Spoilers Arrow - Season 4

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Oh boy.

A gay married couple at a "holiday" party.
Did the show just lose 50% of their conservative viewers?
Assuming they had any, of the right wing religious types, anyway.

 

[Commander Richard]

I was expecting that the fake Green Arrow would turn out to be Roy.

I thought it might be that new guy we kept seeing.

You mean Curtis Holt (based on Mr. Terrific from the comics)?

No, there was an extra who was a young guy that the camera focused on a few times. Once at the beach and once at the gathering where Ollie proposed. They made it look like he was significant. It was just a brief "sort of a possibility but not really" thought I had.

 

[sojourner]

That was the campaign manager. Thea's date.

 

[Commander Richard]

^ If that was him he looked different and younger. Oh well.

 

[Christopher]

Oh boy.

A gay married couple at a "holiday" party.
Did the show just lose 50% of their conservative viewers?
Assuming they had any, of the right wing religious types, anyway.

I figure Sarah/Nyssa already drove them off -- not to mention Barrowman being a series regular, assuming they're aware of his offscreen activities and personality. (And by "activities" I don't mean his personal life so much as his aggressive advocacy for the LGBTQ community.) Plus we had Captain Singh marrying his boyfriend over on The Flash last season.

 

[FPAlpha]

I can't see them killing off Felicity. She's the heart of this show and the main source of exposition. I suppose they could try and replace that function with Curtis, but I honestly doubt it.

That said, I *do* think the funeral we saw Barry show up late for was Felicity's. After all, Darhk can't keep going after her if he thinks she's already dead, no?
I like the wheelchair idea. I've said several times she's probably as close to Oracle as we're ever going to get in the Arrowverse.

Pretty much my thoughts, they might do a small time jump to not have her sit out the show for more than 2-3 episodes until the reveal that she's actually alive.

Anyway, nice episode and good that they didn't tiptoe around the proposal for too long (i feared that her mom would try to hide it again to let Oliver have his surprise this extending that storyline needlessly).

 

[JD]

I have to admit after seeing the grave, I had assumed they killed Felicity, but the fake out idea does seem more likely after seeing the posts about it. Although I did know that something bad was going to happen as soon as Oliver proposed. In a show like this you can't do something like that without something bad happening.
I got a kick out of seeing Malcolm in the Arrow suit.
This episode really made me realize that they have done a lot to improve Laurel's character the last couple seasons.
I was not expecting the end with Dahrk and his family. I wonder if they will actually play a role in the later parts of the story, or if we get that little bit to humanize him some.
It will be interesting to see what becomes of Diggle's brother once all of the Dahrk stuff is over.

 

[Beagleman]

I never had much of a problem with Laurel as a character (as many others apparently have) but her pose when she uses her Canary scream is really ridiculous and cringe inducing. Malcolm is always a nice addition and this was a good example for that.

 

[sojourner]

(i feared that her mom would try to hide it again to let Oliver have his surprise this extending that storyline needlessly).

Pretty hard to hide it again when she screams at the top of her lungs the minute she sees it and Felicity is right behind her.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I thought it was very rude to steal a proposal like that.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

I never had much of a problem with Laurel as a character (as many others apparently have) but her pose when she uses her Canary scream is really ridiculous and cringe inducing. Malcolm is always a nice addition and this was a good example for that.

Well, she likes to be a bit of a drama queen, maybe she went to the Batman superhero school of theatrics. but yeah, Supergirl screaming in rage when fighting red Tornado looked a bit more believable.

 

[Morpheus 02]

Does Damien REALLY have no idea who the Arrow is? Well, if he didn't, Malcolm was the best fit to prove Oliver & Arrow are 2 different people.

Interesting to see he has a family...but now that he's been outed/accused publicly (at least as some kind of bad man)...won't they (and others) know about this dual identity?

Felicity's death would stink, but be very dramatic. It would very much stink to have her die, and a loss for the show (unless the flashbacks catch up enough for her to return there). But the drama would be huge.


And to go back to an earlier conversation were Christopher thought he pairing of Oliver & Felicity is fine. While I agree that Emily can fit with just about everyone, it doesn't mean she has be paired with someone, especially Oliver. Just because she's the only "eligible" female, if you take Laurel out of the picture, doesn't mean she has to be the romantic pairing. Barry and Ray seemed far more natural...heck even Cisco would seem like a better fit than Oliver.

It's too bad how they set up Sara's return. If they needed to cutoff Laurel, they could've killed her off, especially after she gets dropped from the DA's office and off the radar. Felicity could change records (like Drivers License) so Sara could take on Laurel's identity. She could then have a quieter life, while becoming Black Canary. Sara and Oliver seemed FAR MORE natural, and they have better chemistry.

 

[dahj]

Oh, no, other people have traditions of their own, it's the end of civilization!

I don't think that bit had anything to do with acknowledging cultural differences as much as it was a very bad metaphor.

I mean, they decided to remind everyone that Felicity was Jewish right before they put her in the gas chamber.

That was a bit... heavy-handed.

 

[Christopher]

Interesting to see he has a family...but now that he's been outed/accused publicly (at least as some kind of bad man)...won't they (and others) know about this dual identity?

They'll know he's been accused, but that doesn't mean they'll believe the accusation. After all, it came from a guy running for office. Political candidates don't exactly have the best track record for honesty.

Felicity's death would stink, but be very dramatic. It would very much stink to have her die, and a loss for the show (unless the flashbacks catch up enough for her to return there). But the drama would be huge.

There's no way they'd kill off such a popular member of their cast -- unless she's gotten some lucrative movie deal or series-lead role that we haven't heard about.

I don't think that bit had anything to do with acknowledging cultural differences as much as it was a very bad metaphor.

I mean, they decided to remind everyone that Felicity was Jewish right before they put her in the gas chamber.

That was a bit... heavy-handed.

Honestly, I didn't even notice that connection. After all, Diggle and Thea were in there too. I think it was just about remembering what had been established in the past about Felicity's heritage, keeping the characterization consistent. I think Buffy did something similar with Willow's reaction to Christmas festivities.

 

[dahj]

I think it was just about remembering what had been established in the past about Felicity's heritage, keeping the characterization consistent.

The whole thing seemed pretty intentional.
Darhk even gave a "Nazis weren't so bad" speech...

It was a bit too much IMHO, he's already done a lot of bad stuff, we don't need him to put Jews in the gas chamber and literally praise nazis to know he's a bad dude.

 

[Guy Gardener]

That's not what he said. Damien said that NAZI badness was necessary to thin the herd, and make room for the future. Which is usually what Ra's Al Ghul says. Like a (limited) forest fire is good now and then to get rid of the deadwood and make room for saplings.

Still reprehensible, but it's an Easter egg explanation for why he's destroying Starling.

 

[Christopher]

It was a bit too much IMHO, he's already done a lot of bad stuff, we don't need him to put Jews in the gas chamber and literally praise nazis to know he's a bad dude.

I dunno... With Donald Trump blatantly demonizing an entire religious minority and calling for its members' persecution or incarceration, right now is exactly when we need overt reminders of the evil of the Nazis. The scarier the right wing gets, the more grateful I am for the unapologetic progressivism of the Berlanti superhero shows.

 

[dahj]

^^
But Darhk himself isn't about any of that.
Which is why it was a very bad metaphor.

 

[Christopher]

^^
But Darhk himself isn't about any of that.

But he is evidently about genocide, which is the natural end result of that kind of thinking. We saw his fellow HIVE members talking about some plan called "Genesis," and at the end, we saw them surveying a vast underground bunker with its own food supply. And Darhk is blatantly talking about humanity needing a "reset" every now and then. It seems pretty evident that they intend to use the toxic "Bloom" (which was the gas in the chamber) to exterminate life on the surface so that their chosen few (chosen eugenically?) can have a new Genesis and repopulate the Earth.

 

[dahj]

But he is evidently about genocide

He is not.
He is about mass murder, but indiscriminate kind.
Genocide is by definition directed against a nation, religion or ethnicity.