Arrow Midseason Premiere Recap With Spoilers: Blast Radius

The episode opens on Oliver chasing down a car with his motorcycle; he blinds the driver with a flash-bang arrow and he flips, then Ollie demands to know about the man in the skull mask. The man says he knows nothing. Cut to the Arrowcave, where we find Oliver and Diggle talking about Felicity. She's been in Central City a lot since Barry's accident, in which he was rendered (and remains) comatose five weeks later. Oliver is frustrated that nobody can lead him to Brother Blood, and that Felicity's time off has been badly timed. He's worried that an army of Cyrus Golds would be nearly impossible to stop.

Cut to an island flashback, where they bury Shado next to Oliver's father and then Slade decides he's going to go after the men who killed her. Slade insists that Oliver take the green hood, over Oliver's objections. Ollie wants to tell Slade the truth about the circumstances surrounding Shado's death, but Sara talks him out of it. Back in the present, Laurel is sucking down some prescription drugs at the DA's office when Donner finds her. She's concerned about Blood's connections to a psychiatric hospital that burned down under suspicious circumstances, and to Cyrus Gold. She leaves to take Blood to dinner. At Verdant, Thea is hosting a fundraiser/rally for Blood; Ollie makes a short statement, then Blood does. Thea is suspicious of Blood with Laurel; Ollie asks about Roy's health issues and Thea blows it off. She tells Oliver that she doesn't feel like she knows the real Sebastian, but it's not long before they both move on to the party. Cut to a man in a truck who remotely detonates a bomb. There were still some people in the building. At the Arrowcave, where we find Oliver and Diggle struggling to work the computer setup in Felicity's absence. Arrow finds out the situation at the building and goes to help people evacuate. Back on the island, Oliver is following Slade, who is after Ivo. Sara tells Slade that attacking a ship full of killers isn't safe, and Slade starts goign at her. Ollie gets in the way and Slade attacks him too.

Diggle brings Oliver a digital copy of a manifesto left by the bomber; they're going to start tracking the bomb. Felicity shows up and it's briefly awkward but Ollie is glad to see her back to work. At his office, Blood takes a visit from Laurel, who asks about Cyrus Gold. He tells her that Gold was like an older brother he never had when he was in the foster system. Laurel asks him what happened to his parents, and Blood tells her that his father shot his mother and then vanished. Laurel is clearly affected by the story but still suspicious, and starts looking through the papers on Blood's desk, which lists a Maya Resik in a hospital that he's being billed for. Thea meets up with Roy at the bar, where he's working to keep his mind busy. He's clearly not happy but doesn't want to talk to her about it. The pair start to make out but knockk over a stack of crates filled with pint glasses for the bar. A big chunk of glass is sticking out of Roy, and she runs to get the first aid kid. On the roof of the police department, Lance meets Arrow, handing him over a sample of what crime scene techs got from the scene of the explosion. Arrow starts to leave but Lance tells him that he believes there's a mole in the department who tipped off Gold and led to the deaths of his men. While they're talking, there's a major explosion at the municipal building. Felicity tracks the signal from the detonator and gives Ollie a location; Oliver starts tracking the van that the bomber is driving and a car chase ensues. There's a cloud of smoke or something in the street and Oliver loses him and then can't locate him again.

Ollie comes back to the cave and demands an explanation from Felicity as to why she's not performing. They argue back and forth and blame each other until Felicity storms off. Diggle tells Oliver that he didn't have a problem with Felicity's performance until she met Barry. Back on the island, Sara hits Slade with a tree branch, causing him to drop Oliver and then realize that he's doing. He apologizes and backs away in shock. Back at the police station, Lance compares notes with the dirty cop (he doesn't know, obviously) and Laurel shows up asking for his help tracking Maya Resik, whom she says is a ghost. At Queen Mansion, Blood is on the TV, announcing that he's going to hold a rally tomorrow night. Oliver immediately assumes that the rally will become a target, so he pays a visit to Blood as Arrow to try and convince him to call the event off. Blood is having none of it. Cut to a store where the bomber is working, selling a train set to a woman for her son. He tells her he wouldn't miss the rally.

At the Arrowcave the next day, Felicity has tracked the bomb residue to the kind of explosives used by an anti-government group called "The Movement," one of the members of which is a message board poster with the handle "Shrapnel" who is located at an antique shop in Starling. Oliver sends Diggle to the rally to cover their bases while he goes to investigate. At the PD, Lance is looking into the phone records when Lance shows up to see about Resik. Lance tells her that Maya is an inpatient at the mental hospital and has been for years, explaining why he was placed in foster instead of family. He waves her off the unity rally and tells her to stop trying to find reasons to talk herself out of a relationship with Blood. At the rally, Blood is trying to ignore reporter questions while Diggle is scanning the periphery. At the antique shop, Arrow shows up and is almost immediately caught in a laser grid, where Shrapnel has a video display pop up to tell him that he'll die if he moves. He 's frozen in place with his arrow drawn, and sees on the TV that his family and Roy are at the plaza. He calls into Felicity to tell her what happened; he tells Diggle to find the explosives at the plaza while he tries to get himself out of it. Felicity gives Ollie a strategy to cut off power to the building, and it works; he's safe and heading to the rally. At the rally, Blood starts to make a speech; Diggle finds the bomb trigger hidden in the PA system. Felicity shows up and says she can disable it. Diggle warns her to watch out for a deadman switch or failsafe. While they're trying to disable it, Shrapnel approaches them with a trigger in one hand and shoots Diggle. Ollie shows up, the crowd starts to disperse. A lighting rig falls, about to crush Ollie's mother, but Roy stops it and saves her. Thea looks at him, confused and scared.

Oliver chases down Shrapnel on the motorcycle, crashing into him (on foot) and then holding him at arrow-point. Shrapnel has a detonator, though, connected to a wire that will set off explosives all around the plaza. Oliver shoots an arrow through the wire and punches Shrapnel out. Back t the bar, Roy tries to convince Thea that he just had a surge of adrenaline at the plaza and it's nothing to worry about, but she notices that his arm is totally healed and gets even more confused. Back at the cave, Oliver is setting up to go out when Diggle approaches him. He is only slightly injured, but Ollie sends him home to rest. He apologizes to Felicity, telling her that her being away just makes her realize how much he needs her. She's a partner, not an employee, and he wants her to know that Barry will wake up and when he does, she'll be there. Back on the island, Ivo calls in to Sara on the radio. He promises them safe passage off the island in exchange for the Mirakuru, and threatens to torture them when he finds them if they don't. Sara goes to get Slade and comes back to tell Ollie that he's gone and took the Mirakuru with him. Laurel visits Maya Resik at the hospital; the nurse tells her that Resik is hardly cognizant of the world around her most of the time. Laurel tells Maya that she's there to talk about her nephew, and Resik starts muttering, singing to herself and tracing a shape in her hand. She name-drops Sebastian and Resik seems to come alive. At Blood's office, Arrow shows up and Blood tells him that they can save the city if they work together. As Arrow shakes hands with him, Resik reveals to Laurel that "Sebastian is the Devil." She tells her that Sebastian convinced everyone that she was insane to cover up his murder of her father. Resik, it seems, is actually Blood's mother and witnessed the killing. Resik tells Laurel not to trust what he says--that you can't trust Sebastian Blood.