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Spoilers Arrow - Season 5

Romulan_spy said:
I agree. The tragedy does not really work as a justification for Rene's anti gun control stance.
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It's not a justification for that though, he already had a pro gun stance prior to the tragedy due to the bad environment he used to live in and his military career.
The fact that the tragedy did nothing to change his stance I think illustrates just how ingrained these beliefs are and how, once formed, people are very reluctant to change them and use selective reasoning to support their preexisting position.
 
He believes that had he left with the gun like was his plan, and came home to what was unfolding, his wife would be alive. Maybe more to the fact that a gun is supposed to be in a locked safe/container. The time it took to get to it also is a factor.
(Even though, it is told that since he was dishonorably discharged that he couldn't get a permit. This (the discharge) should be before the wife being killed.)
 
Romulan_spy said:
If anything, his tragedy serves to illustrate that having a gun for self-defense is no guarantee that you will be able to keep yourself and your family safe. It actually disproves the argument that the right to bear arms folks make that we just need to let responsible gun owners have more guns to protect themselves and everything would be fine.
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dodge said:
The fact that the tragedy did nothing to change his stance I think illustrates just how ingrained these beliefs are and how, once formed, people are very reluctant to change them and use selective reasoning to support their preexisting position.
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I think maybe that was the point. For all that the episode tried to be even-handed, I think previous episodes have made it clear that the Berlantiverse writers tend to be pretty liberal and pro-gun control. Recall the episode where the team had to defuse a panic about the "Throwing Star Killer" and there were a couple of gun nuts just blasting away wildly, with one getting pretty angry about the Green Arrow destroying his gun. So the fate of Rene's wife here felt to me like it was implicitly and intentionally undermining the validity of Rene's position. Maybe he clings to the idea that guns protect because he doesn't want to face the possibility that his own use of a gun contributed to his wife's death.
 
Commander Richard said:
5x13...

They wasted no time in bringing Thea back. Guess they heard our cries.

Tonight's episode was called "Spectre of the Gun".

When I saw Rene's daughter, I knew this would be a tragic episode, but I thought it would be more tragic, if you know what I mean.

And how about the strong gun message? The quality of the writing was certainly different. Very "after school special" in spots. And Ollie reminded me of Captain Kirk when he was talking the guy down. Great flashback though with Rene's story. This is what they should be.
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I agree it felt "after school special" for sure...also, in the On Demand version, we had a "viewer discretion" warning at the beginning of the episode. I don't recall that for other episodes of Arrow. Wasn't because of the debate or/and because of the mass shooting in a public place? Because the violence didn't seem any "worse" than an average Arrow episode.

Christopher said:
I thought it was refreshing to finally see Oliver Queen doing some political activism, though this version was a lot more centrist than the leftie Green Arrow of the comics. I feel the resolution was a bit wishy-washy -- I would've come down a lot stronger on the gun control side -- but I like it that they're trying to be about something. As a lifelong Trekkie, I feel that SF/fantasy is best when it's a commentary on social and philosophical issues, and I've been glad to see the Berlanti shows doing more of that over the past couple of years. And of all the DC characters they get to use, Green Arrow is the one who should be the most politically activist, so it was annoying that last season they had him run for mayor without ever actually taking a position on any issue beyond "crime bad, hope good." Hopefully this isn't the last time Mayor Queen will stand for something.

If anything, I think Rene has a pretty strange interpretation of the events leading to his wife's death. He said he could've kept her alive if he'd had a gun, but he did have a gun, and it was his shooting of the drug dealer that caused him to shoot Rene's wife by accident. I guess his thinking is that it would've been different if he'd had the gun on him to start with, but he can't know that.

Honestly, I was expecting him to come home and find that his wife had used his gun to commit suicide. Nearly 2/3 of gun deaths in the US are suicides, and suicide rates are significantly higher in areas where gun ownership is more common. That's the one key part of the gun-violence issue that keeps getting left out of the debate, even though it's a huge, huge part of the death toll.

I think my favorite part was Curtis and Felicity lamenting how afraid we've become to have healthy debate, how it's just become shouting at each other instead of listening and disagreeing respectfully. Although it was weird to have such a commentary on our world when it's been made so clear in recent months that Earth-1 is a pretty different world from ours in a lot of ways (like having a black female president).


Oh, speaking of the Earth-1 POTUS... I rewatched last week's episode earlier today, and it struck me as odd that Dinah was surprised by Diggle's mention of facing aliens. How could she not know about the aliens? The Dominator invasion was worldwide and very public. They assassinated the President. I know Dinah was off on her vendetta, but it's hard to believe she didn't hear something about the alien invasion.
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I think for this episode, as people made clear, if Rene had the gun on him (instead of listening to his wife, who seemed much more gun-control), he would have been able to shoot the robber, instead of fumbling around to get it. Certainly from his perspective it was clear.

ALso, guns are a huge part of Team Arrow's "arsenal" , (which I think should have been Spartan's nickname). Have stricter laws would mean that Spartan & Wildog's weapons could be more easily traced -- as is their identities. That wasn't touched on, but would be a notch on the negative side of the debate.


I didn't like that the law was resolved to quickly -- seemed a bit too convenient, and as mentioned "after school special"ish. I did appreciate that there will be some kind of political consequence in the future.


And what Felicity and Curtis talked about is reality...people on BOTH sides of the spectrum are very sure of the righteousness of their stand, and leave no room for anyone to be in the middle.
 
I noticed halfway through the episode that it didn't have any kind of music.
I can only think of a couple more episodes on any show where they did this.
Buffy's The Body comes to mind and I think the Babylon 5 episode where Sheridan was captured and interrogated by Earth Gov.
 
I found Oliver's speech at the end about not responding to violence with violence to be interesting to say the least considering his entire Green Arrow raison d'etre is about using violence to stop violence. Is he starting to see the error of his ways? We know that Prometheus really shook him up to question the Green Arrow's methods and the influence that he has on his friends. Maybe Oliver is starting to see that violence is not the answer? I wonder if eventually the Green Arrow will retire because he becomes sick of the violence?
 
Timelord Victorious said:
I noticed halfway through the episode that it didn't have any kind of music.
I can only think of a couple more episodes on any show where they did this.
Buffy's The Body comes to mind and I think the Babylon 5 episode where Sheridan was captured and interrogated by Earth Gov.
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Just watched it and did have some music but it was fairly low key.

The plot was very similar to one from Hawaii 5-O (earlier this season iirc) though the gun-rights/gun-control argument was handled with less maturity.

Also has it been said why Rene got his BCD from the navy?
 
Romulan_spy said:
I found Oliver's speech at the end about not responding to violence with violence to be interesting to say the least considering his entire Green Arrow raison d'etre is about using violence to stop violence. Is he starting to see the error of his ways? We know that Prometheus really shook him up to question the Green Arrow's methods and the influence that he has on his friends. Maybe Oliver is starting to see that violence is not the answer? I wonder if eventually the Green Arrow will retire because he becomes sick of the violence?
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"Responding to violence with violence" might be a message from Mayor Oliver Queen, not the Green Arrow, as this episode showed that the Arrow could not solve the city's gun violence. What I don't get is that Diggle and René have been shooting people before; why did this issue come up? Were they using tranquilizer darts in the past?
 
Gryffindorian said:
What I don't get is that Diggle and René have been shooting people before; why did this issue come up? Were they using tranquilizer darts in the past?
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I think Spartan was, yes. I don't know about Wild Dog.

But Oliver's point wasn't that they haven't been using violence; on the contrary, it's that maybe they've taken violence so much for granted as a tactic that they've become part of the problem rather than the solution.
 
Christopher said:
But Oliver's point wasn't that they haven't been using violence; on the contrary, it's that maybe they've taken violence so much for granted as a tactic that they've become part of the problem rather than the solution.
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Which is why I think we are seeing a gradual change in Oliver's character where the Green Arrow will become less brutal.
 
I just watched the latest episode, and it was pretty average. Some interesting stuff (I wonder if the Vigilante stuff will be resolved before the season finale), but mostly it felt a bit like a waste of time. Wild Dog continues to be extremely unlikable, and his tragic backstory didn't really make me feel more positive toward him at this point. Overall this wasn't bad or anything, but it wasn't great and it felt out of place. I kind of wish they'd just get back to Prometheus.
 
^^ Well, I feel this was thematically relevant to the Prometheus arc. Prometheus is all about showing Ollie the bad consequences of his actions, and in this episode he concedes that, in the past, making violence the go-to solution to violence did not help in the long run.
 
So what exactly ARE these city wide gun control ordinances, which don't make it harder to buy or sell weapons, are not a registry, will make some sort of meaningful difference, and are acceptable to both staunch gun control advocates, AND staunch 2nd Amendment supporters?

There's a shitload of people in Washington DC would like to know.
 
Morpheus 02 said:
I agree it felt "after school special" for sure...also, in the On Demand version, we had a "viewer discretion" warning at the beginning of the episode. I don't recall that for other episodes of Arrow. Wasn't because of the debate or/and because of the mass shooting in a public place? Because the violence didn't seem any "worse" than an average Arrow episode.



I think for this episode, as people made clear, if Rene had the gun on him (instead of listening to his wife, who seemed much more gun-control), he would have been able to shoot the robber, instead of fumbling around to get it. Certainly from his perspective it was clear.

ALso, guns are a huge part of Team Arrow's "arsenal" , (which I think should have been Spartan's nickname). Have stricter laws would mean that Spartan & Wildog's weapons could be more easily traced -- as is their identities. That wasn't touched on, but would be a notch on the negative side of the debate.


I didn't like that the law was resolved to quickly -- seemed a bit too convenient, and as mentioned "after school special"ish. I did appreciate that there will be some kind of political consequence in the future.


And what Felicity and Curtis talked about is reality...people on BOTH sides of the spectrum are very sure of the righteousness of their stand, and leave no room for anyone to be in the middle.
Click to expand...

Yup, they should have made Diggle "Arsenal," Roy "Red Arrow" and Thea as "Speedy." Just because it was one identity in the comics doesn't mean they had to continue that way.
 
I'm fine with the idea of Oliver being kicked out if office. This incarnation of Oliver Queen was never much of a mayor, and the writers clearly have nothing interesting to say about politics or city government.
 
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