poetgirl925

Watching SA's con appearance makes me feel a little guilty that for not watching the rest of the season. He works so hard - I mean, how many actors would have kept that appearance so as not to disappoint fans? He had a legit reason for canceling and he didn't. Kudos to him for that. I almost feel like I should watch tomorrow instead of playing catch-up this summer, but I'm so tired of the non-stop angst. Ugh - dilemma :(

That post about moments that signal 'jumping the shark' is interesting. It's also scary since it is so very applicable to Arrow at the moment. I think I'm mostly bitter about the soul sucking angst at this point. I know they want Arrow to be gritty like Nolan's Batman, but seriously, that was a 2 hour movie - the whole trilogy is what - 7 hours or so? Maybe 8? I can handle angst for a 2 hour movie, or even a trilogy, but Arrow seasons are 23 freaking episodes. Who wants to sit through that many hours of angst in a row? I'm tired. I spent a week volunteering at a refugee camp last summer, and I felt less depressed at the end of that week than I do watching Arrow episodes this season. Worse, it's not even well written angst. I'm starting to feel more and more justified in not watching the rest of the season. I'm waiting to see if anything at Paley changes my mind there. On the bright side, I have the last four episodes of Agent Carter to watch, and I think that's on my agenda for tonight.

I downloaded seasons 1 and 2 on iTunes and bought the DVDs. Even though season 2 fell apart towards the end due to some shoddy setup, I don't regret owning the seasons. However, I can definitively say that no matter what kind of glorious season finale they think they're gearing up for, it won't make up for the terrible writing in the episodes I've watched so far. Aside from a few good individual character moments, the arcs have been just terrible. So yeah - I didn't purchase the season pass like I usually do around December, and I definitely won't be buying the DVDs. I have no interest in watching the next episode either, so I'm just going to wait and finish watching before SDCC or read recaps to see if next season seems worth it. I don't feel excited about the show or the story they're telling. Three of my friends have quit this season too - one after she figured out they were building to Laurel taking Sara's place (bless her, she didn't know the comic background and I didn't have the heart to tell her) and two after Oliver's resurrection episode because they thought it was silly - and they're male comic readers. That's the target demo this season, so if they don't like it either that's pretty bad. My brother's still watching but not live. We're both way more into The Flash and the storyline on SHIELD this season. I don't know. All due respect to MG, but I think they sorely misjudged what they could get away with this season in the name of 'comics' and to spin off new shows.

I like coffee, but putting butter and oil in it sounds like a terrible idea lol. And two tbsp of butter? Eww Also, I really feel like some of the things people mentioned should have been spoiler tagged. I dropped by to see if any other news had been posted about Paleyfest and feel a bit like I wandered into a spoiler post. For me, I guess it doesn't matter too much because I've decided to take a break for a while and catch up at the end of/after the season, but (assuming it's a spoiler) the bombed foundry was news to me. People who are still watching live but are off spoilers might not want to know that.

If they intend to do something on The Flash regarding time travel/alt realities this season, an Alt!Sara could pop up there first if they didn't want to put her back in the Arrow world. I don't think this is such a stretch for Arrow. They talked about that particle accelerator A LOT in season 2. So, they set the stage to explain Barry, but it can then be used to explain a lot of other things, too. It all just falls under theoretical physics at the end of the day. And while they might get into more explanation on The Flash, I could easily see it being a quick ramble from Felicity or one of the Team Flash members to explain it on Arrow. I like the Team 7 idea. Sadly, the people in this forum will probably come up with better ideas than what we end up getting on the screen.

Yes! Adam Baldwin. Man, I can't see him the same way anymore. Tom Cruise is another one. It's hard for me to watch his movies because I don't see his character anymore. I see the guy who jumps on couches and recruits for the Scientologists. Sometimes the less I know about actors and their personal lives, the better.

Me too. I also find that following the actors too closely can sometimes be detrimental to my enjoyment of their characters. Sometimes I find out things about them I don't like (like that guy from Firefly - gah I can't remember his name right now.)

I'm mostly interested in this because of Garber, Miller and Lotz. No offense to Robbie Amell, but he is bland city. Routh isn't my fave or anything, but he's loads better than RA. I don't wish for him on any show I'm watching to be honest. The CW's casting choices are a factor in why I don't watch most of their shows. Pretty cardboard cutouts in many cases. I think the alt reality/different Sara could be interesting - more interesting than Lazarusing her back from the dead. It would create drama for crossovers without making 'death' completely meaningless on the show. But I agree with @apinknightmare too - alternate realities and timelines could end up being a giant mess if they don't do a better job with writing than what we've seen on Arrow this season. Also, it doesn't matter if they call her Canary or something else. If they bring Sara Lance back, Laurel will never be able to dig out from under those comparisons. Even if they made Caity another character (doubtful if this is the same universe) the comparisons would probably still be made. Honestly, even with Sara dead she's suffering from the comparisons. I don't really expect that part to change. And unfortunately I think Arrow is stuck with Laurel. I don't see her ever being popular enough to move to a new show. The thing is, a move might be better for her because she'd be more likely to get her own story. Revolving her around Oliver has done little for her except bring fan resentment since a lot of KC's fans don't like it anymore than the Team Arrow fans do.

Yes, I think her having deep feelings for anyone and being involved with anyone might be something Ra's would consider unsuitable for his heir, so that makes more sense to me and is more in line with what I took away from the episode. Choosing Oliver is still stupid since I have to believe there are better candidates who have dedicated themselves to the League.

Is MG serious? I have not read the Arrow 2.5 comics, and quite frankly, I have no intention of doing so because I don't have time. It is completely ridiculous that a fan asks for clarification on something within the TV show and he suggests they go read a comic book. I really hope someone tells him that, too. The second I have to start watching three or four shows and read a bunch of books to understand what's going on in ONE TV SHOW, I will be done. That is not how television shows work, and they are playing a dangerous game if they think they can sustain story in this way. And with that, I think I'm done for the season. I'll still follow Paleyfest and maybe the news of the spinoff (I'm betting money Routh will be there now, and suddenly SA's non-attendance makes more sense.) I'll either read episode recaps or binge before SDCC so I can decide whether I want to give it another shot after such a crap season.

I definitely agree that they have tone, continuity and characterization issues from episode to episode, but I think having more women in the writer's room (or at least better ones than the two I'm familiar with) could improve the female perspective of the characters. Things are brought up by female fans all the time that it seems like the writers never considered - for instance, Oliver sleeping with every woman he wasn't related to. Amell himself admitted that was something he took to the EPs after female fans said they were bothered by it. That being said, it's true that having women on the writing team doesn't guarantee anything since seeing Mericle's name on a script makes me groan before I've even seen the episode. Right now I'm leaning towards believing that Ra's wants to replace Nyssa because she's too emotional and not objective enough about Sara's murder. She's clearly in it for vengeance. I really hope they don't even hint at it being due to her personal relationship with Sara. I don't believe these writers would handle a sensitive topic like that very well since they're all about treating their plots and themes like Laurel treats that stick this season - wildly swinging and smacking us on the head in situations where a subtle approach would have more impact.

Wait, did Berlanti say Nyssa being a lesbian is the reason Ra's disinherited her? I definitely caught the implication in the episode, but I also thought maybe it had to do with Nyssa being emotionally rash or because her objectivity was compromised with regard to Sara's death. Or some combination of all of it. It was definitely a stupid narrative decision IMO. Frankly, Nyssa should be able to wipe the floor with Oliver, so I really don't buy that he can beat her anyway - except, you know, the show is called Batman - oops, sorry. Arrow. Haha, Wendy Mericle strikes again, huh? Is it just me, or does it seem like she's suddenly writing more episodes? Schwartz and Mericle are the only two women I'm aware of writing for the show, and they're both terrible. I still think they need more than two women, anyway. I ventured into a couple of comment threads for comic book articles on the show, and I'm actually seeing a lot of comic readers complaining about this season. Many of them do think this Ra's plot is silly and contrived. And lol, he did look like he was lounging in a designer bathtub right? He's just not scary - when he talked about how many years it had been since someone challenged him, I was reminded of the "It's been 84 years" scene with the little old lady from Titanic lol. I wish someone would do a gif of that comparison, actually. Not impressed. I'm not as familiar with Atom from comics, but their reinterpretation isn't really doing it for me. Poor Routh - he just can't catch a break. At this point, I'm trying to find something to like about Ray for his sake because the fandom has been brutal wrt to the Palmer plot. I don't know - unless the ratings tank, I just don't think the EPs care that much about Arrow anymore. And if they don't care, why should I? I mean, as much as I don't like Laurel, I think her story might have gone better this season if they had spent more time developing her hero arc. They could have brought in a Wildcat character who stuck around more if they hadn't blown their budget on Barrowman and Routh. The fact that they have been pushing the Ray story so hard implies they always knew the Laurel as BC arc wasn't going to take off, so they just shoved it in and said "Whatever." Black Canary should have trended last week since Quentin called her that, but from what I understand, it didn't. With so many show trends going on during live viewing, that says something IMO. On a funny note, I was doing laundry and exercising when I watched Arrow this week, and I totally missed that scene where Laurel asked Oliver how he could lie right to her face. Lolol - really? She can ask that question after lying to Quentin for half a season and impersonating her dead sister more than once in order to reinforce the lie? *sigh*

Wow - MG's Tumblr responses are making me lean towards not watching the rest of the season. They certainly don't inspire any confidence that the half-assed storytelling will improve. TPTB must think having an online presence is good publicity for the show since they asked the EPs to get involved, but I don't think this is what they had in mind. He's not even bothering to put up a pretense at being respectful to fan concerns. Now, I might understand a snarky response to someone being aggressively hostile, but he's being a jerk to pretty much everyone. There have been legitimate questions asked about the writing and narrative decisions, and he's dismissive at best and just an asshat at worst. And it's not like it's just shippers asking these questions since we've all seen plenty of TV reviewers/critics voicing the same concerns. What is the point of having a social media presence if you're going to use it in this manner? And now SA won't even be at Paley. I'm half expecting that panel to be Flash-focused, to be honest.

I honestly don't understand why SA wouldn't be contractually obligated to attend something like Paley. With all due respect to honoring commitments to his public appearances, holding a panel without your biggest star seems foolish. I know someone mentioned it would be a joint panel with The Flash. Maybe everyone thinks it's okay because of that?

Haha - I might take you up on that. I don't think they're dumb enough to kill off Diggle, but then again, who knows. I do know if Diggle dies at any point, I will burn the Internet down. He is, like, at least fifty percent of the reason I'm still watching, and he and Moira were the two characters that kept me watching in season one. I honestly thought about dropping the show after the first two or three episodes.

Overall it was a better episode I guess, but there are so many narrative issues at this point that I don’t think the season is going to be able to recover. I’ll start with the positives. It was nice to see Diggle get a chance to step up in this episode. I genuinely enjoy seeing Oliver and Diggle together, and no amount of Oliver + The Poor Man’s Justice League can make up for Oliver/Diggle time. The show really needs to stick with what worked instead of reworking things that didn’t need to be fixed in the first place. The EP’s obsession with new heroes and spinoffs is ruining the dynamic that made the show good, and a huge part of that was the way Digg and Oliver teamed up back in the early days. I loved their talks and the way Oliver could swallow his pride and learn something from Diggle every once in a while. That was what we saw here, and it was awesome. I like that Thea keeps stepping up to take responsibility for her failures. She has had the most believable character growth this season IMO. She hated being lied to, and she seems to be trying to dispense with all the lies in her world, even when she’s afraid she might suffer in the process. She’s had solid emotional growth this season, and solid growth in her own journey, whether that ends up being part of a ‘hero’ journey or not. I’m kind of happy that Felicity is not pining over Oliver because I absolutely hate pining. It irritates me ninety percent of the time because most shows can’t pull it off. It’s been a super irritating thing on The Flash, and I dreaded seeing it in play on this show. I don’t even hate the fact that she’s trying to move on/date/whatever with whomever. I didn’t even mind Ray that much in this episode. That being said, I don’t care about Ray and Felicity because this is all too rushed to be believable, and too many emotional beats were skipped along the way. They’ve been ping-ponging between Oliver/Felicity and Ray/Felicity, and I’m just tired of all of it. I also don’t get the feeling that this was all for Felicity’s benefit as a character, which makes it much harder to buy into. This was about selling a new character and about putting the brakes on Felicity and Oliver, which they sped into too fast this season IMO anyway. So, while I still think it’s just a manufactured roadblock for Felicity and Oliver, or she’s rebounding, or who even knows with these writers, the main problem is I don’t care too much about Oliver and Felicity any more either. If that was what the writers were going for, then good job. If not, then that’s a problem. If it were believable, I’d probably like them dating other people or not dating at all (as long as they don’t revisit Laurel and Oliver – I can’t with that cringe worthy train wreck.) All I know for sure is that the Arrow writers suck at romance. Really, really bad lol. They need more women in that writer’s room if they want to try to play with emotional/romantic drama. If they do intend to swing the pendulum back to Oliver and Felicity, I hope it’s not this season because the emotional beats on this show give me whiplash. Ray was kind of okay this episode, but haha – he’s literally the Arrow world’s Iron Man lol. The show doesn’t really do anything original. Oh well. At least I don’t actively dislike him, and he’s doing this for honorable reasons, so I’ll give him a chance. Or ignore him. Whatever. And now the bad. I’ll start with Laurel and get it out of the way. The fact that she called Malcolm “Stupid” made me laugh and laugh because she has been a one woman suicide mission for many episodes now. Laurel has redefined ‘stupid’ this season. In fact, someone should buy Roy an “I’m with Stupid” t-shirt for the times he’s unlucky enough to be paired with her in the field. How the hell did she think she’d be able to beat Malcolm Merlyn? How? But I’m forgetting the fact that Laurel doesn’t think – ever – about anything, apparently. She rushes in with little forethought or planning, and she’s only alive because other people have saved her or she’s gotten lucky. They put her in the costume, and she’s still the damn DiD. Smh. I’m against needless fridging of women, especially female heroes, but I think I’d probably do a victory dance around my apartment if Laurel bit it this season. The best part of seeing her in the Canary costume now is the anticipation of watching her get her ass kicked around the screen. That fight with Malcolm was just embarrassing. I hate this Black Canary arc so hard and the fact that they turned a comic character I love into this hot mess. Ugh. I also need for her to GTFO of the Arrow cave if she’s just going to barge in and argue with Oliver all the time. There are people I believe have earned the right to call him on his bullshit, but she’s not one of them. I would have backed her up on calling him on any amount of his bullshit from seasons 1 and 2, but she needs to butt out of the hero stuff because she has shown, repeatedly, that she lacks the ability to look at the big picture. Also, she can invoke Sara's name all she wants, but I don't believe that Sara would want her death 'avenged' if it meant that people she cared about, like Thea, were hurt in the process. Just saying - the fact that Laurel can't see this means she didn't know Sara very well at all. This is why her 'vengeance path' rings so hollow. But if there is one thing I hate more than anything, it is the entire plot of season 3. None of it makes any sense at all. Malcolm drugged Thea into killing Sara, which guaranteed that Ra’s would be all up in their business. It only makes sense if he believed Oliver could beat Ra’s, but that’s clearly absurd since Malcolm can beat Oliver. They needed that Oliver/Ra’s duel to be a repeat of Season 1 so that Oliver could make a comeback or something? They’ve recycled so many of their own plots this season that I’m losing track. The main thing is that they needed Oliver out of the way so the new heroes could step up because they thought Oliver was dead. But the new heroes just let the city be taken over by a petty crook and still needed Oliver back for the big battle, so what exactly did they accomplish while he was gone? But I digress – back to the Ra’s plot. This was all building to another confrontation with Ra’s, and what happened? Ra’s told Oliver he wanted him to be the next Ra’s al Ghul. But… why? Oliver didn’t last long in that fight, and he should really be dead. Dead, dead, dead. He got stabbed and fell off a cliff but was cured with stitches and penicillin tea. It was complete nonsense even for the comic book world. So why the hell would Ra’s want Oliver to be his heir? Oh, that’s right – because he wanted Batman to take over for him in comics, and Oliver is Batman in this universe. Right. The entire season is basically “Because comics” – it makes no other sense than that. They’ve pretty much lost me this season. I can’t decide if I want to stop watching now or stop after the next episode to make sure Diggle gets back to his baby. I suppose the Thea/Nyssa confrontation might be interesting. I think we have a couple of weeks before the next new episode, right? I guess I’ll watch if I can remember it’s back on then. If not, I’ll probably just binge it this summer so I can decide if it’s worth watching next season.

What I don't understand is why Thea makes a decision to actively learn to protect herself after being kidnapped a couple of times, but Laurel, who was tranqed and kidnapped more than Thea, didn't start learning ANYTHING until a few episodes into the season. How does this make any sense? Why couldn't Laurel have started boxing or whatever during the hiatus? Because they wanted a meet-cute with Grant? I would love to hear what goes on in the writers room re:Laurel because I've never seen such a string of silly decisions made about a character on any other show I watch. Thea is more believable (even with the shortened time frame training all characters but Oliver get) simply because she trained full time with someone I believe is a damn good fighter, she's still needed help in her fights, she's not out LOOKING for fights since she did this for rational, self-defense reasons, and they haven't rushed her into a costume. I honestly don't understand how they expect this Black Canary arc to look good in comparison to literally every other hero journey, including the Atom, who just arrived 14 episodes ago. They could have stretched it out over the whole season, but no. Why do they make her fail? It's like they're doing it on purpose, but I know they aren't. And yes, I know they're relying on the comic folks to say "But Ted Grant" but I still call BS because this Ted Grant was not Wildcat. This was the worst, WORST iteration of an iconic comic character (besides the current version of BC) I've ever seen. I still get mad about how they chose to misuse Grant here. Epic fail all around. Just the worst. :(

I watch it all, including parts with Laurel, because I'm trying to follow the entire narrative. If it gets to a point where I'm fast forwarding through parts, I'll probably quit watching because I don't have time to watch shows that upset me to that degree. Arrow has already gone from something to which I gave my full attention to a show I watch when I'm cooking dinner or exercising on the treadmill or elliptical. I'm spoiler free at least, so that helps me hope something better is coming. But if I don't start seeing the focus back on Oliver in the next episode or two, I'm going to stop watching. I'll save the remainder of the season for just before SDCC like I did last year and hope that by watching them all together, I won't have time to get angry enough to quit altogether.

I don't think it really will work as the Oliver and Laurel show when they've so clearly abandoned the romantic storyline. Laurel needs her own people to interact with, for one thing. Ted Grant has been a fail this season because they've barely used him. This is where I think keeping Tommy around might have helped her. Sure, they could have made his death work better for her, but his presence would still have been better IMO. I honestly can't imagine what they were thinking, ending S1 on such an unlikeable note for her and then giving her no one to talk to but Quentin in S2 as they proceeded to make her even more annoying. This season they have to force unearned bonding with people she never gave the time of day to before now in order to give her a support system. Honestly, if Laurel was so damn important to the story and KC was really the female lead, she should have her own support system rather than having to hijack Oliver's. I guess part of that is the EPs never seem to realize just how badly they write for her, but I don't see how isolating her was supposed to help her origin story. It wasn't a crucible; it was bad planning because they got distracted by Sara's origin story. Also, the show has never been big enough for two leads - not when we've got two origin stories going on with Oliver. And clearly they were being literal when they said this season was rewarding WH and KC by giving them more focus. Maybe the season would be working at least a tiny bit better if they weren't also trying to shove Ray into the mix? It wouldn't make Laurel's bullshit 3 episode hero journey any better, but maybe the season would be a little more more cohesive.

I really think in S1 and 2 that they made a plan for the overall direction and for Oliver and then tried to make it work for Laurel, and there is a huge difference between trying to make a plan work for a character and making a plan FOR that character. Her storyline should never have revolved around romance if they ever intended her to reach this point. After all the fuss over those damn files at CNRI, I expected Laurel to be going in a different direction in season 2. I agree that Tommy's death could have worked there, but again they made it more about Oliver's story than Laurel's. These recent episodes are a mess because they're finally giving focus and direction to Laurel (and to everyone else) but it's too fast to be a good origin story and they've kind of shoved Oliver out of the picture to do it. It almost feels like a reverse S1 and S2 - they made a plan for Laurel and Ray and Thea and Malcolm, and they're trying to make that work for Oliver. I really feel like his journey has been lost this season, and that's a problem because the show is called Arrow - not Black Canary or Atom or the Justice League. I don't think the show is big enough for everyone they're now trying to shove into the spotlight.

^^ This. This show was not designed as an ensemble and their attempts to make it into the TV JLA and a launching pad for spinoffs has done terrible things to their narrative. A show called Arrow should be primarily about the Arrow, not about all of the sidekicks and newcomers. We're more than halfway through the season and it still sucks. I think s3 will end up being a write off and one I never watch again.

At the time I assumed that Tommy's death was just more angst for the L/O star crossed blech, but looking back I'm not so sure they weren't already considering abandoning that 'ship. I think the main problem is that they didn't consider what was best for Laurel's story in season 2. Yes, Tommy's death provided an emotional kick for her, but it was weighed down by the fact that she ran back to Oliver hours before he died, so how much could she have really loved him anyway? It would have been better for her to have Tommy there, even if they were at odds, because it would have been another person (besides Quentin) for her to interact with, and it probably would have kept her somewhat connected to the main plot since Tommy knew Oliver's secret. Instead they left her twisting in the wind for most of season 2. Even bringing back Sara was a way for the producers to have their Insta-Canary more than it was about what was best for Laurel's journey IMO. If it had been about Laurel, I don't think they would have inserted Oliver into the sisters' story all season. I think keeping Malcolm and killing Tommy had a lot more to do with what they thought was best for Oliver's story in the long run, and I think Sara happened because they thought it would be cool and also add interest to Oliver's story. So, they waffled around trying to figure out what to do with Laurel in the mean time, but at no point do I think they considered killing her because she's Dinah Laurel Lance. I think they were just trying to shift gears because L/O crashed and burned as a 'ship (you know it's bad when more people are shipping brother and sister than the planned OTP) and lost Laurel's path along the way. It would probably be interesting if they killed off Malcolm and brought Tommy back at this point. I've been against that idea in the past, but the show is way off any sense of reality and real world consequences at this point, so they might as well.I should add that this is why KC was only the female lead on paper for two seasons. They just didn't have time to tell Laurel's origin story between Oliver's FB and his present day problems. They threw a lot of stuff out into the story ether, but none of it was really telling a cohesive origin story for her. This season that's suddenly changing and most critics agree it's a train wreck because it's too much at once.

Laurel and Tommy both seemed like a retcon of their pilot personas tbh. The only ones who seemed consistent from s1 were Thea and Quentin, and Diggle and Felicity I guess, though there wasn't much to judge from their brief appearances.

Maybe, but I'd put money on that dialogue being all MG lol. Maybe Arrow could switch networks and resurrect NBC's now defunct Thursday night comedy block?

Contractual obligation never entered into it for me - silly when Diggle was also there with Andy and we didn't see Roy. Plus, there was a lot of Tommy that was also not strictly necessary except that it provided Laurel/Tommy time. It just seemed like they wanted to give specific character moments to the fans.