apinknightmare

In that interview PB said that Lance thinks that letting Sara run with the Arrow is what led to her death. Not, you know, the fact that she was an assassin, naw. That had jack all to do with it.

Ugh. Ugh x infinity. Yeah, the Arrow's the problem. Not your own fucking daughter who lied to you for months. It's the Arrow. Okay, sure. I guess Lance is going back to hating Oliver for taking Sara on the Gambit and everything that came after, not Laurel for lying and burying Sara without him there. Makes tons of sense.

The hell?

I'd say I can't believe it, but I can. Hopefully that look on all their faces is due to Diggle peacing out and fleeing the premises. And sadly there's no Lance/Mama Smoak interaction in 3x18 - PB quashed that in the interview posted in Spoilers Only.

I think Oliver chose to go because Malcolm wanted them to.

I agree. I'm not even picky at this point, just give me a scene of her getting a nice pedi or a massage or even relaxing in a bath, damn. I'm sure any of those things would get interrupted by various vigilantes, but still. It would be nice to see, even just for a second.

The writing has definitely done a disservice to her, I agree, and the writing for her could absolutely be better. But honestly-and this makes me incredibly sad-there's always going to be that contingent that thinks she's a whiny emotional bitch because they aren't willing to look below the surface regardless of how she's written. Oliver's the hero, they're rooting for him, he's laid his heart on the line to her, and she isn't taking his bullshit. And she's not afraid to stand up to him and let him know when she's upset. She's not kowtowing to him or pining for him or waiting for him to get his shit together, and there are people who just won't ever like or accept that because he's Oliver Queen and he should get what he wants. I love Felicity, but I'm gonna need her to stop crying all the time. Not that she doesn't have reason to cry or be emotional, because she absolutely does. All the people on this show go through so much I can barely comprehend how they get out of bed in the morning, and this season Felicity is no exception. I just want to see glimpses of the Felicity I've grown to know and love over the past couple of seasons sprinkled in between those other moments, because I miss her, and that makes it all more bearable to watch.

I deserve the right to change my mind about this tomorrow, but I'm actually really excited for this episode. It looks more interesting to me then the other flashback episodes at least.

I can't figure out how to link it, but MG just retweeted a producer's preview of The Return - and yeah, Oliver definitely didn't let Slade out, haha. And he definitely seems horrified when he realizes he's on the loose. Which makes me wonder what exactly he thought Malcolm was playing at when he sent him and Thea to Lian Yu? Oh Oliver, forever the dumbass.

In the video SA posted on his Facebook today, he's got his Arrow getup on, so he at least gets out of jail at some point (if he's ever actually in there, haha). Or maybe they're not shooting in order, so never mind.

It's a flashback.

White-washing is taking a character who is a person of color and having a white person play them.

See, I think the kiss makes the whole thing more douchey. I suppose it was soured for me from the get go because there isn't a doubt in my mind that she didn't know what he was doing - knowing that their comms were bugged and that Slade had at least one set of cameras on them, it makes sense that he wouldn't feel safe telling her. Then there's the whole slipping her the syringe thing which he wouldn't have risked doing in the mansion where there was the chance Slade could've seen it if he'd clued her into anything before hand. He tells her he loves her, then leans in for the kiss and at least has the decency to let her go the 10%, then as she's gripping his freaking arm because she's clearly into it, he slips a syringe in her pocket. Ugh, then she's standing there looking at him all dopey (and yeah, I'll give him credit for looking dopey too) and he kills it by saying, "Do you understand?" (that there are cameras and I'm using you as bait to get this psycho to come and get you so you can get close enough to stab him in the jugular). Douche move, totally. But Oliver is often times a huge douche. Even with the kiss factored in I got the impression that his "we both did" comment was a way of letting her off the hook for buying into/being into it. I didn't get a "I enjoyed that too" vibe from it so much as him using it as a way to take away some of the sting of embarrassment she might have felt for thinking that it was real. Regardless though, IMO it's still a douche move whether he meant it or not, because he still did all of that and then let her think it wasn't real.

Do they have some inside info, or are they going off the pictures PB and CR posted?

I do. I actually loved the twist at the end of last season, because I had completely forgotten that Slade had cameras in the mansion, and while I knew it was all too good to be true, I didn't expect Oliver to go there. It was dickishly awesome on Oliver's part. It's cool storytelling once in a while, but writers have to seriously be careful with that. The good thing about that trick was that they gave us all the pieces to put it together about 10 minutes after they "fooled" us. If there is indeed some long-term secret keeping going on here, the writers risk losing the trust of their audience (and they're doing a bang-up job of doing that anyway). What good is it to get invested if I'm going to continuously be tricked or fooled into believing something that's not true? And what would be the point of Oliver not trusting Diggle and Felicity with his plan? What reason would he have not to? Does he think they're compromised for whatever reason? If the plan came to light after last episode when there was some tension between them, I'd believe it. But he literally walked right into the foundry with this decision already made - there was never a chance at discussing it with them. Is it because he somehow knows Malcolm has the foundry bugged (ugh, retread of last year's storyline). Okay, so...he knows that and doesn't move to another lair - then everything they talk about in there from the time Oliver returns to whenever this secret plan plays out can't be trusted. Did Oliver mean it? Was it real? Was it because he knew he was being watched by Malcolm? Same old, same old. Diggle and Felicity can't secretly be in on it, because the team up with Malcolm is generating an actual rift between them. If that's all a ruse, then everything, literally everything we're seeing right now is a trick. Why would I tune back in next season when they're giving me character developments that they're just going to take back? I'd honestly rather Oliver be a high-level moron then for him to have some kind of secret he's letting literally no one in on.

Yes! Laurel reminded Nyssa that the strongest metal is forged in the hottest fire, baby!

Oh, it's happening. It's most definitely happening. She went from telling her that she wasn't fit to wear Sara's jacket to giving her boxing tips. Next up? Full-on approval and an offer to come under her tutelage.

My problem isn't necessarily that he's teaming up with Malcolm. I get that - sometimes we have to unsavory things to keep the people we love safe. It's that he's doing it without any discussion with anyone when he should've learned his lesson by now that his first course of action isn't always the best one. And it's that he hasn't even acknowledged that he's going to try to protect himself from getting duped by Malcolm. Again. It's like he's going into it with his eyes shut and zero self-preservation instinct, and that's what makes it difficult for me to accept. And he's doing this all in the name of protecting Thea while not making her aware of the fact that the guy he's trusting to save them is the same one who put them in the crosshairs in the first place - by drugging her and making her kill Sara. So, it's not the team-up that bothers me so much as Oliver going about it in the most moronic way possible.

Yeah, this all goes back to everyone just not talking to each other or talking around each other. Felicity got angry the second Oliver said he was working with Malcolm without any explanation, but Oliver also never explained exactly why he's working with Malcolm. I mean, from the outside it's just a do-over of the first time. Ra's is going to come for Thea, and Oliver's trying to stop it. The first time nearly got him killed and the second time, who even knows? And when he actually had the opportunity to explain it to her, he chose turn her anger around on her by claiming the team up wasn't why she was upset - it was because of ~feelings or whatever. Has Oliver explained to anyone why he's working with Malcolm? Has anyone asked? Show, stop making this so difficult.

Yeah, it was the Joker. Problem is, I don't think Malcolm's insane. I just think he's a shitty person - although I wouldn't put it past these people to dunk him in a pool of goo to change that.

He was - he posted a pic with her and her lunch. He was at a table read recently - I think they'd kill him off and then Lazarus Pit him. Not likely, but I'm filing it away as a possibility.

If they did kill him off, I wonder if the Lazarus Pit would come into play at some point.

I doubt that too, but it would leave people talking, especially since Oliver was hanging his hat on Malcolm teaching him how to defeat Ra's. That would definitely be a twist I wouldn't see coming - I'd call it a game changer. And that instagram was from a con, so I don't think it points to him filming one way or another.

I thought there was more to it too, and I thought for sure that it would come into play at some point. Maybe it will, but if I had to guess I'd say we're giving the writers more credit than they're due, unless we find out from Ra's in 2x15 what else she was doing there. I also wonder if her comment about being able to overhear Team Arrow's comms is ever going to be revisited (with Ray maybe? Although a few interviews with BR made it seem like Ray really doesn't know what's up, even though that might not mean anything), or if that was just a simple way to write off Sara being able to find Oliver in the first place.

I don't really understand the point of it unless it was to establish that Quentin knew Sara was working on something SOUPER SEEKRIT and that she'd be around town sometimes and maybe not able to contact him in order to sell the fact that he didn't seem overly concerned about not hearing from her from months on end and then was okay with seeing her in town and still not being all that worried about it.