Still watching, but couldn’t think of much to say. I think ATOM would be better on Flash, than Arrow. I don’t really see Palmer joining team Arrow.
Didn’t like Deadshot’s story. Returns from war, has problems, loses his kid, marriage, ends up in prison. Pretty depressing.
Diggle’s daddy issues are distracting.
Ras isn’t going to get what he wants, and running around killing people to get his way makes him seem like a chump.
Of course Ras doesn’t get what he wants. Why do you think he went after the Detective instead?
And how would Bruce feel if he knew he was only offered the job because Ollie said no?
Yeah, this master plan seems sort of stupid. Ollie’s supposed to join up with the guys that destroyed his life’s work? And would they even want a leader who could be manipulated like this?
I actually enjoyed seeing that. My mom was born in 1944 while her father was still off in Europe with the US Army during WW2, and she always told me that he never liked her, largely because he came home from the war and she didn’t know who he was. He was a scary stranger to her, just like with the little girl in those scenes. And drunk most of the time, and spent considerable time in jail because of his drinking (he did a number of stints for drunk driving).
The “killer” stuff, OTOH, wasn’t part of the picture. My grandfather was rather scrawny, and Grandma could probably have kicked his ass if necessary. His nickname was “Banty”, a reference to bantam chickens, which are smaller than your average chicken. He wasn’t a soldier, he was an Army cook (yet he still managed to come home from WW2 with items he looted off of dead German soldiers, including a Luger pistol; my sister has that stuff now).
Back then, there weren’t the resources available that there are now (and, in any case, Grandpa apparently was not violent, he was just a drunk), and Grandma simply resigned herself to being the one to support the family (because Grandpa couldn’t hold a job for any length of time — he’d get his first paycheck and drink it up, and then be too sick the next day to show up for work), and made a nice career for herself. She had put herself through college (UC Berkeley!) and started out as a social worker before becoming a school teacher.
Loved last night’s episode.
But … one thing has been bugging me for a while, and I realize it’s a nitpick, but …
One of my personal bugaboos is the mispronunciation of people’s names. My “issue” is rooted in a couple things. One, I read Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” at a young age, and the only thing I still remember from the book was what he had to say about people’s names (paraphrasing): “The most beautiful sound to a man is the sound of his own name, so get it right.” Two, Carnegie’s statement resonated with me because I’d gone through junior high school with people who thought it was funny to call me “Dick” because my name is Richard. More recently, as an adult, encountering people who insist upon calling me “Ricky” despite repeated requests to “stop fucking calling me that.”
As an adult, I’ve always made it a point to do my best to call people by the name the prefer, and make sure I pronounce it correctly (there is a large Mexican population in my town, and I go out of my way to make sure I’m pronouncing my Mexican friends’ and coworkers’ names correctly).
So, on the show … the name “Ra’s al Ghul”.
Unless it has escaped my attention, the first anybody on “Team Arrow” heard of that name was when they heard it spoken. Probably by Nyssa. They didn’t read it, they heard it.
Nyssa pronounced “Ra’s” like “Raysh”.
Yet everybody on “Team Arrow” persists in pronouncing it “Ross” or “Roz”.
That irritates the ever-loving crap out of me.
This is a lot of fun! (CW promo for their DC heroes)
This episode had it all…crappy character development (Felicity), crappy acting (Thea), sub-par villain (Ra’s). Here’s wishing Liam would do TV. Are they trying to make me not like Green Arrow?
I enjoyed the naked Felicity fan-service!
Wow, Felicity is kind of a slut, isn’t she? I liked her and Ray better over on The Flash. In fact, liked the Lances (both father and daughter) better on The Flash. The Flash writers seem to write the Arrow characters better than the Arrow writers.
I thought ideas was for Ra’s replacement to outright kill Ra’s himself. Now it seems there’s some sort initiation and training period. Is there even going to be any Ra’s killing involved?
She’s a slut because she has slept with a grand total of three guys we have seen? As opposed to Oliver?
Anyhow, what’s with the need for a plane to get to LOA HQ? They have been there 2 or three times already (and got there and back in about 10 minutes from what I could tell), but suddenly they need a plane for the trip this time?
Ollie sure looked like one of the Assasins Creed Characters. Wonder if Ubisoft is sponsoring the story arc.
Declan
I said “kind of a slut.” She went from proudly proclaiming Ray as her boyfriend to giving Oliver a tumble, in the space of about a week. Not exactly squeaky clean behavior.
I don’t remember how it was pronounced in the films, but I think the same spread of pronunciation was there. It has to be at least somewhat deliberate, in that bigger-budget films and series have voice coaches working on such things and the spread is so pronounced.
In modern Arabic, at least, it’s “rah-eesh al [kg]ool.” That’s “eesh” halfway between ee and ih, and a hard gutteral G. First word is definitely two syllables, not “rozzzz.”
ETA: Maybe it’s a Canadian/USian/British thing. Does it break down that way among the cast? Still and again, that’s what voice and dialogue coaches are for.
I know of Ray and Ollie. Who is the third?
Brian
My guess is that this whole LOA/Ra’s thing is to give Ollie metahuman or superhero powers. He’s going to get out of the deal with Ra’s but only after exposure to the Lazarus pit, which will give him this, that and the other insta-healing power. The showrunners have said, I think, that they’re going to ramp up the comic-book-hero quotient on this show and Flash, and if ATOM goes all shrinky and Oliver gets powers, away we go.
I was wondering too. All I can come up with is her fellow hacker/boyfriend back in college. Several years earlier.
Yep, that’s who I was thinking of.
Barry Allen. It happened so fast you didn’t see it; you have to pause and go through frame-by-frame, and even then, only if you have a really good DVR.
I don’t really care for brainwashing/mind control as a plot device. That said, it was fun to see Ollie facing off against his friends. I’m digging the sword fighting.
I like Nyssa and Laurel as buddies. Kind of an ‘odd couple’ team.
Ha! They finally acknowledged Diggle not having a costume.
We got to see Laurel use her new sonic scream that Cisco over at Star Labs made for her. A little bit goofy, but cool that it appears to use her actual voice instead of emanating solely from the device like the earlier version.
I can’t see Ollie and Nyssa living in wedded bliss. 
I find this whole heir to the yadda-yadda storyline quite tiresome. Maybe it’s because of yet another mind control plot, maybe it’s because of all the angst. Maybe it’s because of all the sword fights. C’mon, guys. The show is called “Arrow” and we’ve seen only two arrows shot in the whole episode, neither by the titular character.