with it, she needs to deal with the bloodlust. She shouldn’t feel the need to kill for weeks now. She's angry at her father. She says it's his fault she's like this. He agrees to try to help them to ease her conscience.

Sara Lance

Laurel agrees to still have Sara prepared for the restoration ceremony, despite the possible effects. Sara is put in the pit. Malcolm doesn’t think it’ll work but Sara comes out as a savage. Nyssa is angered and later destroys the pit. She's determined to kill Malcolm someday. This way, if he's ever injured, he can't use the pit. Malcolm has her taken away. Sara is kept in chains and unresponsive to Laurel's attempt to reach her.

We know Sara will somehow get better in order to appear on Legends of Tomorrow. Malcolm tried telling Laurel there's no telling what might happen. We'll have to wait and see how she regains her former identity and whether or not she'll have to struggle with the bloodlust as well.

You can check out a preview for next week's episode HERE.

When do we see Constantine?!

All of Felicity's scenes were so awesome. Emily Bett Rickards is a real gem in Arrow's cast... and I would so marry her.

I see where Sara's storyline will go like G-Man said, but man... Watching the preview for next week's episode, it looks like another Lance family moping hour. Haven't we had enough of the Lance's going through dramatic events where one of them 'messes up big time' and the entailing crying and drama?

Kattie Cassidy and Paul Blackthorne's characters, imo, need less grit. They've been through so much in the past few seasons, it's time to let them be the best versions of them.

Whew, that felt too to get off my chest. Okay, I'm good now. :)

I'm just glad Felicity is cool again, enough of whiny, judgemental Felicity from last season.

Solid episode. Liked Flash more this week but its clear Arrow has recovered from its down season. I expected it would, but three solid episodes are good to see.

Constantine's cameo will air 11/4 which is episode 5 I believe.

Oliver expecting from Diggle that he has to give him a chance to make up for his mistake. If someone kidnaps your child you're not obligated to do that. Some would argue not shooting the one responsible on sight would already be more than you can expect.

People still acting like Malcolm can be trusted. "Bring back my sister." "No." "You're responsible!" "I don't care." "I apparently really thought you would bring her back if I asked." Hey, bringing Sara back after pointing out how you have to kill the one that hurt you is not the way into a convuluted storyline where Sara has to kill Thea, which ends with both of them havong to kill Merlyn, who set everything in motion, to free themselves of their bloodlust, really trust me not at all...

Nyssa destroying the pit. And Laurel is like, why would you destroy this thing this psychopath could use to bring back the death or live for eternity, that's so mean, Malcolm is our friend.

The Metahuman that Oliver had to run from despite his powers being just fancy shaped throwing knifes, gets almost killed by someone who admits to not knowing how to use a gun, then goes down like a bitch, but still gets of a potentially lethal attack.

Diggle losing his only and last lead to his brothers death... except maybe the leader of the damn organisation, who is still in town, but nobody seems to realize that.

Also every episode Damian threatens someone for failing once, when he himself failed in the first episode.

I believe Constantine will help Sara restore her humanity. Because of what Malcolm said, the Lazarus Pit contained former souls who have used the Pit before. So that means Sara isn't herself, most likely being possessed by either souls or demons.

@stahlflamme: The writing for this show gets worse every season.

Wouldn't go that far. I don't think its quite as bad as season 3 yet. Until I'am blinded by the fact that the fight scenes are a little more creative and better again. Except the whole Anarchy being on fire thing... thats not creative thats from Daredevil.

@stahlflamme said:

It's not s bad as season 3, but I feel it's on it's way. Setting people on fire isn't exclusive to Daredevil, but I did hate what they did with that character.

Well I enjoyed it. Thea is getting better all the time and Sara is back with Ray not far behind. So yeah I'm good

@kiba: I'm assuming it's Ray somehow trying to call Felicity's phone since he used to travel through phone lines. Not sure how they'd explain that on the show.

Love all the easter eggs in Arrow this season. From seeing all the Green Lantern hints like "Hal Jordan" on a pilot's jacket in a bar, and seeing a Ferris Aircraft sign on the side of the road. It also seems like Curtis Holt will turn into Mr. Terrific later down the road as evidenced by the "T" on the communication sphere/device in his lab.

I thought Arrow was going to slow down this year because the main producer is now invested in several shows instead of just one or two, but it honestly seems like it's just getting better and better.

Sorry, the whole Sara thing seems shoehorned just so she can get back in time for Legends of tomorrow. Thea was dead for what, a few hrs and she is still feeling effects months later? Sara had to be dead for almost a year so she should be animalistic for a few years. But in will come the magic McGuffin which cures her.

I was starting to be okay with Laurel but they just make her worse every season. It makes no sense that she would go against all logic and bring back Sara. She's had time to grieve, if this had happened right after Sara died then I would understand but they're destroying Laurel's character more by using her as a plot device to bring Sara back to life. Also, why would Thea go along with it? She literally just killed two people and was horrified by what she'd become. But she was willing to let Sara become something potentially much worse because Laurel wanted it to happen? Did Merlyn really need to bring back Sara to try to earn Thea's trust? He was so against it but because Thea is upset he's going to do it. And he didn't kill Nyssa for destroying the pit? That makes no sense as he already didn't like her. Three episodes in and this season is starting to lose me already. I hope the plot picks up.

@sentryman555: I don't necessarily disagree with you about Laurel although she has spent months working and living with Thea and she's just now starting to see side effects. She probably thought it was all fixable somehow. Not that it makes it smart or OK. As for thea she's been living with the guilt of being the one who actually shot Sara as well as for trusting Merlyn in the first place. Being in that situation would make saying no really hard I think thought she did try to talk Laurel out of it.

actually Thea was never dead, and she only started to feel the effects recently

and Malcolm said since Sara was actually dead, she doesn't have her soul now

something weak this episode but Darhk save the episode absolutely and Felicity thinks is funny when is really annoying

@gustavoburciaga1: Next episode.

@stahlflamme: That's a good summary of how many inconsistencies and issues can be found in just one episode of Arrow. I still want to keep up with the main plot, but I've decided not to pay much attention to every detail of the episodes until about halfway through season 4 so that I can be more distanced from the negative effects of season 3.

You just blew my mind, G-Man. :O

Coulda swore she was dead for a bit. Either way, she leaped out of the pit the same way Sara did and started attacking mindlessly. So no, she felt the effects immediately too.

It's episode 4. Next week!!!

He's a consultant about the Lazarus Pit I think.

@kiba: You make a good point that Thea still feels guilty about being the one to pull the trigger on Sara, even if she was mind controlled. I still argue that the character development for Merlyn, Laurel, and Thea suffered this episode just so Sara could be brought back to life. Again, I'm hoping after they get the tie-in to Legends of Tomorrow out of the way that the show will pick up again.

I was almost overwhelmed with everything going on in this episode. My only negative would be Double Down. He seemed like yet another throw away villain but he still had some personality so I can deal.

The Diggle/Ollie/Felicity reunion was great and I really like Curtis. I still would've preferred the "status quo" Michael Holt version but I'm fine with what theyve given me thus far.

Also, the expressions on both Laurel and Thea's faces in Nanda Parbat were priceless. I think Thea finally, truly, and COMPLETELY sees her father for the vile mentally unstable bastard he is. Laurel's looks of uncertainty and heartache over Sara were heartbreaking. I believe she knew full well that this will most likely end badly but that small sliver of hope forced her to carry on with bringing her sister back. I wanted to be angry with her but I can't because I would've done the same for my sisters or brother.

@rollingshadow7: I agree completely!! Let the Lances have some damn shiny happy times already. Laurel looked so beautiful and fun when she was hanging with Cisco and Nyssa during their dinner date. Thats the version of her we need to see more of.

Episode 5, iirc

My biggest issue are with the sometiems ridiculous plot holes and logic gaps in this series. I can stomach a lot of nonsense for sake of story advancement (aka pretty much everything Felicity does) but those 2 things were extremely cringeworthy this time:

1, Felicity stearing the crane to catch the villain ... that was so dumb and unrealistic I was expecting her to wake up from dreaming afterwards...geez

2, The villain running down the stairs, finding and entering their secret lair in a matter of seconds...What the hell is that "secret" lair even locked or are there huge arrows (hah) pointing towards the entrance?

weird, I never saw your reply

and the effects were different, she was crazy for about 5 seconds, they tranq her, and she wakes up amnesia, but otherwise no effects at all, then 8 months later she feels the constant desire to kill, so sure, there immediate are effects, but not the ones Malcolm was talking about, the effects living people get from the pit "forever" came just recently

whereas Sara seems completely possessed by the pit, and didn't just wake up with a bit of amnesia like Thea did

and I remember them saying Thea was close to dead and beyond modern medicine, and in that last episode Malcolm confirmed she was never dead