apinknightmare

I loved how they were playing with each other's hands as they spoke. Heart eyes everywhere.

Let's see: No one with their soul intact acted batshit crazy, the flashbacks were somewhat compelling. DD was pretty great, Quentin wasn't acting like an asshole. We learned some new info about dear brother Diggle. I'd say that the cast interactions were all pretty great - O/F and Oliver and Thea especially. Sara's not on a zombie murder spree anymore. Yeah, I'd say it was the best out of the five so far.

I haven't seen any. Here's a cap (sorry it's so huge, I have no idea how to resize it):

That's going to be a general fandom fear after this ep, and I am not looking forward to it.

Yeah, it could change. But to be fair there was only one scene in the whole ep where they were supposed to be friendly, and that was the one where they actually acted friendly.

Because then we couldn't have gotten the "do you trust me?" line from Oliver—and Laurel, of course, trusting him—to knock everyone over the head with their friendliness now.

I mean, maybe not? But the last scene with them there wasn't any of that at all, so it can be done.

Yeah, they basically just had a fight and decided to drop their issues without ever really talking about it, so it was pretty abrupt. They tied this whole messy-ass storyline up with a neat little bow.

Just MHO, but it doesn't really bother me all that much? Let them be friends, so hopefully the tension and sniping can end. Oliver seems really happy, and he's moving on, so it makes sense to me for them to throw away their baggage. I happened super fast, but that's the way I prefer Laurel stuff, haha.

It's because he's not a bad guy, okay?!

Constantine transferred it from his arm to Oliver's stomach via magic! "Can you please stop choking me for just a sec? I have to take my shirt off. Thanks."

Constantine said it was insurance against Reiter, so I guess we'll see it in the flashbacks before we see it in the present (if we see it in the present)? IDK.

Imagine the bowl is the Lazarus Pit, and Sara is inside of it: It looked kind of like that.

Yeah, that whole scene was pretty terrible. I'm interested to see what kind of special effects they add to it, not that it will make the whole premise any less ridiculous.

IDK, but I don't know how I feel about Oliver having a magical tattoo on his body. I'm wondering exactly what it's going to be used for?

I really wish Constantine had said, "Someone get that girl a shower" before he left, lol. In the absence of any other kind of logic, I'll go with this.

But how did she figure out that she was looking for Thea? I don't recall a moment that would've tipped her off. It seemed like she was going after randoms for a whole week before she went after Thea (conveniently right after Oliver and Felicity figured out that she was going after people who looked like her) because plot, which is what I'm guessing it is. Thea had been living in the apartment right above where Sara was chained up - seems like that's the first place she would've looked for her.

Ah, I misunderstood, sorry. I...I'm actually not sure if that's new information? Thea's reaction was definitely a one-liner, but only because she didn't know what it was. It was explained to her, and was brought up as an actual plot point, not just for a reaction.

Yeah, she and Oliver had a really nice scene talking about Pit stuff. A scene which I'm guessing was supposed to be another step in the making death count - explaining why using supernatural means to bring people back to live is no bueno.

Yes - DD asked Quentin to go to a server farm and implant this virus that deleted military records. Andy's was one of them. Seemed like DD was implying that Andy was up to no good when he was stationed in Afghanistan.

I'm sure Chappaquiddick gets brought up in tons of political strategy offices, so that didn't bother me. And what actually happened wasn't made light of - just Thea's misunderstanding of what it was. It was okay IMO.

Also, did we find out from DD that Andy Diggle was getting in on drug trafficking in Afghanistan, and that's why he was murdered? Because he was competition? I tried to read his TOP SECRET military file, but most of the words were blurry. And it seems like DD's army of bad dudes are reanimated military vets?

I mean, going into it prepared for Teflon Lance, Laurel pulling the gun on Sara and wanting to kill her read so false to me? Like, you were bullheaded and went against every single person telling you this was a terrible idea, you rationalize not telling Oliver about Sara going on a killing spree in another town because you didn't want him to see her as "a thing," and yet you decide at one point it would be better to kill her? I wish she'd been gung-ho SHE'S GOING TO COME BACK throughout the whole ep. We already heard that she had a little bit of doubt about it in the hospital scene with Oliver, but...IDK. It just seemed kind of dumb to me. As did the fact that Sara was miraculously able to only kill bad guys (while still throttling some innocents) - I guess so Laurel didn't have any good-person blood on her hands for what she did? IDK.

I didn't read any romantic overtones, but they do seem to be on their way to being friends. They didn't really hash out their issues though, IMO. They just laid them out, and then at the end decided to be friends again. I agree with whoever said upthread that there was actual warmth between them. They acted like people who had known each other for a long time, although this ep was an incredibly quick resolution of years worth of issues between them. I think part of it too is that Oliver was really...IDK what the right word is - I think @dtissagirl described it well when she said that he seems to be really happy with his life, so he was kind of like mellow about all of this stuff? He didn't seem to get too overly angry about Thea and Laurel lying about their trip to NP, and even though he had harsh words for Laurel, he never really blew up at her. I kind of got the feeling that he was tired of the drama and open to having an actual friendship with her. So, like I said, it didn't read as romantic to me at all, just that they'll actually be friendly toward one another. I think that if someone is determined to believe that the show is going to go the way of O/L again that they'll think this is a start to that and worry about it. I actually liked this ep a lot. I thought last week's was a slog. I do think that the whole Laurel thing was tied up way too quickly and way too neatly, but I expected that, so it's more amusing to me than annoying. They made her look like a complete loon for three episodes for what basically amounts to no reason at all. This is definitely a redemption tour for her character though - that's very obvious. I cannot believe they had her actually keep the fact that Sara had escaped for a WHOLE WEEK though, god. And the logistics of it didn't make much sense to me, since they all gathered that Sara was able to track Thea (she knew Thea was living with Laurel, knew where to find her in the hospital), but Sara's somehow wandering around Pennytown for a whole week threatening/beating people who obviously aren't Thea? More Arrow logic fail. I liked everyone's interactions this week. Oliver and Felicity had a really nice scene. Oliver and Thea had quite a few great ones. Diggle and Lance were good together. And putting aside that this storyline for Laurel is completely batshit, I liked her interactions with Oliver for the most part.

Okay, so the other confrontation in the hospital was kind of good but also terrible? Like, yes, she called Oliver out on some hypocrisy, showed some anger that he didn't see her as an equal, was angry about him not telling her he was the Arrow (while standing in the middle of the hallway not using her inside voice, god - THIS MIGHT BE PART OF THE REASON WHY HE DIDN'T TELL YOU). It was nice that we got to hear a little bit about what she was thinking regarding Sara going on a rampage throughout town, but that whole, "I love your family, I always have," (which was good acting on KC's part IMO) was COMPLETELY RUINED BY FOLLOWING UP WITH "I just wish sometimes you'd give a damn about mine." Ugh, haha.