Spoilers Arrow - Season 4

[Mr Light]

I get so sick of "you have failed this city" over and over again.

I'm on 1X16 I think, and they mentioned Ra's Al Ghul all the way back then!

 

[JD]

It's what sold the show for me. If someone had told me straight away that it would be a comic show with lots of superheroes in costume and finally magic, I wouldn't have bothered. The trailer and the pilot set a theme that there was an explanation for how Oliver had become what he was now, and that he was special and unique. And I was eager to find out his backstory. I watched the trailer alone countless times, waiting for October to arrive. That's how impatient I was.

Lots of posts have been written about how Laurel and Thea and Roy were able to get to the same level in considerably less time and that the addition of Sara meant that Oliver was not so special and unique anymore. Sometimes he now feels like a guest actor in his own show. This is not what it should feel like. And all those team fights in warehouses look the same after a while. Certainly not exciting anymore. I'd rather see more Oliver doing parcour. Showing his skills.

I thought they did a pretty good job of showing the characters learning and training, instead of just instantly being able to pull off of the heroics out of nowhere. I think it was a really nice way to build up a team around Oliver. I find a team like we have now a lot more interesting than just one guy on his own, but then I tend to prefer shows with an ensemble to ones with just one lead.

.....

It's not that it was dark (I don't like the Dark Knight trilogy) but that it tried to be realistic. I don't mind superpowers or other things, as long as they are at least halfway explained but magic? You lose me there. I didn't like it in Stargate and I don't like it here. Because there is no way how you can fight magic. All your usual fighting techniques and bullets are meaningless when someone simply can throw out their arm and make you fly through the air. You can only fight it with more magic.

I actually like when they incorporate magic into stuff like this. It's interesting to see the hero have to deal with something that they can't simply defeat with their fighting skills.

 

[Gaith]

Not to repeat myself too much, but I agree with a lot of what Astra said. I'm not sure how Ollie's going to learn at least a rough understanding of Russian or Chinese, or grow all that hair, in the little more than a year of flashback time remaining, unless the answer is more magic.

Anyhow, it's hardly rare for a serialized show to run out of things to say long before it stops spinning its plot wheels. Smallville had a brilliant idea in showing a teenage Clark Kent discover his powers, learn his true alien identity, and accept his responsibility to save people, and though the first two seasons had a number of FOTW clunkers, they did a damn fine job overall of telling that story, culminating in his worst pre-Supes failing, when he knowingly did Red K and rode off into Metropolis after accidentally putting Martha in the hospital [and...]. Thematically, Smallville the town represented his innocence, and while he got off the red K (with help) and returned home at the start of S3, his innocence was gone, and there just wasn't much thematic story left to tell - as the post-S2 seasons demonstrated over and over, to increasing effect.

Similarly, the first two seasons of Arrow showed Ollie becoming a badass on the island, and saving his city twice in the present, once from the sins of his father, once from his own sins (kinda). Thematically and narrative-wise, it told the story it set out to tell. Though there have been strong moments here and there since then (Oliver's public unmasking, Mayor Juggernaut, Ollie and Felicity as a happy couple), if the show has a compelling post-S2 arc left in it, I haven't seen it yet, and at this point I've pretty much given up.

 

[Commander Richard]

Not to repeat myself too much, but I agree with a lot of what Astra said. I'm not sure how Ollie's going to learn at least a rough understanding of Russian or Chinese, or grow all that hair, in the little more than a year of flashback time remaining, unless the answer is more magic.

Maybe he was wearing a wig.

 

[Christopher]

I'm not sure how Ollie's going to learn at least a rough understanding of Russian or Chinese, or grow all that hair, in the little more than a year of flashback time remaining, unless the answer is more magic.

Or maybe the flashbacks aren't progressing in real time anymore. The current island flashbacks are advancing the story of Ollie's captivity pretty slowly -- I doubt more than a couple of weeks have passed in the course of this season's flashbacks so far. So maybe, aware that their show may have a longer run than five years, they've slowed the pace of the flashbacks so they're no longer paralleling real time.

 

[Astra]

Not to repeat myself too much, but I agree with a lot of what Astra said. I'm not sure how Ollie's going to learn at least a rough understanding of Russian or Chinese, or grow all that hair, in the little more than a year of flashback time remaining, unless the answer is more magic. .

Right, I knew I had forgotten something! Thanks. I had really hoped for season 4 to be about the Russian Mafia. I would love to see David Nykl again whom I already loved in Stargate Atlantis. He brought a certain wit to his role. I grew up in Eastern Germany and I had to learn 5 years of Russian in school. I have no hard feelings towards this language and am always happy if it makes an appearance, like you are happy to see an old friend you haven’t seen in a while.


Oliver the character and Stephen Amell the actor impress me by doing a sentence in a different language. It can’t be easy just learning it phonetically without understanding what you say. Of course, those that speak Mandarin or Russian have a hard time to understand what he says, but that is not the point. The point is that people outside of America are always happy when the picture is a bit broader and the rest of the world gets included.


There could be many arcs but they seem to rush through their stories. Maybe on a different channel it could be a different show. Maybe I am just being more critical with having seen several British drama shows recently and starting to notice the differences in writing and acting. Even in Legends of Tomorrow (of which I only have seen the pilot so far) I felt that "Rory" I mean Arthur Darvill somehow felt the most serious about the whole thing while the rest was delivering quick funny one-liners with not much depth. Don’t they call that Fast Food TV? Am I expecting too much?


And even if the producers claim they have a plan for all five years since the start it certainly does seem as if they make things up as they go along. First Sara was dead, then she’s alive. Andy was dead, then he’s alive. At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if suddenly Robert is alive again as well. Forgetting that these deaths shaped the others and gave them a huge package. You can’t suddenly remove that and say it never happened.


Laurel is the love of his life and the only thing that kept him alive on the island, but when he sees his life flash before his eyes and possible death she gets not included into the flashback. Oliver meets Felicity for the first time when he asks for her help, except he has seen her five years ago already. Oliver is totally broke except it does not seem to make any difference for his life at all. And so on. It gives me a feeling as if standing in quicksand, no stable ground anywhere anymore.

Or maybe the flashbacks aren't progressing in real time anymore. The current island flashbacks are advancing the story of Ollie's captivity pretty slowly -- I doubt more than a couple of weeks have passed in the course of this season's flashbacks so far. So maybe, aware that their show may have a longer run than five years, they've slowed the pace of the flashbacks so they're no longer paralleling real time.

That may certainly be the case, but in stretching it so thin one can get bored of the story and stops caring. There was quite a lot of needlessly running around in Hong Kong and I start to see this pattern this year again. Why not do flashbacks of other people? I liked the one with Diggle, or Malcolm. Anything to break up the usual. It would be also great to see Tommy or Moira in a flashback again.

 

[dahj]

And even if the producers claim they have a plan for all five years since the start

They never claimed that.

 

[Servo]

...and gave them a huge package.

 

[Astra]

I meant burden, ballast, whatever.

 

[Christopher]

I'm disappointed in the outcome here. I was hoping Felicity would come around and resume the wedding plans, rather than walking away altogether. This breakup has been so contrived.

But thanks to a news report caption on the Arrowcave screens, the term "Olicity" is now canon! ...Yay?

If Felicity is going to be leaving the team for a while, it'd be cool if she'd go hang out at STAR Labs in Central City. Hey, and maybe Cisco could take over in the Arrowcave for a bit. They could swap geeks!

I'm no expert, but the legal procedure/jargon in the hearing sequence seemed pretty credible. At least, there was some terminology and usage that sounded more "inside" than the usual courtroom-drama cliches (like Laurel saying "pass the witness" instead of "no more questions"). If so, it's a relief after the painfully unrealistic courtroom procedure in Daredevil Season 2. Although there is one massive implausibility: I'd think it'd be a major conflict of interest for Laurel to be trying this case at all given her personal connection to so many parties involved in it, and particularly to be questioning her own father on the stand.

 

[Commander Richard]

Darhk was menacing and he didn't say a single word. That's some excellent acting from McDonough.

Never noticed that Thea is taller than Felicity.

 

[Guy Gardener]

One or both is them is probably wearing heals.

 

[Christopher]

Never noticed that Thea is taller than Felicity.

IMDb puts Willa Holland at 5'6" and Emily Bett Rickards at 5'5". Close enough that it'd be hard to tell which is taller. And it would depend on what kind of shoes they were wearing in a given scene.

 

[Icemizer]

If Felicity actually disappears from the show for a few weeks it will be interesting to see if the show picks up the pace a bit. Not burdened with the love story any longer it paves the way for more fluid story telling.

 

[Vendikarr]

This week's episode fuels the fire of who is dead in the flash forward. Even money probably puts it at Quentin Lance, but I am going to put out a different theory - Donna Smoak, Felicty's mother. Since the two are dating, perhaps she is killed as collateral damage on an attempted hit on Quentin.

While Quentin's death could lead to the fury seen by Felicity in the limo, I don't think his death would have Barry Allen lamenting he couldn't be there on time for the funeral.. I just don't see that kind of relationship between Barry and Quentin. But I can see him sorry he couldn't be there for his friend, Felicty after her mother dies.

It's probably going to be Quentin, but I think Donna is a strong contender for the coffin at this point.

 

[Christopher]

While Quentin's death could lead to the fury seen by Felicity in the limo, I don't think his death would have Barry Allen lamenting he couldn't be there on time for the funeral.. I just don't see that kind of relationship between Barry and Quentin.

Barry's a police forensic scientist and Quentin is a police captain. Surely that counts for something.

 

[Marc]

Barry's a police forensic scientist and Quentin is a police captain. Surely that counts for something.

Professional courtesy is about as far it goes especially as Barry is a civilian.

 

[Christopher]

Professional courtesy is about as far it goes especially as Barry is a civilian.

Is he? He's not an officer or detective, but he is an employee of the Central City Police Department, and the lab where he works is within the CCPD headquarters building.

Besides, Barry and his friends have worked with Laurel and consider her a friend, and Quentin is her father. There are a lot of connections here, through the extended circle of friends and family, through the police community, and through the superhero community.

 

[Marc]

Is he? He's not an officer or detective, but he is an employee of the Central City Police Department, and the lab where he works is within the CCPD headquarters building.

Being an employee of the CCPD doesn't make in a cop - there's nothing to indicate he's been through police training or carries a badge indicating he's a member of law enforcement ergo he's a civilian employee.

 

[Commander Richard]

One or both is them is probably wearing heals.

IMDb puts Willa Holland at 5'6" and Emily Bett Rickards at 5'5". Close enough that it'd be hard to tell which is taller. And it would depend on what kind of shoes they were wearing in a given scene.

I always figured that Willa Holland was petite and that Rickards would tower over her but I see that that's not the case.

Being an employee of the CCPD doesn't make in a cop - there's nothing to indicate he's been through police training or carries a badge indicating he's a member of law enforcement ergo he's a civilian employee.

Maybe he has a laminate like Dexter.