yellowfred

So, I feel a little bad about this, but I was actually relieved when it turned out that Root was planning to kill Beth. All of her scenes with Finch in the first half of the episode seemed like her way of saying goodbye to him, so I was totally prepared for the reveal that she had some one-woman suicide mission planned. The fact that she was actually saying goodbye to their friendship was somehow sadder, though, since he's kind of her only friend. I liked Harper a lot more this episode. I don't think she'd ever really take Shaw's place on the show, just because she's pretty much the anti-Shaw. From what we've seen from her, she has little to no combat expertise, but she knows how to deal with people (well, she knows how to talk criminals out of killing her, which is still a valuable skill). It could be interesting to see the team work some problems from more of a grifter angle.

I feel like I would have liked this episode a lot more if the timing had been a little different. Sometimes it's nice to have an episode or two where the stakes feel a little lower, but I feel like we've had enough of those at this point, and it's time for things to be picking up again. Like, I appreciated the callback to John's reaction when Jessica was killed, and it was at least interesting to see Finch contemplating something similar after what happened to Nathan (also, I may have been more emotional than expected when the Machine turned Finch's little tracker box from yellow to red), but I didn't feel much sense of urgency from either of those things in this episode, and the actual case of the week guy wasn't really compelling enough for me to care about his story on its own. I do think adding Root to the mix, somehow, could have helped this episode a lot. First of all, framing people for stuff is kind of what she did for a living for fifteen years, so it might have been fun to see her react to this guy's amateur hour work. Secondly, she's the only one on Team Machine that's currently still in vengeance mode, so her presence could have helped it tie in a little better to the season-long storylines while simultaneously making it a bit less dude-centric. Also, then Root would be there, which, in my opinion, is never a bad thing.

Yeah, basically. Oliver's decided that he's the only one who's allowed to get justice for Sara's death, and he's going to do it by training with the guy who orchestrated her murder to get rid of the only people with the will and means to punish him for it.

So, I've been putting off watching this episode, and now I kind of wish I'd just skipped it. Like, the main takeaway for me was that, if a villain sends you on a drug-induced vision quest, the answer it leads you to is probably going to be stupid. It seemed kind of like Laurel's subconscious was feeling guilty about the fact that she's secretly really happy that her sister is dead, because it means that she can take her place, and then her solution was to not feel bad about it anymore. I feel like that whole premise could have worked a lot better if the issue had been more about Laurel's guilt over not telling her father and impersonating her sister in order to trick him. Then, the solution could have been her telling her father the truth and, maybe, remembering who Sara really was, instead of whoever that was that Laurel's drug-addled subconscious cooked up to help her deal with her guilt. Also, I feel like enough has probably been said about the "light" comment, so I'll just add that, when she made that comment, I legitimately turned off the show, walked away, and didn't finish the episode for four days.

So, I've been thinking about this a lot, possibly more than what would be considered healthy, this past week. Obviously, whatever substance is in the lipstick can be worn without incident, but it rather quickly knocks out someone who kisses the wearer. My theory is that the substance needs to be ingested, even in very small quantities, for it to actually knock someone out. So, if you gave someone a peck on the cheek, they'd be fine, and if you licked or bit your own lips while wearing it, you'd pass out. I guess what I'm saying is that I think Peggy slipped Dottie some tongue, and that's how she ended up being almost assassinated and then caught by the SSR.

I can't believe no one told Sin that Sara died. Okay, that's not true, I can totally believe it, because absolutely everything involving Sara's death on this show has been awful, but still. Like, I remember, a while back, thinking that Nyssa showing up in the Arrow cave and drawing her bow on Oliver and Co. to find out what happened to Sara was a bit of overkill on her part. Now, I understand that that's apparently what it takes to get these assholes to tell you that Sara died. On some levels, I hope she sticks around, because I kind of like the idea of her and Quentin teaming up, but, at the same time, I worry that they'd end up having her supporting Team Laurel, for whatever reason, which would be gross. On a side note, I kind of love that they showed Malcolm meeting tiny!Nyssa (who's already kicking ass) and that he got his League name by doing corny dad magic.

So, I finally got around to watching this week's episode, and I'm really bitter that they're making Lance into such an idiot, just to drag on with this terrible storyline of his not knowing Sara's dead. Like, I can maybe believe that random folks on the street might only recognize the Canary from the blond hair and black leather outfit, but he's her father; he should be able to tell the difference between his daughters. It's not even just that they have clearly different builds; you can tell from watching her for five seconds that Laurel doesn't fight the way Sara did (on a side note, I actually did appreciate that they showed her really not knowing what to do with a bo staff, since she's had exactly zero training with it). Not to mention, he has to find it more than a little suspicious that she would only talk to him in a dark alley while she stood up on a fire escape where he couldn't even see her face. Like, okay, he clearly found it a little strange, but more in a "something dangerous must be going on" kind of way, rather than the "someone is clearly impersonating you" way that I was hoping for. Also, I'm really bitter that the opening credits got my hopes up and then all we got was Sara's simulated voice.

Personally, I wouldn't find it strange to have him be in love with Laurel (or, at least the idea of Laurel) at the point that he's about to come back to Starling City. It would make sense for flashback!Oliver to end up, more or less, at that point, since that's pretty much where season1!Oliver started out. I think it would work well as a point of contrast, showing how far he's come since returning from the island. While I've never really bought into the idea that Oliver and Laurel had some great love, I think it makes sense that he had to let go of the idea of getting back together with her before he could move on. What I'll actually be more interested to see is how they get him to circle back to the list his dad gave him that he hasn't even looked at (that I can recall) since season one. I think both that and the Laurel thing tie into the idea of Oliver coming back to fix past mistakes, so it could work well with him, in present day, resolving to let go of the past and build something new.

I feel like Ra's has to have been up to something, just from how focused he was on finding Sara's killer, since he was pretty dismissive of her murder the last time we saw him. Admittedly, if he did make a deal with Malcolm to set this whole thing up, that would be a pretty convoluted plan, but not much more convoluted than Malcolm training Thea and then brainwashing her to kill Sara so that Oliver would have to kill Ra's. Plus, it would make more sense than Malcolm betting everything on Oliver being able to beat Ra's in a trial by combat, because Malcolm might be crazy and evil, but he's not that stupid. On a personal level, I really hope that there's some additional element to why Sara was murdered that's actually about her, because I really don't like the idea of her being collateral damage in some power play. As always, my best case scenario for this storyline is that Sara isn't really dead; she's just been laying low for a while, but now she's going to bring Oliver to the Lazarus Pit, because she owes him one.

I actually don't think the "we used to date" line puts Oliver's secret identity in jeopardy. I mean, in real life, people don't tend to know each other's entire dating history. When they met, Ted didn't even know who Laurel was, so the odds of him having some kind of encyclopedic knowledge of all the men she's dated and what happened to them are pretty low.

So, I'm getting kind of tired of the whole "murdering Sara would be unforgivable, but murdering any number of other people is something we can work with (unless you're someone who is training Laurel and has had dinner with her)." Roy is now the third person in a row who has been suspected of killing Sara and then more or less forgiven when it turns out he actually just killed someone else (though, I guess it's nice that, in this instance, it was just one other person, rather than three or 500+). Not to mention, they already knew that he killed that cop, and there was nothing to suggest, had he actually killed Sara, that he would be anymore personally culpable for one murder than the other. Even Laurel realized that, so why would Diggle think that Oliver should abandon him for it? Also, I get that they were going for the parallel with Ted and his former side-kick, but why would abandoning him (as opposed to turning him over to the authorities) be the solution, either way? Okay, I know the answer is "bad writing," but it still bothers me. On a side note, it annoys me to no end how quickly Oliver goes into "jealous ex" mode where Laurel is concerned. This was actually the first episode in a while where I could see the two of them conceivably getting back together, but it just confirmed that it would be completely toxic for both of them. I feel like they would be one of those annoying couples who clearly hate each other but won't break up because they're too stubborn/lazy.

Yeah, I really hope they don't draw the whole "Quentin doesn't know Sara's dead" thing out for too much longer. Personally, I don't even find it all that interesting, just frustrating. It's partly because it plays into the continued theme of Laurel assigning herself as the gatekeeper of who's allowed to mourn Sara (we saw the same thing, to a lesser degree, with Nyssa), but it's more because he has to be isolated from that whole storyline for as long as he doesn't know. I feel like he has to be at least a little suspicious already, considering the voice mail he left her in 3x04. Plus, she was apparently in contact with him while she was gone, so it's not like he'd believe it if she just never contacted him again. I've decided that, for me, the only really satisfying conclusion to him still not knowing would be for Sara to come back from the dead and show up at his door to let him know she's alive again, but he has to keep it a secret from everyone else.

I really liked that moment. I think, most of the time, Team Arrow tends to think of Felicity's skill-set as something super helpful but mostly benign (hence, she's the "normal person" at the beginning of the episode), and the show tends to present her that way as well. I liked how, in this episode, they were basically saying that the only reason Felicity Smoak hasn't actually taken over the world is because she chooses not to. On a side note, I appreciated that she seemed to realize how stupid the word "hacktivist" is. Also, "lovers."

Well, the stock dilution issue isn't actually that illogical. If a company's shares of stock don't have a fixed percentage, then you can sell additional shares to new investors (or old ones, if they make additional capital contributions) and, as you get more of them, the percentage value of each share goes down. There's nothing wrong with doing that, as long as she sold those shares for an appropriate market value, and the board of a struggling company will often approve of that, because it lets the company invest in new projects. Also, considering the number of times she said that they needed to be courting new investors, she wasn't exactly doing it surreptitiously. Chances are that the board approved of it and Oliver just wasn't thinking about what that might actually mean (much like when he made her CEO). Where it gets sketchier is that all of their accounts and possessions were company assets. I could buy them having a company jet and one or two company cars, but, theoretically, their house, trust funds, and other accounts should all have come from their own money (CEO incomes, capital gains, etc.), so it should be completely separate from whatever accounts Isabel was able to control as Queen Consolidated's new CEO. If all of that really was bought with the company's capital, it's no surprise the board won't hire another member of the Queen family to run the company, since that's pretty flagrant embezzlement. So, yeah, the financial stuff makes no sense. It's too bad the Queens didn't set up their accounts the way Merlyn did his, since he's publicly known as a dead terrorist, but he still has all the money he needs.

I actually think, once the mystery element is gone, Laurel might have a clearer purpose. Right now, she's just trying to find something to direct her anger at, and largely failing. Once she knows who killed Sara and why, she'll have an immediate target and probably some larger principal to uphold. There's a reason Peter Parker's whole origin story isn't about figuring out who killed Uncle Ben; once he understood the full picture of it (that Uncle Ben was killed by a random criminal that Peter could have easily stopped), he had a clearer trajectory for who he wanted to be. I imagine (well, hope) that Laurel will have some similar epiphany moment. If her whole journey to becoming the Black Canary is about her turning impotent, directionless rage into slightly more potent, directionless rage, I'll be extremely disappointed (and also probably not watching anymore).

I'm bitter that they made Ra's al Ghul a boring white guy.

So, I am aware, rationally, of the fact that this episode was not that great, but Nyssa's presence is doing a lot to help me ignore that fact. She completely made this episode for me. I think her reaction to Sara's death had everything that was missing in "Sara" the episode. It was subtle, but you could see how clearly gutted she was by the news. Even when she was focused on the investigation stuff, she still had that undercurrent of grief that made her a bit more of a loose cannon (comparing her behavior in this episode to last season's finale). I loved how, at the graveyard, she was respectful of Laurel's loss, but also refused to back down about her own right to grieve (I'm sure Laurel intended it on a "you're a member of the League of Assassins" level, but I think Nyssa's response also worked on a "my relationship with her was just as valid and just as important as yours or Oliver's" level, which I really appreciated). I loved how Oliver was all set up to give her the "we need you to focus" spiel, but she was already well ahead of him. I also really loved her pulling an Indiana Jones on Roy, because I'm still 12 years old and will never tire of that gag. I can even get over her bit of Laurel propping at the end, because I read it less as "you are a worthy successor to your sister's legacy" and more as "well, anything could happen." Also, on a side note, "We burried her in her old grave from seven years ago." Now that Oliver's said that out loud, do you think he realizes how awful it is? I agree with those who've said Oliver shouldn't be protecting Malcolm. Like, his only defense is that he's not guilty of one specific murder. Admittedly, it's a pretty significant one, but that still leaves 500+ unanswered for. If he had said that he wouldn't let the League's vendetta hurt his sister or anyone else in Starling City, that would have made more sense, but it also would have made more sense if he'd at least attempted to capture Malcolm. I honestly can't decide if the show thinks we would believe that Malcolm killed Sara. Like, on one hand, everything about the way it was framed in this episode would indicate that he's a distinct possibility. On the other hand, surely they know that we know that Sara knew the person who killed her (and not in an "I'm expecting you to kill me" kind of way).

In fairness, on that part at least, she had reason to be confident. There was physical evidence and both she and Lance mentioned that it was a recurring thing. Plus, she was in an AA meeting, which is more or less the equivalent of a therapy session, and it's not the sort of thing that's often lied about (or, rather, people don't often fabricate domestic abuse charges; lying to cover it up is a different story). The thing that bothered me more was that they were both apparently aware of not only the abuse, but also who the boyfriend was (Laurel even knew that he had outstanding warrants). It seems kind of shitty that they'd just have ignored it all that time, especially when all they had to do was phone in a fake anonymous tip.

I think he probably meant it in the generic sense, but it does imply that the woman he saw was the one Oliver described, since he otherwise would have assumed that that woman was the person Oliver should be going after. At the same time, I kind of wonder if she actually was the same woman, since Sara wasn't initially wearing her mask and wig on that rooftop. I mean, I guess she could have had her mask on, taken it off to talk to Laurel, and then put it back on again.

I actually thought Oliver's exasperation had more to do with him not being in the mood for jokes when the lead didn't pan out in trying to find Sara's killer. Diggle told a joke a second later, and he had pretty much the same reaction.

Yeah, that scene was not particularly well written. I kind of get what they were going for, though. For a lot of alcoholics and other addicts, it's less about what the actual drug is and more about the fact that they use that drug in lieu of healthier coping mechanisms. In that sense, unfortunately, Laurel's new "alcohol" is hitting people, which makes it as unhealthy on the "she's a recovering addict" level as it is on the "she's not a very good fighter" level. Oh man, that was one of the main things I kept thinking about during Malcolm and Thea's first few scenes. Then I started thinking that Sara probably would have understood the significance of her whole "I don't even notice scalding hot liquids on my skin anymore" thing (on a side note, Malcolm probably should have included a note about how you have to pretend that it bothers you around civilians, so they don't get suspicious), having gone through the exact same thing. Then I got sad again.

So, I felt like they kind of got off on the right foot with Laurel in this episode, but then rather promptly tripped and fell on their faces (I would have said that they got in a few good shots with her storyline but then ended up bruised and bleeding in a hospital, but that seemed crass). Like, overlooking the blatant misunderstanding of what perjury is, I liked seeing her kind of throwing herself into her work and I felt bad for her that she couldn't even talk about her sister's death in her AA meeting because of plot contrivances. Then, on top of that, when that girl was talking about her boyfriend beating her, one of my first thoughts was that Sara would have kicked his ass. Unfortunately, that's kind of where they lost me. The problem is that, as far as I can tell, Laurel isn't actually disillusioned with the criminal justice system. In fact, the criminal justice system works just fine in this instance. The guy has an outstanding warrant and he gets arrested. That's justice. Unfortunately, Laurel's not really looking for justice, she's looking for something to hit. I don't think that's necessarily a completely wrong-headed way to feel, all things considered, but I guess I kind of expected her to be smarter about it. Like, imagine if that guy, instead of being an asshole, had disarmed her, taken her hat thing off, and then pressed charges for battery. Hell, if he got the right lawyer, he could probably still charge her for battery and claim that he had to disable her for self defense, since she attacked him in an ally without provocation. Also, as far as other characters not being called out for the same behavior, I recall Roy being constantly told to think about Thea when he was off looking for fights. I also recall there being a general consensus that he was being an idiot back then. Also, his sister hadn't just died doing the exact thing that he was trying to do, so there's that (I seriously can't get over the number of ways that Sara's death doesn't work for the arc they're trying to construct). I feel like my biggest issue with Laurel's arc so far is that they're focusing on her going from being someone who doesn't fight to someone who does, rather than her going from someone who trusts in the law to someone who doesn't. To me, at least, the latter should have been the bigger journey for her, since that would put the emphasis on her trying doing as much as she can with the skill set she has (her legal skills, specifically) and then deciding that she needs to expand it when that avenue comes up short. Instead, we have her believing in a magic jacket and making confusing analogies about fire. Also, I hate that she still hasn't told her father. I was literally screaming at the TV for her to tell him during their hospital scene. All that being said, I actually thought the rest of the episode was pretty good.

Well, to be fair, S.H.I.E.L.D. is an organization that, for years, allowed a terrorist group to grow in its own ranks. They could probably benefit from a bit more internal transparency.

I have to say, I have mixed feelings about them ending Simmons' undercover work this quickly. On the one hand, I'm glad that she's going to be back with the team and I'm looking forward to seeing how Fitz deals with her being back and how Skye deals with the fact that she has a new girl crush. On the other hand, I feel like there was more potential for storylines with her staying undercover. Like, I would have been interested to see what she would do in a situation where maintaining her cover would mean actually figuring out how to build a WMD for Hydra. Still, I tend to prefer that those types of storylines get cut short rather than drag on, so I appreciate them erring on the side of brevity. I love Adrianne Palicki. I don't really have anything meaningful to contribute in that regard, but it can never really be said enough.

You know, if they want to help the perception of her, maybe they should worry less about press and interviews and more about how they write her storylines. I am not joking. If the intention of the writers and producers was to make Laurel a character that the audience would like and root for, they probably couldn't have done more to undermine themselves if they tried. It was bad enough when they introduced her in season 1 and couldn't decide if she was the girl who always saw the good in Oliver or the one who always called him on his bullshit, so they tried to make her both, which basically made her neither. Then, in season 2, they gave her that alcoholism/addiction/denial sub-plot in the first half of the season, which they had to know wasn't going to endear her to a lot of people (seriously, I can't count the number of times I've seen a character given this type of story arc on television or in other media, but I can easily count the number of times it's made people like that character more, because it's zero). Now, to top it all off, they start season 3 by killing off her sister (a well-liked character) to further Laurel's plot, and they haven't even done it in a way that makes sense (I already kind of ranted about that in the episode thread, so I'll leave it at that here). Honestly, while I didn't love Laurel in season 1, I would say I had more positive feelings about her than negative ones. I tried to keep liking her in season 2, difficult as it was at times, and now that I've seen the first bit of season 3, I'm not sure I want to keep making the effort. Worse, I'm not sure the show wants me to either.