As Felicity tries to adjust to her new life, John and Lyla get thrown back into the shady world of A.R.G.U.S.
- Arc Welding: Back when Andy was a dealing drugs in Afghanistan, his superior in the operation was Reiter. Turns out it was to fund his operation on Lian Yu, starting with the map he needed to find it in the first place.
- Asshole Victim: Amanda Waller dies but it's hard to feel sorry for her, though even Lyla and Oliver feel the need raise a glass to her memory.
- The Atoner: Andy finally offers his help to the team and his brother, and starts reconnecting with his family at the end.
- Big "SHUT UP!": Felicity when her hallucination and Oliver are talking to her at the same time. Oliver naturally thinks she's referring to him and decides to leave.
- Call-Back:
- Felicity hallucinates her 'goth hacker' college self, who mentions 'their' ex-boyfriend Cooper and the transformation she undertook after his 'death'.
- Oliver worries that what happened to Felicity is a consequence of Barry Allen changing the timeline.
- Diggle compares Damien Darhk to Malcolm Merlyn in their willingness to "burn the village in order to save it".
- Felicity mentions the time Waller threatened to nuke Starling City.
- Chekhov's Gun: Rubicon for later on in the season.
- Code Name: Felicity finally gets hers—Overwatch.
- The Dog Bites Back: Amanda Waller is a sociopathic Bad Boss who has absolutely no problem letting every single person under her command to die to accomplish her goals, when she's not killing them herself for a myriad of awful reasons, and has even threatened to nuke an entire city to force them to obey her commands. Waller gloats about this in order to demonstrate to Shadowspire she will not negotiate at all and Lyla, her second-in-command, corroborates this. Joyner, the Shadowspire team leader, decides to kill Waller and try to negotiate with Lyla (who seems more reasonable) instead.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Joyner seemed outright disgusted by how Amanda Waller would rather sacrifice everyone in the building rather than try to bargain with him. He promptly shoots her in the head as a result.
- Eye Scream: What Shadowspire does to Agent Chang after they kidnap him (along with ripping out his fingernails). After they break into ARGUS headquarters via the retinal scanner, someone drops Chang's bloody eye onto the ground.
- Foreshadowing: The Oracle reference confirms that Batman exists in the Arrowverse. Oliver Queen will visit Gotham City in Elseworlds (2018).
- Handicapped Badass: After overcoming her angst, Felicity...sorry, Overwatch... promptly demonstrates to herself that being in a wheelchair isn't going to stop her from being the brains behind Team Arrow.
- Handwave: There's a reference to Andy's wife Carly and their son AJ, but to explain why they don't appear, Andy says he is not yet willing to let them know he's back from the dead.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: In Afghanistan, Andy rudely rejects Joyner's offer to partake in corruption, but only because his brother is standing next to him—he's later shown to be up to his neck in it. In the present day Andy pretends to betray his brother, but it's actually a ploy to help them free Lyla.
- Helpful Hallucination: Not at first appearance, but the insults and taunting of her Goth self help Felicity get over her funk and back on Team Arrow.
- It's All My Fault: Oliver as usual, a fact that Felicity lampshades during her Rousing Speech.Felicity: If I know you (and I do) you're probably thinking what happened was your fault. I'm here to tell you that it's not and that it's not mine either. It's the fault of only one man, and he has an extremely on-the-nose and alliterative name. And we're going to stop him, not out of guilt or vengeance, or regret. We are going to stop him because it's what we do. That's who we are.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Amanda Waller finally faces comeuppance for her horrific actions when it comes clear to the terrorists that Waller would rather sacrifice everyone else rather than negotiate.
- Killed Off for Real: Amanda Waller unexpectedly and suddenly dies from a gunshot to the head.
- Let the Past Burn: After Felicity shows Oliver an old picture of her as a goth, she proceeds to burn the photo as a way to let the past go.
- MacGyvering: John Diggle modifies the television to transmit the hostage situation in A.R.G.U.S. to the Arrowcave. Turns out he had been paying attention to Felicity's technobabble.
- Mythology Gag:
- Oliver says that he was going to call Felicity "Oracle" but it was already taken.
- Judging by the partial writing on the side, the trucks carrying the rail gun shipment are owned by Kord Industries.
- Felicity's goth self looks a lot like Death of the Endless, black clothing, ankh necklace, and all.
- Never Speak Ill of the Dead: Averted by Felicity again. As Oliver and Lyla are solemnly toasting to Amanda Waller's memory, Felicity notes that she once tried to blow up Starling with a drone strike.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Lyla states that Shadowspire could kill everyone in the building and Waller wouldn't even blink. She also mentions resigning from ARGUS because she's not like that. Lt. Joiner promptly kills Waller and starts to negotiate with Lyla instead.
- Only a Flesh Wound: Diggle is shot in the bicep at the beginning of the episode, and it's explicitly described as this.
- Pretty Little Headshots: The sole indication Waller's been shot is a neat hole in her forehead.
- Reed Richards Is Useless: Averted, at least in speech. Oliver tells Felicity that while her paralysis is permanent, in normal medical terms, the fact that they live in a world of metahumans and mysticism means that there's always the possibility of a cure, and he vows to find one.
- Rousing Speech: Felicity gives one to Oliver which both agree is pretty good.
- Selective Obliviousness: Andy says his Heel–Face Turn after joining the military was just his brother seeing what he wanted to see.
- She's Back: Felicity's confidence gets severely shaken when Oliver gets trapped because she messed up a hack, but despite the taunts of her younger self she's able to rally for the A.R.G.U.S. battle and prove herself a suitable "badass".
- Shout-Out: Felicity reads The Shining after encountering her hallucination.
- Swiss-Cheese Security: Shadowspire is able to break into A.R.G.U.S. thanks to a retina scan (courtesy of Chang's eyes) being the only security checkpoint.
- Take That!: In the same episode where the show was forced to kill off Amanda Waller due to her upcoming appearance in the DCEU, the Arrowverse gets a bit of its own back by implying that Oracle and by extension the rest of the Batman cast does exist in the 'verse even if we never hear about them.
- Talking to Themself: While on pain medication, Felicity sees hallucinations of her younger Goth hacker self.
- Tastes Like Friendship: Diggle brings his little brother a Big Belly Burger, and at the end invites Andy to join his family for dinner.
- That Came Out Wrong: Felicity is happy to have doctors poking around inside her.
- There Was a Door: Oliver gets locked inside a shipping container, the computer system freezes up so Felicity can't open the doors, then Diggle gets captured and is about to be unmasked when Oliver blasts a hole in the shipping container and rescues him.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: A hallucination of Goth Felicity constantly taunts the current Felicity over the way she changed her life and tried to be a badass superhero.
- Title Drop: Joyner tries to entice the Diggle brothers to think about the personal benefits of some of the drugs they confiscated going "AWOL."
- Trailers Always Spoil: Reiter being in charge of Shadowspire, and the whole plot tying in with Oliver's fourth year missing, would have been a surprising twist...had news outlets not been talking about it for weeks prior that this connection takes place. It doesn't help that weeks before the season started, they confirmed that Shadowspire would be the villains of the flashback story this year, meaning anyone good at remembering names would pick it up pretty quickly that it's connected.
- We Need a Distraction: The railgun heist was just to divert Team Arrow while Shadowspire raided A.R.G.U.S.
- Wham Shot: We see Andy's superior in the drug trafficking game back in Afghanistan - Reiter.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Oliver keeps trying to convince Felicity that the thing she brings to the team, her mind, isn't something that's limited because she's in a wheelchair. When the team infiltrates the ARGUS facility, he makes a point of having her give the instructions which they unquestioningly follow, giving her the confidence to tell her past-self hallucination off.
- You Are in Command Now: When Amanda Waller confirms that Lyla, as her most trusted agent, knows that Waller would let everyone in the room die before giving up the codes, Waller is promptly shot in the head so that Shadowspire can negotiate with Lyla instead. This technically puts Lyla in charge of ARGUS for the rest of the episode.
