teddy-bear

I also completely agree with what Seinne said on Ashley and Ben's podcast, and it was one of the first things my daughter's and I thought when the whole thing started falling apart. He seems to be the kind of person that always wants what he doesn't have at the time. If he had picked Lauren first, he would have been mooning after Becca and sliding into her DM's....God help us all, we might have then had Lauren as the Bachelorette.

Very true saber5055....I forgot to include the extra "Grand Prize Package" (the talk show circuit) the pair of them receive for playing the sick little game the two of them came up with. And of course there's the free massive big Neil Lane ring bling bonus she got for getting engaged before this season wrapped.

After reading a ton of articles and all of the posts here about the two part finale, and having several discussions with my viewing partners (my two daughters), I have a couple of theories of how in "Arie's world" he thought handling it this way was the way to go. My first theory is that he wanted the cameras there so that if Becca went batsh*t crazy when he told her he was breaking up with her, he thought that the audience would be oh so sympathetic to him because she was so unbalanced and unstable - in his mind, a win for him. Theory two is that with the cameras there, she might just not make a scene - a perennial favorite way for a guy to break up with someone.....do it in public so the victim of the breakup won't make a scene and then he doesn't have to deal with the hurt he caused, tears etc. - in his mind a win for him. Theory three is that with the cameras filming, he can show bachelor nation just how 'caring' he is by staying and repeatedly asking her if she's okay and could they talk....this tactic in his mind absolves him of being accused of not caring and being disrespectful. I think that for him, in his mind, any of these theories would fit the hero image his narcissist self thinks he is - in his mind a win for him. The bottom line is that he wanted to come out of this unblemished and actually was convinced that once the tv audience saw his "honesty, sincerity, caring, thoughtful, respecting" persona he thought he portrayed in the breakup video they'd be positively cheering him on at the AFTR and in the press the following day. What he didn't count on was the audience seeing through all of these tactics, and instead seeing him for what he really is....someone who is so completely devoid of the concept of what is good, decent, NORMAL behaviour. Someone who has zero empathy for others. Someone who is so cowardly he doesn't deal with situations like an actual adult. Someone who isn't truthful and respectful of his fiance and someone who will always twist conversations and re-write history to benefit the persona he thinks has. His timeline story changed with every telling of it. First he says Becca knew he had unresolved issues about Lauren - specifically that he felt guilt about how he hurt her and he needed closure - Becca being the supportive fiance, tells him that she understands and is alright with him dealing with those emotions by speaking to Lauren. After speaking to Lauren and deciding that he now wants to go with "door number 2", he then changes that story to "Becca knew I felt guilty and still had feelings for and still loved Lauren" (ie: she knew exactly how I was feeling so she can't be surprised by my change of heart - indeed she has no right to be surprised by my change of heart.) He also almost managed to fudge the timeline - making it look like he did the break-up BEFORE he knew how Lauren felt about having him back. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't keep that story straight either, and in actual fact he and Lauren had more than one conversation before the in person meeting - as was pointed out by the other contestants. This leads to the most idiotic, baffling thing he said - "I risked it all for Lauren". Risked what exactly....according to him, proposing to Becca was a huge mistake, he's 1000% over Becca, he only had half a foot in the relationship with Becca....and on and on ad nauseam. So what exactly is he saying here....he risked giving up a relationship that was a mistake, that he was over with/didn't want on the off chance Lauren would take him back.....does that mean if Lauren told him to sling his hook, he'd trot back to Becca and continue looking at houses and playing the happy fiance? How noble of him! I can't even begin to figure out what is in Lauren's head, or why she has so little self respect that she would be alright with all this and why on earth she would think he wouldn't do this to her once another shiny new toy rolls on by. The only thing that I can come up with is that she truly is a match made in heaven.....two equally narcissist people, unconcerned with how their actions impact other people, zero empathy, devoid of thoughtfulness/sympathy/caring/integrity/honesty/sincerity - heck devoid of anything good and decent and normal. The only thing that matters to the two of them is what they want - andto hell with how that may affect anyone else. This was best illustrated in the monumentally bad taste in the proposal/acceptance in part 2 of the finale with Becca just offstage. This completely reeked of Lauren wanting to exact her pound of flesh/make Arie pay for the "humiliation" of being runner up in Peru - give her back the "moment in the spotlight aka on tv" that she craved, and it also had the bonus prize of Lauren thinking she was humiliating Becca as well. Well I think Becca is a complete winner in all this mess. She showed herself to be a lovely, intelligent, classy, articulate lady, beautiful inside and out. She deserves so much better than that sorry excuse for a man, and will have the opportunity to see that over and over again while she's the Bachelorette. As for the other two, run run as fast as you can (out of the country and off social media) so you can avoid facing up to how repugnant the viewers think you are. Avoid actually watching the finale/AFTR so you don't have to see how pathetic and disgusting your behaviour was. That way you can stay in your little fantasy world that you both are the embodiment of true love between a hero and heroine. Please just do us all a favor and stay away - a futile wish on my part, because them being who and what they are, won't pass up the opportunity of a televised wedding and the lots and lots of money that comes with it.

The music played when they are racing to her is by Harold Shore and is from Lord of the Rings - I was really surprised to hear it on a tv show.

I didn't really see it as Oliver scolding Diggle...he said he couldn't believe Diggle signed off on Laurel going out in the field...a fair question and quite a valid one seeing as how many times she needed saving when she went out there. Roy, Diggle and Ollie have had far more training than Laurel had, and Oliver was proved right when Laurel decided to take off and confront the Count by herself. Thea he was trying to protect - something big brothers do, and always will do no matter how old their younger sister gets, and Roy was out of line stepping in on that confrontation between brother and sister - it was Thea's place to tell Ollie to back off. I just find the writers decision to have the team be so antagonistic and uninterested in wanting to know what Oliver had been through, having Felicity make snide comments about wasn't there any cell phones that he could have used to call them and other things she said that were just so unnecessarily harsh. The entire team made Oliver feel like he let them all down by being run through by a sword, pushed off a mountain, coming back from the dead, trekking back to Starling City and not doing it fast enough for them all. I do find it ridiculous that the writers have Ollie giving this big speech to the people of the glades about never leaving Starling again and then he promptly does just that, but then again, according to Felicity and Diggle and Roy (and Laurel), team arrow plus one got along just fine without him, so why should he even bother sticking around. I know Ollie needs to do a little better with discussing missions with the team before settling on what needs to be done, but over the last two seasons the writers have had him make huge improvements in that direction, so to have the team be so aggressive and dismissive towards him so soon after his return when they knew he'd been through something pretty major is just so unrealistic with how their characters have been up till now. They went from zero to nasty in a blink of an eye, and seemed to forget the reason why he left in the first place - to protect Thea. For the first time, Oliver didn't do "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one" and the writers have made it look like the team resents him for making that decision. It's also selfish and unrealistic to not have a single one of them even consider his thinking that the only way he has the slightest chance of defeating ra's al ghul is to train with someone who was in the league - and unfortunately for now, that person is Malcolm Merlyn. The writers should have had them at least consider this option, even though it is making a deal with the devil. It's awfully easy to have high and mighty principles when you haven't faced what Ollie faced on that mountain. If team arrow, and Felicity really cared about him at all, they all would have handled his return and his decision to work with Merlyn completely differently. If they had handled his return and decision less aggressively, he wouldn't have been so defensive back - his discussion with Diggle at the end of the episode was how it should have been done when he first returned, instead of him feeling backed into a corner and having to fight his way out. That first confrontation with the team was the catalyst for his responses for the rest of the episode.

What I meant in my original post was that his leadership of the team was earned, not that I felt he should be followed blindly and never be questioned. Later on in the post I mentioned that in the past he would listen to their input and compromises were reached. They didn't even afford him a say in anything when he returned - he was told 'this is the way we do things now - deal with it - in oher words Felicity, Diggle, Roy and Laurel basically told him that it was their way or the highway.

Exactly! Not controversial to me at all - the scenes were completely played as a coup d'etat by the rest of the team. Well guess what writers, you completely missed the boat on this one....there would be no team if not for Arrow, he decided who to let in, and in Roys case at least, when they were ready for street missions. Yes he needed help to achieve his goals, and Felicity had the expertise he was lacking. Diggle has always had his back. Roy is now invaluable as a co-fighter. Sarah was a brilliant addition to the team. Most importantly - they are a team,and every team needs a leader. It never was and should never be a democracy - we saw how well that worked when Ollie was recuperating - total anarchy in the glades. There needs to be a leader, and that is Arrow - not Felicity, not Diggle or Roy or god forbid Laurel. As the leader he assumes the responsibility for the rest of the team - and with how he managed to survive during his 5 years of hell, it was damned well earned and never should be questioned by the rest of them. The writers yet again did a huge disservice and a total retcon on Felicity, Diggle and Roy. In the past, there may have been dissenting opinions by the rest of team Arrow, but never an out and out mutiny, and they were able to make things work just fine. Ollie compromised when it was needed, he listened and respected their opinions. Quite aside from the complete disrespect they all showed him on his return, they were written as being downright arrogant, petulant, and just plain nasty. The blood on the sword that Malcolm gave them didn't come from a paper cut, yet not a single one of them showed the least bit of interest or concern for him other than an offhand 'oh we thought you were dead'. Then it was pretty much straight into 'well you were gone and we managed just dandy without you so don't think you can come back and call the shots.....get used to it Ollie, there's a new heirarchy in town. Sometimes the choices they make in the writers room just makes me want to throw something at my tv.