The Lazarus Pits (Arrowverse version) fill people with the desire to kill, a desire that needs to be periodically sated and that will cause them to become psychotically violent if they go too long without killing. It's like being addicted to a drug that lets you stay functional as long as you get regular doses but drives you crazy if you're in withdrawal. Ra's al Ghul was the head of the League of Assassins, so presumably he had regular opportunities to slake his bloodlust.
I heard the hosts of the Quiver podcast speculating that season 7 may have intended to have been a shorter season, hence why we are getting filler episodes dragging the storylines out. Also, season 8 may have been so unexpected, hence why Emily Betts Rickard didn't resign. Just speculation on their part.
This one got a bit confusing about what was real and what was Oliver's hallucination. I think we're supposed to take everything without Ollie in it as real, but then it's kind of a coincidence that Hallucin-Emiko said "I know about your baby" shortly after Presumably Real Emiko learned about it from Felicity. Obviously a fake-out for the audience, but a contrivance in-story. I was kind of wondering if Tommy might turn out to be more than a hallucination. Given the fantasy/supernatural elements that are now an established reality in the Arrowverse, he could've easily been a real ghost. Or he could've been some manifestation of the Monitor, tying in to the mysterious deal he and Oliver made. I knew that was unlikely, since this show prefers to stay in its own relatively grounded lane except during the crossovers. But it brought Sara back from the dead, spent a whole season with an evil sorceror villain, and spent a lot of time focusing on Laurel From a Parallel Reality, so you never know. In the future, Galaxy One's Zeta enforcer robots are clearly an homage to Zeta from the DC Animated Universe's future-based shows Batman Beyond and The Zeta Project. But only a loose homage; that Zeta was a holographically shapeshifting assassin android prototype who developed a conscience and went rogue rather than become a killer (rehashing the plot of the episode "Alpha" from the 1990 The Flash), while these are just mass-produced soldier drones. It was surprising to see Future Alena with short hair. It didn't seem possible to pack 2019 Alena's long, lush hair under such a short, tight wig, so I realized it had to be 2019 Alena who was wearing the wig. I looked into it, and apparently Kacey Rohl recently shot an upcoming film called Baldy in which she plays a woman pretending to be a cancer patient, and she shaved her head completely for the role. Which is a shame, given how gorgeous her super-long hair was. It's interesting that it's been revealed in the future that Alena steals Archer, but we haven't seen it in the present yet. I mean, it was telegraphed pretty clearly a couple of weeks ago, but it hasn't happened yet in the present, or at least hasn't been discovered yet. But then, the future sequences have foreshadowed (or hindshadowed?) a number of things before they happened, like vigilantes becoming outlaws again, Felicity going into seclusion to raise her baby, etc. (Ooh, and it was Alena's idea for her to go into seclusion -- the better to steal Archer?)
I've forgotten what exactly what our big bad's endgame/destructive plan is...she's got something to do something and she needs to use it somewhere
I finally got caught up so I'm going to cover the last few episodes in this posts. The girl power episodes, Lost Canary, was pretty good. I've enjoyed Laurel-2's arc this season, and this was a nice, way to kind of tie it up, for now at least. Seeing her pop up in the flashforward at the end was nice surprise. Spartan was a great episode Diggle, and it's always cool to see Ernie Hudson pop up. His stepfather having the last name Stewart does set up some interesting possibilities from the comics. It give us some nice new bits of backstory for John and his brother. Maybe at the end of next season John could get a Green Lantern ring, and then move over the Legends of Tomorrow. Of all the shows, I think that is probably where a GL would fit best. Even if Confessions didn't really give us any significant story movement until the end, the structure of it, with everybody filling in bits and pieces of what was going on as they were interviewed was pretty interesting. Last night's episode was pretty good, it was cool seeing Tommy again. I do like how they are bringing things back around to Oliver's father, it gives things kind of a full circle feeling as we are making our way to the final season. It's weird seeing Kacey Rohl playing Alena, after seeing her play the kinda scary badass Marina on The Magicans. The two characters are almost the complete opposites of each other, although last night's flashforwards do hint at there possibly being a big more Marina in Alena than it originally looked like.
Roy's almost-sacrifice was SOOOOOO *ANTI*- dramatic. If we hadn't seen him ALREADY in the flash forwards, it might hav ebeen meaningful. Anyone think there MIGHT be some time travel to undo the mess made in the future (or at least Rene's hair )??? We know Felicity won't be killed until at least 2049!
I loved that cartoon as a kid. Though I can barely remember anything about it now. I know right? That was silly.
The Zeta Project was more kid-oriented than the other DC Animated Universe shows, aside from Static Shock. I never really got into it much. It's the one DCAU show I never saw in its entirety.
I liked the episode, but I wish they would do away with the flash forwards. When the season started I thought they would find a way to connect the present day to the FF, but how they did it was really unsatisfying. Also, it makes this whole series approach this dystopian environment and it feels like an injustice to what came before. In terms of the present, it was awesome to see Tommy again. As for Emiko, I hope they don't redeem her. Her actions should be considered irredeemable and it seems like Oliver was right the first time before being talked out of it via the hallucination.
That wasn't about whether Emiko was redeemable, it was about whether Oliver was -- whether he could ever break out of the same cycle of violence that had trapped the other members of his family.
They've shown him trying, and that was the point here -- would he stay true to that, or would he fall back into old patterns because This Time It's Personal? After all, it's unrealistic to expect that a person only needs to overcome a bad habit once. People are shaped by their past and it's not easy to break free with just one decision. People relapse. They unconsciously seize excuses to fall back into old patterns. Being better isn't a switch you flip, it's a lifelong struggle -- and the worse you were before, the harder the struggle to stay good.
Yeah, that bugged me to. If you want to to do a dramatic maybe they're dead scene, you might want to pick someone who we haven't already seen alive 30 years in the future.
Normally I hate the red button reset but if a series ever needed one... it is this and the previous season.
Spoiler Wow the cops forgave team arrow covering up those two murders awfully easily. That felt like it could have been a series finale.
I'm relieved that Bronze Tiger made it out alive, since when Diggle said Lyla would take his kid Connor to the safe house, I thought that was going to lead to Turner getting killed so they'd adopt him, as we saw they will do in the future. Man, that was an unexpected twist in the final minutes. I guess that bargain was pretty much what we expected it to be, but I didn't think they'd bring it into play in the Arrow season finale itself. I wonder how things are going to play out in season 8.
I'm thinking it will take place during the time skip at the end of the episode, Felicity was barely showing, so they have a few months of unknown time there. Oliver and the monitor scene is probably right before the crossover.
Except Spoiler: season 8 we know that Emily Bett Rickards is not coming back. This was her last episode. So if Oliver and Felicity were together in the cabin the whole time, then season 8 has to be after he leaves it for good.