apinknightmare

If all is as it seems in that video of the scene that was posted, then the fact that she's able to just walk right up and punch a man who's high and shooting people is just ridiculous. And I'm not saying that because it's Laurel, I'm saying that because she literally was able to just walk right up to him - no tactical maneuvers or anything. Hopefully it's a dream sequence or something, IDK.

I've officially spent too much time looking at a leg for something that will ultimately not matter, haha

I don't think so - whatever that is is strapped on there. He doesn't have any straps on his left leg. I looked at his costume in the Arrow side of the crossover ep, and it doesn't look like there's anything strapped to his right leg (although I could be wrong). So, whatever that is seems like it might be new.

Does he actually even care enough about Tommy being dead to go after Laurel? Unless I'm blocking something from my memory, he seems a bit "meh" about it. I wonder if a big deal was made about Tommy dying to save Laurel, like if it was mentioned in his eulogy and obit and stuff. That's probably another convo for another thread.

It was part of the upgraded jacket, you're right. It looked like his quiver, but it's clearly part of the jacket when Oliver pulls it out of the box. Maybe Oliver has some kind of injury to his right leg that needs protection? Can't be too bad if he's walking on it - but it seems like it must be due to some kind of injury since there isn't a plate on his left leg. Wonder if there's something on the right side of his jacket, too.

Yeah, I don't really take the security stuff too seriously. If they were as tight as they should be, most of the things that befall them never would, and we wouldn't have a show. It's one of the things that I don't mind handwaving because their ineptness in this department amuses and entertains me. The open comms thing is an issue though. I hope it comes into play at some point in the future, and I'm wondering if Oliver just didn't tell Felicity about it because everything after happened so quickly and it might've slipped his mind? Or did he tell her and she fixed it? Or did they just have a weakness in the comms that one time so Sara's presence would be explained and she could be seen by Oliver and give him her sage "we need people in our lives who don't wear one" speech before she died? I don't mind there being lapses like that - Felicity's good, but she can make mistakes. Them calling each other by their real names on the comms is stupid though. I understood them doing it at first, because it's a rookie mistake you make when you don't have the team details ironed out yet. Three years into it, they should be smarter about things.

Regarding Oliver's costume spoiler over in the SPOILERS ONLY thread - looks like he's got something on the strap to his quiver in that pic of SA and Colton's stunt double, right on the chest area (it's got an ammo kind of look to it, IMO). Maybe it's some kind of suit upgrade (again)? And he's got a guard/armor-type plate on his right leg.

Laurel has no interest in finding who killed Sara, she just wants to make sure she's fully prepared to administer UNHOLY VENGEANCE upon them when she does. It's part of why her storyline is coming off so weak. She's angry enough to kill (I'm guessing she wants to kill them - or does she just want to give them a beatdown? IDK) the person who did it, but not angry enough to lift a finger or really give much of a shit about finding them. She's perfectly willing to let Oliver and co. sit back and do the heavy lifting in that area, even though she still could've gotten her vengeance if there had been a legit police investigation into it, and they could've incorporated the search into her everyday life as DA. Since they decided to go this route, I'd actually buy this arc if her desire for revenge ate at her every second of the day to the point where she lost herself in it and fell into a spiral - like finding this person became almost like a madness and her real life suffered for it. The fact that she's just doing boxing extracurriculars while showing angry face every time Oliver and co. find and debunk another "suspect" is laughable to me.

Well, she's a tech person, not a contractor or construction worker, haha. In order for a point of entry to be electronically secured, it'd have to be closed first - Oliver or Digg would probably have to take care of that. I feel like if there are legit structural issues (and there very much are), that's not really in Felicity's purview. Ultimately I'm not going to hold anyone responsible for someone accessing the foundry because if the writers need them to, they will. It's stupid that they're still using that club as their base of operations considering all the people who know where it is, and then there's the fact that Oliver doesn't even own the building anymore.

Why? They're housed in a POS facility that has drippy ceilings and steam coming through the floors - these villains probably aren't finding their way in through any place that's protected by an actual armed entrance.

Maybe they'll fake us out, and this woman really did lose the baby and the kid she called was hers from another relationship, and Sandra Hawke shows up later. Maybe that's why they haven't given us a name yet. They could have had Oliver knock her up in high school or something so the kid could be aged up.

I think Felicity would be surprised to find out that he only had ONE kid, haha. She has no illusions about who he used to be. I think we'll see the mother a few times before we actually see the kid. They'll want to keep that dangling above our heads for a while before they drop it.

Yeah, she seemed not even friendly, really, but just...warm. Even when he was talking about her to Moira after he admitted that he got her pregnant, you could tell that he at least liked her a lot. I got the feeling that they didn't just have a one-night stand. Not that they had a full-blown relationship or anything, but that he knew her apart from the sex and he thought she was a good person. I don't think she's some harbinger of doom for Oliver (or his relationship with Felicity) or anything. Moira's been dead for a while and this woman (Sandra, I guess. I don't know why they won't just say her name) knew about it, and she never made an attempt to get in contact with him to let him know she had the kid even though she could've. And it's not like she went looking for him - they just happened to run into each other at a coffee shop, where she chose again not to tell him. I'm working my way into accepting that the kid is going to be a thing, but if I have to watch that I really don't want to watch some kind of eyeroll-inducing relationship drama over it. Especially since Felicity of all people would encourage Oliver to be involved in the kid's life, and after everything they've been through together, I can't imagine him even entertaining the idea of giving up what they have (this is me, assuming he and Felicity will be in a relationship at that point LOL) to try something out with a woman he cheated on his girlfriend with over eight years ago. Although I'm sure she's great, haha.

This cracked me up, it's totally possible. Probable, even. I will laugh so hard if we've been sitting here trying to figure out whether the team thinks Oliver's dead or what could possibly be going on for Oliver to be gone and have no one looking for him and it turns out that they know he's alive because of a stegosaurus picture and present day Oliver just isn't in those two episodes because they needed the time for Laurel's story.

Well, technically the rest of the season is post-Christmas. :)

Didn't he specifically say on the Arrow After Show that he was only in flashbacks for 2 eps?

Yeah, the "not this time" really can't be in reference to Roy's statement, because when has Ra's ever tried to kill Oliver before (that we know of)? Regardless, he does seem determined, based on him telling Ra's he's killed for the last time. And he does have so many things to fight for (and he seems to be realizing and accepting this more and more) so I really really hope that he's going there with the idea of coming home. Otherwise I'll be depressed.

Right, but usually the show follows real time. So if Oliver goes to Nanda Parbat in December and the show comes back in January - that's a month and a half. Where does she think he is during that time? She must think that he died, otherwise why wouldn't she be looking for him? She knew he went to Nanda Parbat in December, but won't she be worried that she hasn't heard from him since? Maybe there isn't a time jump, I don't know.

Right, but she knows he's going there to duel with him. What's she going to think when she doesn't hear from him for two months? She has to think he's dead, right? If not, then why aren't they showing us what he's up to while he's gone? Unless...maybe there isn't a time jump this hiatus for whatever reason and they make up for it by implying more time has passed in later episodes (I mean, a week supposedly went by between Arrow vs. Flash and The Brave and the Bold. But that's probably not likely.

I didn't think she'd suit up while Dinah was in town, more like Dinah and Quentin would express some worry about not hearing from Sara and maybe decide that if they didn't hear from her by a certain date they'd start looking for her. If Dinah is in the dark about Sara being in the LoA (which...how?), maybe Quentin admits to it and debunks whatever cover story they've told her to explain Sara's absence, and Laurel tells Quentin that she'll get in touch with the Arrow to see if he can find her. Then a bit of time and a suiting up and showing up at a crime scene (in the distance, of course) where Quentin would see to maybe ease his mind? I can see her getting a rush out of it and trying to actually fight some crime, IDK. Granted, I don't think this is likely - there are a lot of issues with it, like...would Quentin not be suspicious about the masked Sara not coming closer to talk to him? Anyway...I do think it's a possibility. Because Oliver disappearing doesn't require Laurel to dress up - it just doesn't. Not when Roy's around and Diggle can go out as the Arrow from time to time. Then again, maybe I'm just hanging too heavily on MG's statement that an event necessitates (or makes her dressing up necessary, however he phrased it) the costume, which implies to me that something would happen if she didn't put it on, which isn't the case if she just wants to suit up to help the team since Oliver's gone. Although that probably is ultimately why she does it.

Well, MG tweeted that she wouldn't be. So she'll either think he's dead (I can't really believe this, unless Nyssa comes back and like...brings them his things. Even still, without a body, IDK how they'd give up), or she'll be in on some larger plan that we don't know about yet. Or maybe she will be looking for him and MG is a lying liar who lies.

She said it dreamily, so I think he was confused about why she mentioned the land mines so fondly. Once she said it was a long story, he remembered landing on top of her and that she was probably having nice memories of that moment. That's why he had that amused grin on his face once he realized what she was talking about.

I'll respectfully disagree. Not that it isn't a retread because it potentially could be, but we don't know what the context is. Is it in some kind of a flashback of Hong Kong showing that Oliver's accepted the fact that he needs to torture people and do terrible things to save others like tonight's ep showed the beginnings of? Is it somehow a callback to what he previously said/realized with acknowledgment that it is a callback? I'm not going to judge when it's one line in a voiceover that we have absolutely no context for.

I'm on the low end of the spectrum when it comes to having faith in this show, but maybe we should wait until we know who he's talking to and what the context of the conversation is?

I hope so too. I have a nearly infinite amount of patience with this show, but I'm getting so tired of Oliver giving up. He really needs to start fighting for the Oliver Queen part of himself. With regard to the "now I know what I'm fighting for," I thought he could say it to Malcolm, but he already said something so similar, so...I don't know.