Carrie Ann

I think...if you don't like Daredevil by Ep 3, you might just not like it. I loved it, but preferred the first half of the season to the second half. But I've also heard people say that the second half feels more comic-book-like, so maybe that would end up being more up your alley. Based on the other shows you've loved, I have a couple suggestions. First, Orphan Black. It's on Amazon Prime streaming, and the 3rd season just started on BBCAmerica a couple weeks back. It's a ton of fun. Second, Fringe, if you've never watched that. The first season is more procedural (which isn't my favorite thing) but after that, gets more serialized and more engaging. Third, The 100, which I wish everyone in the world would watch. That one takes three or four episodes to really click into place (the first two eps...sort of feel like a different show), but when it gets going, it never quits. ETA: Ha, cross-posted with Sakura, but clearly we're on the same page!

First--to clear up the cure/aging stuff: a CURED vampire will ONLY rapidly age if another vampire drinks from them. And then they will progress to their real age--but probably die before they get there, if they're older than, y'know, 90. So Elena would age like an additional year if Damon drank from her, but Damon would age to the point of death. BUT ONLY if someone drank from him. I enjoyed that episode a lot more than the last run. I think I really needed a break from Caroline, tbh. And I love her. But with the grieving period (which CA nailed, no shade to her) and then the AWFUL no-humanity Caroline stuff, it's just been a slog with her recently. And Stefan too, since that's been his whole storyline this season. So I enjoyed his snarky 'tude this episode, but I agree that the mom stuff didn't really work for me. I believe it from PW, but I feel nothing for or from Lily (which is intended, I guess?) so I just can't bring myself to care much. I just want her dead. Human Elena in two scenes is already a thousand times better than vampire Elena in two seasons. I don't care that she still loves Damon or loves him more or whatever--she did love him before she vamped out, so that's never been my issue with them. My issue was that I don't think Human Elena would have stood for the shit Damon pulled in S5 particularly. But he's better this season, and if he were to continue that, and especially if he were human again, I'd believe they could be together. And I HATE Delena. I'm just saying that I buy all of this, and I'm okay with this direction being the ending for Elena. Bonnie Bennett killed it in this episode. You stand firm, Bonbon. This Bamon phone call sounded adorable. Ummmm...has Kai been hitting the gym in 1903? Because he looked a little buffer than when last we saw him. Missed you, Kai! Come back soon!

I would just assume that they won't satisfyingly resolve it, and it won't hit the emotional beats, and it won't feel worthwhile. I say this based on...every other big game-changer that's happened so far this season. Particularly Oliver's death, which suffered from the same problems--it happened too fast, the team accepted it too easily, and the emotional payoff never came through. The Sara-murder plot had the opposite problem--it dragged on WAY too long, made everyone involved seem stupider, and the emotional beats were hit over and over to the point of exhaustion. There's basically no way this LOA thing is going to feel satisfying. Same to both. Oliver stabbed that dude through the shoulder. And maybe he is dead, who knows, but there was never a chance--faking or no--that Oliver was going to get through this without killing someone. When he agreed to go through this, his goal of not killing was going to have to be compromised, period. And I don't think he looked even close to killing Dig in the big fight scene. I think he would have kept giving him chances to get away. With Nyssa...I agree that he may have seen that as a part of the price he had to pay, and he would have hated himself, but he would have done it. And I honestly don't think there's anything more coming that's specifically directed toward Diggle. I could be wrong of course, but based on how people involved with the show tend to oversell almost everything, I'd say that what's happened so far is enough for Dig to feel betrayed. No matter the motive, Oliver risked Lyla's life and even put little Sara in some danger by leaving her alone. And, if he is faking, then he also lied to Dig. Frankly, that level of betrayal is more interesting to me than something huge, because I think that normal human beings would have a human reaction to that, and I liked this show better when the characters acted like humans sometimes. The last time Dig got seriously mad at Oliver was when Oliver chose to go after a hitman who'd just killed a kid's parents (and then tried to kill the kid, Laurel, and everyone else in the vicinity), instead of going after Deadshot with Dig and ARGUS. I mean, you can see Oliver's reasons there too, but that didn't make it okay for Dig. I actually think BR looks pretty hot there, though I agree the outfit is silly-looking.

I think where I finally come down (um, tonight) is that Oliver is faking but that the drugs do have some effect on him, so he's not in 100% control at all times. He didn't tell anyone what he saw in that hallucination, so from a storytelling perspective, that was Oliver's vision. But like others have said, what he saw was his conscience (represented by Dig, which I LOVE so much) telling him that the LOA was lying to him, that he promised he would always remind Oliver of who he was if he ever forgot, and then the next thing Oliver says to his conscience is "Fight." (And then, okay, he stabs it, with a sword but WHATEVER.) So all that in addition to the fact TA and Nyssa did not get seriously hurt, the fact that he didn't make Maseo search Felicity when he knows the kinds of things she's capable of, and other things mentioned above make me think he's faking. And yes, that is definitely preferable to me from a character perspective to him actually being brainwashed. Now I just wish that TA wouldn't have been so quick to believe that Oliver is so weak-willed.

It looked to me like Bonnie was living at the Whitmore dorms again, with Caroline and Elena, maybe? There was an episode where Damon visited her and she was doing something in front of a fireplace. I think that was the Whitmore dorms, or at any rate I have no idea where else it would be. Matt works at the Grill, and he and Tyler are apparently in the police academy or something like that. But otherwise...all the others either have inherited money or are in school or just compel people to get what they want. And binge-watching is definitely the way to go. Like Jads said, the first three seasons are really stellar, and the next two may not feel so awful if you watch it all quickly, and this season was really good for awhile there but is settling back into something...not great.

I've thought about that ARGUS thing too--particularly with the whole "when I decided to return to Starling" thing. I mean, at some point, he made a decision, but who made that possible? But he was explicitly working against Amanda in the finale (and maybe other times I've forgotten?), so if he still is affiliated, I'd guess it's a more informal deal.

I actually did count at one point post-hiatus, and it was two episodes, including the one in which she only appeared for five seconds. That number may have gone all the way up to three since then, but there are already tears in the promo for next week, and no way we're getting away without them in the finale. So three total episodes this season in which Felicity did not at least get teary-eyed. It is absurd, and it's a barometer of how unrelentingly melodramatic this show has become this season.

I'm hoping one of the other promos (Canada, Asia, NZ) spoils it like they usually do, because I too could do without another seven days of Who's the Bride.

Also that it's happening in a season--in a series--littered with textbook examples of misogyny. Sorry, I ran out of benefit of the doubt around when they threw Sara at a dumpster and then into a literal fridge.

Katana! Yay a thing to be excited about.

Right--Felicity said "Oliver" first to Thea, and then corrected to "Ollie" to try to get through to her about living her life because it's what he wanted for her. It was sort of hard to concentrate on the actual events of the episode because I was full of dread the whole time. Basically all worst-case scenarios went down, so that was not great, but at the same time, I did think there were a number of really good scenes and moments. Oliver was...yikes, and it was really hard to watch him like that with his loved ones. All this Ra's marriage/ruin your hometown stuff is absolutely insane soap opera shit. I don't want to hear another peep about how O/F are the soap opera here--they can't hold a candle to the soapiness of the comic book elements. Speaking of that, why didn't Laurel have her Canary Cry at the fight with the LOA? Seems like it would have been useful?

Yeah, MG says they've already blown up the show (eps 18-20), so I take that to mean: Roy is gone, and he kinda took the Arrow persona with him, and Oliver has joined the LOA. So from here, I think the only turn is him thinking he can't be the Arrow anymore, and accepting that he can be Oliver Queen. There's Stephen's thing about how the craziest thing ever (or something to that effect) will be the trailer for S4, so that says to me that there will either be some brand new direction (TA working for an international agency, not based out of Starling for awhile, for example), or the "kinda" cliffhanger will be that we don't know what anyone is going to do next. So the finale ends with Oliver being himself again but not knowing what the next step is for him, and the team is at loose ends. Dig still recovering (physically or emotionally) from whatever Oliver does to him, Laurel still training with Nyssa maybe or taking over vigilante duties on her own, Thea spending the summer with Roy and Mama Smoak, and Oliver and Felicity driving off in to the goddamn sunset JUST let me have this please.

Okay, all this stuff is making me pretty depressed, so I'm going to focus on a few things: 1) That this is supposed to feel like the culmination of three seasons of a story. 2) That Oliver could smile more in Season 4. I don't think these writers are trying to write a story with defeat as the outcome. For all the grimdarkness of the show, they're pretty cheesy at heart. I just really don't think we're ending the season in a depressing place, and for that to be true, either Oliver needs to come around with a quickness in the finale (or in the closing minutes of 322), or he's faking this brainwashing thing to a certain extent. The latter is more satisfying and a better story to tell, but I would also accept him coming back to himself because his humanity couldn't be extinguished. It doesn't mean that Oliver won't do some horrible things because he's backed into a corner, but it means that the growth he's achieved over the past seasons isn't so easily undone.

I swear to God the tiny fraction of me that hasn't completely given up on Laurel as a character yet would Nope out so fast if they went there. Can't they leave anything that was a part of Sara's life alone? And how would that work out once Sara is alive again?

Last year, I could not wait to watch the last episodes, but I was also sad after each because we were one week closer to the end of the season. Now I can't wait for each episode because it brings us closer to the end of this season. When it's over, I'm gonna need to burn some sage around my Tivo and hope MG, GB, and WM take some time to review where things went right in the first two seasons and where they went wrong in this one and make some adjustments. And again, the wedding thing confuses me because of Oliver's appearance in CC in 122. They had time to plan for the adjusted airing dates of these episodes, so it should take place between 322 and 323. If he is marrying Nyssa, I would have assumed that would happen in NP, upon his return with her. But I'm gonna guess Ra's will just show up in SC again, maybe when Oliver fails to kill her or bring her back, and the whole wedding shit will go down there? Someone remind me if we've seen pics of Nyssa in NP from the next few episodes?

It's also possible that he is under orders to do something about Reverse Flash; or that he is starting to have this breakthrough by end of 322, but is not fully out of the woods. Who knows? This whole brainwashing thing is ridiculous. And yep, signs are pointing to Oliver/Nyssa and UGH that is gross, and makes even less sense here where Ra's skipped right over his own biological child as heir and picked someone he found more fitting. No need for the new Ra's to have actual heirs.

I found this episode tedious and dull and I'm not really sure why. I guess maybe it just felt more like a place-setting episode, gearing up for the finale, than something that could stand on its own. But also, I don't feel particularly engaged by any of the relationships right now, and that is the strong point of The Originals for me so it just feels like treading water. This episode felt like it hinged on a few things: 1) belief or interest in Jackson/Hayley and their pack. No. 2) concern about the special love between Elijah/Hayley. No. 3) belief or interest in Cami/Klaus. HAHA NO. 4) interest in Freya/Dahlia's true motives. Ehhhhhh, not so much. 5) desire to see Round 6,193 in Klaus feels betrayed by his family and acts out. Seriously no. It's a bit of a bummer, because all the things I did love about this season--Kolvina (nuKol in general), Josh/Aiden, nuFinn, Gia/Elijah, Mikaelsons coming together to protect Hope and each other--seem to have fallen by the wayside in the last few eps. And now it just feels like a retread of emotional beats of last season and their time on TVD. I hope it picks up again by end of season, but I don't know that they have time to address the (boring) conflicts already in play and also get back into the stuff I care about on the show.

This is just Natalie Abrams's (probably inaccurate) interpretation, right? It sounds like the same things MG's been saying forever, but connecting it to Nyssa this way gave me pause.

I think everyone on the cast pretty much went to that lake house party except for Ian (obviously) and Paul, who I think was with family that weekend.

Actually, I thought a lot of Matt's clothes fit poorly too, or at least his overcoat did, and since he was wearing that a lot, it was noticeable. It looked a size too big, and I thought it actually might have been intentional. Just to have things not be too perfect on the show; to show that he and Foggy were struggling financially and couldn't afford to have things tailored or buy new clothes all the time.

This is what I was wondering about. Maybe there will be some other reason given as to why she isn't leaving the house during the day, but having a believable recovery time seems a little silly to me. Oh well, so do most things on the show these days I suppose.

That "Overwatch" thing was so awkward. They have never even attempted to give Felicity or Dig (or I guess, HQ in general) codenames, and it's strange to just bust that out in a comic. But I liked this issue, because it felt more like vintage Arrow, and I like Roy being a snarky little puppy, all excited to go to Lian Yu.

And the thing is that from a harmful trope perspective, "fixing" the problem by allowing the victimized characters to take out the people who hurt/killed them can't actually undo the damage--within the text or outside of it. The fact is that we've spent 20 episodes so far with a dead Sara, and an exploited Thea who was then also murdered. Allowing them to get their power back by enacting some sort of violence against their killers in the last moments of Episode 23 doesn't balance the scales. The message is still that this is what happens to women and LGBT people--this is the price you pay before you can be powerful. And I expect both Thea and Sara will continue to pay, undoing whatever damage has been done to their souls.* Where on the flipside, if you're a rich, white male, the price you pay to get even more power is measured in actual dollars; it's the woman you love who pays with her life. You buy the talent and the parts you need to build yourself a supersuit. Or, if you're evil, you make the choice to fly yourself to Nanda Parbat and get the training you require. Or you exploit others and build yourself an army. You, yourself, are not exploited or victimized. Oliver is clearly the exception, and it's getting exhausting to see him hurt in the past and present over and over. *(Also, the Evil Lesbian trope is like hand-in-hand with the Dead Gay trope, so if they do make Sara a villain on the spinoff...)

Sure, the ratings could nosedive at some point I guess, but right now, it's the 3rd highest rated show on The CW, improving week over week, and is considered a lock for renewal according to the Cancel Bear. That's way better than I would have hoped for.

I'm loving iZombie too, and am so happy about its ratings. I just kinda assumed it would bomb, honestly, because it's Rob Thomas and I thought the marketing for it was not great. But pairing it with The Flash was a gift.