We last saw Oliver with William on a boat off Lian Yu. Adrian Chase blew his own head off, thereby causing the utter destruction of the island, with the rest of Team Arrow still on it. Or were they? Who survives the explosion? Felicity’s plot armor is so strong that she can walk naked beyond the Wall and kiss the Night King on the lips without any lasting effects. We saw Slade in the trailer so he makes it. Over on The Flash, Cisco let slip that he was getting help from Curtis so he probably makes it. Let’s face it, we’ve seen these kinds of cliffhangers before; almost everyone is going to survive.
Is there anyone who could be dispensed with? Merlyn has become increasingly superfluous so we wouldn’t miss him (although he was great with the Legion of Doom). Similarly, Thea seems to have lost her function in the show. Probably Samantha, William’s mother, will most likely buy the farm, the better to get more dramatic moments between father and son.
I am so fucking sick of Quinten’s never-ending drama. I really wanted him to die on the island, but…no :(. Another “Quintin can’t stop whining” episode. Arrow-writers: he’s not The Fonz. Nobody…NOBODY tunes in just to watch Quintin snivelling. I’m tempted to quit the show over how much screentime this douche gets. Do a Very Special Episode about drunk driving and kill him in a flaming car explosion where he drives his car into building that explodes then collapses or dig up some loser villian (The Fisherman from Aquaman or something) and have him slowly ground up to be used to feed goldfish or something.
Flash, Legends and Supergirl (in that order) had pretty good opening episodes. Arrow? Not so much. JUST KILL QUINTIN!!!
Barry should take Quentin to Earth-2 and leave him there until the season finale. Should solve all his psychological problems right quick. Maybe bring Diggle along as he seems to be suffering some sort of PTSD as well.
On the bright side, we got some good Black Canary vs Black Siren action. Dinah looks good in her new costume.
On the troubling side, Oliver and Felicity are making googly eyes at each other again. Stop it! Stop it, already!
I have a soft spot for Harry Dresden, but he is being given a shit sandwich to work with. The Canary/Siren fight was too choreographed for my tastes. Just how bad are Star and Central Cities that both need full-time vigilante groups, yet both are simply treading water? At least we know why time is f’ed up on the Legends.
Central City probably still has minor metahumans crawling out of the woodwork. Heck, Vibe and Kid Flash just barely dealt with Peekaboo, and it took them how long to capture her?
I dunno what the deal with Star City is, though. Hmmm, Sara Lance spent months on the down-low working at Soap, Showers & Stuff. Wouldn’t she have hooked up with Oliver & Co to help take down some bad guys? Wouldn’t she at least have gotten in touch with her father?
He’s a big, snotty-tissue filled toilet doused in self-pity, whine-y ness and a complete inability to shave. He’s a disgusting time-sink of energy and character screen-time.* Would YOU want to spend time with that loser?
Maybe they could do a meaningful Very Special Episode where he dies slowly and horribly of alcohol poisoning showing everyone the messy, disgusting death it is, and all the characters learn an Important Life Lesson about drinking while being a sucky character.
*Note, the actor’s fine. The character just sucks.
Ollie: O hai guyz! My dead(coma’d?) baby-mama made me promise to raise our like…14 year old son. So I haz to quit being Arrow. Because it would be like super-tough to be a 14 year old without a daddy. You know how hard it is when they’re that young.
Everyone: :o
Ollie: Diggle, you have a…what? 3 year old son who replaced your 3 year old daughter who was evaporated in a timey-wimey-thingie? So you and your wife are dealing with a dead kid and a new kid (and it’s unclear how much you can remember of the dead one). I know! You can risk YOUR life to be Arrow. Because…your kid? Who cares?
Oh, and Olicitiy’s apparently back based on internet rumors. Which I wouldn’t mind so much if they’d just stay the hell together. It’s not Oliver and Felicity apart suck or Oliver and Felicity together suck. It’s when the two of them are getting together or splitting up that they suck. (Think “Buffy/Angel”. The only one of the four states of a TV relationship (Getting together, being together, splitting up, far away from each other) that the characters didn’t suck in is the “far away from each other” phase. Same idea, except Ollie/Felicity don’t suck when together)
Looks like the season is picking up. We finally see the REAL Big Bad, Cayden James, played by no less than Michael Emerson. It’s fascinating how much menace he managed to project, just standing there and saying a few quiet words. Maybe next time he can bring along Reese, Root, and Shaw.
The rest of the episode, being hacking-oriented and hence Felicity-centric, was unfortunately not so good. Who knew the Internet, the entire Internet, was housed in a giant server room in Star City? They shot up a few server racks. Is that why I was having connection problems earlier?
I thought they had forgotten all about Vigilante from last season. He was set up to be the Big Bad in the first of Season 5, only to disappear once Prometheus came onto the scene. Now he conveniently shows up again when some anti-vigilante legislation is on the docket in Star city. Even more conveniently, he is unmasked and revealed to be Dinah’s old partner, thought dead four years ago.
The dramatic moment of Vigilante’s unmasking was completely undermined by the fact that we didn’t know who the frak he was. We only saw Dinah’s partner that one time for a couple of minutes, during Dinah’s origin flashback. Now did the writers plan all of this out when they introduced us to both Dinah and Vigilante last year? If so, maybe they should spent more time exploring Dinah’s backstory, rather than introducing her partner only to immediately kill him off (seemingly).
Oliver Queen, the mayor Star City, travels to a foreign country to negotiate the release of a prisoner. Wouldn’t he have an entourage? Where’s his peeps? Moreover, he’s under an FBI investigation for being the Green Arrow. Didn’t they put in a hold order for international travel?
On a good note, Deathstroke’s hallway fight was pretty cool. He fought like he gave a damn rather than just going through the motions. There was a single-shot sequence that was particularly cool.
These last two episodes have been thankfully free of whiny Quentin Lance. Felicity has been kept in the back office where she belongs. Finally, Diggle comes clean to Team Arrow about being a junkie, but only after his supply is destroyed.
Can Oliver go back to being the Green Arrow now? This whole business about Diggle taking up the hood to throw off the FBI seems particularly ill-conceived. For one thing, Oliver made no effort to be seen while the Green Arrow was going about his business. In fact, he even skipped town while Team Arrow took down a prominent drug dealer. For another thing, the Green Arrow started using a crossbow rather than a bow. It doesn’t take a Felicity-level hacker to put two and two together and conclude that the crossbow-using Green Arrow is different than the bow-using Green Arrow.
A nod to Legends continuity: Slade has another son Grant, who will take up the mantle of Deathstroke, rip off Oliver’s arm, and rule over the post-apocalyptic ruins of Star City in 2046. Maybe. Speaking of the future, we’re reminded in this episode that Diggle’s wife Lyla is head of A.R.G.U.S. which by 2042 will have declared martial law in an effort to weed out all metahumans. Are the two futures part of the same timeline?
Well, they didn’t actually say it in the show - but it doesn’t seem like he would have traveled in secret to plead as mayor/celebrity Oliver Queen for a foreign government to release a prisoner. Of course, it was odd that he was apparently negotiating with the warden for the release, but I guess that was what the $50,000 was for.
In any case, it should have been fairly widely known that he was out of the country.
Two references to Billy Joel across two shows. This time there was even a clip of the performer himself. I think someone at Berlanti Productions is a fan.
Felicity says she prefers the Flash over Green Arrow. Oliver is arrested. He takes up the green hood again. He finally admits to Diggle that he was wrong about making him Green Arrow. Diggle admits to his physical problems. Oliver and Cayden James have their first face-to-face confrontation. The vigilante bill is passed. Thea wakes up. So many major plot developments on a episode that aired on a major American holiday. I wonder if that says anything about the demographic that (still) watches the show?
Remember, the next episode will be part of the crossover. It will air on MONDAY, right after Supergirl. In case you haven’t seen it yet, I’ve created a separate thread for all crossover-related discussion: Crisis on Earth-X.
Oliver and Felicity hold a wedding. Did they invite anyone else from any of the other shows? Did they at least invite Barry and Iris, whose wedding vows they so rudely interrupted? Nope.
I presume that they immediately went back to Star City to hold their wedding, rather than waiting more than a week. (I’m sure the mayor could easily arrange a venue.) If they were going to do that anyway, why couldn’t Felicity have kept her big mouth shut in Central City?
As for coordinating scripts, in Season 4 Arrow showed a flash forward with Oliver in front of a grave and Barry speed running to him to express his condolences. Trouble was, by the time that moment rolled around, the Flash had lost his power and so couldn’t have run to Star City.
I presumed it was more of a reception than an actual wedding. It was a chance for Felicity’s parents to show up, and her mother even complained that she and Ollie had eloped. And Felicity wasn’t wearing a wedding gown. They already had a wedding. Why have it again, although it was certainly appropriate to have a post-wedding bash?
Although a couple of throwaway lines would have been nice.
John: “Where are Barry and Iris? Aren’t they coming?”
Oliver: “Apparently there’s been a problem. Barry’s been charged with murder.”
John: "That’s terrible. I know he didn’t do it. Barry’s not a killer.’
It would be great if they figured out a way to resurrect Malcolm Merlyn, with a reveal that Damian Dhark is his father, so therefore Thea’s grandfather. Think of the family reunions!
I don’t know if I can even give a damn about this show any more.
Cayden James seemed more menacing when it was just him and Black Siren. The more members that were introduced into his team the less intimidating Team Villain became. Now that he’s assembled all the available bad guys in Star City, it’s just completely underwhelming, the exact opposite of the intended effect.
The newbies have gone off on their own for completely bullshit reasons. Oliver is just about the worst leader you can possibly imagine. And this guy is supposed to also be the mayor?
