Later, his vitals stabilized, Oliver awakens, immediately reaching for Barry's throat as he's futzing with Oliver's neck. Dig and Felicity pull him off, explaining that Barry saved his life. However, Oliver is none-too-pleased with Felicity for revealing his secret to Barry, and the two argue. Just then, Oliver gets a text from Moira, asking him to come home. Before he leaves, Oliver reminds the team that the thief now has what he needs to mass-produce the serum, and that's when Barry reveals that he pulled some oils off of Oliver's neck and may be able to recreate a fingerprint that can help track the thief down. At the Queen mansion, Oliver arrives to find his mother decorating a Christmas tree, reminding Oliver that it's Christmas time. She says Thea has locked herself in her room, and refuses to talk to her. So, Oliver goes to talk to her, only to find Roy and Sin in Thea's room, Oliver's arrow still sticking out of Roy's knee. Roy explains he didn't want to go to the hospital because the cops would get involved, and Thea adds that she didn't want Moira to know that Roy was "messing around with the Hood." Sanitzing the wound with alcohol, Oliver quickly removes the arrow, before calling Dig to come to the mansion with a first aid kit. He then warns Thea and company that whatever they were digging into, maybe they should just let it go. However, not only are they not going to do that, but Thea proclaims that they're now going to do things her way. Out in the hall, meanwhile, Oliver sees Shado roaming around. She says she had to warn him that he can't fight what's coming, and that he should put down his bow or else everyone he loves will die. Thea then follows him out into the hallway, and asks him who he's talking to. When he turns back, Shado's gone. Meanwhile, in an island flashback, Ivo and his men burst onto the sub, finding Slade dead from the Mirakuru serum. Taking the rest of the supply of serum, Ivo and his men force Oliver, Shado, and Sara out into the woods at gunpoint. Sara tries to reason with him, but instead, he forces her and Shado to their knees, giving Oliver 30 seconds to choose which one lives or he'll shoot them both. Back in the present, the thief aka The Acolyte oversees the production of the serum, informing Sebastian Blood that it'll be ready in 48 hours.
Back at the lair, meanwhile, Barry's in the middle of geeking out over being in the Arrowcave, when Oliver returns, asking if the rat poison Barry gave him contains any side effects. Specifically, Oliver wants to know why he keeps hallucinating that Shado's there. So, Barry takes a blood sample to see if the rat poison could still be affecting him, and while doing so, mentions that Oliver may want to look into wearing a mask to help conceal his identity. Just then, Felicity finishes tracking down the thief, Cyrus Gold, tracking him to a motel where they figure Cyrus must be holed up. Dig convinces Oliver to let him take point, though Oliver does insist on providing backup. Meanwhile, Laurel receives flowers from Sebastian Blood while at work, just as Thea and Sin show up, asking her to look into Max's death. They show her the pamphlet for Sebastian's blood drive, and she agrees to ask around. At Cyrus's motel, meanwhile, Dig snoops around, while Oliver waits in the car. He finds a book of nursery rhymes open to a poem on Solomon Grundy, just as Cyrus sneaks up behind him and starts twisting his arm. Dig struggles with him, barely managing to escape and meet back up with Oliver. Later, Oliver as the Arrow meets with Quentin Lance, who asks about Sara. Oliver says he's actually there about Cyrus Gold, warning him that Cyrus is dangerous. During the meeting, Oliver hallucinates Slade's ghost, and realizes he's compromised. Telling Quentin to gather as many cops as he can, Oliver warns that they shouldn't hesitate to kill Cyrus as Cyrus won't hesitate to do the same to them. Meanwhile, in an island flashback, Ivo forces Oliver to choose between Sara and Shado, but when Oliver fails to make a decision, Ivo goes to shoot Sara. However, Oliver quickly puts himself between Ivo and Sara, inadvertently choosing her over Shado. Ivo then shoots Shado in the head, and her body falls to the ground.
Back at the Queen mansion, meanwhile, Laurel stops by to see Thea. Oliver answers the door, and they get to talking about last year, when she'd attended the Queens' Christmas party with Tommy. She says it was the best holidays she'd had in a long time, before heading upstairs to give Thea and her friends an update on the case. She informs them that she'd looked into the blood drive, and that it appears to be on the up-and-up. However, the blood donors were each subjected to a psych evaluation by the Langford Institute, and while that's not totally out of the norm, there's no way of knowing if Max was on drugs without getting a warrant (which they can't get). Meanwhile, back at the lair, Barry and Felicity get to talking about her feelings for Oliver, and Barry sympathizes with her plight, assuring her that he has experience with "liking someone who doesn't see you the same way." Barry then turns on a news report on Central City's particle accelerator, worrying he won't make it back in time to see it turned on that night. At the police station, meanwhile, Quentin relays Oliver's information to his partner Lucas Hilton, who finds it all a little hard to swallow. However, he reluctantly agrees to gather a small squad to investigate. Officer Daily overhears, and tips off Sebastian Blood, who then passes on the information to Cyrus, instructing him to 'introduce himself' to the police when they arrive. Meanwhile, back at the lair, Oliver returns to get in some target practice to clear his head. Barry and Felicity leave him alone to get some Big Belly Burger, just as Slade appears to him again, this time catching Oliver's arrow. Quentin and Lucas, meanwhile, lead a raid on Sebastian's base of operations. They find Cyrus, who deflects their bullets and tosses them around like ragdolls. Lucas and another officer are killed, while Quentin is left injured but alive. Meanwhile, back at the lair, Slade's ghost taunts Oliver, calling him a fake and weak and accusing him of starting his crusade to atone for his own sins, not his father's. Oliver points out that Slade is dead, and Slade's ghost insists that it's time Oliver joined him. They fight, with Slade knocking Oliver around the lair, breaking the display case housing Oliver's suit. When Oliver looks up, Slade is gone.
Elsewhere in the city, Laurel nd Sebastian are doing their Christmas shopping together, when she starts asking him about the blood drives he sponsors. However, she gets a call just then that Quentin is in the hospital, and rushes to be at her dad's side. Meanwhile, Barry and Felicity return to the lair to find Oliver cleaning up broken glass. Barry finds that Oliver's blood anaylsis is finished, and that Oliver's blood is clean, meaning that whatever's wrong with Oliver is in his head and not his blood. Just then, Felicity gets news of Quentin's condition. In the hospital, Quentin wakes up to find Laurel sitting at his bedside. He assures her that he's okay, before learning that Lucas didn't make it. He insists on calling Lucas's wife, but Laurel offers to do it for him, as he needs his rest. As she steps outside to make that call, she runs into Sebastian, who expresses concern for both Quentin and Laurel. The pair hug, while back in Quentin's room, Oliver pays a vist as the Arrow. Oliver feels responsible for the death of Quentin's brothers in blue, but Quentin assures him that it's not his fault, before giving Oliver a key he took off of Cyrus. He asks Oliver to kill Cyrus, both for Lucas and for Quentin himself. Later, in the lair, Oliver and Dig discuss the former's ghost problem. Dig reveals that when he got back from Afghanistan, he too saw a ghost as he'd been struggling with survivor's guilt. He says the ghost went away once he figured out what it was trying to tell him, and that Oliver just needs to figure out what his ghosts are trying to tell him. Just then, Felicity interjects that she found what the key Lance gave him belongs to: a locked gate in the Glades. When Oliver goes to investigate, however, she tries to talk him out of leaving, pointing out that the last time Oliver had gone up against Cyrus, Oliver had been left half-dead. Oliver counters, though, that he doesn't have a choice. Meanwhile, Roy breaks into the Langford Institute, quickly finding Max's file. However, he's caught by Cyrus, who clotheslines him, knocking him out.
Later, Roy comes to, finding himself tied to a chair and Sebastian Blood, in his guise as Brother Blood, looming over him with the Mirakuru. Brother Blood injects him with it, just as Oliver/The Arrow crashes through the ceiling, demanding to know where Brother Blood got the formula for the Mirakuru. Brother Blood simply answers that it was a gift, and one he intends to use to save the city from itself. Then, Cyrus and Oliver fight once again, while Roy has an adverse reaction to the serum. Roy's eyes bleed, and then he too dies. Seeing this, Oliver hangs his head in defeat, just as Tommy's ghost appears to him. Oliver apologizes for letting Tommy die, but Tommy corrects that Oliver didn't let him die, adding that even though he called Oliver a murderer, Oliver is in fact a hero. Refusing to let his friend die there, he urges Oliver to get up and fight back. Finally, Oliver takes Tommy's advice, just as Cyrus moves in for the kill. Oliver fights Cyrus again, this time shooting a generator and causing a small explosion, during which Cyrus's face is burned with acid and Brother Blood gets away. Then, seeing to Roy, Oliver starts performing CPR, urging Roy to fight to stay alive. Apparently, it works, as Roy starts breathing again.
Later, Roy awakens in Thea's bed at the Queen mansion, just as Thea and Sin return from looking for him. Roy says simply that he was chasing down a lead, and that it didn't quite pan out. Thea expresses concern, though, as she'd thought something had happened to him, but he assures her that he's very much alive while also assuring himself as to that fact. Meanwhile, Sebastian's mysterious benefactor watches a report on Sebastian announcing his run for mayor of Starling City, just as Sebastian enters, informing the benefactor that the Arrow destroyed the centrifuge and with it, the serum. The benefactor assures him he'll give Sebastian another sample of his blood so they can mass-produce it again, but chides Sebastian for confronting the Arrow, warning that his mask can just as easily be worn by someone else. Sebastian asks if his benefactor knows the Arrow's identity, and the benefactor, revealed to be none other than Slade Wilson, replies that the Arrow is his friend. Sebastian figures that that's why he doesn't want the Arrow dead, but Slade, who's missing an eye, reveals that he actually wants to make the Arrow suffer before he kills him. Back in an island flashback, meanwhile, Slade awakens on the sub, having apparently survived the Mirakuru. He immediately seeks out shado, killing Ivo's men with his bare hands before finding her body slumped over in the dirt. Sara explains that Ivo shot Shado, but lies that he didn't give a reason, in order to protect Oliver. Cradling Shado's body, Slade vows to make her killer suffer. Meanwhile, back in the present, Oliver returns to the lair to receive a warm embrace from Felicity, who's clearly grateful he came back in one piece. Dig asks if he still has a ghost problem, to which Oliver assures them that the ghosts are gone. However, he says, they have another problem: Roy's been injected with Mirakuru and they'll have to keep an eye on him. Also, even though Cyrus is dead, Brother Blood is still out there, trying to amass an army of super soldiers. Just then, Oliver notices Barry's nowhere to be seen. Felicity informs him that the CSI went back to Central City to watch the particle accelerator being turned on, just as she receives a call from the man in question. Turns out, he'd made it back in time, but got back too late to get in line at S.T.A.R. Labs. He assures her, though, that should she decide that Oliver Queen is not the guy for her, he (Barry) will be on time for her. He then informs her that he left something for Oliver, before turning his attention to a report on the particle accelerator. Just then, the lights go out, and off in the distance, lightning strikes above S.T.A.R. Labs and the particle accelerator. The lightning then strikes Barry, knocking him out. Meanwhile, back in Starling City, Oliver opens up Barry's gift: a mask. Felicity puts it on him, saying he looks like a hero.
