Spoilers Arrow - Season 6
- Thread starter dahj
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Black Siren, certainly. Laurel died in the hospital with Oliver present. There's no way she could've been abducted and had her death faked.
Holy Melo-Drama. I feel like I missed an episode between the last one and the break. I wanted to punch Curtis at the end.
Overall, yes, but I was talking about this specific fight and its result which they were describing as entirely Oliver's fault. What was Oliver supposed to do here, just let Rene chop his head off with an axe?
Overall, yes, but I was talking about this specific fight and its result which they were describing as entirely Oliver's fault. What was Oliver supposed to do here, just let Rene chop his head off with an axe?
The point is, the Trio doesn't have your objectivity about the situation. They already feel betrayed by a prior series of decisions from Oliver and the senior team, and they feel this is the last straw. Maybe they'll feel differently later on, but from a character motivation standpoint, I can understand why they reacted this way at this moment. Which is an entirely different question from whether they're objectively right. No story requires every character to be right in everything they say or do. It's just a question of whether it's believable that those characters would react that way in that situation, given everything that's led up to it. I think some of the decisions made on both sides in this story arc have been overreactions, but they're ones that are understandable, or at least consistent, in the context of the characters' established personalities and histories. We first met Dinah on a quest to avenge what she thought was Vince's death, one she didn't back down from completing, so it's consistent that she'd be driven to the same extreme by his actual death. Oliver went too far in bugging the junior team, but that overreaction was motivated by his fear of losing his son. And so on. I don't agree with the characters' choices, but the motivations driving them are believable enough that I don't feel the story arc is overly forced.
And never mind stories -- this is how people resolve arguments and forgive each other in real life. Instead of harping on what the other was wrong about, they try to put themselves in the other's shoes and empathize with why they felt that way, right or wrong. If the two teams are ever going to patch up their differences, that's what they need to do.
I still have a hard time getting on Team Dinah. While it may have been assholish of Oliver to bug them: he was right. Rene went to the FBI.
Team Dinah never dealt with that. It’s been glosssd over.
Her arc last season was to move past that, to figure out that's not the way to go and become worthy of the mantle of Black Canary, which is why I'm not happy they've regressed her progress. But my problem with the writing here isn't so much that they did that, and all the other things to make this conflict happen, truth is I wouldn't really mind it as much if they weren't constantly saying out loud some very hypocritical things, like the argument about this fight, or the "city over Vince/Laurel" argument, or the bugging and hacking each other, etc. I get that they have to sell the conflict, but if I want an argument where people just yell at each other without listening to the other side I don't have to watch Arrow, I can just go on the internet.
Except she didn't move past it. In her debut episode, Green Arrow tried to talk her out of killing the guy she thought had killed Vince, and he failed -- she killed him anyway. And that was after killing one of his henchmen earlier in the episode. It's always bugged me that the show was willing to gloss over the fact that she was a double murderer. Basically, Dinah crossed the line and the team just shrugged it off and said "Well, don't do it again," as if that somehow made up for it. (This is a common problem with Arrowverse heroes -- see also Harry Wells on The Flash.) So any perception that she'd changed from being a killer was superficial at best. She hadn't changed, it's just that the issue hadn't come up again because it didn't get personal enough for her. It wasn't until now that the writers put her through the same kind of test -- and this time, for the first time, she actually stopped herself. Curtis was able to talk her down in a way Oliver had failed to do -- although I regret that he basically talked her down by saying "Don't be like Oliver" rather than convincing her of the objective wrongness of murder. But it does seem that this time she was genuinely glad afterward that she'd been talked down, so she may have finally made the actual breakthrough that she never really earned before.
But my problem with the writing here isn't so much that they did that, and all the other things to make this conflict happen, truth is I wouldn't really mind it as much if they weren't constantly saying out loud some very hypocritical things, like the argument about this fight, or the "city over Vince/Laurel" argument, or the bugging and hacking each other, etc. I get that they have to sell the conflict, but if I want an argument where people just yell at each other without listening to the other side I don't have to watch Arrow, I can just go on the internet.
Yeah, but that's the thing -- they have been listening to each other. They didn't instantly declare each other personae non gratae after their first fight; they tried to forgive each other and keep working together, and they were able to maintain that grudging cooperation for weeks. But the clash between the urgent drives on both sides -- Dinah's drive for revenge and Oliver's need to get the money from Laurel -- caused them both to escalate more than they wanted to and end up on a collision course that neither could see a way to back down from. Of course, I consider Oliver's motivation far more valid than Dinah's -- revenge is a destructive self-indulgence, and trying to keep vital city services from shutting down is far more altruistic -- but both of them were driven to those extremes by the circumstances engineered by Ricardo Diaz and Cayden James, rather than simply by personal stubbornness.
Oliver sucks at being the mayor. Just go to the governor and ask for financial aid or is the state broke too? When did Black Siren go to Corto Maltese and get the 70 million? Was that before she was shot? I doubt it was after since she was in really bad shape. BS got roughed up so maybe she now thinks she's the Earth-1 Laurel now?
When the episode started and I saw Thea, I got to thinking about how much I missed seeing her as Speedy.
Yeah. She really looks good in that hood and mask. And though her field discipline could use some work, it seems like her fighting skills are as good as ever. It does seem, though, like they're laying the foundations for Willa Holland leaving the show, with the suggestion that she might go away with Roy.
It's odd how they were stressing "Laurel Lance" as a name specific to Earth-1 Laurel, as if Black Siren didn't go by that last name. The Arrowverse Wiki seems to think she did. Anyway, it's interesting... I find Katie Cassidy more effective and engaging an actress as Black Siren than I ever found her as Earth-1 Laurel.
It's also surprising how quickly, almost casually, the team found out all the big secrets about Ricardo Diaz being the real big bad. And how quickly they set aside the "We're done with you forever" ending of the last episode by giving the characters a common threat to unite against.
For a moment, I thought they were going to kill her off tonight.
The thought occurred to me as well.
Ditto. This sure looks like they are writing Willa Holland out of the show. But maybe Thea gets her happy ending.
I am seeing no redemption for Laurel/Black Siren, and am tiring of the story arc. Her redemption was the only reason I didn't complain about bringing the character onto the show, but the writers either don't want it to actually happen or are taking way too long to make it happen.
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I find Black Siren's story more interesting than either of the big bads this season, I don't think her redemption should have happened quicker, and quite frankly I don't even want her (fully) redeemed. Since Arrow is kind of a Green Batman, she can be this Earth's Catwomanish character ... loyal to nobody but herself, and working with the good or bad guys as it suits her.
Anyway, I enjoyed this episode, loved Speedy's return, Roy didn't do much except get punched though, so if next week is their last hurrah, I'm expecting a lot more Speedy and Arsenal ass-kicking.
What was this week, DC showing having the best episodes of their respective season week? Flash was amazing and Arrow was great too. We went light on melodrama, there was no Curtis, and the team Arrow from season 3 returned. Nice to see Speedy and Roy back.
I agree. A great week for the Arrowverse.
Also, are there no billionaires left in star city willing to float the government a few million?
I thought Thea was still rich. I recall her somehow (handwave) screwing her family out of their remaining fortune but still ending up wealthy herself (possibly due to an inheritance from Merlyn?).
Also, Ray Palmer's fortune seems to have gone down a black hole. Felicity supposedly once had (financial?) control over Ray's multibillion dollar corporation yet seems to be basically broke (outside of millions in investments (that aren't technically hers but she still uses like a piggy bank in emergencies) in a company that now appears to be basically defunct).
Harrison Wells should be super-wealthy on Earth 2, so I would expect him to be able to bring over some valuable gemstones at a minimum (if not outright selling his Earth 2 inventions on Earth 1).
Barry Allen also got some vague inheritance from Thawne.
Yeah, these shows aren't great when it comes to dealing with money.
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Maybe a stupid question, but are Oliver en john back to killing people? Some shots seem pretty lethal .
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