Arrow - Season 3

[Christopher]

Minor thing, but I loved the little moment when Felicity speculated that Sara wore a mask to hide from her demons, but Laurel doesn't need to

That line was weird to me, since Laurel has nothing but demons, and her various addictions and obsessions and stupid decisions are very much about hiding from them. She's the most screwed-up, dysfunctional character on this whole show. Sarah came off as far better adjusted.

(And seems weird that a talented DJ would be assassin fodder).

Far more likely that he was trained as an assassin since childhood, and learned the skills of a DJ in order to infiltrate Verdant.

 

[LaxScrutiny]

Yes, I'm sure the League of Assassins has the resources to get a real DJ to put together a decent playlist. I also wonder if they kept all the decent DJs in Starling from applying for the job?

There's a couple of things with Thea that made her accept it so easily. Ollie, as Arrow, saved Thea from a gang. She accepted Merlyn because he had saved her, she has a pretty normal appreciative response to people saving her life, and she certainly recognizes that Ollie has been protecting his family over the years in ways she never knew about.

Thea also had her own dirty little secret about being with Merlyn all that time and training to be a master fighter. She and Ollie both had secrets and it's an emotional relief to lift that burden finally.

The scene where they are on the couch and saying it's great to finally be able to talk about all this really sums up the situation. They are relaxed and really knowing each other finally. Essentially this is bliss, and it's something that Merlyn was going to deny her by trying to take her away out of the city to hide somewhere. She finally has the relationship with Ollie she's wanted the past 3 years, and Merlyn had been trying isolate her. Hence the mad.

 

[Thestral]

Yeah, I like that all the "if you do this, bad things will happen" stuff turned out to be bogus. It was almost thematic to do it in the same episode.

Almost like being honest with the people closest to you is the best course of action.

Minor thing, but I loved the little moment when Felicity speculated that Sara wore a mask to hide from her demons, but Laurel doesn't need to

That line was weird to me, since Laurel has nothing but demons, and her various addictions and obsessions and stupid decisions are very much about hiding from them. She's the most screwed-up, dysfunctional character on this whole show. Sarah came off as far better adjusted.

Generally I'd agree - but Sarah's far better adjustment was to life as a trained assassin and killer. (Much like Maseo actually, ARGUS or League.) The line works better from an outsider's perspective and an exhortation.

 

[Christopher]

^Yeah, that's the irony of it -- that Sarah had far more reason to be screwed up, but still came across as less damaged than the utter mess that is Laurel. Laurel's demons may be smaller, but she's far worse at coping with them than Sarah ever was.

 

[Morpheus 02]

^Yeah, that's the irony of it -- that Sarah had far more reason to be screwed up, but still came across as less damaged than the utter mess that is Laurel. Laurel's demons may be smaller, but she's far worse at coping with them than Sarah ever was.

But many of Laurel's demons are also things that can be shared in public, like an NA or AA meeting. The substance abuse, as well as the emotion of losing a loved one (especially on a publicly known disaster)..."normal" problems. She also had a support group doing her rough time (such as her dad, who can strongly relate)

Kinda hard to talk about the League of Assassins with people who aren't assassins.

I haven't liked Laurel's development over the past couple of seasons, and far more accept Sara's becoming Canary (and would still prefer her)... but i think Felicity's greater point is valid -- Laurel is NOT Sara, and does NOT have to be the cold killer Sara was.

Short term, Sara handled things better...but long term, Sara's emotional fall could have been too great for recovery.

 

[Christopher]

^You're not getting what I'm saying. Yes, stipulated, Sarah's problems are objectively much bigger and more troubling -- but Laurel seems far more haunted by hers. No matter how open she's able to be about them, no matter how many mechanisms there are for her to cope with them, she still handles them badly and often quite stupidly (there was no excuse for hiding Sarah's death from Quentin), while Sarah handled her issues with rather more grace. Laurel is a dysfunctional, messed-up, whiny, and rather pathetic individual who makes consistently terrible and self-destructive life choices, and I have never seen the faintest trace of the "light" Felicity claims to see in her.

 

[Thestral]

Laurel's far more haunted by her demons because she hasn't had years of brutal training (and clarity?) as a disciple of Ra's al Ghul. I still prefer Sara too - as the Canary and as somebody who deals with her issues - but I could see an argument that much of her grace was down to being broken and rebuilt.

 

[Servo]

Did they clarify what happened to Wildcat at any point? Is he dead? Hospitalised?

The scene with Laurel seemed to imply he was dying of his injuries, but I don't recall if they've said one way or the other.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Laurel: I think you're going to be fine.

[...]

Wildcat: It's a good thing you fight better than you lie.

He's not seen losing consciousness after that, but is not seen or mentioned following as the action moves to Merlyn / Brick. Could go either way. The dialogue implies she sees him as mortally wounded and is trying to reassure him; but she's hardly a doctor despite all she's seen. Wildcat on the other hand may realize he's done for. Make of it what you will...

Mark

 

[Christopher]

I doubt they'd kill off a major DC character off-camera. We didn't see Ted die, so we should assume he's alive until or unless we're told otherwise.

 

[Servo]

Laurel: I think you're going to be fine.

[...]

Wildcat: It's a good thing you fight better than you lie.

He's not seen losing consciousness after that, but is not seen or mentioned following as the action moves to Merlyn / Brick. Could go either way. The dialogue implies she sees him as mortally wounded and is trying to reassure him; but she's hardly a doctor despite all she's seen. Wildcat on the other hand may realize he's done for. Make of it what you will...

Mark

Exactly. The dialogue implies that he was on the way out, or at least that he thought he was, but it was never clarified. I would have thought his death would have warranted a mention, especially given his relationship with Laurel, which leads me to believe he may have survived.

 

[Servo]

I doubt they'd kill off a major DC character off-camera. We didn't see Ted die, so we should assume he's alive until or unless we're told otherwise.

That's a fair point.

 

[CorporalClegg]

With each episode I seem to like this Waller less and less. It seems like the writers don't get the character at all. She's way too black and white and consistently falls on the evil side of things--much like your run-of-the-mill corrupt super secret government agent.

And the actress isn't very good.

If they're smart, they'll remove her from the show somehow before the Suicide Squad movie comes out. I have a feeling Davis is going to present a rather striking comparison.

 

[Christopher]

If they're smart, they'll remove her from the show somehow before the Suicide Squad movie comes out. I have a feeling Davis is going to present a rather striking comparison.

That's, what, a year and a half from now? As currently scheduled, anyway. So that would be between Arrow's fourth and fifth seasons... so yeah, the show will probably still be around by then. I'd been wondering. The flashbacks have always pretty much kept pace five years behind the present, which means that by the end of season 5, the flashbacks will catch up with the start of the show. So at that point they'll have to either end the show or abandon the flashback-driven format.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

The flashbacks have always pretty much kept pace five years behind the present, which means that by the end of season 5, the flashbacks will catch up with the start of the show. So at that point they'll have to either end the show or abandon the flashback-driven format.

They will do flashforwards then.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Minor thing, but I loved the little moment when Felicity speculated that Sara wore a mask to hide from her demons, but Laurel doesn't need to

That line was weird to me, since Laurel has nothing but demons, and her various addictions and obsessions and stupid decisions are very much about hiding from them. She's the most screwed-up, dysfunctional character on this whole show. Sarah came off as far better adjusted.

Sara was running from the guilt of murdering people in cold blood as an assassin. I think those are the demons she was talking about. Laurel has had faults in the past (and still has them, since I don't think the addiction thing is wrong), but she's not wearing a mask to hide from her past. To me, that was the point of that scene.

I think it comes across the way it does because audiences recognize things better that they are shown compared to what they were told. It reminds me of the discussion Spielberg and Lucas had about whether Indiana Jones could have had a relationship with an underage girl and Spielberg argued the audience wouldn't hold it against him as long as it was something in the past rather than shown on screen.

 

[Christopher]

Really, I think it comes across that way to me because I have never, ever, ever liked Katie Cassidy as Laurel, and I liked Caity Lotz much better. So, really, anything that implies that Laurel is better in any way than Sarah just isn't something I can hold in my brain.

 

[Morpheus 02]

Really, I think it comes across that way to me because I have never, ever, ever liked Katie Cassidy as Laurel, and I liked Caity Lotz much better. So, really, anything that implies that Laurel is better in any way than Sarah just isn't something I can hold in my brain.

Just so you know, I definitely related to what you just said there (absolutely the first statement; and certainly undesrtand the second).

But don't forget -- this is TREK BBS...where as Trek fans, we specialize in rationalizing things that are clearly contradicted by what we see on screen!

We all like the show, and have our own coping mechanisms here, so we don't lose that and degenerate into constant nitpicking!

 

[JD]

I'm wondering if now that Thea knows about Ollie, and has been trained as a fighter, if she might end up joining the team. In the comics Green Arrow did have a female sidekick named Mia, who went by Speedy. The similarity of first names, and the Speedy thing, have always had me wondering if Thea was meant to be their version of her, and if she would end up becoming a hero herself.

 

[Guy Gardener]

But then Thea gets AIDS (because that's Mia's story.).