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S04.E04: Beyond Redemption


Tara Ariano
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I don't think the scene was specifically a callback to Ray - she mentioned before that she liked watching Oliver do that, and had made some other references to enjoying Sally before Ray ever entered the picture. And I don't think she was trying to hide her enjoyment of seeing him - she flat-out said she was glad they came back when she saw him with Sally. I think the point was that something else was on her mind, and Oliver knew her well enough to recognize that.

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Yeah they were very touchy-feely in the premiere, even after moving back to SC so my expectation for what her reaction would've been like when she saw Oliver on the Salmon Ladder again was that there'd be more...somehow. More flirty, more banter, more touching, a kiss perhaps?  I mean Felicity finally can touch Oliver after seeing him do the salmon ladder shirtless, I'm sure she's thought about this at length before. At the very least I expected her to saunter up to him and make one of her patented Felicity Smoak innuedos. To me the scene, read  as Felicity being bothered by what was going on at PT with RP's message, which was what Oliver's comment was about and maybe not fully focused, so all in all I just felt a bit underwhelmed with the whole scene.

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I could definitely do with some more touching with Olicity (shoulder touch, forehead kiss etc) but at the same time I'm really liking how well they're just sort of weaving them into the show as a couple. They're together, it's not a big deal. I like it. 

 

I do agree that the salmon ladder scene was a little underwhelming. I think it was just a way to prompt Oliver asking Felicity what was bothering her. 

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I didn't think it was bad at all, just boring.

 

It WAS a weird episode, but my take is the opposite, that was a badly written episode of television, but it was surprisingly entertaining, I thought it was extremely well paced and well shot, the scenes that needed to breath (Quentin/Oliver's confrontation) did,  the things that are insanely dumb (Oliver's mayoral campaign, Sara's resurrection) were blessedly short, and the stuff with Curtis was good character beats for him and really sold me on that working relationship, I have never ever wanted someone on Team Arrow so badly as I want Mr, Terrific. Sigh.

 

I mean I even liked the flashback since it was on theme, mystical magicks and Oliver's perpetual attempts to balance his dark with is light.

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Laurel is ziplining with Oliver now.  sigh. I remember when that was a signature Felicity thing.

 

Oh man. I didn't even make that connectin :(. Ugh that sucks

 

Regarding Sara being chained up. It occurs to me it's just like her being confined in a cell back and chained up on the Island and the boat. So even outside of the trauma of her being brought back to life, I would bet it's triggering all kinds of PTSD about her time on the boat. Congratulations, Laurel you have re- traumatized your sister in unimaginable ways because "I HAVE TO TRY".  Fucking hell.

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I also don't care what she's wearing. That should be the least of anybody's concerns on the show.

 

It goes to how much Laurel isn't really about Sara being back for Sara, but for whatever reasons Laurel wants her back. Sara is still in the outfit that:

a)she was murdered in

b)she was put in a commercial freezer

c)she was buried in

d)she wore into the Lazarus Pit waters

e)she wore on whatever transportation got her back to Star City

f) she was chained up in a darkened basement.

 

From what the previews show, she's still in that outfit!  How is that showing any concern for a sister that's been dead for a year and miraculously brought back to you?! Apparently there is either a nil budget for jeans, tees and sneakers or they threw out anything having to do with Sara-sized clothes. Alternatively, TIIC might think that folks won't remember that Sara was The Canary, so she has to where the costume to clue in the clueless.

 

While I'm not a big Laurel fan, the writers aren't helping Laurel look like the loving Big Sis they want her to seem. They are the ones undercutting Laurel and it's frustrating because I think Laurel is capable of giving her baby sis some of her stuff to wear until they can go shopping or whatever Laurel is hoping.

 

I also can get behind Laurel being grumpy about having to work at a refurbished psycopath's HQ, especially when she had started dating him and then he tried to kill her. Yet, it's not Oliver and Felicity's fault about Sebastian, so Laurel maybe should save the death glares for her boxing workout. (If she still does that.)

 

"I guess you don't need Miranda rights."  Uh, I'm pretty sure she does.

 

Quentin meant that Liz, being a cop, did not need him to recite out loud the paragraph of rights due to her already being expected to know them pretty well.

 

I don't think it was a big deal that she was crying because she did care for Ray and he loved her, and now he's gone.

 

No, he's not. He's alive. We know this because a) he's been featured in trailers and stuff for the spin-off and b) he's communicating via electronics to Felicity. For whatever reason, the writers have Ms. Optimism suddenly 1000% sure that Ray is dead and could never be alive. Even knowing what experiments he was working on at the time of the explosion. It's all contrived, imo, to vamp until Ray gets his turn to be re-introduced. He's gotta wait for Sara.

 

I have absolutely no problem with Ray trying to get in touch with her. He's tiny, I'd rather not be tiny as well. Plus I like the Atom on the phone nod to the comics. I don't think he's at the lair

 

In that same comics nod, though, he could be riding sound waves/ electronic pulses and hanging out in Felicity's phone, and ,by extension, the lair. Because he's got a jillion degrees ( just ask him), he might be trying to grab attention by hack-adjacently screwing around with electronics around Felicity. If her emotional stew wasn't still as strong ( and the Contrivance Fairy would just take a break from her dancing around this story), Felicity will twig to this possibility. I hope.

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I have to admit, this is a question I don't have. She's completely unstable. Second, Thea is the one that technically killed her so she will have bloodlust for Thea who is with her and most of the group aren't supposed to know yet. A surprise visit blows that up. She's not a human right now. She's basically like a rabid animal at this point. I don't know why you would put that in your house. I also don't care what she's wearing. That should be the least of anybody's concerns on the show.

 

These all sounds like pretty valid reasons not to put your dead sister in a pit and bring her back to life for . . . reasons. But if Laurel doesn't care about Sara's stability, Thea's safety, or the fact that Sara is barely human, why should she be overly concerned about having her in the house?

 

Nothing about Laurel or this story make any sense. That's why it's more entertaining for some of us to figure out why she's pissed off about riding an elevator.

Edited by KenyaJ
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I just can never muster up even a tenth of the anger Laurel inspires in other. For the most part, she just garners indifference for me. But, breaking down every single thing a character does that is illogical no matter who it is just feels tiring to me. She put Sara in a basement. A bucket! No new clothes. Just gets a shoulder shrug from me. All these little things just don't garner my attention and it still doesn't upon inspection. I mean, yes, I want the best for Sara but I don't even know anyone is logically supposed to deal with. She's not a overnight guest. Yes, Laurel shouldn't have brought her back. No character should be doing anything big or small selfishly. But, its just something I have accepted and moved on. Not going to keep breaking down every part of it.

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RE: The Zip Lining.

 

I can't even get mad at that because it was hilarious. Seriously, the gif makes it 10x as funny. It's robotic and neither one of them take one look at the other the entire shot. Before they leave the building, there is this slight lift that makes it look like they are about to step into THE WORST DANCE OF THEIR LIVES. Laurel looks so over it and Oliver almost looks storic. It's a thing of beauty. LOL

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Meh. I don't really think the ziplining thing is a big deal. Characters are going to fight together and touch/help each other. I know some are worried that it means something, but I take it as part of the job. Oliver always uses ziplines to get out of places ASAP and since arrows aren't Laurel's thing I certainly didn't expect him to leave her behind. I'm sure he would have done the same thing for Thea, Felicity, or anyone else who happened to be standing next to him. It really means nothing beyond Oliver swiftly moving himself and a teammate.

Edited by NumberCruncher
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I have a question - Ray's last words were "I'm sorry Felicity, this is my fault." He went splodey immediately, so did he not die right away? Or did he apologize for dying before he did the thing that killed him?

Edited by apinknightmare
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Oh, I'm pretty sure that his voice was from after the shrinkage.

 

How would he have recorded that though? He wasn't even wearing the suit when he died. 

 

I hope the recording is, "I'm sorry Felicity. This is all my fault. I SHRUNK MYSELF PLEASE HELP ME." If he just apologized to her, what a moron. 

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Meh. I don't really think the ziplining thing is a big deal. Characters are going to fight together and touch/help each other. I know some are worried that it means something, but I take it as part of the job. Oliver always uses ziplines to get out of places ASAP and since arrows aren't Laurel's thing I certainly didn't expect him to leave her behind. I'm sure he would have done the same thing for Thea, Felicity, or anyone else who happened to be standing next to him. It really means nothing beyond Oliver swiftly moving himself and a teammate.

It would have made more sense if they were leaving in a hurry, but here they were entering the scene. Which doesn't make it clear to me why no one thought of a better position for Laurel, one she could move from on her own.

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Seriously, after this episode I'm pretty sure that writers rather hate Laurel's character and I don't believe Guggenheim speaks his mind when he defends her actions on twitter and tumblr. Probably the writers realized the character was messed up beyond redemption with bad casting choices and abysmal writing. It's time to kill it with fire.

 

Either this, or a group of people actually believes that bringing back a person from the dead in order to feel better oneself is a good thing. Chaining the said person in the basement is an act of sisterly love. And giving your father a heart-attack with a family reunion is a normal thing to do (once you've spend half of a previous season whinning about his weak heart).

 

The rest of the episode was a haze to me - my disdain for one particular character was too great. But some bits I've liked: the elevator scene ( even the B!tCh face was funny then), the talk Oliver had with Quentin...

 

And I really, really like this new Oliver - not his suddenly inept fighting skills, but his openness, the family love he oozes from every pore. The sense of duty. Felicity looks good on him.

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So, it is not common knowledge that Felicity and Ray dated? Or am I reading too much into her conversation with Curtis? So much ick. I guess that's what they get for writing an stalling romance that looked like a skit from a sexual harassment video...

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It would have made more sense if they were leaving in a hurry, but here they were entering the scene. Which doesn't make it clear to me why no one thought of a better position for Laurel, one she could move from on her own.

Yes, I realize they were entering the scene, but my point was that whether they were entering the scene or leaving one, it would have looked strange for Oliver to zipline out and leave Laurel just standing there. It might have been funny, but it also would have made Oliver look like a ginormous douchebag.

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So, it is not common knowledge that Felicity and Ray dated? Or am I reading too much into her conversation with Curtis? So much ick. I guess that's what they get for writing an stalling romance that looked like a skit from a sexual harassment video...

I don't imagine that Ray was running around the building telling everyone that he and the vice president he just hired were having sex. Lesser employees probably had no idea that they even hung out outside of work.

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So, it is not common knowledge that Felicity and Ray dated? Or am I reading too much into her conversation with Curtis? So much ick. I guess that's what they get for writing an stalling romance that looked like a skit from a sexual harassment video...

 

I think it wasn't public knowledge - at least they made it seem like there weren't rumors among the employees.

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I don't imagine that Ray was running around the building telling everyone that he and the vice president he just hired were having sex. Lesser employees probably had no idea that they even hung out outside of work.

This is Ray we're talking about.  I wouldn't be surprised if he had.  (Although admittedly I was surprised that FELICITY went bragging to heroing colleagues about how good he gave it to her, wink wink, #NEVERFORGIVE.)

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That's more circumspection than I would have credited Ray with so I'm going to assume that Felicity was traumatized by the rumors about her and Oliver from when she was his EA and made sure that no one knew she was sleeping with Ray ( which explains her calling him 'Mr. Palmer'.).

 

Because knowing how workplaces work, if there had been any gossip at all about them, Curtis would have heard it.

 

A team-up some of you have been waiting for.

Good news -- the p.r. department finally figured it out.

Quentin meant that Liz, being a cop, did not need him to recite out loud the paragraph of rights due to her already being expected to know them pretty well.

I know.  But if I were him, I would have been afraid of it being thrown out of court by a judge who said that she didn't get her rights stated to her.

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The writers didn't even see any problem with a billion-dollar corporation at least initially entirely funding the mayoral campaign of the CEO's boyfriend. 

Felicity did grimace when she said she didn't know what her board would say.

 

It's very common for companies to fund political campaigns. The big ones even fund multiple candidates so whoever gets in owes them.  The problem is that PT is in money troubles but I'm sure that will be taken care of by Curtis and Felicity in time for the next board meeting.  (This is a big problem when it comes to higher-up positions like President. It's estimated that it takes $ 1 -2 billion to run for the White House.  Only Donald Trump can afford that out of his own pocket and so whoever wins ends up owing a lot of people big time.)

 

statsgirl - I totally get your rant but the biggest difference between interns and volunteers is usually the fact that interns are earning college credit. When I was working on my masters I was fortunate to get a paid internship. 

 

Now of course the really fun thing about unpaid internships is that you typically have to pay for the college course that you are receiving credit for - so in essence, an unpaid intern is kind of paying to work for free.  Not fun. 

 

Oh and my impression about Thea and the nightclub was that when she owned it, she got a bunch of followers and then she just sent out a message requesting volunteers/interns for her brother's campaign and bam! full campaign office.

Yes, that's what I got too.  (If Thea still has the club and Malcolm's money, then why doesn't she help pay for Oliver's campaign and some of those workers?)

 

Here, the term "internship" used to apply to a work credit that was paid, and "practicum" to one that was unpaid.  Unfortunately with youth unemployment being so high and so many people desperate for any advantage, many companies are taking advantage of the job-seekers and get them to do work that previously would have been paid for free.

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I don't care who Oliver ziplines with, but I care VERY MUCH about what he anchors said ziplines off of.

 

 

THE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON

 

That just was one of the most WTF moments of season three and always will be. :)

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This is Ray we're talking about. I wouldn't be surprised if he had. (Although admittedly I was surprised that FELICITY went bragging to heroing colleagues about how good he gave it to her, wink wink, #NEVERFORGIVE.)

You can stop now. It's late here, I don't need to burst out laughing.

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It would have made more sense if they were leaving in a hurry, but here they were entering the scene. Which doesn't make it clear to me why no one thought of a better position for Laurel, one she could move from on her own.

 

Oh but they did, someone thought about this exact scenario and then made it happen so that some of the fans can see what they've been waiting for, the epic, amazing sight of the GA and BC ziplining to the mooooooooon. 

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I have a question - Ray's last words were "I'm sorry Felicity, this is my fault." He went splodey immediately, so did he not die right away? Or did he apologize for dying before he did the thing that killed him?

 

I wonder if this message ties into his having her sign off on inheriting/becoming CEO of PT or part of PT or whatever non-SEC approved action that contract covered. Like, maybe he was planning to leave town, or was planning to do something dangerous (like playing around with shrinking technology), and was tying things up in advance, just in case. Not sure how she would have found that message if not for mini-Ray guiding her to it, but I assume he didn't anticipate that the building was going to 'splode, so maybe there would have been a trail to it in that case.

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Right after she glares at O/F, which was right after she was all weird about what Felicity was supposed to be wearing. Is she jealous? Is KC jealous?

IT IS ALL SO WEIRD.

Perhaps she is jealous...

She has seen 3 guest stars come on Arrow alone and earn their own spin-offs. Nevermind Flash characters. One guest star on her show got promoted to main LI & her screentime increased. LLs character whose comic canon could sustain its own show has been booted fron LI, had her screentime cut; a lot of her scenes are edited out & well lets put it nicely the writing for her character has sucked.

So I think KC might be entitled to be jealous & pissed, but she really should try to keep it off her onscreen face. It's distracting & frankly off putting. Doesn't make a case for her character better if all we get is crossed arms & RBF.

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Oliver's running for mayor and Felicity is funding it.  Now that is a political campaign I don't mind watching.  It has to be more entertaining than the current presidential campaign.

 

Loved Thea/Oliver bonding.  The "why aren't your wearing it" slip and the look on Oliver's face was hilarious.

 

Love the new lair and yeah Sally is back.  If the show promises me that Oliver or Diggle will use the salmon ladder at least once an episode, I'll totally put aside that the secret lair isn't really so secret.  I fully expect Damien Darhk shows up down there before February sweeps.  I don't care what kind of fancy biometric system Cisco put in the cases.  Sweat and leather don't mix.  Those suits stink.  Obviously not as much as Sara's leather corset, but still gross.

 

Finally someone called Quentin on being a hypocrite.  Those Oliver/Lance scenes were glorious.  Quentin is so dead and no pit for you.

 

Ah, Laurel was hilarious.  Since she is not going anywhere, she better bring the batshit crazy to entertain me and she did.  Keeping her sister chained in basement, blowing that guy back with her canary cry, daddy, daddy, daddy. So awesomely ridiculous!!  Next week will be even better because we get mystical mumbo jumbo along with batshit crazy times two since Sara's off her rocker as well. 

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So many wtf moments that have already been mentioned but a few that are just bugging me. What the hell kind of party do you throw with 80 kilos of cocaine? Google tells me one kilo is around $35 thousand dollars. Thea's local drug connection didn't seem at all surprised she needed 80 keys. Girl must have had a serious drug problem and I suppose said drug dealer just had a warehouse filled bricks of cocaine.

Curtis looked at Felicity's phone once or twice and he recognizes the code as being from 2013 and oh yeah looks just like some old Palmer code. Felicity the computer genuis, who went to MIT, and worked with Palmer on all kinds of shit hasn't been able to figure this out? Almost as stupid as a card counter who grew up in Vegas not knowing poker hands.

Did anyone think to tell Sara's mother she is back from the dead and fucking insane? Maybe her mother could help or at least get the poor girl some clean clothes. On that note, something that just chaps my ass is when a grown ass women calls her father, Daddy. Sounds absolutely ridiculous. Can you imagine if Oliver called Moria, Mommy or Tommy calling Merlin, Daddy? I wonder if Nyssa used to call Ra's al Ghul, Daddy? Now that might have been entertaining.

Since I am feeling especially bitchy I don't like grown ass men being called Tommy or Ollie. Yeah, yeah they all grew up together, still don't like it. My only acception is Dean Winchester calling his brother Sammy.

Edited by Sasha
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Re: PT funding Oliver's mayoral campaign: He's running unopposed (so far), so it shouldn't be that expensive.

Except for someone who is running unopposed at the moment, they aren't playing like it. He has a full on staff like he would if he was going to political war.

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Except for someone who is running unopposed at the moment, they aren't playing like it. He has a full on staff like he would if he was going to political war.

 

Maybe this is also the staff Oliver will have when he's mayor? IDK. I'm still wondering how they're going to play all of this because running for Mayor unopposed sounds boring. I hope that this doesn't last long and he's actually mayor by the midseason finale (which may be where those photos from canadagraphs are about). 

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If he's the only one running, wouldn't he only need 1 vote to win? 

 

I guess so, but why would he assume that someone wouldn't step up to challenge him? Why bother having a HQ at all? He still has to actually campaign, and he can't do that by himself.

Edited by apinknightmare
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I did get a good laugh out when Felicity freaked out over Lance entering the new hangout, like he has known that she works with The Arrow for the past 2 years, his daughter is on the team and he knows Oliver in GA so there isn't much to worry about it.

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Meh. I don't really think the ziplining thing is a big deal. Characters are going to fight together and touch/help each other. I know some are worried that it means something, but I take it as part of the job. Oliver always uses ziplines to get out of places ASAP and since arrows aren't Laurel's thing I certainly didn't expect him to leave her behind. I'm sure he would have done the same thing for Thea, Felicity, or anyone else who happened to be standing next to him. It really means nothing beyond Oliver swiftly moving himself and a teammate.

Now I really want a BroTP zipline through the night. Imagine the heart eyes Dig & OQ could make at each other on their way to wherever. Bonus points if Dig uses his gloc midair. :)

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Now I really want a BroTP zipline through the night. Imagine the heart eyes Dig & OQ could make at each other on their way to wherever. Bonus points if Dig uses his gloc midair. :)

 

LMAO YESSSSSSSSSSS. And I hope Felicity gets a video of that and tells them how cute that moment was :')

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