Arrow - Season 3

[JD]

I honestly completely forgot about the Russian mob thing.
I really enjoyed this one. I really enjoyed the stuff with Slade, and I got a kick out of the flashbacks with Ollie back in Star City. I was surprised that Ollie actually told Thea that she killed Sarah, but I guess at that point that was the only way he could keep it from being used against him. It'll definitely be interesting to see what happens with Malcolm after the confrontation with Ra's.
I was really hoping we'd get to see Moira again, so I was disappointed she didn't pop up in the flashbacks again.

Doug Jones from Falling Skies, the Hellboy movies, and Pan's Labyrinth will be playing Arrow's first metahuman bad guy, Deathbolt, in this season's 19th episode.

 

[Christopher]

I was really hoping we'd get to see Moira again, so I was disappointed she didn't pop up in the flashbacks again.

Me too. I guess Susanna Thompson wasn't available.

Meanwhile, the Felicity and Diggle cameos were totally pointless and kind of coincidental, done more out of obligation to include the regulars somehow than out of any story or character-based need. It was kinda nice to see Diggle with his alive-and-well brother, but they didn't really do anything with it.

And Maseo's line about how the hoodie disguise wouldn't work even with greasepaint was funny, but it's hard to believe he would've actually said such a thing if the writers weren't forcing him to deliver a wink to the audience.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Question: Why does Sara's tombstone display 1987 - 2007? That would make her only 20 years old, not to mention she died in 2014.

She may have really died in 2014, but to the general public, she died in 2007 on Ollie's family yacht.

Sara was still in college when she "died" on that yacht & IIRC Laurel had just entered law school.

When Sara died they had to put her "somewhere" quietly so Ra's et al didn't find out about her murder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q05oq9atwec

Then Nyssa came calling and the rest, as they say, is history.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q05oq9atwec[/yt]

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Hum, I realized on the rewatch that the scenes in the old Casa de Queen were greenscreened. The lighting on Oliver didn't quite match, but it looked very much like they took some old reference photos and composited Stephen Amell into them. Clever really, since the sets for them must have been struck months ago and there's NO way they'd put it all back together for three short shots.

Good to know that just anyone can still stroll into the house at all hours of the day, though.

Mark

 

[Christopher]

^Oh, I vaguely wondered about the sets still being around, but I didn't think of greenscreening.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I assumed they made a museum in the real world and called it "Smallville World"?

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Actually, I did a little research and was surprised to learn that Hatley Castle, which served as the exterior for both the Luthor and Queen mansions, has a proper main hall which was likewise featured in both shows. However, Arrow actually reproduced the main hall and some of the adjacent rooms for various episodes, whereas in Smallville they occasionally used the actual main hall but instead focused on their own sets for other rooms.

This makes sense as the actual castle is in Victoria on Vancouver Island (a ferry or plane ride away), so shooting there all the time would not be practical. There are certain differences between the set and actual location (lighting fixtures, rails on the stairs, etc.) but the casual viewers wouldn't notice. The rooms that Oliver wandered around this week were pictures of the sets.

Mark

 

[Marc]

Actually, I did a little research and was surprised to learn that Hatley Castle, which served as the exterior for both the Luthor and Queen mansions, has a proper main hall which was likewise featured in both shows. However, Arrow actually reproduced the main hall and some of the adjacent rooms for various episodes, whereas in Smallville they occasionally used the actual main hall but instead focused on their own sets for other rooms.

This makes sense as the actual castle is in Victoria on Vancouver Island (a ferry or plane ride away), so shooting there all the time would not be practical. There are certain differences between the set and actual location (lighting fixtures, rails on the stairs, etc.) but the casual viewers wouldn't notice. The rooms that Oliver wandered around this week were pictures of the sets.

Mark

Shows how far tv budget SFX have come when it's hard to tell that he's what probably amounted to a green screen shoot and have it stand out like a sore thumb.

 

[Christopher]

Hatley Castle was also the Xavier Institute in the X-Men movies (and before that in the Generation X TV pilot, interestingly), so it's really popular among comic book characters.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Oliver's prison is as perfectly legal as any CIA secret prison blacksite because it has the ARGUS stamp of approval.

The Flash's secret prison remains a totally criminal act.

 

[Servo]

And a huge saving for the US tax payer.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The nature of a black budget is that the taxpayer is lied to.

This is why sometimes several kitchen sinks can cost 80 thousand dollars each for one undertaking.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

But not THE Undertaking - although there was a fair amount of tubing in that earthquake device.

Regarding prisons though, I do wonder if a universal Arrow / Flash prison would eventually be established for metahumans, assuming more of them start showing up in Ollie's 'hood (sic). Belle Reve has been mentioned in Arrow, and in DC it's a go-to prison for metas (and the HQ of the Suicide Squad), so that could be a place.

As it stands, Iron Heights prison is shared between the shows, as Papa Allen and Mama Queen are/were both there. It's obviously a frequent stop for Barry, and various characters from Arrow have been seen incarcerated there over the last three years, including Ollie. Odd, since Starling and Central cities are apparently six hundred miles away from each other... At least the shows get to share the sets.

http://arrow.wikia.com/wiki/Iron_Heights_Prison

Mark

 

[JD]

I didn't realize Ollie's mom was in the same prison Barry's dad is in. Do we know which city it's in? It seems weird that they would both end up there, when the cities are apparently so far apart.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Or they just had the same architect?

 

[Christopher]

^It's called Iron Heights Prison in both shows.

 

[Nerys Myk]

^It's called Iron Heights Prison in both shows.

It's a franchise. With a minimal investment you too can own your own prison! Apply today. Opportunities are limited!

 

[Alidar Jarok]

^It's called Iron Heights Prison in both shows.

Didn't realize that. The only problem I have is that Iron Heights was damaged in the earthquake (implying it's in Starling City) and Joe West investigated an assault on inmate there (implying it is in Central City). If both cities are in the same state, it makes sense that it's a prison for both (although you would figure Moira wouldn't be housed there until after convicted), but it doesn't really make sense the way it's portrayed.

 

[Christopher]

^Yeah, that is confusing.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Prison franchise?