Carrie Ann

Exactly. On a smaller scale, the same is true for Oliver's calling a meeting with DD when Thea was on her deathbed. Nothing was ever going to come of it, so the writers didn't feel it necessary to follow their own thought through for character motivation purposes. I mean, when it comes to William, I guess I would believe that Oliver hoped that eventually Samantha would come around, and then he could tell Felicity without having to break his promise. But the second part--the part where he's finally allowed to tell her and they're already married--is where it falls apart. Even dumb ol' Oliver wouldn't believe that she would just be okay with him having kept this from her for however long--in fact, I'd say it's more in character for him to fear that she would break up with him. So it's illogical that he wouldn't consider that far ahead, and no matter what Thea said to him, it should not have resolved that issue for him. Now that they've muddied the waters with the whole, "oh also, it's not safe for William because you're the Green Arrow!" piece, I guess maybe he thought he'd just put off telling William or publicly being a father to him until...uh, whenever he stops being GA? But yeah, again, the writers just didn't bother having Oliver verbalize these thoughts because they didn't care to play out the string of a direction they would never have taken, because the logic of the character motivation breaks down as soon as you even start thinking about it, and that's inconvenient for this storyline.

I have a hard time skipping episodes of shows, or recommending that to others, but The X Files is a great exception. Because so much of it is procedural one-off episodes, and the character/relationship development happens at a glacial pace, it's absolutely unnecessary to watch the bad episodes. And I'd forgotten how bad those were until my husband watched the series for the first time this year and I had to watch some of them by osmosis. Truly terrible stuff.

This is my greatest hope--indeed, my only hope remaining for this trash episode. We know the episode is going to end with a big monologue from Oliver, and I want that monologue to be the text of a letter he writes to William, for him to read one day when he's older, when he has a brand new name and a new home, deep within Witness Protection. Clearly I wouldn't care about the words in the monologue in that case, but if it means that storyline is over forever, I will take it.

The writers don't care about that though, so I wouldn't use it as a point against QL in the grave, personally.

I fully agree with this, but I do worry that at some point in the resolution of this storyline, the writers will make this false equivalence a factor. They did it to poor Iris in S1, and that imbalance was even worse than this one. I do think some secrets or lies are understandable--and sometimes even preferable--to the truth in superhero/vigilante stories. When it came to Quentin's lie, I would have been fine with him just telling Donna that he knew he was being targeted by a crime organization because of his real, actual job as police captain. He never had to get into his side dealings with HIVE, as far as I'm concerned, and it would have still been okay because it would have been truth-y enough for the time being. It gives Donna the information she needs--that he is a target of the same organization that hurt Felicity--so she can choose to continue her association with Quentin or not, with that understanding. JMO. But Oliver's lie falls into the regular old real-life bucket, and no one is protected by it and in fact, the party in question is less safe. I know that, you know that, most of the rational Arrow-watching world knows that, even the writers (except maybe MG) know that. But that doesn't stop them from drawing these weak-ass comparisons in order to pretend there's some balance to the scales, so I do worry about how the BS spewed in this ep will be revisited upon us later in the season.

I'm so sad about all that stuff on The 100, wonderwall. I have no answers for you except to say that they seem to have come up with their objectives for the season--some big conflicts they wanted to create--and then wrote backwards from those. Which is kind of the opposite of what I loved about the show, and I'm so disappointed. It also looks like they're shoving Raven off to C-story land. Again. Some more. So that's two of my favorite characters they're fucking up, not counting Clarke who I think is getting too close too soon to Lexa again, and it feels OOC to me. Sigh. Oh well, we had two great seasons! Maybe they'll turn it around by the end, learn their lessons, and come back with a better S4. Sounds...familiar.

It's where he keeps all of his secrets!

It looks like DC's "Rebirth" plans have been officially announced, and the above appears to be true. No solo BC comic, but a new BoP, and a Green Arrow Rebirth. Lots more detail here.

I see

It's a phrase sometimes used in police funerals, as part of a last call to the officer.

If it's Lance, I'm calling End of Watch.

Yeah, 408 aired Dec 2, and 414 began prep for shooting on Dec 4 (actual shooting started a week or so later), so I am positive that some revisions were done to the script to hammer home how wonderful lying is when it's done to protect someone.

I mean, if you think about it, nothing could make more sense on Arrow than throwing a party to celebrate your larger, more important party yet to come.

I think that's a nice headcanon that absolves the writers of their problems with basic math and keeping track of their characters' ages, and how they should increase by exactly 1 year every season! :)

It's Quentin who dies, which explains Donna's presence. Does that help? :) But really, I still think that's what's happening.

WM and MG were in Vancouver two weekends ago (1/30ish?), I believe, and Stephen's tweet about the script was on Wednesday, Feb 3, after their trip.

I think there's a misunderstanding here when it comes to this Final Destination theory. It doesn't have to apply to LoT or The Flash because this time change didn't happen on their shows. The crossovers are canon for all shows, yes, but those shows don't have a flash-forward grave hanging over them to add fun "tension" to the season. Maybe AK was referring to TF and LoT too, but as he was talking about Arrow in his quote, we're only talking about Final Destination here as it applies to Arrow. So, the concept is that on Arrow, the team members who were present and died in the first timeline will face near-death experiences as ~Time~ tries to correct for the interference, but presumably all will survive except for whoever is in the grave (who may not have even been present in CC because they could just be collateral damage) (ahem, Quentin). Will that happen to the team members from TF and LoT who appeared on the crossover? It could, but doesn't necessarily have to, in order for it to still be accurate w/r/t Arrow. BTW, no one is stating this as fact, since we're just inferring from what an EP said. It's just a fun thing that does seem to be playing out so far. (As an aside: I do think it's likely that all of Central City will come close to destruction this season, because that's what happens on these shows, so that would fulfill that side of things if AK/TF writers feel it necessary to do that.)

Ep 18 is a lot earlier than I expected the death, but after Stephen's tweet about reading the script at 4:30 in the morning and not being able to go back to sleep afterward, and his FB response that it was a "No way" moment that he did not enjoy at all, I couldn't think of what else could cause that kind of reaction.

God, yes, exactly. Let's not encourage Thea's burgeoning relationship with an abusive manipulator who ruined her life. And I bet DD's daughter loves him too. Doesn't mean he shouldn't die. Again, Oliver is probably not the person who should have to kill Malcolm. But there's a difference between Oliver being the one to do the deed and letting it happen, and he really needs to do the latter, the next time the opportunity should arise.

Cute round-up on The AV Club where their writers discuss one couple they ship, and one guy picked Oliver/Felicity: Shhhhh, no one tell him about the flash-forward. His tweet about it was pretty cute too:

When it comes to the Donna spec, just remember the EPs' set visit. Of course that could have happened for some other reason than to inform the actor that their character was being written off, but the timing is pretty suspect. I think a lot of people are just struggling to imagine the show killing off a regular, so they're turning to the next-closest thing, which is Donna, Curtis, or Roy (or Samantha/William. I guess) as targets of speculation, when I really don't think those characters line up with what the EPs have said about the death, or the level of build-up we're seeing this season.

Someone on this show needs to step up and be the Buffy S4* Finale Giles here when it comes to Malcolm, killing him because they know another person can't. I nominate Dig, but would accept any and everyone as suggestions. And yes, when Oliver went to NP to save Malcolm last season, it almost made sense because he didn't want Thea to have to live with having sent her father to his death. But now that reasoning has been weakened down to just, "...but they share blood!" and that is not good enough. ETA: *S5, I mean! Slip of the finger--thanks @arjumand.

If Iron Heights can hold metahumans, it can hold Malcolm Merlyn, FFS. Get it together, Flarrow writers.

Maybe Tatsu was willing to part with the Lotus because Nyssa told her of certain changes that would be made to the League if she were to become Ra's? And dissolving it is even better, I would imagine, in Tatsu's eyes.

This whole post was perfect, but these two larger points especially. This looming BMD storyline is already a failure because the internal logic has fallen apart. It was shaky to begin with, that Oliver would agree to keep this secret when it makes no sense, etc. But now, Oliver is keeping the secret because the plot needs him to do that for a little while longer, but there's no other reason to keep it and every reason not to. At the very least in this episode, he needed to immediately reach out to Samantha to be like, "Uh, perhaps you heard I got engaged? And that my fiancee was then shot multiple times and is now paralyzed? Well, guess what, you and William are the next targets." And then he should say, "Look, the only person who can really help us here is Felicity. I'm telling her now, because that's in William's best interest and it's not up for discussion, bye." Again, the only reason he's not doing this is because the plot needs him to be very dumb a little longer. And yes, the fact is that the show has done this to itself--they have unnecessarily contrived and complicated and delayed this to the point that it's making Oliver look stupid and myopic and delusional in brand new ways every week. Unfortunately, one of those ways is that it's making him look like he hasn't considered how Felicity could help here, and like it's more important to him to keep these things compartmentalized than it is to actually keep William safe. I had the exact same question about MM not telling DD that Oliver is the GA. No clue, honestly. And that second point is extremely irritating to me. I LOVE found-family stories, and that's what drew me to Arrow in S1. I basically hated the way everyone who knew "Ollie" treated Oliver when he came back, so none of those relationships were appealing to me. I stayed for Diggle, and then for Felicity. And I don't deny that this has been an element of the show from the start--Tommy's relationship with Malcolm, for example--but it really feels like the show/MG are in support of the idea that Blood Counts Most. And that's really freaking weird, and not all that interesting to me. Particularly when the parties share no history, like Thea and Malcolm or Oliver and William, and even Felicity and Noah to some extent. Don't ask me to care about relationships that have no basis or depth aside from a sperm donation, and don't make your characters place a higher value on those relationships than the ones I've actually seen develop, okay, thanks. Here's my headcanon, since the show doesn't feel like explaining: I think she's living in Starling--let's say in a long-term residence hotel situation, or maybe Felicity found her some sort of other rental setup--at least since Felicity's injury, but perhaps since before that for some reason? So she's either quit her job, or is on extended leave. I buy that she would do this because of Felicity's paralysis, and it just makes the most sense for why she just pops up with no warning or fanfare. Honestly, the LoA Advance Team has a great future in conventions and expos! They show up to these cities, find a proper venue, set up all their weird torches and fire bowls, smelting gear, weapons and giant weapons chests. Everything a group of assassins could need. Hope Nyssa thought to cancel their FedEx account! She was so fantastic in that scene. I've been quite happy with Donna providing a little bit of spice and didn't want them to overdo it with her, but CR is capable of so much more, and if the writing provided for it (next season, since clearly they can't do it justice this season--they couldn't even give it room to breathe for two episodes, sooooo), I would be glad to see her more often, as a more balanced presence on the show.