Orion

Everyone here knows my feelings on this so I won't belabor the point. But Felicity designed the tech for Mckenna's phone, the monofilament strip to track the money to find Count Vertigo, set up the lair, and repaired it after Clock King (which was taken away from her Season 4 thanks to needing to name drop Cisco), invented the nano tracking spray to track MM, built the processor that Ray needed to make his suit work, and the magnet arrow. As far as evolving, she is the only character who has not developed new skills. Felicity hasn't been given a taser, gun or hell pepper spray to defend herself. But Curtis the guy who hid under a table is going to get a mask in under two seasons. I was hoping that the bitch with WiFi scene was going to be expanded into a role of interagator but nope, nothing that would free her from being chained to a desk.

In a transcript of SA at the con in England that TV ECHO (thank youu TV ECHO for doing that and everything else you bring to the board.) put up in the in the news thread SA said that there would be a return to grease paint. BA designed his mask so could this be a sign that at least a few changes are going to happen because of The Flash's finale? Really hoping they keep the Flash mess over on the Flash but that sounded like a hint that that won't be the case.

Overall I was happy with it. The loft scene was exciting. Fight scenes were good. I really liked the Cooper and Felicity scene. I enjoyed how it ended. Really hoping Thea decides to go live and fight beside Roy and takes MM with her. Really horrible editing. Sound mixing problems with muffled dialogue. Some of the dialogue was so corny and terrible. The grave scene, the speech, and the flashbacks. Every other word out of Oliver's mouth was about Darkness or Light. St. Laurel needs to go away for ever and ever. Poppy died and magic is over. Good enough for me.

It's not just the misery it's how the misery is balanced with other things that these writers have lost sight of in Season 3 and 4. We've been dicking around with DD for 22 episodes. He's shot up a beach clean up, paralyzed Felicity, planted Andy as a mole, killed Laurel, successfully nuked a town, kicked Oliver's ass over and over again with his patented chest caress. All well barely having a motivation or a back story. Add in Ruve and Anarchy as reappearing PINAs that managed to get around Team Arrow at every turn - I'm tired. In Season 2 Slade wasn't introduced until the mid-season finale but we had 2 years of flashbacks to get to know his character and while his motivations might have sucked we knew who that character was. Along the way we had small victories with VOTW (the Doll Maker, the Count, the copycat Hoods) Significant victories to balance out the misery that Slade was about to bring. Once Slade was revealed the team got the cure, saved Thea, and saved Roy in the build up the final battle. When things were really bleak we also had the team relationship to fall back on. The friendship and partnership were brought to the forefront. Season 3 and 4 had limited VOTW, splintered team, failures galore up until the final act, a big bad that just hung around for far too long removing any fear factor he might have had. With the cherry on top being the continued MM hoops that this show is jumping through and the repeated storylines. It's misery porn on top of exhaustion.

1. Flash back wig (smelly, dirty and most definitely has bugs) 5. Lipstick matches your nail polish (meh, an effort was made but in the end it was pretty useless.) 10. Sally (a goal everyone wants to accomplish but, in the end, few achieve. Profection.

The Smoaks' scenes were the only ones that carried any emotional resonance for me. CR really handled the heavier material really well. The Green Arrow costume should never be out in the light of day. I know everyone here complains about the princess puff sleeve shoulder pads but that leather hood gives a terrible profile. They fooled me when they shot Poppy. I was ready to run for the champagne. Thea was brainwashed again, I just .... *yawn*

Interesting day for that article to come out since Marvel's making news for continuing to have issues with women in their movies and how it relates to merchandising. http://variety.com/2016/film/news/iron-man-3-female-villain-shane-black-1201775937/

I'm wondering with what SA said at the con with regards to the nuke being brought up on all shows and the reference to POTUS being aware of what was going on in 4X21 if they are planning a Civil War type story for next season. Since Starling and Central Cities, including the police, are okay with Superheroes protecting their towns if the conflict will come from the government wanting to round up the heroes and Barry being in favor of it and Oliver opposed and that's why they had to have an event that would be beyond just Starling city.

A few years ago I was part of a think tank that looked at the possibility and repercussions of a terrorist group gaining control of a missile silo and launching a nuclear weapon. There is couple of things Arrow got really wrong. First a nuke launched from Russia would take 20 minutes to reach the US. Felicity would have had more time to attempt to hack the missile before it landed. All major nuclear powers have a system that requires both a passcode (something Rubicon could have overridden) and a manual input (a key or button) that Rubicon would not have been able to effect. If a nuclear weapon was launched at the US, NORAD (who already would have been on high alert once POTUS was notified of the threat) would be notified and cruise missiles stationed in Alaska would be launched to try to knock it down. Fighter planes would also be launched to attempt to intercept the missile and bring it down. If the nuke managed to launch and make it past all of that there would 100% kill rate for 1.5 miles from impact (Although there were some survivors in Japan that managed to be in the right type of building when the bombs exploded and survived). At 4.5 miles you would have 50/50 shot at surviving. It would depend on a bunch of factors such as: if you were inside or outside (Arrow had the bomb going off at what looked like sunrise so chances are most people would be in their homes) and how fast first responders could get to you. Outside of 5 miles you have an excellent chance of surviving; although you would be taking Potassium iodide tablets for a while. Rates of cancer would be higher in the years to come but overall outside of Havensrock you would probably be just fine. The type of radiation in a bomb is not the same either in amount or duration as what was released at Chernobyl. The Japanese began rebuilding 5 years after the bombs were dropped during World War II. To bring this back to this episode, Lyla says that they were going to begin evacuations on Monument Point. When the bomb went off it should have given the first wave of people evacuating just enough time to get 20 miles from the city.

I can ignore the flashbacks and Thea's storyline. Everything else was perfect - OTA with Merlyn Global feels. Quentin backing up team Arrow. Oliver fighting and winning in street clothes. All of the fantastic fight scenes. Plot tension from being to end.

I made a promise to myself after the first episode this season that if this show actually put Laurel in that grave that I would forever and ever not complain about the episodes. So I was prepared to come here and be positive no matter what. But thankfully I did't have to force myself to be positive for the episode. The pacing was great. There was not one minute where I had to fast forward or mute. I didn't even have time to check Twitter while something useless was going on. I love the split up teams and there were no scenes where everyone went everywhere together. Each member of OTA got a story focused on them. Everyone was essential. No Flashbacks!!!!! Please, please let this have been a test run for next season and the producers coming to the conclusion that they don't need flashback scenes every episode. Oliver being smart. The actions was great. The fight scenes felt purposeful and not just stuck in because we had reach a certain point in the episode. This episode felt so much like it belong in Season 2 and dear god how much I have missed that.

The score for the scene with, "because of the life that I lead," was the first time that the Olicity motif was used. Unfortunately, Blake Neely didn't include it in the soundtrack. Here are all scores for the Flarrowverse if you just wanted to listen to it in general. https://www.youtube.com/user/arrowsoundtrack/playlists The clips that I saw on Youtube of Canary Cry had "The Oliver Queen Suite" from Season 1 playing. And if you want to hear the Olicity theme it was included in the soundtrack for Season 3. "Someone You Love" is the Olicity motif. "The Climb" combines the Olicity theme and "The Oliver Queen Suite". Hope somewhere in my rambling answer I got you the information you were looking for. :)

Let us have a drink to honor the real tragedy in this episode - the closing of The Pantsuit Emporium and all of it's hard working- yet fashionably challenged employees. You will be missed.

This episode just had a really, really weird vibe. I agree that it was a Flash episode staring Arrow characters. Bad news for me is that I hate the Flash. The whole thing was way over the top for me. All the pop culture stuff with everyone throwing out lines and movies felt out of place. The Laurel stuff was so awkward I had to mute it at points. Look I know the show wants to give her an important role on the team but having her bring up, yet again, their failed relationship was so uncomfortable. Loved the Felicity and Thea stuff. Finally. I liked how this episode showed instead of told how hard the breakup on Oliver. But I was really hoping that Mama Smoak would give Felicity a POV about it. Really unhappy with how Diggle was left in the background yet again. Curtis is a big pass for me. Love Echo. But his character is better in small doses and when he isn't Mr. Perfect. This whole episode was just a big miss for me.

This show hurts my brain so much. If Laurel had prosecuted the right crime, the kidnapping of D,T,F then it would have be introduced into evidence that Oliver gave up the campaign under threats from DD and Oliver would have been viewed as hero and elected without even trying. Instead Flip flopping is apparently worse that 4 times college dropout, party boy that pees on cop cars and son of an accomplice to mass murder. *eye twitch* Chief of Staff is different then Alex's role in Oliver's campaign, campaign manager. You need a chief of staff once you are in office to run the employees of the mayors office, organize fund raisers, PR stunts, and to handle communications with other city officials (police/fire chiefs, Deputy Mayor, Office of urban development, etc).