We are nearing the season finale of Arrow and as Stephen Amell teased during his Fan Expo Vancouver 2014 panel, this episode as well as the next two all take place in one day.

We start the day at Moira Queen’s funeral. Present are Thea, Walter, Lance and Laurel. Absent is Oliver. Interspersed with Moira’s funeral, we see Sebastian Blood being sworn in as mayor of Starling City. At the reception held at the Queen Mansion, Laurel offers her condolences to Thea and Sebastian too. Sebastian also wants to speak to Oliver but he has been MIA for a few days. Laurel and Sebastian have a brief conversation and ask Laurel to tell Oliver that he wants to speak to him. After Sebastian leaves, Laurel’s senses something fishy with him.

Also at the reception is Felicity who tells Diggle she doesn’t understand why she is crying over a woman that she didn’t like. Diggle says that Felicity is crying for Oliver. Both wonder where he could be and are dismayed that he missed his own mother’s funeral. To rub salt in their wound, Isabel Rochev makes an appearance and says that Oliver probably went back to the Island and says that he probably won’t miss their funeral.

Walter and Thea have a talk about Moira. Walter tells Thea that her mother’s sacrifice proved that she loved her. Thea states what really killed Moira were lies and that Oliver knew Slade on the Island and did something to piss him off and didn’t warn his family. Walter defends Oliver and says that while he isn’t the perfect brother, he loves Thea and would do anything to make sure he is safe.

Later, Laurel visits her dad at the police station to share her suspicions. At first Lance doesn’t believe his daughter but a sober Laurel and her gut feeling gets him to help.

At the Arrow Cave, Roy is still unconscious but they are running out of snake venom and no cure in sight. Diggle has been trying to call Oliver to let him know about Isabel’s return but nadda. Felicity has exhausted all methods that she knows to try and find Oliver but she too has come up empty-handed. Diggle knows the person to ask so he brings him and Felicity to ARGUS headquarters to ask Amanda Waller for help. Felicity is impressed with all the high-tech equipment that ARGUS has at their disposal and it quite cute seeing her fawn over a computer system. At first Waller doesn’t want to help Diggle but once he mentions Slade Wilson building a mirakuru army, this gets her to help.

Speaking of Slade, he calls Blood during a mayoral photo op of him signing a piece of legislation. The call is pretty much warning Blood to start unleashing the army on Starling City so he can have Starling City the way he wants. Laurel drops by later on the pretence of needing the mayor’s help on a real estate case but really it is to plant some wireless transceiver that the police IT guy uses to hack into Blood’s computer. What they find in it is a press release about the mayor’s condolences to the Queen family over Moira’s death that was written the day before Moira died. Lance and Laurel realize that Blood and Slade are working together.

Waller has managed to locate Oliver at a secondary Lair. When Diggle and Felicity arrive, Oliver tells that this Lair is the backup Arrow Cave. Oliver tells that the only way this war with Slade will end is if he dies. Oliver tells his team that someone once told that an act of true heroism involves sacrificing oneself for the greater good or something like that. Diggle and Felicity are not happy with Oliver’s decision. Felicity says that if she was resigned to her life, then she would have been a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas like her mom and never went to college. But because she didn’t just give up on her life, Felicity moved to Starling City and started working for Oliver and became part of Team Arrow. But Oliver is still going to go through his suicide mission.

Island Flashback

It was all about Oliver, Sara, Anatoli and Peter boarding the Japanese sub to get it going. Anatoli manages to get it operational but it is stuck. The only way to get it unstuck is to fire a torpedo that has to be fired manually. Peter decides to sacrifice himself and tells Oliver that quote about true heroism, which he attributes to Ivo. Another thing Peter does before he goes into the torpedo shaft is that Oliver will one day be a hero. The torpedo is successfully in getting them loose but it appears that Sara gets taken by someone, probably Slade.

Back to the present, Thea keeps on getting some bad news. At Verdant, Isabel pays her a visit and evicts Thea out of the club, giving her two days to vacate. At the Queen Mansion, we see that it is being packed away. Thea says to Walter she has no one to turn to but Walter says that she has him. This is when Oliver shows up and Thea tells her brother and Walter that she is going to leave town for a fresh start. Oliver speaks to Thea privately and gives almost a goodbye speech to her. Thea promises to let Oliver know where she ends up. After Thea leaves, Oliver calls Isabel to pretty much deliver a message to Slade for them to meet at the pier.

At the pier, Oliver seems to be talking to someone that has come but isn’t facing them. Oliver chose the pier as it was where he left on the Queen’s Gambit and that he should have died. If Oliver did then his mom would still be alive and Shado too. All of a sudden Oliver gets hit with a tranq dart. When he wakes up, Oliver is back at the Arrow Cave and also there is Laurel. And I love that Laurel is now an honorary member of Team Arrow (for now).

Laurel reveals that Slade told her the truth about him and says that Oliver is crazy to give himself up to Slade. Laurel tries to give a pep talk to Oliver but it doesn’t seem to work. What does work is Laurel mentioning that Sebastian Blood is working with Slade and that Slade killed Moira so Sebastian could be mayor. All of a sudden, everything starts to make sense to Oliver, everything that has happened this season. Oliver is ready for battle.

Oliver first step is to join Blood for dinner. While Felicity and Diggle work on Blood’s body guard to get some information on where to find Blood’s lair and thus the mirakuru soldiers.

During dinner, Blood talks about making Starling City great again and Oliver gets all cryptic about Blood’s other activities and mentions Slade Wilson. This gets Blood to reveal his true nature and Oliver reveals that he is the Arrow. We learn that Blood is going to use the mirakuru soldier to create chaos in Starling City and in the aftermath he can build the city to how he wants it. Blood tells Oliver that Slade promised him the mayor’s office and he always keeps his promise. Blood mentions the promise that Slade made to Oliver. This raises Oliver’s hackles and wants to kill Blood but doesn’t and Blood walks away.

At the Arrow Cave, Team Arrow starts their plan to bring down the mirakuru army. Using the information they got from Blood’s bodyguard, Team Arrow gets ready to leave for the Lair. Laurel wants to go too but Oliver makes her stay at the Arrow Cave so she can be safe. Laurel asks if Oliver is concerned about Diggle’s and Felicity’s safety and he counters that this battle began with the three of them and it is going end that way.

So we have Felicity being the eyes of the operation in a van and gives Diggle the location of the best spot to place explosives that will bring down a whole lot of rubble on that mirakuru army. Meanwhile, Arrow observes Blood give a speech to his mirakuru army.

Before Diggle can set off the explosives, Ravager aka Isabel comes on the scene and stops him. Arrow meanwhile sees a mirakuru solider approach him. They battle for a bit but the soldier gets the upper hand and starts to choke Arrow but Laurel tries to knock him out to no avail. But her actions does free Arrow from the choke hold. The two flee but are painted into a corner as more mirakuru soldiers approach them. Laurel says there are too many of them to fight so Arrow shoots down some rubble to act as a barrier between them and the army.

Elsewhere in Starling City, at the police station, a thief being held there turns out to be one of the mirakuru soldiers and springs into action at a certain time. This man kills the IT guy. RIP dude you were almost Felicity’s equal. And Lance is in a tough fight against the roided up soldier.

At the train station, Thea is waiting for her train when that magic time hits, another mirakuru soldier reveals himself and takes the train station hostage.

In the midst of all this chaos, Felicity is trying to assess the situation when a call fro STAR Labs interrupts her.

We end the episode with tons of mirakuru soldiers walking the streets of Starling City right to strike.

And from next week’s promo’s it looks to be action packed and I can’t wait to see it.