‘Arrow’ Stages Major Family Reunions in ‘Leap of Faith’ (RECAP)

Leap of Faith
Spoiler Alert
Dean Buscher/The CW

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 8, Episode 3 of Arrow, “Leap of Faith.”]

Arrow may have just changed everything with a moment that we didn’t think would happen so soon.

In “Leap of Faith,” Oliver (Stephen Amell) heads to Nanda Parbat in hopes of uncovering information about the Monitor and reunites with Thea (Willa Holland). “I need to be 100 percent sure I can trust him,” he explains to her.

“I left my family behind,” Oliver says. “I miss them. And every day I wrestle with whether or not I made the right decision, because maybe I didn’t.” He needs to be certain that “my sacrifice, that my death will protect the people I love. I need my family to be safe.”

Oliver and his sister team up with (and briefly fight) Talia (Lexa Doig) along their way to eventually retrieving a book that speaks of “a god who possessed power to see all that is and all that will be.” And without a “balance between good and evil, this god would bring forth the end of times, the annihilation of all things.” They take this to mean the Monitor will cause what happens.

“If he ends up being on the wrong side of this, I’m going to stop him,” Oliver swears.

(Colin Bentley/The CW)

Meanwhile in the future, like father, like daughter, Mia (Katherine McNamara) is also determined to stop someone: JJ Charlie Barnett). She, Connor (Joseph David-Jones), and Zoe (Andrea Sixtos) return to the bunker and find that William (Ben Lewis) took out the men JJ sent after him. He used the fact that Felicity hardwired the bunker’s power grid under the floor to shock them. With JJ targeting members of the Star City Unification Movement, William wants to use himself as bait, but Mia refuses to let her brother put himself in danger.

Instead, the four members of Future Team Arrow head back to the Deathstroke Gang’s headquarters to take everyone out. (William face-plants as everyone else gracefully drops down through the ceiling.) Mia stays with William as he works to get the cameras up and eyes on the place, and Connor and Zoe keep an eye on JJ’s men. But Zoe warns Mia that they can’t let fear dictate their strategy.

“You are the only family I have left,” Mia admits to William, who echoes Zoe’s sentiment. They need to trust each other to survive. Once the cameras are up and running, she joins the others.

“Tonight is the night that we have all been waiting for,” JJ declares to his minions. “The night we destroy the Unification movement. This city will be ours. And there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.” Mia announces her presence (and disagreement), and a fight breaks out. Just as JJ gets his sword to Mia’s throat, however, Zoe stops him, only for the future timeline’s Deathstroke to stab her through the chest. (Anyone else have a flashback to Slade killing Moira?)

Connor goes after his brother. As he’s holding a knife to JJ’s throat, William is mourning Zoe, and Mia’s holding her dying friend, there’s a white light and …

(Jack Rowand/The CW)

Oliver appears in the bunker, and Diggle (David Ramsey), Dinah (Juliana Harkavy), and Rene (Rick Gonzalez) are surprised to see him. But that’s not all.

Because behind Oliver are Mia, William, and Connor, in the bunker, staring in shock. “Dad?” Mia looks to Oliver.

Is Arrow about to rewrite its own future? Last season in the flashforwards, Dinah and Rene had no idea who Mia was. “We all knew Oliver and Felicity,” Dinah said in “Brothers and Sisters” after Mia revealed her true identity. “They never had a daughter.” And when Felicity introduced Mia to Rene in “Star City 2040,” he asked, “You and Oliver have a kid?”

It seems safe to assume that the Monitor brought them all there, but for what reason? And is the future about to change? Or will the upcoming “Crisis on Infinite Earths” somehow explain whatever’s about to happen and what we saw in Season 7?

Arrow, Tuesdays, 9/8c, The CW