Arrow 7×04 review: Is a major character dead in the future?

WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers about the fourth episode of Season 7’s Arrow titled “Level 2”. Please do not read if you have not seen the episode or read ahead at your own risk. 

Is Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) dead? That’s the big question fans are asking themselves following Monday night’s episode of Arrow.

Let’s back up a bit and talk about how we got to this huge revelation in the flashforward.

William (Ben Lewis) and Roy (Colton Haynes) arrive in Star City and it looks, well, like a ghost town. Still following the coordinates, William goes to Smoak Technologies, which has seen better days. The police come, but an older Dinah (Juliana Harkavy) fights them off, telling Roy he shouldn’t have come back.

Dinah reveals the Glades uprising lead to the fall of Star City, even going so far as building a wall and closing their borders. This is a sad development considering in the present-day parts of the episode Dinah held a town hall in the Glades to say the SCPD would protect them. But it seems things never got better.

Real quick — can we talk about how hot 50-something Dinah is? Wow! She looks great. Okay, back to discussing the rest of the episode.

A new hero comes out and she’s revealed to be Zoe (Andrea Sixtos), Rene’s daughter. When asked where Rene is, Zoe says her dad wouldn’t ever return to Star City. Dinah asks why they are there and William says Felicity sent them.

That’s when Dinah drops the bombshell that Felicity is dead. Now, is Felicity really dead? We don’t know for sure yet, but judging by the fact something truly goes wrong in the future with Oliver missing and William never seeing his parents again, it doesn’t look good.

Elsewhere in the present-day part of the episode, Oliver (Stephen Amell) goes through some Hugo Strange-type doctor therapy down in Level 2. At first, Oliver resists answering any of this doctor’s questions, which leads to shock therapy. During the shock treatment, Oliver imagines he’s on a raft with William and kills himself to save his son. Amell delivered such a solid performance here, and it deserves to be recognized as one of his best during the entire Arrow run.

Following the treatment, Oliver is asked what his name is and he replies “Inmate 4587”. So it appears his doctor is trying to wipe Olly’s memory clean and re-program him. Not good news at all.

This storyline takes me back to Season 5 when Adrian Chase tried to get Oliver to out himself as a murderer and killer. Back then, Olly refused. Judging by next week’s preview, it looks like Oliver isn’t allowing himself to be brainwashed that easily.

Episode Notes:

• Laurel (Katie Cassidy) and Felicity work together to get information about Diaz from the Silencer. With Felicity close to the edge, Laurel does her best to talk her down from going on a path of no return.

What do you think? Is Felicity dead? Let us know in the comments below!

Arrow airs Mondays at 8/7c on The CW.