Featherhat

Yeah, someone really had a hard on for incestuous love triangles then. I blame the Vampire Dairies popularity. Especially if you include Oliver and Tommy as "brothers" (and unknowingly sharing a sister) in a triangle with Laurel. Thank god they course corrected both with Felicity and Lyla. Dig's storyline wasn't as gross as the Gambit shenanigans but still. I guess it was to provide maximum drama and offer understanding to Oliver. Having seen the toxic back story on Arrow why did they then make WA's story so potentially creepy? At least they had a screen test that time.

I just wish Joe hadn't felt the need to remind everyone at the rehearsal dinner that he was father of the bride and groom and how awesome that was.

Now that is something I could definitely get on board with. I guess this season's theme is the Bus Meta's so that's why it's connected. And it's the easiest way to go about it without having to say why it won't happen in other episodes?

Hmm, Zari's actually gotten quite a decent amount of usage and in a good way this season and she only joined in ep 3. I know more about her character and POV than I do about Wally after 3 seasons on The Flash and probably more than Iris as well (to my dismay). Amaya has been used quite well this season I think, not being completely tied down with Nate and having a lot of bechedel passing scenes with Kuasa and Zari. Whilst I want more DP, Mick has been allowed to grow into so much more than if he'd just popped up occasionally as Heatwave of The Rogues on Flash, same with Snart, although I think he'd have more naturally developed into I certainly wouldn't have minded if Wally had stayed with Flash and we'd kept Jax (if that was an option) on his own. However Flash doesn't seem remotely interested in telling his story. They could have had him take over during the recent Trial of The Flash stuff, they didn't. They'd already shipped him to LOT, none of the characters asked about him and they gave the "Hero's Journey" to a douche bro white guy instead. Ralph seems to have had a lot more effort put into him than Wally has since he became Kid Flash. Sara was arguably more important to Arrow when she was on than the Rogues or Wally were, still first and best Canary IMO, and they've struggled with that role since. Ray maybe less so but he had a lot of screentime when he was there (to set him up for first ATOM then this). But both these characters have drastically benefitted from LOT, and I believe Wally will too. There's nothing to say he can't go back to Flash and impress everyone with his new self. Similarly Jesse seems to be use having a guest spot, which lots of Arrowverse stars also do, SA, PB, KC, EK, GG etc. I hope it will be a more fitting end to their relationship than that "break up cube" nonsense. And she's also guesting on the Flash. I agree with that, but doesn't that show the complete lack of interest from them right now. And I do think KL has said he's doing another episode this season, so hopefully that will help. I wanted her to mention that she'd been shipwrecked at least twice when Ray was going on about The Titanic. More if you count other shenanigans on Lian Yu. She's not deliberately going anywhere likely to sink. OTOH, it's clear Poseidon/Davey Jones clearly doesn't want to deal with her so it's almost certain she'd yet again survive.

Flashpoint is one of the weirdest ones. Surely it's a 2nd or 3rd movie in the same way it was 3rd season DCTV and Winter Soldier and Civil War were after First Avenger? Miller's Barry was fine but I'm not interested in that movie when I haven't even seen most of his life. I feel like I knew more about Nu Peter Parker after CW. Shazam I guess that pre JL they were hoping for their own version of Thor/Doctor Strange/Ant Man in terms of knowledge/weird to be at least a moderate hit.

Whedon's WW script was uh, reportedly not great so I can't say I'm particularly sad, even though I've really enjoyed a lot of what has done. After his JL resorts got a lot of scorn I'm not surprised either though I loved Avengers. Nathan Fillion has recently said he wants his new show The Rookie to emulate the experience he had on Firefly: Me: Dude it's a light cop comedy a lot like Castle (with some of the same writers) where your love interest is a 29 year old. You're not talking about that but you're not actually making me more excited by trying to gain comparisons between the two either.

S1 Laurel did benefit from her own support cast to bounce off of, although I mostly remember her as being the sensible one in the "CNRI will close if Tommy doesn't throw us its benefit and he wants to impress you not demand favors/be an evil asshole" argument. AI left to do that Charlie's Angels reboot that lasted about 5 minutes. She also came back in S2 to tell drunk Laurel no one would hire her.

I remember that being very ominous and Big Set Up sounding and I have wondered what was supposed to come of it. Nate was injected with a WW2 super serum by Ray who's fiancée was killed by same (and never brought up sigh) so I don't think he actually counts as a meta. Neither do Amaya or Zari though 2042 ARGUS is very liberal about classification it seems.

At least an attempt at a similar thing? They both understand each others roles better and how HARD they are and declare They Are The Flash Together (and it goes right back to normal next episode)? As frustrating as that would be (because I don't think it would be as good as either Reversal or Ultrawoman) it's better than 90% Barry angsting about it and then Joe also agreeing with him. Unless they break out the #feminism again, then nothing will save it. Or just because they promised to give CP something cool to do, and it might be designed to shut the conversations we've just been having about her up as well.

I suppose it's not that much of a surprise given the Father and Son nature of the season and Oliver's massive Daddy issues. It might end up a catalyst to send William to his grandparents for the hiatus or visa versa convince him not to.

Pretty much what I was thinking when I said it up thread. Lois and Clark's "UltraWoman" is one of the better examples of this trope, with some moping from Clarke (understandably) but realising he was wrong and ultimately being supportive. Also I think they were still on shakey ground fron the Reveal fallout. I hope that something similar happens here but again the Flash is 90% Barry even when Iris is the one with a death coming up. Or else it will be all "yes Iris definitely IS the Flash, go #feminism!" And absolutely no follow through the week after. As you might be able to tell I have no faith in The Flash writers.

I don't think anyone is claiming they're particularly close, although I do think they could basically have counted as closer than Caitlin/Iris before "Girls Night Out" and Insta MOH, especially as they *are* on different shows whereas Iris and Caitlin are on the same show and we barely had any idea of how they feel about each other until recently. I feel the same way about Dinah and Felicity, they certainly don't have to like each other or be close, but I want to know how they feel about each other as members of the team, and sigh, Felicty and Thea can also be counted on one hand, although we do know Thea was supportive of their relationship. However Felicity also has more of a POV in the narrative, she's allowed to disagree with Oliver and the rest of the team (and frequently gets beaten for it online but.....) she's had some of her own storylines in the last couple of seasons, including partly Havenrock, Helix, her company and now friend Alena. It's not been great but it is something and almost everyone respects her as part of the team. Her parents were also a lot about her and not really Oliver, even if I think TA in particular was wasted and should have done more. Barry and Iris sharing a Dad and that Dad being All About Barry (because he's the lead) has hampered in that direction. Dig who has his own wife/sister in law, nephew, kid, brother and soldier storylines, has his own supporting cast. Laurel had her own sets and characters in S1, her own storyline in S2 and basically stood around waiting to die in S4 only when they'd decided to kill her off (ironically what many of her fans call her best season). A lot of these to connect with the main storylines but that also shows that you can't just lift a character out of the storyline and go on, whereas I think if Iris just sat at home on her laptop 90% of her storylines would stay the same, and that is frustrating. I'm not sure that's true but even if it was, his "hero's journey" from criminal douche bag to I AM ELONGATED MAN! is being done in loving detail, his every "I can't be a hero" freak out/tantrum gone over more than once, he's the NuBarry getting pep talks 3 times an episode (ok not quite but nearly) whereas we don't see Iris trying to adjust to "organising" Team Flash and people encouraging her, and Caitlin has no coherent KF storyline and it's being ignored or used as almost comic relief ( I'm hopeful Legends will do okay by Wally, at least Rip Hunter is being a nicer recruiter than usual). As of this week I feel like I know Zari's POV on LOT after less than 10 episodes than I do Iris's after 3.5 seasons and whilst I'm glad for Zari, I'm sad for Iris because that shouldn't happen to a charismatic actress who can handle the crumbs you give her well. To turn to Legends, I've seen a few comments recently that Sara granting Zari permission to try to rescue her brother means E1LL might return via the loopholes. First off, we don't know if Zari will succeed, she might crash and burn, at least until it's time for TA to leave. For another if the writers and execs wanted Sara to suddenly return LL, they could have done so earlier, Sara is only anti going back because she's tried and failed because they so far haven't wanted E1 resurrected or saved. It's not like the writers have suddenly realised they could save her via time travel. And whilst I have given up hope of anticipating what KC will end up doing next on Arrowverse shows, I can't see her fitting in well with the Legends permanently or going back as Middle Team Arrow with Dinah there, and I don't think JH is going anywhere either.

It probably is a case of the CW already knowing the actor ala KC being used on several different shows before it was basically her turn to be a leading lady. SA was also on TVD and something else. Did Rappaport cast this? Arrow does have a habit of getting good actors and giving them Crap. No amount of good acting was going to make me like Samantha but Anna Hopkins was good in Defiance and I'm really pleased she seems to be getting a lot of work recently. Carly Pope is another one who has done much better elsewhere. Then again EBR took a bland if not actively annoying, offensive or stupid scene and turned it into gold so it can and visa versa as we've also seen.

Personally no thanks to Bats IMHO. He'd end up taking over and if he didn't there would be complaints that he didn't and they should just rename the show Batman. There would be calls for a crossover featuring just him, Superman and Flash with all the other characters including GA and Supergirl aka the leads of their shows either absent or reduced to a few lines. Yeah I think he would. Oliver doesn't normally do that it was just a lazy writing excuse so Kara wouldn't end the crossover early. They capped her again this cross over with Overgirl's bad heart and red sun for Supergirl (which did up the stakes and gave the chance for more emotional moments. That would happen whether it was Green Batman lite or Bruce Wayne uttering those lines. Plus it's not like he was always making sound choices in the recent movies. Plus Bruce is already on Gotham and his TV rights are with FOX. If they want to have a wiser version of Oliver I'd suggest Black Lightening popping up, he's where Oliver might be in 20 years if he lives and that could be a facinating meeting. I like that CW DCTV is successful Without "the big three" although I'm curious about the old Amazon script they passed on.

Yeah. That's one of the most frustrating things about Flash this season. They have nothing for Wally to do so they ship him off to LOT, still have Caitlin's Killer Frost arc as a total muddled mess, having trouble writing for Iris etc and yet new guy Ralph has plenty of screentime, an arc that apparently necessitated being a complete douche for many episodes, shown in loving detail, whilst the women are barely allowed to react to that and has already become basically the 2nd most important part of the show (currently). I like Iris a lot (or should I say CP) but I've been frustrated that so much of her increased screentime has been about the wedding (yes I know it's an important day or anyone and they had to set up the crossover etc) but the episodes where she's had the most focus are ones like "Luck Be a Lady" where 90% of her story is doing crazy things like "comically" ruining the end of that guy's funeral etc. I would say the crossover itself had some good scenes and some nice Iris/Felicity friendship moments but all of that has unfortunately gotten lost in the wedding controversy and it was a shame the writers crapped all over that friendship for a whining "joke". Iris as wrangler for Team Flash is fine in theory, and something that even now could untilise her psychology background and journalism in collating information a story, but she doesn't end up having authority on the team unlike say Sara who's unequivocally the Captain and everyone listens. I think everyone in STAR Labs likes/loves her but they don't necessarily respect her place there as anything other than Barry's now wife. And that's basically how I see the writers as well. They like the character and like the WestAllen relationship a lot but they're not actually that interested in exploring her as much beyond "Barry's True Love" and even then, they love WA as "the perfect couple" and "gold standard" but do the bare minimum to actually show that and prefer to just have character's talk about it. See: previously discussed quick peck on lips when reuniting after prison with their Dad's hands still wrapped around Barry, they'd rather write for Barry and Joe together. That's why I'm not eager for her to be pregnant any time soon. We all know it's coming at some point but once it does she'll be forever in the Mommy storylines. With time travel they can/probably already have bring in their kids and grandkids without sticking her with babies on the sidelines for the rest of the show's run, except for the inevitable kidnapping storylines. That said, I'm interested in a couple of upcoming episodes for her, but I have a sneaking suspicion they're going to end up more about Barry's feelings ala the Savitar arc where she got only a few scenes of her own POV on her possible/forseen death. I also really want them to sort out Killer Frost's arc and decide once and for all how to integrate her or not with Caitlin ie they've waffled about how much both personalities remember or how much they can control it, and used it as "funny filler" for her friends to make jokes at her expense. I'm not holding my breathe about it though. Will anyone know or care when Wally officially joins Team Legends or will they be in for a surprise next crossover?

I don't think pre Island they were much better than each other, By Tommy's own admission they both had drug charges and Hilton and Lance discuss "intent to distribute" for him among other things. Post Gambit he did grow up a fair bit and was a good "brother" to Thea, but he would have definitely gone for the lots of women/partying when Oliver came back before they retooled his character once the triangle was no longer going to be a long running thing. Post Island he was way more horrified about violence than either Oliver or Thea became but if he had lived he'd have become the Dark Archer in a very soapy twist. They could have made a Tommy/Felicity S2 friendship work, but the Tommy = Barry+Kara and ice cream + extra hotness narrative in some fanon makes any sense. Though yeah if they'd kept him on I'd hope they'd have explored tiny Tommy and Oliver in the wake of Rebecca's death more, but they barely did with Malcolm and that was originally supposed to be his big reason for going crazy and JB was around for years.

I haven't read the specific series and it doesn't really seem like my thing but what you've described is why I have a problem with many SmoakingBillionaires fics, including many popular ones. And in general Flommy friendship often just goes straight over my head. Not that they wouldn't or couldn't but..... Eh. And much as I really love Tommy wise Yoda he wasn't when he died.

I guess its not that surprising when it was probably the best they'd ever been in 5 years (and he still didn't treat her very well). You also have to ignore that he treated her badly long before he took Sara on the Gambit. I'm currently more annoyed about Diggle's 'perfect life' though since I don't see him as being happy in a world without Lyla and Sara JJ once he'd experienced that life, even if he does feel a sense of purpose being GA in S6.

And its not even sexual tension of any kind, it's just tension brought on by this whiny toddlers story line and before that I'm not sure they gave each other more than a passing thought except when a mission required it. It really is about code names for some viewers. As for René I'd really like to know why they have him say "this doesn't change anything Hoss!" Every episode, like Oliver was the one planning on testifying against HIM. He might not have thought out the consequences, including loosing his day job and continuing to be a vigilante despite outing himself but in that case he's an idiot and a liability to the Toddlers as well. Well theyre all a liability to each other and would be to the city if they are actually interested in helping.

They've had 3.5 Canaries and the only one who personally worked for me is leading another team (as she should be). I didn't dislike the Sara/Oliver hook up because what ended up on screen made send to me and was clearly only temporary. I still like the 2 lines of Sara and Oliver friendship we get during the crossover. Their bond ended up more genuine than Laurel and Oliver in any incarnation and to think Tinah and Oliver have ever been more than work colleagues and at the moment basically enemies is laughable. I guess they can take comfort in MG saying they won't have Oliver cheat (and that's consistent post Island) but Felicity might still not see the series finale. Hope for BS yet!

Sara is currently being awesome on LOT so I don't really need her to Do another BOP/Canaries show and I have very little interest in KC or JH headlining a show like that. JH wasn't exactly convincing in her BIG MOMENTS! The last couple of EPs.

So Dinah currently hates Oliver, blames him for everything ever this season and people still wonder if they might get together. Talk about interchangable Canaries. Dinah/Dig was something I though might happen before 4th Canary/giant hypocrite, though I never wanted it.

Hmm, I guess it could go either way re the lying. It's possible she's lying through her teeth to both Oliver and Quentin about her life circumstances to manipulate and get what she wants, it's possible both of her stories are true, although that doesn't excuse the way she's a gleeful murderer now and shouldn't make redemption anymore likely because most villains have awful backstories and so do pretty much every single one of the heroes in this franchise. I'm not sure the writers care enough to have it actually make sense. If they want to "redeem" her they will if they don't, they won't, because yeah it's messy as hell. I guess they could sell Lance's flip flopping as deep down knowing it isn't really his Laurel but too desperate to care. I don't think they're even thinking of BS in relation to Oliver or what she said to Oliver right now, because it's all about Lance right now. If Oliver and BS interact, her past with E2!Ollie might come back into play, but even then Oliver killed his Nazi! Doppelganger and I could have seen a situation where he actually did kill Nazi!Kara in that scene in the crossover, even though he likes 38!Kara. No kidding. I agree with this. If they wanted Team Villain to parallel Team Arrow, they needed to do this episode ala LOD (as everyone is tired of me commenting on I'm sure) to really gel the team up as a threat. They could still have had DDDragon turn on CJ and maybe add another player later on, but as it stands we have no idea why they even bothered to team up except money and CJ shouldn't have actually needed the thuggish ones to do what he ended up doing in the first place. It's possible there will be more of them now the "SHOCKING!TWIST!" has been revealed but we haven't heard anything about it yet. I guess we didn't get deep into Chase's motivations until the last 3rd of the season.

I'm not sure KC would have accepted a non LI/leading lady role though. She seems too excited by the Laurel part and presumably the promise of eventually being BC to be content with having "Laurel the Rachel Dawes Knock off/Cop Only and Not Love Interest". She certainly clung to the idea that Lauriver might happen again for a long time, even if it was only her head cannon. She'd already served her time on the CW in supporting roles, this was her big moment to be the new Nina Dobrev of the network. Especially as it was worked as a Vampire Diaries style love triangle that would sustain it for a few seasons. In reality it didn't even sustain it for a full season. And IMO KC and SA didn't even have "old friends" chemistry, so it may have ended up with her having a smaller part anyway, even if there was never any romance. Even after they dropped Lauriver early in S2 they still ended up giving Lance the "I'm suddenly changing my deeply held beliefs to work with the Hood" storyline which had originally gone to Laurel as well, whilst she floundered in her own side story for most of the season, not even having much to do with Sara. (bitter about that last one). I mean it would have helped if they'd lessened the toxic backstory for Laurel and Oliver, for sure but even when they were supposed to be happier in flashbacks I didn't buy their relationship. Laurel was applying to law school and studying for the LSATs and wanted to move in with a guy who had just dropped out of his 4th school in 4 years and she was planning on getting engaged a year or so after that. That was never going to work, even if Robert had bribed yet another school to take Oliver in in the same city Laurel was studying or forced him to take a job at the company. She'd have been better off finding a nice well off but ambitious fellow student and planned to be a moving and shaking power couple that way. I'm sure there would have been a lot of takers.

Or in the case of Caden James, start off as a Felicity villain/plot point and move decisively to Oliver with the Myson stuff and Felicity never had another scene with him before his death. Bitter. I do understand your point and I do agree about Vigilante it didn't really make sense to connect him to Dinah, especially as he was set up in Star City well before she was, but I guess they needed to give the new BC! something to do to prove she's awesome and a reason to be a giant hypocrite leave the team. To be honest, the show hasn't been about "because it's Laurel" since season 2 really, except when she died. Since that's been Lance's entire storyline for 6 seasons on the show and KC has her best scenes with him and they had the most emotional bond left on the show I can see why they went with him. Otherwise PB would have no reason to keep hanging around. I agree about Dinah, but they couldn't resist having BC vs BS battle it out and making meta comments about taking over her life etc. Oliver might end up being more involved in the back half. He did care when he thought it was E1LL in 5.10 but he's not exactly sentimental about doppelgangers at the moment. And I really don't think Laurel was ever the most important person in his life, even when he "loved" her or when she was a talisman on the Island. I think for a long time that went to Thea and on the Island more practical people under intense circumstances like Shado and Slade. Nyssa's always been a more important part of Arrow than Talia, and the Talia parts last season were fairly poorly written and IMHO felt like a "yay, they finally let us use Talia, quick we'll make her yet another teacher for Oliver!!" retcon than anything that felt more organic like Yao Fei, Slade or even Waller. I didn't mind Nyssa fighting her sister, it made up for when Oliver had to be the one to beat Malcolm for Nyssa because it's his show, rather than being able to do it herself because she's been sword fighting since before Malcolm ever did, let alone Oliver. Oliver had more than enough going on with Chase both mentally and physically and Talia ended up being a rather minor character, although she could show up again.