apinknightmare

Colleen Atwood didn't design the Black Canary costume.

I gotta disagree with him here about Olicity, unfortunately. I mean, yes, there was more outright focus on Oliver and Felicity's relationship this season (or lack thereof, and the feelings and whatnot, especially from Oliver's side), and overall it was full of stupid angst, but there were several eps where they barely even interacted. I think Diggle being sidelined had more to do with Roy and then Laurel being out in the field than anything, because it seems like they don't know what to do with a guy who has fighting skills but doesn't wear a mask. I mean, there was plenty of meat for Diggle while Oliver was "dead," but instead we had him sitting back in the Arrow cave so that Roy and Laurel could go out and mask it up. Or he was left flying the getaway helicopter or driving the getaway car, and that doesn't really have anything to do with Oliver and Felicity. And then there's the Ray factor. If they're going to set up spin-offs they need to do it Barry Allen style for one or two eps, instead of bringing these people into the show for half of/a whole season and sacrificing other character storylines in order to do it.

I guess if you want to get ~technical, the city wasn't in danger of being destroyed like it was in S1&2. There was the earthquake that leveled half the Glades, and the 'strokes causing mayhem and destroying things - setting buildings on fire and whatnot. Ra's didn't want to destroy the actual city, he just wanted to kill everyone in it. Could be chalked up to careful wording" on MG's part. Or he could be lying.

Didn't MG say at some point near the end of the season that the kid comes up in S4? SA did as well-at a con, IIRC. So the mother/kid are characters other than Sandra/Connor, they're mentioned but never shown, or they're not picking up that storyline this season after all. Since we never got the mother's first name, I'm guessing her name is something other than Sandra.

It is strange that they haven't ever given the mom a name - I always figured we were going to find out that this woman really did miscarry and that the kid she spoke to on The Flash was someone else's and that we were going to find out that Sandra was someone Oliver had a fling with in high school or something so they could age the kid up a bit. So, if the mom and child are just some randos, people who've been expecting Sandra/Connor ever since she was introduced are going to be disappointed, haha.

Anything to do with Oliver's kid is too huge a development to have on another show, so that's probably where it'll happen.

Maybe they know they won't need him to be available? If he's not being LPed and Oliver's not taking another trip to Starling City, I'm not sure why he'd make an appearance anyway.

I don't think any of it matters. The blood heir was bumped for a "prophecy," and in the end the title was just given away. So anyone can be Ra's, it seems.

Does it matter though? Being a blood heir doesn't really seem to mean anything, since they can be ousted by "prophecy" or because the idiot who received the title by killing the previous Ra's decides to just give the ring away to some other dude.

It was broadcast live tonight from Long Island.

If we're to believe what we've been told (and we've seen the beginning of it with Oliver torturing Shrieve), Oliver spent two years disassociating himself from....himself. So it's not out of the realm of possibility that he was playing a part when he came back - and we saw that to a certain extent - and was just being who he thought they wanted him to be. I don't think it's a disservice to anyone; seems to me it's a good representation of someone who was gone for a long time, had to fight for his life, and detached himself from a lot of the things that made him happy in order to survive. There probably was a part of him that was glad to see them when he came back, but I think that was a very, very small part of him that took him a long time to get back to. Especially since he didn't have to hide from Felicity the way he had to hide from Thea and Tommy (and his mother, and Laurel, etc.) because Felicity was just a chick he went to see about a laptop. She had no expectations, didn't know him, and didn't expect anything of him.

Possibly. Still don't see him being a major draw for paparazzi at this point. Not saying that won't change, but I feel like most people who peruse gossip websites would see his name and think, "who?"

This isn't a knock on Stephen - but I'm honestly surprised that anyone cares enough about him to snap pics of him. I can't imagine they get that much $ or site hits - especially since he's hanging out with (no offense, again) a bunch of nobodies. I don't think he's in a situation where he'd have to worry about them hounding him that much - and I think he got caught outside a Kings game because it's place where stye can be reasonably certain to find a bunch of celebrities. Maybe he is trying to be preventative by being open about it, can't blame him if that's the case.

Yes

The Flash is exploring multiverses next season, so with that and the time travel on LoT, I always figured that Arrow would continue to be based in the timeline it currently is and all the time traveling weirdness would happen in the multiverses outside of it. Not sure how that would work with crossovers - it'd be easier to do it with the Flash people going over to Starling rather than the reverse. If they do that, they'd be going back to the same timeline that Barry just screwed up. I just don't think that time on Arrow is going to reset everytime Barry messes with it, nor do I think they're going to match whatever Central City timeline they're currently exploring with Arrow. I think the Arrow story has to somehow stay linear, with only minor interruptions from the time traveling.

I think it was intended that way-Ra's jacket was closed, Oliver couldn't have gotten his sword inside it. They wanted Oliver to use the same moves Ra's had used on him, but since Oliver was shirtless during that duel and Ra's wasn't during this one, it didn't quite work the same way.

I certainly hope he went intending to save his mother. That's risky/stupid enough, IMO. If he went just to say goodbye? Barry, we need to have a talk.

I think they're going to have to keep the multiverses over on the flash. I just cannot see them exploring multiple timelines on Arrow, where time travel hasn't even been introduced.

Where was the growth though? He didn't get there and decide it was wrong (which would be growth), he didn't go through with it because his future self motioned not to when he saw present Barry in the house. And I do think that there is room for growth - I'm not saying that good things can't come from stupid, selfish decisions, I just can't get on board with Barry ever even making the decision to go back in the past knowing what it could cost him (and other people) if he messed up in any way.

The fact that he went to save his mother at all renders any heroism of the moment he decided not to do it (after his future self told him not to, not through any decision making of his own in the present) null and void.

I did it once, and it makes your feet RIDICULOUSLY soft, like, way softer than a regular pedi, but I can't with the fish. I won't ever do it again, haha.

I was distracted by a few real life things this ep, so I'm a little confused. Did Barry really risk everything to go back in time and save his mom and then decide not to do it, or did he go back in time to come back and thwart Eobard's plan, not realizing how messed up things would get? Honestly, it baffles me that he'd consider either option knowing the risks.

I'm curious about the flashbacks for next season too. Because in the BTS pictures posted of that boat, wasn't it Russian? I could've sworn it had Russian writing on the hull, but Coast City was written across it in the finale, so...did they decide to change course or what?

He said recently (I can't remember if it was on Facebook or at a con) that he didn't have an extended break until Christmas. So either he's got to go back to NYC for filming at some point, or the other thing that he had lined up this summer fell through.

It's not so baffling to me. We're talking about Oliver "I must deprive myself of happiness" Queen. Even IF that's when Oliver realized he was falling for her (that's Stephen's interpretation of it - and Oliver was still trying to deny it in 3x01, when Diggle pointed out that Oliver loved Felicity), if that was a passive admission of feelings, it was still one in the idiotic "I can't be with someone I could really care about" vein, so Sara seems more like a consolation relationship than anything.