Spoilers Arrow - Season 5

[DigificWriter]

I know it's several days late, but here's what I thought about Penance:
After three really strong episodes that introduced characters and set up the new status quo, Penance should've been dedicated to building on that new status quo, but instead we got an episode where the most significant and pertinent developments resulted in the almost-immediate demolition of said status quo, what with Oliver embarking on a largely pointless rescue mission that got one of the key cogs in the show's new status quo - Rene - abducted by Tobias Church, who is a "placeholder" villain at best.

The only real positive thing to come out of the episode was that it resolved, for now, the issues between Rory and Felicity and gave most of the new Team Arrow a chance to solidify themselves as a unit, but things would've worked even better on that score if Oliver hadn't been MIA running around a military prison.

I also had issues with the flashbacks this week because, like much of the rest of the episode, they ultimately didn't serve much purpose.

With two of the Arrowverse series firing on all cylinders for the most part, it's sad to see the series that gave birth to that universe in the first place take a slide backwards. It's even more disappointing in light of this week's episode of Legends of Tomorrow also falling a bit flat after opening the season really strongly.

 

[Mr Light]

But... the flashbacks NEVER serve a purpose!

I was disappointed we didn't get the stereotypical "Ragman tries to kill Felicity and Green Arrow must fight him to defend her and he finally has a cathartic breakdown and abandons his vengeance". It would have been a cool sequence.

 

[DigificWriter]

But... the flashbacks NEVER serve a purpose!

They had for the first 3 episodes of the season... just as they had for Seasons 1 and 2 where they were building a parallel narrative for Oliver and his "hero's journey".

 

[Christopher]

...what with Oliver embarking on a largely pointless rescue mission that got one of the key cogs in the show's new status quo - Rene - abducted by Tobias Church, who is a "placeholder" villain at best.

I dunno... So far I find him a lot more interesting than this "Prometheus" guy. Another dark archer? Meh. Been there, done that. A charismatic, scenery-chewing street-level criminal mastermind? That's a breath of fresh air.

The only real positive thing to come out of the episode was that it resolved, for now, the issues between Rory and Felicity and gave most of the new Team Arrow a chance to solidify themselves as a unit, but things would've worked even better on that score if Oliver hadn't been MIA running around a military prison.

I feel the opposite -- Oliver's absence enabled them to rise to the occasion on their own and thus prove their worth.

I also had issues with the flashbacks this week because, like much of the rest of the episode, they ultimately didn't serve much purpose.

I think they've been doing a good job of paralleling the events in the present, showing how Oliver's Bratva experiences are shaping and informing his actions in the here and now. The premiere flashbacks established Oliver's determination to kill Kovar, reflecting his choice in the present to adopt killing again. The first Bratva test with its "every man for himself" approach reflected Oliver's reluctance to open himself up to new teammates. The second test was a trust exercise in an episode that was called "A Matter of Trust." And this final Bratva test was about Oliver choosing to kill someone and having to live with the guilt of that choice, which resonates with what Diggle is going through. The flashbacks have all served a purpose both as illustrations of Oliver's mental state and as parallel explorations of the themes of the episodes. Which is much better than just "Here's an extended shaggy-dog story explaining how Oliver found out about magic." Since we already know the factual basics of Oliver's time in the Bratva, basically, it makes sense that the purpose would be more thematic and psychological. Although, granted, there is an element of checking off boxes as well, like showing how Oliver got the rest of his scars.

With two of the Arrowverse series firing on all cylinders for the most part, it's sad to see the series that gave birth to that universe in the first place take a slide backwards.

I think it's on much more of an even keel than it was last season. It's been relatively successful at getting "back to basics."

I was disappointed we didn't get the stereotypical "Ragman tries to kill Felicity and Green Arrow must fight him to defend her and he finally has a cathartic breakdown and abandons his vengeance". It would have been a cool sequence.

I don't think "stereotypical" and "cool" really go together. I was glad to see Rory not react in that stupid, macho, cliched way. We've already got Wild Dog for that. Instead, he reacted like a mature, intelligent, decent person, which is something I'd like to see in TV more often, not to mention in real life.

 

[DigificWriter]

If we didn't already know that Prometheus is the "Big Bad" for the season, focusing on Church wouldn't be a bad thing.

Because I feel like this entire thing with Diggle was pointless, I'm bothered by Oliver being MIA even though we did get to see the new recruits bond amongst themselves. I just wish Oliver had been with them.

 

[Christopher]

If we didn't already know that Prometheus is the "Big Bad" for the season, focusing on Church wouldn't be a bad thing.

Well, what's so bad about focusing on him while he's here? Dwelling on future possibilities shouldn't keep us from living in the moment. If the story they're telling now is the story of Tobias Church, then there's nothing wrong with focusing on that now. Prometheus will come later. Nothing wrong with having more than one stage to the season. In fact, I seem to recall reading that that was the goal of the writers, to have two or three different major villain arcs this year as a change of pace from building everything around a single villain. I don't see anything wrong with that.

Because I feel like this entire thing with Diggle was pointless...

The point is to get him back on the team. He wasn't just going to change his mind and leave the Army again. Given where he was psychologically, the only way he'd come back was if circumstances forced him back.

And, again, the point was specifically to have Oliver not be there with the rest of the team, so that they could prove themselves by standing up on their own -- or attempt to and fail. If he'd been there, Wild Dog probably wouldn't have been captured, and that capture is evidently significant to what lies ahead.

 

[JD]

"Was he waiting for an entrance line?"

That was it, thank you.

I dunno... So far I find him a lot more interesting than this "Prometheus" guy. Another dark archer? Meh. Been there, done that. A charismatic, scenery-chewing street-level criminal mastermind? That's a breath of fresh air.

I read about the character when I first heard about them and the comics version is supposed to be an expert in a ton of different weapons. So I've been disappointed we haven't seen much variety in his attack, I think he did use a sword in one of his attacks, but everything else has been archery.

 

[dahj]

If we didn't already know that Prometheus is the "Big Bad" for the season, focusing on Church wouldn't be a bad thing.

Why is it a bad thing?
There's 23 episodes in a season, more than enough room for developing multiple villains.

 

[Phoenix219]

How the hell does Barry going back in time to save his mum affect the gender of their kid? Are the writers even going to bother fixing any of the remaining Flashpoint stuff or we fine with the fact Barry basically killed a kid by wiping it from existence.

I'm thinking that it is actually butterflies caused by Reverse Flash being out and able to time travel, more so then anything Barry did himself. The time doubles or whatever they are disappeared before they could really do or change anything, unless it was just the effect of the cops being a few minutes later, or something. I'm willing to bet that it is much more the after effects of letting Eobard out to play. By stopping himself from ever creating Flashpoint, it all should have reverted, much like wedding rings and dog tags popping in and out of existance over on Legends.

There aren't that many of them, if you think of the new guys as replacements for Sara, Laurel, Roy and Ray they just about even out.

Wild Dog can't die because he's Jason Todd to Oliver's Batman and the Lazarus Pit isn't working to bring him back.

I was really, *really* hoping to get a "Red Hood" parallel storyline on Arrow last season..... her absolute disgust at not only Malcolm still being *alive*.... but Oliver is WORKING with him? I liked "BatArrow" lol.

 

[Christopher]

I'm thinking that it is actually butterflies caused by Reverse Flash being out and able to time travel, more so then anything Barry did himself. The time doubles or whatever they are disappeared before they could really do or change anything, unless it was just the effect of the cops being a few minutes later, or something. I'm willing to bet that it is much more the after effects of letting Eobard out to play. By stopping himself from ever creating Flashpoint, it all should have reverted, much like wedding rings and dog tags popping in and out of existance over on Legends.

But Jay Garrick explained that. Fixing just one change before it's had time to "set in," like the Legends have done, is one thing. That's like undoing an edit before you save the file. It's like it never happened at all. But changing the whole timeline for months, long enough for the changes to set, and then separately trying to change it back to the way it was is like trying to un-break a coffee cup. You can approximate the original shape, but there will be "cracks."

Put more scientifically, even if you recreate the original conditions as accurately as possible, the new iteration of the process will still be subject to random factors that will cause subtle differences in the outcome. Reality is probabilistic, not deterministic. A given set of initial conditions will not guarantee a single precise outcome, only a range of probable outcomes. Like how predictions of the track of a hurricane are expanding wedges rather than straight lines.

 

[Phoenix219]

It seemed implied in S1, when a version of Barry (that we actually haven't seen) waved himself on, that the other Barry knew that saving his mom was a bad thing. I know it was an assumption, but its stuck with me, that that Barry had made a change, and reverted it by waving himself on once he knew it was a mistake. It made much more sense then what they ended up going with.


Here's something else that makes no sense. With Eobard with Barry in Flashpoint, E1 Well's should have had star labs, and the accelerator incident should have occurred in the future, as implied in S1. Wally and the other meta's shouldn't have even had powers yet in Flashpoint. The whole point of S1 was to get the incident to occur sooner.

 

[Dick Whitman]

You remember what they wrote better than the writers themselves... Or they hope we would not remember season 1.

One of the oddest things about Flashpoint was were was Harrison Wells? It was strongly implied that STAR Labs did exist in that building before Cisco bought it? Why did Wells leave? A single line of dialogue would have been nice. Glossing over a major character in a show's backstory usually happens when a actor leaves. Than the writers do not want viewers to be fixated on past plot lines and unavailable actors.

But that it not at all the case here. This show is very much about revisiting its past. Also Harrison Wells, or versions of him, is still a huge part of this show. So much so that they created a new storyline about finding a replacement for him.

I am not making a prediction but I would almost think that Dr Alchemy is somehow connected to the Flashpoint Wells. It makes no sense, how would he survive the changed timeline? It would be repeating having a evil Wells. But his absence in Flashpoint is a big hole that raises questions.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Lexa Doig to recur as Talia al Ghul - http://tvline.com/2016/11/02/arrow-season-5-talia-al-ghul-cast-lexa-doig/

 

[Christopher]

Lexa Doig to recur as Talia al Ghul - http://tvline.com/2016/11/02/arrow-season-5-talia-al-ghul-cast-lexa-doig/

Neat. We met a young Talia in Legends of Tomorrow last season, in an episode set in 1960. She was maybe 10-12 at the time. That would put her in her late 60s now, so if she looks like Lexa Doig, she must've benefitted from the Lazarus Pit at some point.

 

[Commander Richard]

Loved seeing Christopher Chance. He works better as a supporting character. That way he gets to use his various disguises.

And so much for Church. Didn't see that coming.

 

[Christopher]

Hey... I could swear that was Michael Dorn doing Prometheus's voice. It would be fitting, since they got his "Klingon brother" Tony Todd to voice Zoom on The Flash last year.

Spartan's new helmet looks less weird than his old one, but it also looks a bit too much like the Atom's helmet. It also doesn't conceal his face as well as the old one, which is a problem now that he's a wanted fugitive.

Felicity's new boyfriend Billy doesn't leave much of an impression with me. I keep forgetting who he is until the dialogue reminds me he's someone I've seen before. And I'm puzzled about him joining the Anti-Crime Unit, because I had the impression he was already part of it. Or am I confusing him with another forgettable cop character?

Loved seeing Christopher Chance. He works better as a supporting character. That way he gets to use his various disguises.

I found the use of Chance a little disappointing. Wil Traval's performance didn't do much for me, which is surprising because I thought he was reasonably good in Jessica Jones. Plus he only had a couple of scenes out of disguise, so we barely had a chance (no pun intended) to see who he was or how he operated, and there was no exploration of why he did what he did -- or how, for that matter. How did he fake his death? I expected it to turn out that the masked assassin Church hired was actually Oliver, but he was actually just some other bad guy (and who was he, anyway?), so the bullets must've been real. So how did Chance survive that? Does he have superpowers in this version? I know the comics character doesn't, but a viewer who doesn't know the character could easily get the impression from this episode that he's immortal or has a healing factor or something, because they didn't bother to explain how it worked.

As far as being able to use disguises as a lead character, he had no trouble doing that in the short-lived 1992 Human Target series from the producers of the '90 The Flash. They did find a lot of excuses to have Chance lose the mask or choose to reveal himself or investigate things undisguised, but the impersonations were a key part of every episode, unlike in the Mark Valley series which was so far removed from the "Human Target" concept that it didn't even warrant the name. I rewatched that series after hearing Chance would be on Arrow, and while Rick Springfield was pretty underwhelming as the lead (though not as mannequin-like as Valley), I liked its emphasis on exploring Chance's psychology and why he felt compelled to put himself in danger for the protection of others. I also liked its emphasis on the technique behind the impersonations. All of that was missing here.

 

[Commander Richard]

I assumed that we'll see Chance again, so there would be time to flesh out the character more.

 

[Mr Light]

So, apparently the Star City Police Department has a policy; when moving a high value prisoner, if someone shoots up the lead car, the rest of the convoy must come to an immediate halt in order to be picked off one by one, rather than driving away.

It was cool having another DC comic character guest-star, but I was disappointed we got zero explanation or development of Christopher Chance. Who was he? What was his personality? Was he a meta-human? He appeared to get legitimately shot by actual assassins yet he was fine.

I really hope Prometheus doesn't turn out to be Malcolm, or, worse yet, Tommy.

 

[Christopher]

So, apparently the Star City Police Department has a policy; when moving a high value prisoner, if someone shoots up the lead car, the rest of the convoy must come to an immediate halt in order to be picked off one by one, rather than driving away.

It looked to me like the lead car ended up sideways and blocking the road so that the other vehicles couldn't proceed. I suppose the armored car could've pushed it aside, but maybe the driver feared there were wounded people inside who might be endangered by such a maneuver.

 

[DigificWriter]

And we're back to top form after last week's disaster.

I'm annoyed that it took last week's trainwreck to get us to where we were tonight, but the payoff was glorious, what with the introduction of Christopher Chance, a flashback storyline that tied into the present-day narrative and could potentially shake up the show in really intriguing ways, and the very thing I wanted last week, which is Oliver out in the field with his new team.

We also got Felicity's new relationship out in the open, and some major forward momentum on the main storyline involving Prometheus, both of which are things that I think the season needed to address.

Diggle rejoining Team Arrow should provide some interesting story possibilities going forward, especially if this mentor-y streak they gave him continues to be a thing, not only for Rene, but for the other new team members as well.

I also hope we get to see Christopher Chance again at some point, because I really like his character and think he'd make a great permanent member of Team Arrow.

All in all, this week's episode was a vast improvement over Penance, and I'm hoping the momentum will continue next week.