apinknightmare

Crack theory: "Tina" is Oliver's blast from the past Bratva lady, back to kick some ass, take some names, and probably possibly bang Oliver again.

What are mob weddings like? Is Oliver going to have to take out a bride or groom or something? ARE WE GOING TO FIND OUT HE WAS SECRETLY MARRIED jk jk kinda

Regarding the previews - I'm all for better fights and stunts and Oliver not being so dumb about not killing people, but he was pretty needlessly violent. Not sure how I feel about it, and wonder if they'll give any kind of explanation for it whatsoever. Because he had to be talked into killing Darhk and IIRC still didn't seem to be all that sold on murder in the finale. He's weathered sexual dry spells before man, a summer without getting any could NOT have pushed him this far!

They talked about it over the hiatus, apparently, according to MG or WM or whoever in the hell said it.

Doc Brown mentioned in her review something about Oliver and Felicity's "attraction" to each other coming into play, and that one of them was reading more into it than the other. It seems like maybe they might be flirting? Which...I really hope not. If Oliver thinks he has a chance for whatever reason and he's wrong, that's cool. If he thinks he has a chance because they've been flirting while she has a boyfriend, well...I really hope they don't do that. But I'm not convinced they won't, since she flirted him while she was with Ray.

Seriously. What a terrible position to put her in.

It wasn't the acting "in love" that got me - EBR said Felicity took a shine to the guy pretty quickly, so I kind of expected it, but the insinuations that they're living together already threw me for a bit of a loop. Hopefully it's just an assumption based on the scene of the two of them together is at the loft and not out at a restaurant or something, and not because she comes home and the guy is already there (which could mean she just gave him a key, but would kind of indicate that they were cohabitating if there wasn't an explanation).

He never blamed himself though. The first words we heard about that death before we even knew who it was were "It's not my fault." I read that interpretation elsewhere in another post about the premiere, so...retcon. Yay!

I really hope there's some precursor to this dialog like, "I had a close call tonight. If something ever happens to me, blah blah blah," and don't have her say such a ludicrous thing when she thought she was going to be okay. I'm guessing no, but...hoping, haha.

It did me the favor of lowering my already low expectations to subterranean levels. I would've been so disappointed if I'd seen this stuff play out live. I much prefer pre-disappointment.

Bless that mistake though - I'm glad I read it, haha.

From the review on Nerdist: But unlike Oliver, Quentin was inspired to keep moving forward instead of going backwards, so he decided to help Oliver clean up the SCPD with a few officers that he trusts. And Oliver knew that Laurel would have wanted them to work together, so he agreed. We also got to see a flashback to Laurel’s final moments in the hospital and the promise she made Oliver agree to before she died: “Please don’t let me be the last Canary.” She wanted Oliver to train a new Canary, and he actually agreed! Who is going to be the new Canary? Is it … possibly … Felicity? Is that crazy to even think? What is a little crazy to watch is how “in love” she seems to be with her new boyfriend, Detective Malone. Something tells me Oliver has no idea this dude even exists, let alone is potentially living with Felicity. Here’s to hoping he’s a dirty cop so we have a quick and easy reason to hate him and get him out of the picture to clear the way for Olicity to get back together.

So, Oliver agrees, and then...goes out and builds a Black Canary statue? Are subsequent Canaries going to be color coded?

I think it just depends on why he goes to her in the first place (if they are in Star City). Does he take a trip there to see if things are as he remembers? Does he go to her for help with figuring out how to make it right? The promo makes it seem as if he goes to her for something and has to tell her about the timeline, and she gets curious about it (but the promo could be misleading). Maybe he doesn't want to tell her, but she talks him into it? It does seem super shitty to let her know that things are different in her timeline since it's not like she can do anything about it, and it's not as if she can tell anyone else. Like, "Hey, John...did you know there's some other timeline where you have a daughter?" Garbage.

I hope Barry either fixes the timeline or comes clean to Iris about his idiocy causing the rift between her and her father before he pursues her again, otherwise...ick.

It just felt like a spectacular waste of time? And they showed me an alt reality that I truly don't understand why Barry chose to undo it. I suppose there could be more lasting effects that are revealed next week, but for now if it's just the Iris and Joe thing, why didn't they just have them have a fight over something? Seems like such a non-event to have it make ripples throughout other shows. Since Barry was relying on a villain to tell him how to fix the timeline who was then so smug about it not being the same afterward, I'm guessing it isn't Barry's mom dying a minute later that messed up the timeline, but something Reverse Flash did/didn't do or didn't tell Barry to do/not do. Why Reverse Flash would give a shit about Joe and Iris being estranged though, I have no idea. Unless maybe he didn't know exactly what wasn't going to be the same in this timeline, just that something was going to be off. nice

The only thing I'm excited to see tomorrow is how the hell they're going to explain Flashpoint to the Arrow audience. The Flash writers did a pretty shit job of it, and it happened on their own show, haha.

Oh, sorry. I didn't know you were quoting the article, haha.

He was slacking off at work because he was an alcoholic, presumably because he didn't have sweet Barry to love as a child.

She's talking about original Iris's response, not necessarily changed timeline Iris's response, but for some reason based on that answer I don't have much hope that changed timeline Iris's response will be any different.

Also, OMG (from a post-ep interview posted here): This doesn't make me feel good things.

I think it's just a coincidence that Felicity has on the same dress. She's wearing a different necklace from the one she had on in 4x14.

Not really - she's not discussing fan reaction and other stuff we're told not to do, she's expressing that she didn't understand why other people were.

I think that he expected Iris to be at Joe's house because he left her on the front porch, haha.

I'm probably wrong, haha. I'm speaking from my own experience as someone who doesn't like time travel - I don't like resets and redos and things being changed for no reason - and this just seems like an easy way to cause drama, and yet another instance where it seems (admittedly this could change next episode) that the lingering effects of something Barry has done affect people who, YET AGAIN are not him.