I’ll be filling in for your weekly recap of Arrow. This week’s episode is called “Restoration” — they haven’t been giving much away with these titles lately, have they? Let’s get started!

We start in action, with Diggle following bad guys with guns and Felicity on comms. Oliver zooms into play on a motorbike, but those damn HIVE members keep disappearing — they don’t call them ‘ghosts’ for nothing! Felicity tracks down one of the ghosts, and Dig, uh, digs out the suicide tooth before he can crush it, but he shocks him and sends him flying.

Malcolm Merlyn (should we just call him Ra’s al Ghul now?) is sparing/fighting — depending on who you ask — with Nyssa in Nanda Parbat when Laurel and Thea enter. Laurel, as you may have guessed from last week’s gross closing scene, wants him to use the Lazarus Pit to revive Sara.

Felicity is analysing the cyanide suicide tooth and suggested revels for the original trio. Dig isn’t biting, and Ollie is tired of waiting for him to come around.

Flashback island time with new soldier Ollie. He has run down a man escaping the compound. He tries to give him the easy way out, but another soldier smacks the guy with the butt of his gun.

In Dig’s house, an ARGUS dude is skulking in the shadows. Lila had requested help in tracking someone, and she has arrived. ARGUS guy produces a photo of Mina Fayad. She is the one who ordered the hit on Andy.

Darhk has a new associate — someone who shot playing cards into the toothless ghost — and he is interested in bringing down the Green Arrow & Co. This guy, Double Down, was brought to him by Fayad, the woman in the photograph.

Laurel tries to guilt Nyssa into supporting her desire to bring back Sara. Nyssa believes that Laurel is misguided and basically tells her to move on. I used to question Nyssa’s motives every time she opened her mouth, but I think she’s the only one in Nanda Parbat with a lick of sense at the minute.

Felicity has discovered that the tooth only has half the DNA a person should have, which shouldn’t be possible. Dig is staking out the Fayad and avoiding Felicity’s calls.

Island Ollie finds out that the “product” they’re growing is half heroin poppy and half coca leaf — what a brilliant idea!

Back in Starling City, Ollie comes face-to-face with our card-wielding bad guy and watches as he peels a playing card off his tattoo and flings it at him. Dig is also in the thick of it with bullets flying at his stake-out. One of the cards eventually lands into Ollie’s arm, and it looks like a nasty gash.

Ra’s and Thea have a little father-daughter chat about bloodlust. He says that going into the Pit means she has to fulfill her desire to kill to make it go away for a time. Of course, there is a wise man who might be able to help her. He’s going to take her there, just like a loving dad would.

Ollie gets patched up from the cards, and Felicity gets to lecture them on not working together. Her mum-guilt game is strong. Dig says he’s not sure if he’d take a bullet for Ollie anymore. Ollie says he doesn’t know why he can’t start to earn back Dig’s trust. They change the subject and find common ground — Fayad, the woman from the ARGUS photo, was mentioned to Ollie by the tattooed metahuman.

Felicity and her new BFF/employee Curtis look at some of his new inventions, and she asks him to do a work-up on the playing card from Ollie’s arm. Also, Felicity’s phone is pulling a full Matrix.

Diggle FINALLY comes clean about HIVE and his brother’s death to Ollie! He has kept a little murder journal with information about his brother, and he shows him the photo of Fayad.

Darhk has lost patience with being compromised and disappointed. Note to self: don’t disappoint a mystic supervillain. He asks Double Down for another demonstration, and Darhk shows off his mystic powers of “sleight of hand” before sending the card into Fayad (for death purposes) and straight to the throat of Double Down as a warning.

Thea wakes to find she’s under attack. She slaughters the men, and Ra’s strolls in to say that she will only stop the bloodlust if she slays the one who hurt her. Oh yeah, he sent those guys into her room. She can’t get revenge because the old Ra’s is dead, so she is told that she will never be able to get rid of it for good. She runs into Laurel’s room and declares that they are leaving, she isn’t going to kill people, and she doesn’t want to have anything to do with him. Ra’s agrees to allow Sara to go into the Pit if it makes Thea feel better — but she just said she doesn’t want that for Sara, so I’m not sure what he hopes to accomplish here.

Ollie and Dig find Fayad dead. Dig is regretting holding back on the details he had because now it means that they can’t question the one lead they had.

Curtis has discovered that the card is basically a piece of tattooed skin and tells Felicity. Big surprise there. Double Down attacks; he must have been able to track his card. They get away in a secret lift that takes them to the Arrow Cave, but Double Down is there just a moment later, flinging his cards all over the place and ruining a perfectly good superhero lair. Felicity grabs a gun — a big one! — and starts firing, and, while she doesn’t seem to connect with anything, Double Down leaves. The boys come back to the Arrow Cave; Curtis is already gone, so only Felicity’s secret identity is blown.

Sara’s body is suspended above the Pit, and they are all chanting. Nyssa tries to stop them, but they lower her into it anyway. It seems like nothing is happening at first, but Sara rises out of the water all crazy-eyed and leaps out of the Pit with what looks like the exact same motion Thea did. Ra’s sedates her, and Laurel tries to pretend this was a good idea.

Ollie and Dig attack Double Down in the street. They want info on his boss, but he’s not as scared of them as of Darhk. Ollie dives in front of a card that’s thrown at Dig; he’s okay because he’s wearing Kevlar. After knocking out Double Down, Dig says that Ollie took a bullet for him. Ollie overcorrects him, but apparently it was the bonding moment they needed. The Original Three share a beer and discuss a new lair.

Island Ollie is escorting the slave woman into the woods. He makes her walk a bit faster to put space between them and the other soldier — and a landmine.

Curtis is picking up the pieces from the attack at Palmer Tech. He’s proud to feel like his boss is making a real difference. Felicity’s Matrix phone has spelled out her name, and she’s starting to think it’s more than just a glitch.

Sara is in chains like a rabid dog in Nanda Parbat. Nyssa has poisoned the Pit to prevent Ra’s from being able to use it again. Nyssa’s Father-Ra’s had devised a plan to destroy it in case it should ever land in the wrong hands, and she’s just putting it into action. She warns Laurel that the damage is on her hands because she insisted on bringing back Sara — let’s all just agree that wasn’t the best decision, yeah?

What did you think of this week’s episode? Do you agree that Darhk is one of the best villains we’ve seen on Arrow for a while? Has Malcolm found his calling as Ra’s al Merlyn? How much more interesting is Sara going to be now that she isn’t just a vessel for everyone in the show’s brooding?