Arrow (CW) TV Show • Page 3

That'll probably annoy me even more if they did a fake out.

 

Didn't someone from the show say they would stay dead?

 

I'm not going to spoiler tag this so if you haven't watched the episode, GET OUT!

Yeah, I'm not pleased with this either. I've had my issues with Laurel in the past (mostly at the beginning of season 2), but I think Katie Cassidy has really come into her own in the part and I've honestly thought she was the highlight of the show the last few weeks. Laurel functions really well as Oliver's confidante and I really liked the depth of the relationship they were building between those two. Without going back to the romantic well, they were able to show that these two have a very long and complicated relationship in an effective way. It made her a unique member of the team and an almost-worthy stand-in for Sara.

This also feels to me like trying to recapture the momentum they had at the end of season 2. Beat for beat, this episode played like a remake of Seeing Red, right up to Oliver being unable to move and having to watch someone he loved get stabbed through the torso. But Damien Darhk was never supposed to be a Slade Wilson kind of villain. He's threatening in a different way, and more suited to the "bright tone" the show was supposedly going for (lol) at the beginning of the season. It just played as an attempt to recapture former greatness, imo.

If they are going to plunge the characters back into darkness, though--which, let's be honest, they really can't not after something like this--I hope they at least make the difficult writing decisions and let other characters go off the rails and get blood on their hands instead of just Oliver. For too long, everyone else has gotten to keep their "humanity" or "sense of justice" or whatever, but what interests me about this death is that Oliver is maybe third or fourth down the list of the characters who should be blaming themselves. Diggle is obviously at the top, but Thea could have stopped it by killing Malcolm before he stole the idol and Lance will obviously blame himself because he betrayed Darhk. I'd like stories about those characters and their vengeance that aren't so clear-cut with the show's morality of right and wrong.

 

They also said that about Sara.

 

I really like your thoughts here in particular the part about the other characters getting blood on their hands. Would be an interesting storyline to close out this season

 

He went from one of my favorites to the most irritating in the manner of one episode.maybe I'm wrong but to me he seemed out of character this time. I just couldn't believe he wouldn't be more cautious, even if Andy is his brother. It just seemed off. Especially given the fact they know how scary Dahrk is.

I knew this was going to happen thanks to Twitter, but still. It was handled so poorly it's almost laughable. They focus on Laurel the past few episodes just to kill her? What is this? They did that on purpose. It's too obvious. Especially after neglecting her character for over a season.

I think the writers have finally lost it with this show.

 

I'm just trying to think of a way they can end this season without it being a less satisfying rehash of season 2. Focusing more on those three characters would distinguish it for me.

 

This is what happens when the writers use the characters as props to move along their dumb plotting. The team was smart enough to hide a piece of the idol but too dumb to not put the whole thing back together in the first place? And of course they leave it in a glass box in a "secret" lair that rivals STAR Labs in its ease to get into. And that's just the tip of the iceberg of how little anything in this show makes sense anymore.

I know it's got to be insane to pump out 20 something episodes of a TV show every year but it seems like there's a very clear divide between seasons 1/2 and 3/4 between the style and quality of the writing. I don't understand how the writers can sit back and even think their episodes even make sense, let alone actually be quality writing.

 

I'm hoping this was just a mandate from DC to pave the way for a movie similar to the Suicide Squad characters. Probably the only way I'll be ok with this.

 

Yeah, this happens often. I call it the "death flag". Whenever the writers start to focus on a previously unimportant character, something bad is about to happen.

 

Annoys me even more that they said they didn't know whose funeral they were at at the beginning of the show. They literally created a plot hole to fill.

 

/r/arrow is up in arms right now.

 

I don't get the hate for writers changing up comic canon in other media adaptations. Be angry at poor writing.

 

Having Laurel's last lines to prop up Olicity left a really bad taste in my mouth.

 

I don't like how Felicity said Dark must die or whatever at the funeral (from earlier this season). I mean I get it, but Oliver better not go through with it.

If you didn't even kill the man who murdered your mother, you better not kill Dark for offing one of your friends! Now that would be awful writing IMHO.

Honestly, I hate comic book stories sometimes. They're always looking for excuses to spare villains.

 

Does this show have any women in the writing room? I can't stop thinking about how Laurel didn't have any agency in her own death (classic "woman is motivation for man" trope dating back literally hundreds of years in all forms of storytelling) and how Felicity's characterization has been completely sacrificed to further Oliver's story. This is very disappointing to me after hearing Guggenheim talk about how LoT needs more women and such.

 

I don't know if it has been discussed, but the big rumor for the death is for her to be included in the Justice League film. It'll likely be Dinah though.

 

Not sure why they'd have to kill her off but not Oliver or Barry then. If she went by Dinah I'd buy it but she goes by Laurel. They could also have an "evolution" and she could adopt a different superhero alias or they could come up with something else. I'm just disappointed by every aspect of this

 

Wendy Mericle has essentially been the showrunner this year with Guggenheim working on Legends.

 

Did not know that. Thank you!

 

The prospect of Laurel becoming a DA and fighting crime during the day while Team Arrow fights crime at night was interesting in concept, but the court room scenes this season haven't been very compelling. I'm in agreement with this thread that her death wasn't handled well, but the team needed to be thinned out, and I knew it wouldn't be Diggle or Felicity. Hopefully this show can do something interesting with Felicity and Thea. Felicity was always my favorite until her character became defined by her relationship to Oli.

 

The reason that the courtroom scenes didn't work is that they were horrible at writing realistic courtroom scenes.

 

preview of next week

 

I also watched last weeks episode yesterday.. I've never rolled my eyes harder than the bee lady hacking herself out of prison.

 

One thing I really hate about this twist is that, like...how do you bring Oliver back from this and still pretend he's been anywhere near successful as a hero? I know you can't have an infallible protagonist, even in a superhero show, but it's pretty fucking depressing to think that three of the four people that Oliver spent his time on the island hoping he would see again are now dead. And they're dead because he came back. Plus, the city is in shambles and pretty much everyone he's come in contact with since coming home is worse off for that fact. I think they've stumbled into a situation where they've inadvertently made their protagonist a complete failure. It would be one thing if they wanted to do that to purposefully examine what it means when a hero fails, but I think they got there through incompetent storytelling.