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S05.E03: A Matter Of Trust


Tara Ariano
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9 minutes ago, bijoux said:

Wild Dog is the dumb. Seriously, dude. And nice team work with dragging Evelyn into the fight without letting her know and without her mask. Bonus on ratting her out to Oliver later. Why are they acting like he has a leg to stand on? I'm betting he's the noob who bites it before the end of the season.

All that talk about needing to trust Oliver and for Oliver to trust him and then he went out and put Evelyn in danger by essentially lying to her. How can you trust someone when they do that?

Edited by doesntworkonwood
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Had a feeling that Floyd was going to end up being in Diggle's head, so that wasn't too surprising, but still somewhat disappointing.  Michael Rowe is so great in the role and I love how he and David Ramsey play off one another.  Sigh.... why couldn't he have been resurrected by Barry's fuck-up, since John Jr. is officially a thing now, and Baby Sara is no more.  Fuck you, Barry!  At least Lyla is still here and trying to get Diggle out. Too bad she even has to fight him.  Diggle's guilt is making him delusional.  Andy had all but admit that he would never stop hunting down Diggle and his family, and he had the means to do it.  Diggle didn't just murder him for no reason, but he's acting like he did.

Oh, Oliver!  It's hard living a double-life, especially when everyone around you is messing up!  In Arrow-land, you've got Wild Dog doing what he does best and ignoring your instructions, which naturally lead to turning Cody Rhodes into a superhuman.  Meanwhile, in Mayorville, poor Thea keeps trying to make things better for you, but actually makes them worse.  Poor Oliver.  At least he had Felicity to help with the Arrow stuff, and he was able to fix the politic issues, by just admitting that Quentin is joining him.  Not bad!

I usually like Curtis, but he was kind of bugging me in this episode.  It felt like he was trying way too hard to be zany, funny, and quirky.  Like he was trying to be a mixture of Felicity and Cisco, but didn't have whatever it is that makes those characters work.

Rory/Ragman continues to be the best thing about the new team.  Hopefully finding out about Felicity's involvement in Havenrock won't lead to too much friction between him and her/Oliver.

Noticed the actor playing this Chase character is a regular, so I guess he will become significant in the long run.  Kind of suspicious over him suddenly bringing up that Oliver made a move and succeeded with his girlfriend, during his partying days.  Have a feeling he might end up being trouble.  Speaking of trouble, I wonder if Carly Pope's reporter will be an issue going forward as well.

The fight scenes were actually decent, which is good since they've never been Gregory Smith's strong suit as a director.

If nothing else, the flashbacks this season are way, way better then last season's.  Oliver's initiation feels like there is at least some kind of suspense and curiosity over how he will pull it off.  Plus, Anatoly is a solid side character.

Next week: prison break!  Too bad Oliver can't get access to Snart or Mick, because Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell know a thing or two about prison breaks!

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3 minutes ago, bethy said:

Det. Mayo did not even occur to me when Felicity said what she did about not dating. Which shows what kind of impression he's made on me so far. 

And they haven't really given any reason for Felicity to say something like that. Seems like she has the perfect setup so far - a guy who fawns over her and doesn't ask too many questions. Yeah, she's hiding a big part of her life from him, but we haven't seen her being bothered by that yet? HIT ME OVER THE HEAD WITH IT, SHOW (even when it doesn't make sense pls)

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I liked Felicity saying that her and Oliver didn't have that kind of relationship anymore. At first I was confused because of all the heart to hearts they've had, but then it occurred to me they were all about Oliver. She is keeping her personal life away from him in every way. 

Spoiler

I would kind of get that one night stand reporter rumor at this point. I bet Oliver sees their relationship differently because he isn't holding back and he can't see that Felicity is. Once he sees that I can see him making stupid choices before realizing that distance is his fault and Felicity needs him.

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7 minutes ago, Chaser said:

I liked Felicity saying that her and Oliver didn't have that kind of relationship anymore. At first I was confused because of all the heart to hearts they've had, but then it occurred to me they were all about Oliver. She is keeping her personal life away from him in every way. 

  Hide contents

I would kind of get that one night stand reporter rumor at this point. I bet Oliver sees their relationship differently because he isn't holding back and he can't see that Felicity is. Once he sees that I can see him making stupid choices before realizing that distance is his fault and Felicity needs him.

That makes a whole lot of sense to me from a character perspective, because one of the issues I thought Felicity had last year is that she had laid herself completely bare to Oliver. Which is a scary thing and according to 406 she saw it as such. So I imagine it felt like kind of a slap in the face to realize that he didn't reciprocate.

Spoiler

Actually, this episode made me think that Oliver won't be hooking up with Susan. She reads older for some reason. Also, they weirdly decided not to let her ask him a question when they were in the same room.

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I think one thing that bothered me was that it never crossed Oliver's mind that Rory being from Havenrock might be difficult for Felicity - at least not that I noticed.  I know that she doesn't talk about personal things with him, but as soon as Curtis heard Rory was from Havenrock, he asked Felicity specifically about it.  I had hoped that Oliver was perceptive enough to wonder if this might be difficult for her when he asked Rory to join the team.  For the last few episodes, we've seen Felicity be really mindful and thoughtful of what might be troubling Oliver, and she prompts him to open up to her.  It would be nice to see it reciprocated in the future.

Edited by ComicFan777
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5 hours ago, doesntworkonwood said:

Curtis's mask was pointless. It just looked like a bit of black facepaint, you could still very clearly see it was him. I liked him in his scene with Felicity, but every thing else was just no. 

Wait, that was a mask? I thought it WAS just face paint.

I'm a bit surprised Thea actually fell for the reporters trick. I saw it coming a mile away. On the the other hand, at least now the reporter should know better than to mess with Moira Queen Jr.

I'm confused about Evelyn. Is she the new Canary or not? Because I haven't seen her use the Cry since last season.

9 hours ago, SmallScreenDiva said:

But how do you train Ragman? Like what does Rory actually do at the HIVE bunker aside from watch DVDs of Oliver's interrogations? I actually like him, but that maybe residual affection for playing Patterson's boyfriend David on Blindspot.

Thank you. I've been trying to figure out where I recognized him from. As for training, it seems like Ragman is the only one who doesn't need any. He doesn't use martial arts or guns, he has the magic rags to handle everything for him.

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I enjoyed watching this episode. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The villain was weak but the episode was more about Team Arrow 3.0 and Mayor Queen. I loved Felicity's subplot though. I am glad Curtis was there for her. Thea channeling Moira when dealing with that reporter was awesome too. 

WTF moment of the episode: Oliver saying the men auditioning to be part of the Bratva were innocent men. LOL. You are so pretty, Oliver. 

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2 hours ago, bijoux said:

That makes a whole lot of sense to me from a character perspective, because one of the issues I thought Felicity had last year is that she had laid herself completely bare to Oliver. Which is a scary thing and according to 406 she saw it as such. So I imagine it felt like kind of a slap in the face to realize that he didn't reciprocate.

  Hide contents

Actually, this episode made me think that Oliver won't be hooking up with Susan. She reads older for some reason. Also, they weirdly decided not to let her ask him a question when they were in the same room.

It's totally in character, she wasn't that inclined to discuss stuff that troubled her even when they were in a relationship.

About the reporter, I had the opposite impression - I thought she looked younger than her age.

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I've just started watching the episode and I can't believe they showed The Flash clip of Felicity finding out about baby Sara/baby John to tell Arrow audiences what changed. OH WAIT YES I CAN. 

Lazy asses.

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I finally watched the episode during my lunch break. I thought it wasn't bad but didn't have the same momentum has the previous two. 

I'm definitely not convinced by the boobs team, individually and collectively. I don't like WildDog, Evelyn is essentially white noise, and Curtis doesn't mesh. Plus, there is such a thing as too much Curtis. 

The main question though is why must characters be so stupid and quick to adopt the most dumbass line of reasoning and decision-making process ever? 

And why do that to Diggle, show? No I mean, seriously, how is deciding not to fight the charges logical? Guilt aside, why would you alienate (and punish by being absent, if convicted) your wife and kid? In what parallel universe does that even make sense? And what kind of 'atonement' would that provide exactly? 

Yeah. It seriously hurts my brain.

On a shallow and positive note, Felicity looked stunning in that blue dress. 

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Okay, so I thought that was a pretty solid episode. Not as good as last week but still enjoyable even though there was a lot going on and the whole theme of trust was hammered home a bit too much. Yeah, I get it. You have to trust your team! Does this show know subtlety? LOL.

It's weird because I've always felt that there was far too many people on the team and that's why the stunts suffered, especially last season. But so far the newbies are working for me? IDK why. I can't make sense of it. Maybe because they are taking the time to show that they're not fully trained yet? Or maybe because Oliver/GA is getting the bulk of the action/stunts this time, as it should be. Whatever's happening, it's working so far.

That being said, I'm not sure about Curtis. His awkwardness is not really endearing. I'm glad they're not making him Gary Stu like they did last season but he doesn't quite fit and IDK why. His mask/outfit is terrible too. 

Baby Canary is awful and the actress is so wooden and stilted. She even had a Laurel moment where she kicked ass and then just stood there and posed. CRINGE. Don't do that!

I don't mind Wild Dog. I think I see where they're going with him. But Rory/Ragman remains my favorite. There's something very likeable about him.

Also, Oliver and Felicity as parents was very strong in this episode and not just because Rene referred to them as "mommy and daddy." 

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More thoughts:

I liked Felicity's subplot. I'm both glad that it's not being dragged out but also pleased that it's not resolved in one episode, which I had feared. I also liked that Curtis was a voice of reason and told her it wasn't her fault but it was Felicity who thought otherwise. Makes sense.

I also get why she hasn't confided in Oliver about it and that "they don't have that type of relationship anymore." She clearly trusts him as a team member but not with her heart. One of the issues that 406 raised was that Felicity was afraid of losing herself in Oliver but after that she gave herself over to him completely and he pretty much ruined that by lying to her. So she's retreated into herself and is holding back. I totally get it. I hope that Oliver does find out how much she's suffering though. If he's going to help Diggle, I hope he's there to help her too. They've done it enough for him over the years. 

As for Diggle, it made sense that he hallucinated Deadshot. Back in s2 when Oliver was hallucinating Shado, Diggle mentioned how something similar had happened to him when he got back from Afghanistan- that he had his own ghosts to deal with. I thought this was a nice callback to that. 

That being said, not wanting to fight the charges and just giving up annoys me because he has a wife and child. I can reason that he's depressed and we make dumb decisions when we're messed up but it already annoyed me that he abandoned his family to rejoin the army and now he's making it worse. No John. NO.

As for the reporter, I couldn't really get much from her except that she's going to annoy me and she also seems older on screen, almost like she could be Quentin's love interest. I know she's not but still.

Spoiler

And I do think Oliver will hook-up with her, per those rumors. Dude has been known to make dumb mistakes. And then Thea will probably be furious at him. I can already picture a very s2 Russia conversation but with Thea instead. "Of all the people you could've slept with, it had to be her?!" Haha. 

Oh, and I did love how we saw shades of Moira Queen in Thea near the end there. More of that please. It's what I always wanted from her.

Edited by Guest
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BTW, do we know what Felicity's day job is? Or is she really just getting dressed up fancy to go work in the bunker all day? I have no idea.

On that note, wowza at Felicity in that blue dress with the zip all the way down her ass. *Shallow comment*

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32 minutes ago, Angel12d said:

BTW, do we know what Felicity's day job is? Or is she really just getting dressed up fancy to go work in the bunker all day? I have no idea.

On that note, wowza at Felicity in that blue dress with the zip all the way down her ass. *Shallow comment*

Does she actually need to work?  She might not be the ceo anymore but isn't she still the majority share holder of a fortune 500 company?

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22 minutes ago, Delphi said:

Does she actually need to work?  She might not be the ceo anymore but isn't she still the majority share holder of a fortune 500 company?

I do wonder what the fuck does she tell Mayo McTinyHands she does all day long dressed up as the CEO of a Fortune 500 company when she... is.. not.

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2 minutes ago, dtissagirl said:

I do wonder what the fuck does she tell Mayo McTinyHands she does all day long dressed up as the CEO of a Fortune 500 company when she... is.. not.

Dress for the job you want.

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I think I like JV Team Arrow. Reporter lady was interesting. I was expecting Isabel 2.0 so the super fake/two-faced thing is new. I hope Thea really gets to destroy her. Sampson's  wriggling after the tendon slicing was so freaking gross. Just ew. Overall, pretty solid episode.

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9 minutes ago, dtissagirl said:

I do wonder what the fuck does she tell Mayo McTinyHands she does all day long dressed up as the CEO of a Fortune 500 company when she... is.. not.

It should be easy to lie to him. For example she could tell him, that she is coding or consulting upstairs in the old campaign office.

So both Diggle Brothers named their sons after themselves? WTF writes? Why not just name the kid Conner? It is just unimaginative.

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45 minutes ago, Delphi said:

Does she actually need to work?  She might not be the ceo anymore but isn't she still the majority share holder of a fortune 500 company?

Good point! I'd honestly forgotten about that. Still, I feel like Felicity is the kind of person who likes to work but maybe she really is just throwing herself into work in the bunker? IDK.

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17 hours ago, janeta said:

Oh how i wish all these guys would shave...

Amen! Especially after seeing how well Ragman cleaned up this episode. 

I will say I really enjoyed this episode. All the characters worked for me and all the jokes worked for me. I'm glad Curtis is in the team. From a purely selfish perspective, one of the issues with Ray and Curtis last year was that Felicy & Ray/Curtis were off in their own world. Curtis being part of the team, IMO, ties them both more to the central stories, and I like that. 

Even Diggle, though he is being very very stupid, was understandable. And any episode is better with Lyla in it. 

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So...bad things first. 

This Dig plot is 15 kinds of stupid. I mean, letting yourself be thrown in jail for treason and murder? That just seems contrived and out of character. I can understand Dig being upset and guilty about shooting Andy, but Andy was a really bad guy! He threatened to kill your family, and had the resources to pull it off! He was willingly helping a guy who wanted to kill billions of people! It was pretty damn justified. And now his wife and kid will live without him, and will have the stigma of having a husband/dad who was a traitor over their heads? And the guys who did do it will get away with everything? What a mess.

Evelyn is really boring, and Curtis bugged me. I normally like Curtis, but this season he just seems off. I cant really explain it, but he just isn't working well for me. 

But there was a lot to like here too! I like Rene in this one, a lot more than I have in the past, and I really like Ragman. "Its the whispering isn't it? Hah! The Olicity was on point, even if Olicity is supposedly gone, and I miss their close emotional moments. 

Deadshot! God did I miss him. I was so hoping he would turn out to be alive. That would almost make up for baby Sara...almost. Damn it Barry! Can Deadshot come back as Digs hallucination again? 

The flashbacks are actually pretty good. I`m not bored or confused, and the fake accents are actually recognizable;e as to what they're supposed to be. BIG improvement over last season and the island of boredom and Poppy. 

Thea is finally embracing her inner Moira, and it was awesome. 

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Dig is being dumb. I get that he's in a dark place, but I didn't realize emotional turmoil made you dumb. Taking the fall for this doesn't just affect him. 

I didn't expect Deadshot to be a figment of Dig's imagination, but I did think it was weird that he was there.  Why would he be in a military prison, which is where I assume Dig would be. 

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I have some issues with scene endings in the episode, two to be precise. One is Oliver's initiation. I thought that was great in one of the promos, but I swear it was shorter in the actual episode and that robbed it of its effect for me. Two is Oliver repearing his bike at the end. Hello, hotness. Why haven't we ever seen that before? Also, would it have killed them to have 5 more seconds of it before Lyla came in?

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This is what I find so hilarious because O/F being together romantically would not change the episodes in the slightest. I think the only thing that would be different is Felicity confiding in Oliver about Havenrock. That's it. 

Editing to add, maybe Oliver would smile a bit more. But he's not allowed to do that anymore. Gotta be big old mean killing machine again. Grrr.

Edited by Guest
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8 hours ago, ComicFan777 said:

I think one thing that bothered me was that it never crossed Oliver's mind that Rory being from Havenrock might be difficult for Felicity - at least not that I noticed.  I know that she doesn't talk about personal things with him, but as soon as Curtis heard Rory was from Havenrock, he asked Felicity specifically about it.  I had hoped that Oliver was perceptive enough to wonder if this might be difficult for her when he asked Rory to join the team.  For the last few episodes, we've seen Felicity be really mindful and thoughtful of what might be troubling Oliver, and she prompts him to open up to her.  It would be nice to see it reciprocated in the future.

Good point.  The only thing I could come up with is maybe Oliver is so certain in his mind of Darhk being fully responsible for Havenrock that it wouldn't occur to him that Felicity could be blamed.   

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4 hours ago, thenj said:

So both Diggle Brothers named their sons after themselves? WTF writes? Why not just name the kid Conner? It is just unimaginative.

LOL! Either that or creativity doesn't run in the family! 

That said isn't the reporter's last name Williams? That name is starting to feel like a bad joke. The gift that keeps on giving. Um, no thanks. I think we've had enough Williams for a while. 

Those writers are hilarious. 

Oh and ETA:

Spoiler

If the naming is intentional, and Oliver bangs the reporter, the writers will surely pat themselves on the back for the great ~symbolism because this would be as subtle as falling anvils AND a sledge hammer. Please TV gods, have mercy! 

Edited by RussianRoulette
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I forgot to mention this earlier but I'm suspicious about Mayo Bread and why he told GA about Prometheus. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if he later turns out to be corrupt or something. If GA had inside help on the Police force when Quentin was there, what's stopping Prometheus from having the same? 

At least he wouldn't be so bland then. Haha.

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12 minutes ago, Angel12d said:

I forgot to mention this earlier but I'm suspicious about Mayo Bread and why he told GA about Prometheus. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if he later turns out to be corrupt or something. If GA had inside help on the Police force when Quentin was there, what's stopping Prometheus from having the same? 

At least he wouldn't be so bland then. Haha.

11619_00021000027859.jpg

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41 minutes ago, RussianRoulette said:

 

That said isn't the reporter's last name Williams? That name is starting to feel like a bad joke. The gift that keeps on giving. Um, no thanks. I think we've had enough Williams for a while. 

 

Yeah, the reporter is Susan Williams, a character from the Green Lantern comics, and thus, either another lovely nod to the old Green Arrow/Green Lantern team ups, or yet another hurtful reminder that Green Lantern will never ever be on this show, sniffle. Or she was picked because most of the other DC comics journalists are associated with Batman or Superman or already on Supergirl and Flash.  

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The scene where Oliver gets the two-bit thief to confess regarding the Stardust (hee) also felt pretty Nolan Batman. It was like a combination of the scenes where Batman threatens Flass and where he threatens Maroni.

Other than that, I liked the episode. Rory is my favorite noob, but to be honest of course he is, he's probably the only one (other than maybe Evelyn) who should be in the field with Oliver, and he's also the one the writers seem to want us to like. Wild Dog is exactly that, a wild dog. And I couldn't help but roll my eyes when Curtis was OF COURSE knowledgeable in the skill they needed when Felicity had to do something else. Still, I hope none of them die, if only because it tides me over until the Power Rangers movie. Sorry, that was just the image I had when Curtis, Felicity, Rene, Evelyn and Rory were all looking at Oliver.

Mayo has to be working for Prometheus somehow. At least I hope so, since that way he's something other than an Olicity obstacle.

 

(btw, I feel like I already asked this and was answered, but why was that chick on the island called Poppy?)

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31 minutes ago, DigitalCount said:

(btw, I feel like I already asked this and was answered, but why was that chick on the island called Poppy?)

And they had her in the flashbacks for at least like 3-4 episodes before anyone ever said her name so we had to call her something. 

Edited by BkWurm1
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I do remember finally seeing her name and going, "There's no way I'm going to remember that. I'm sticking with Poppy." (Thanks everybody!)

OT: I honestly paused my dvr and walked out of if the room when I heard the name of the fancy new drug hitting Star City's streets. My eyeroll simply could not be contained. Thankfully the episode turned out much better than I expected in that moment. Still not a fan of Wild Dog, I need Curtis to please go back to the lab/computers (I've never cared one iota about his Mr. Terrific destiny), and Evelyn is essentially a nonfactor for me, but the rest was fine. Oh, and I'm not a fan of the freshly minted Diggle Jr., or Diggle's completely OOC martyrdom, but honestly I've been silently concerned that the plot twist which shall not be name screwed up not just his child(ren) but his relationship with Lyla -- I'm so relieved to see that is not the case, I'll put up with other unpleasantness.

The new D.A. is Prometheus, right? Still makes him more intersting than Mayo.

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6 hours ago, Angel12d said:

Editing to add, maybe Oliver would smile a bit more. But he's not allowed to do that anymore. Gotta be big old mean killing machine again. Grrr.

Yeah, it's weird not seeing him smile at what she says. But I suppose he is now back to permanent brooding, plus he isn't getting any, and he doesn't have Dig or Roy to mock him and make him smile but just those idiot boobs who annoy the hell out of him. :) Maybe that will change in future episodes now that he seems to be more accepting towards them?

About the scene of the Team watching the TV, that was weird. Why were they in formation, haha?

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I admit they really got me with Deadshot. For a while there I really thought Barry had fucked up again. They even showed his talk with Felicity in the previouslies just to fuck with us. 

Well played, show. Well played. 

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The Deadshot reveal got me not just because of Flashpoint, but because I do find it believable that he would still be alive given that we have never seen his body. I don't know, this storyline is progressively bugging me more and more. While I am all for Oliver jumping in to help Dig and Lyla going to him for a team up, I'm annoyed that I am apparently supposed to forget that Lyla is the head of Argus and has some serious clout. They're acting like she's, I don't know, Laurel. And this is not a dig against Laurel, but an ADA could realistically do nothing when it comes to the US armed forces. Lyla's position is vastly different. Or has she lost that along with baby Sara in the Flashpoint?

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The people who have actual easily identifiable jobs that pay them actual salaries right now:

- Oliver
- Thea
- Diggle
- Lance
- Mayo
- DA who walks like a clown

People we have no idea whether they have daytime jobs and/or how do they make money:

- Felicity
- Curtis
- Wild Dog
- Evelyn
- Rory

People we thought we knew had a pretty big high profile job, but apparently not anymore:

- Lyla

I mean, I'm still wondering who the fuck pays Cisco and Caitlin's salaries considering STAR Labs has never made a single penny since the Flash pilot, and it doesn't even have an actual owner anymore, but at least on Flash it's just two people with no financial means to maintain the lives they live. On Arrow it's A LOT of characters with no jobs and/or family to support them.

Curtis told Paul he was leaving work... does Paul realize there's no paycheck involved in the new job? Evelyn is a 16 year old orphan, where the fuck does she live and who the fuck is responsible for her? They could take 3 seconds and a throwaway line to explain this shit. Felicity got everyone on team Arrow on the payroll of a fantasy company she created, or Mayor Handsome put everyone in City Hall payroll yay corruption!, or, I dunno, Rory can magically conjure money out of thin air. But when you only care for plot plot plot, who needs actual characterization.

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