dtissagirl

I would have watched even if I had been completely spoiled, yes. But I can't see myself REwatching, like I do frequently with a bunch of other X-Men movies. But those are all light and fluffly compared to how hard and dreary Logan was.

I only like Oliver when he's about Felicity, so they only way to rehab Oliver for me is for him to be dating/engaged/married to Felicity. The relationship is the characterization rehab in itself.

The hilarious part in all of this for me is that I'm still binge watching Chicago Fire, and Casey and Dawson had been living together for a year, they were engaged to be married, and then they broke up, and still had to work together every day, and worse -- he was her direct superior in the chain of command. One full season of working together, going into dangerous situations [they're both firefighters], and I swear to Zod, every. single. scene. between them took into account that they were almost married, and still had to work together through the breakup. The writing was aware of it, the two actors were aware of it, the rest of the cast were aware of it. And issues came up, and they were talked about, because even dumb cliché procedurals know how to do character driven crap. Like, watching this while Arrow set up the. exact. same. thing. between its main couple has been probably the most eye opening thing re: Oliver/Felicity I have seen in a while. It can be done in an ordinary normal human manner. Arrow chooses to do it via insane troll logic.

I hope so too.The quicker Oliver poops, the better.

I'm at a point that post-game storysplaining isn't enough for me. Oliver needs to blurt out he hasn't slept since Felicity left him, or something. It needs to be diegetic.

Agreed. I just wish the narrative addressed it. Vigilantes working law enforcement and/or politics is such a rich premise to do all sorts of interesting character work. But the feeling I get is these writers either ignore that hypocrisy, or worse -- are unaware of it.

Oliver's going on 13 months now without pooping because of Felicity? And that's why his face is permanently stuck in smell the fart mode for the past dozen episodes? That maybe could work for me. They'll have to connect his lack of bowel momevents to Felicity leaving him in text first, but it could work for me.

Did you just manage to fanwank the constipated robot schitck into characterization? I think you're my favorite person.

I get that, but it's again part of the structural problem -- they wrote a legit grand beat for Felicity's dark storyline, but they cointained it by having only Rory know about it when they obviously knew he was being put on a bus at the end of the episode. It's a beat that goes nowhere on purpose, because this isn't a character driven story for Felicity. It's just plot beats she needs to hit at predetermined times.

Nope, he didn't tell anyone. And I don't think they talked about it either when he was saying goodbye. It was a beat for one scene only. What a waste.

I don't really give a damn WHO reaches out to her, I just find it terribadly awful writing that they set up her willing to die in one episode, and then there's nothing at all about it in the following two episodes. That's my point. It's the world's most chillax and aloof downward spiral.

Yeah, did anyone talk to Felicity about her feelings and/or about Pandora and Helix in 13 or 14? I only remember the stuff in 12 and 15. That's the structural problem I'm talking about.

I agree Felicity sucks at letting others help her, but also, any normal human logic show would put this into text in the episodes in-between the plot-driven beats. But Arrow is written in some sort of insane troll logic language, so I do get it when people in the audience think Oliver doesn't care about what Felicity is going through. This isn't a show that needs to be paid attention at deeper levels of subtlety, it's just really really terribly written. The other characters needed to have been asking her "are you okay?" a lot. And her putting on the "I'm fine" facade. There is a complete *lack* of writing of Felicity's repression of her feelings, which is another structural problem.

This isn't the problem for me. The problem imo with Felicity's storyline has less to do with characterization and motivation, and more to do with the narrative structure is fucked up again, because these hacks cannot streamline a storyline to save their lives. She's ready to die in a nuclear explosion in episode 12, for crying out loud oh my god there's your "going dark" main beat... and then there's just busywork in episodes 13 and 14 because they need her joining Helix cliffhanger to be in episode 15. It's legit shit structuring. And it's the exact same shitty structure that gave Prometheus a vacation for however many episodes he missed, because these writers truly believe it's all right to stop narrative momentum to deal with Black Siren and America's Black Canary and Wild Dong and his phallic gun obsession and Oliver's love life with shady reporter. And it IS the fact that the structure is rotten that makes Oliver look like a moron about Prometheus, and that make him look like he's not paying attention to Felicity going down the rabbit role. Because the momentum keeps getting interrupted and he's like a kid with ADD distracted by a butterfly outside the classroom window.

Okay, so that IS a new rule, because we have gone a whole lot longer than one page on offtopicness before course-correcting once a new set of spoilers arrived. Thank you

Honest question: in the very recent past, @MuuMuuChainsmoker would give us in this thread A LOT of leeway in discussion that wasn't about spoilers, which is why this thread is so insanely long anyway. If that changed, we need to know what are the new rules, because nobody told us.

Casting budget is usually separate from episodic budget, so losing an actor doesn't necessarily mean that money goes back into the show. It depends on what kind of contract each actor has, and with which company.

I had a friend in high school that had recurring dreams of falling off of great heights and bouncing off like a tennis ball. Maybe he's Vigilante.

I think it's also because even last year when it looked like Oliver was hiding the demon spawn to protect his own ass, the story was selling it as him ~protecting the kid~ from whatever. They failed to execute, but the intent was there. Oliver siding with Susan looks insanely self-serving. The single outcome of his actions is she keeps dating him.

HAHAHAHAHA LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL, Steve. You're so funny.

I saw Logan earlier today, and I'm pretty sure it was the very best piece of misery porn I've ever watched. I never wanna see it again.

I think this is the part of the narrative that makes me wanna punch people up the nose. Oliver does have a really shady past, he's got a closet full of skeletons, he IS hiding a pretty big night job while being a public servant... and the moment he decided it was okay to use the Mayor's office to cover for Green Arrow? Like going to Pike last week, and saying the Green Arrow was set up by Prometheus? That made him a politician using his office for personal gain. That's corruption. But the narrative doesn't even seem to BE AWARE of any of this. The entire story is written from the standpoint that the secret of being Green Arrow outweighs any and all of Oliver's actions as Mayor. That's insane.

You can even trace what they changed from the plot driven shit of last season to the plot driven shit of this season. Last season the BMD was stupid as fuck, but there were ~a lot of feelings~ involved in everything. There was O/F getting engaged, a secret kid, then Felicity almost dying and being paralyzed, then kid getting kidnapped, etc. Was it all plotty and garbage fire? Yes. But they bothered to establish emotional parameters for everything. And then these morons apparently decided that it was ~using emotions~ that created the dumpster fire. So they got rid of it. This season? There's nothing emotional about anything at all. Oliver's been a constipated robot for how many episodes now? 10-ish? Felicity is repressing everything she feels, Diggle is so sidelined they haven't written anything for him to feel about, Thea just got a leeetle emotion going on in these last two episodes, but she's just been put on a bus so that's over. And really, you can't do plot driven shit without the emotional beats, because THAT IS WHEN YOUR AUDIENCE STARTS TO REALIZE YOUR WRITING IS SHIT. The only way plot driven crap works is when it also ~emotionally manipulates~ the audience into getting engaged with the characters. This season? They removed the narrative artifice that hooks people into plot driven stories from the show. There's dumb, then there's Oliver, then there's the Arrow writers room.

Please someone correct his your/you're screw up.

Oliver seems to be suffering from severe neurological damage this season, maybe that's their take on the amnesia trope?