Target Practice: Poisoned Arrow (The Bitterness Thread)

[Chaser]

I was hoping to see the Ra's from Batman: The Animated Series. He had great presence, even though he was a cartoon.

[statsgirl]

Matt Nable looks like an ex-footballer, which he is.  And the show hasn't really built up any kind of scary presence for him, unlike what they did with Slade from the time Oliver first met him, they just expect us all to fall in line and drink Malcolm Merlyn's kool-aid. Arrow used to be so much better than it is now.

 

It's interesting but Berlanti's faux pas with the (male) costumes at TCA seems to be a metaphor for what's wrong with the show this season -- it's all about the cool costumes rather than the storytelling and the characters themselves.  It's true for Ra's, who is the least scary Big Bad the show has had, it's true for Laurel whose costume and storyline are both WTF? and it's true for the characters from The Flash who no one who hasn't read the comics knew about.

[calliope1975]

I still wish they'd switched actors and had Matt Nable be Boomerang and Nick Tarabay as Ra's. The crap writing would still be there, but I'll take whatever positive smidge I can find at this moment.

[tv echo]

I completely agree on the lack of build-up for Ra's.  I never read the comics.  If I hadn't seen the Nolan Batman movies (and had friends who are into comics), I never would have heard of Ra's al Ghul.  Right now Ra's and the LOA just seem old-fashioned and not that menacing.  They use purple smoke (visible to the public)  to communicate?!  They don't seem to have any IT expertise.  They have no modern weapons.  Their trained assassins couldn't defeat Sara, Oliver and Quentin.  They couldn't locate Malcolm, even though he sneaked into their secret duel site and retrieved Oliver's sword.  Ra's himself couldn't even kill Oliver by stabbing him in the heart rather than the side.  Add in metahuman superheroes like the Flash and the LOA is done.

[blixie]

Matt Nable's Crocodile Dundee accent just kills every bit of gravitas with me. Sorry dude.

[Trini]

 

Ra's himself couldn't even kill Oliver by stabbing him in the heart rather than the side.

 

I had several other issues with Oliver's non-death, and the fact that it makes Ra's look like an incompetent assassin is definitely another.

[catrox14]

I feel like they wrote Oliver into a corner when they went out of their way to make him Batman-lite. He's too serious and too damaged, and often times more of a defeatist than a strategist. And he lives in a too gritty too dark world with very little humor -- and almost no humor coming *from* Oliver. And superpowers clash against all of that. The tone needs to have a healthy dose of self-depreciation for humans to overcome superpowers. And Arrow doesn't have that, and *Oliver* really doesn't have that.

All of my favorite versions of Green Arrow dealt with superpowers by making fun of it. I don't think Arrow is capable of doing that.

 

The show has had lighter humorous moments and some snark that was funny at times. And that went out the window when they created the Flash. It took the humor with it. :(

[Danny Franks]

The show has had lighter humorous moments and some snark that was funny at times. And that went out the window when they created the Flash. It took the humor with it. :(

 

The best thing you can do to humanise a dark, brooding hero like Oliver is to occasionally poke fun at him. To have his friends tease him, to give him moments of self-realisation where he sees how angsty he's being, or even to have him try to lighten up and be fun, only for it to weird people out. These things make it okay to smile at (and with) him, and you remember that he has these lighter elements to him, even when things get overly dark and miserable. Funnily enough, many of these things did happen in earlier seasons, when Diggle and Felicity were in positions to tease him. Seems like they're not any more.

 

From what I can tell, the writers of Arrow don't get that, and think they can just pile on more and more angst and brooding without it having any adverse effect. I'm pretty sure they're wrong.

[Shanna]

The best thing you can do to humanise a dark, brooding hero like Oliver is to occasionally poke fun at him. To have his friends tease him, to give him moments of self-realisation where he sees how angsty he's being, or even to have him try to lighten up and be fun, only for it to weird people out.

You're right. This is pretty much what they did with angel. Along with funny looks when people make fun of him.

They did a good job with this in other seasons on this show and feleciity and Diggle were big parts of that. Those characters play well off Oliver because they are different. SAmell is actually great at making funny expressions kind of like David boreanaz did as well.

I think removing the team arrow dynamic is responsible for 90% of the problems because it I were enjoying them I could handwave most of he other stupidity. I don't get why showrunners don't realize that if you love the characters you will forgive a lot of not great plotting. Or maybe they think their plotting is actually great! When instead it is deeply stupid.

[apinknightmare]

I know a lot of people might disagree with me, but I think the absolute biggest misstep of this season was bringing John Barrowman back. 

 

Don't get me wrong - I really liked Sara and I thought she had a far more intriguing backstory and motivation for becoming a vigilante, and I do think it was a mistake to kill her off in order to fuel Laurel's journey into...whatever, and characters have most definitely been bent/made into idiots to fit Laurel into the plot, but nowhere near to the extent they have to make Malcolm happen. 

 

Sara should've gone missing or something at the beginning of the season - they shouldn't have killed her off right away. They could've brought Ra's in that way - maybe Sara had been up to something that was going to take the League down or maybe she was caught in the crosshairs between Ra's and some other villain doing some good kind of double-agent thing, and she went to Oliver for help in the premiere and then disappeared. The team could've brought Laurel in to help find her or...something. And then, mid-season, they could've found her dead if they really wanted to get rid of CL. Then Oliver and Ra's could've gone toe-to-toe over it or whatever. 

 

I mean, there's Oliver letting Malcolm go/telling Nyssa Malcolm was under his protection in The Magician, Laurel knowing he's alive and not trying to bring him to justice (which, fair...she's a terrible DA), Thea believing in him ever-at all-after being so pissed at Moira over her role in the Undertaking, Oliver teaming up with him...ever, and the fact that just this last episode the writers actually negated the whole reason Oliver had for teaming up with him in the first place. When Malcolm called Oliver on Lian Yu, he said that Oliver told him the reason he lost to Ra's was because he hesitated to kill him. 1) Sure, Jan 2) THAT'S NOT AT ALL WHAT HAPPENED, and 3) if that's the case, THEN WHAT DOES OLIVER NEED MALCOLM FOR? He already knows how to defeat him, he just needs to kill him. But he showed in The Return that he's still not really willing to be a killer. The stupidity actually hurts. 

 

And that's just all the idiotic crap that's already happened. Can't imagine what other idiotic crap we're in for. 

[Pyramid]

I think promoting LL to Buckles and getting Malcolm back are neck and neck in causing the onishambles that is season 3. 

Buckles is a black hole of awfulness that twist everything else around it until they become unrecognizable. And Malcolm should've stayed dead, his story was done. Although, to be fair, I was looking forward to Thea's story in relation to MM, but now, in the face of the crapfest that story turned out to be, I'm laughing at my past self's optimism.

[Chaser]

I thought that Thea would be the lead in the Thea-Malcolm storyline. That was what I was looking forward too. Turned out it was the opposite. 

[KirkB]

As much as I like Barrowman, I think bringing Malcolm back was the bigger mistake. There was no need to continue his story. It was done, with a smile on Malcolm's face as Oliver killed him. With Laurel, since it's pretty obvious that making her the Black Canary was always the plan regardless of anything else I don't think the issue is so much that they did it but how. Bringing in Sara first and having her turn out to be a far superior Canary before killing her off for Laurel kind of screwed them over so they have to just march on ahead and try to duck as much flak as they can. 

[Sakura12]

Thea doesn't have a penis so she can't be the lead in her own story. 

 

That's why Tommy coming back would piss me off more than anything else. Another man gets to magically come back from the dead while all the badass women get to stay dead (Moira, Shado, Sara). No thanks. 

[dtissagirl]

I think I'm split as well. Laurel's story threw Sara in the garbage, screwed up Felicity's characterization, sidelined Diggle, and made me put Quentin on constant death watch.

Malcolm twirling his villain 'stache turned Oliver dumber than dumb, took away Thea's agency, and made Roy completely incoherent in his motivation. Oh, and also made Laurel into the most incompetent prosecutor in history.

I wish someone would gather the two of them near together and drop an anvil atop them. SPLAT.

Edited February 23, 2015 by dancingnancy

[apinknightmare]

I think I'm split as well. Laurel's story threw Sara in the garbage, screwed up Felicity's characterization, sidelined Diggle, and made me put Quentin on constant death watch.

Malcolm twirling his villain 'stache turned Oliver dumber than dumb, took away Thea's agency, and made Roy completely incoherent in his motivation. Oh, and also made Laurel into the most incompetent prosecutor in history.

I wish someone would gather the two of them near together and drop an anvil atop then. SPLAT.

 

Yeah, I mean...I definitely have issues with Laurel and how her story is/was written. I just think that in terms of making the story/characters stupid, Malcolm's inclusion into the story is just the worst. If he hadn't come back, then we wouldn't have had the awful decision that set off all the awful decisions that followed in Thea being drugged in order to kill Sara. The rest is just a domino effect of idiocy.

Edited February 23, 2015 by apinknightmare

[Password]

To me it's Malcolm's storyline that has ruined the show because 1) HE killed Sara, 2) HE used Thea 3) HE blackmailed Oliver into being "killed" by Ra's and finally it's because of HIM that this stupid "ends dictates the means" storyline has come to fruition. He's the reason TA is unenjoyable because Oliver has been turned into a dolt through his decision making. He's like a puppeteer who pulls the strings but is surprised when things don't work out how he pulled, they work out BETTER. Oliver isn't turning him in, using logic when nothing I've seen has convinced me the League are incapable of thinking. Nyssa should've taken him, but Oliver's lies caught up with him when it came to Thea. So, best option is to let the psycho live.

I'm even blaming him for BC and Atom coming to life because Oliver is preoccupied with Ra's therefore other, unearned heroes must rise to the fore. He set Laurel on this journey by killing Sara. I leave all fault at his feet.

[KirkB]

The real problem for me is that Sara's death doesn't make sense on ANY level. If you want to kill a popular character off, fine, there are plenty of legitimate, dramatic reasons for doing that. Killing Sara to bring the League down on Starling doesn't work because if that was the intent it would have made far more sense for them to kill off Nyssa. Killing her to spur Laurel to steal her sister's identity (which she literally did) is frankly an insult to both Sara and Laurel, plus if she had started training after Tommy died and because she blamed the Hood and wanted to get the skills to stop him she could more convincingly be talented by now and have built a lot more interesting tension between her and Oliver. Having Thea do it while brainwashed has created all kinds of negative responses. And lastly, the plan itself is nonsensical. Malcolm had Thea kill Sara in order to compel Oliver to challenge Ra's so Oliver would kill him and free Malcolm from his blood debt, when I don't see any reason for Malcolm to think Oliver COULD beat Ra's and I'm sure Nyssa would in no way hold a grudge for the death of her father by such convoluted, duplicitous means.

Edited February 23, 2015 by KirkB

[Chaser]

They are using Malcolm to bring Ra's into the story. They didn't need to do that because they already had Sara. Sara had a current connection to Ra's that could have been far more interesting to explore. 

[Sakura12]

Also considering we've seen that Nyssa is much more threatening and dangerous then her beer gut father that couldn't even finish killing Oliver. He's supposed to be The Master Assassin! Killing Sara then her father would set Nyssa down her rightful path to avenge them. Malcolm's convoluted plan wouldn't do anything to save his life. 

 

This show just wants cool fights, they don't care how they get to them. They wanted Oliver to fight Ra's al Ghul like Batman did, so they set up the dumbest way for him to be there and not have any of them die. Therefore making them both look weak and stupid. Good job show!

 

I would have loved to see what Sara's relationship with Ra's was like. She was dating his daughter that put her above the other random assassins. He sent people to bring her back and by killing those assassins she set up a quarrel with him. But they decided Sara's story was done, there were no other stories to tell with her that's why she had to die.

 

You know except the story with her and Nyssa and her knowing Ra's al Ghul probably better then anyone else in the lair. She could've set up how much of threat is he is. Instead Ra's is nothing but a whimper compared to everyone else Oliver deals with 24/7. I believe Amanda Waller could have Ra's killed in about 2 seconds. 

Edited February 23, 2015 by Sakura12

[apinknightmare]

They are using Malcolm to bring Ra's into the story. They didn't need to do that because they already had Sara. Sara had a current connection to Ra's that could have been far more interesting to explore. 

 

Yep. If they were going to kill Sara off, I would've liked for that smiling woman getting on that boat to go back to the League after being ready to KILL HERSELF to get away from them had some kind of a plan to bring them down or something. Sure, it's a huge, foolish undertaking, but they had six months of nothing over the summer to build something up, and she could've used Starling City and Team Arrow to put some pieces of the chess board of her plan in order and then gotten killed/kidnapped, thus having Ra's and Team Arrow/Oliver legit clash. 

 

Ah, what could've been.

Edited February 23, 2015 by apinknightmare

[Password]

This show just wants cool fights, they don't care how they get to them.

Tbh I haven't really been in the fights this year as much as years past.

[Sakura12]

I meant more they wanted Oliver to fight Ra's al Ghul like Batman did. Complete with the snowy mountain. Although why they were shirtless makes no sense. 

 

Of course they gave the mind your surroundings line to Sara. I still have no idea why they spent so much time building up Sara's character if they just planned on tossing her in the garbage. The Sara vs Laurel thing is really like working really hard on your final project, then at last minute throwing it out and turning in your first rough draft instead. Who does that? 

 

I get that they are showing Laurel messing up because she's not trained. But then she shouldn't be out in the field in the first place! She's not only endangering herself she's endangering everyone around her. That's not a hero, that's a selfish idiot. Sara and Oliver had real world experience before getting more properly trained, that made them ready to suit up and go out right away. Laurel has nothing. Laurel needs to go get some actual training, then slowly go out into the field to gain experience, then she can go out on her own.

 

They don't need to tell Oliver's journey anymore, it's pointless. It's making him look lazy that they he still has to have a journey when everyone else went through a candy store compared to him and can call themselves a hero by just putting on a costume. You don't need to know how to fight, you just have to want it really, really badly.  

Edited February 23, 2015 by Sakura12

[Guest]

I know a lot of people might disagree with me, but I think the absolute biggest misstep of this season was bringing John Barrowman back. 

 

 

I agree with your whole post (I cut it to save space here). As much as I dislike the way they've handled Laurel's rise to BC, that was always going to happen. And I understand Laurel's motivation and reasons for wanting to step into Sara's shoes, even though I don't agree with how quickly it has happened. They've made a mess of it but it's an understandable mess, if that makes sense? 

 

The whole Malcolm storyline, however, makes zero sense to me. None of what is happening follows any sort of logic. He told Thea that he basically made her a killer to protect her from Ra's but it's the making her a killer which has put her in Ra's' path in the first place. Not to mention I find it ridiculous that Thea - the same person who refused to talk to her own mother for months because of her part in the Undertaking - would accept Malcolm into her life knowing he killed over 500 people, including her own brother. She just conveniently forgot all of that. 

 

And then there's Oliver thinking the only option he has is to work with the man who bought him all the trouble in the first place. If Malcolm can teach Oliver how to fight Ra's, surely Malcolm can fight him himself? The stupid actually hurts. I can't even hand wave any of this story. And it's especially frustrating as one of the arcs of s2 was Oliver realizing that there's always another way and now he's seemingly regressed some. 

 

So yeah, I love Barrowman but they've done a terrible job. 

[Carrie Ann]

The real problem for me is that Sara's death doesn't make sense on ANY level. If you want to kill a popular character off, fine, there are plenty of legitimate, dramatic reasons for doing that. Killing Sara to bring the League down on Starling doesn't work because if that was the intent it would have made far more sense for them to kill off Nyssa. Killing her to spur Laurel to steal her sister's identity (which she literally did) is frankly an insult to both Sara and Laurel, plus if she had started training after Tommy died and because she blamed the Hood and wanted to get the skills to stop him she could more convincingly be talented by now and have built a lot more interesting tension between her and Oliver. Having Thea do it while brainwashed has created all kinds of negative responses. And lastly, the plan itself is nonsensical. Malcolm had Thea kill Sara in order to compel Oliver to challenge Ra's so Oliver would kill him and free Malcolm from his blood debt, when I don't see any reason for Malcolm to think Oliver COULD beat Ra's and I'm sure Nyssa would in no way hold a grudge for the death of her father by such convoluted, duplicitous means.

 

Yep, for me, it keeps coming back to a few things that make NO sense: 1) it didn't have to be Sara who was killed, and in fact, she's not the most logical person for Malcolm to choose; 2) once it DID happen, there was no reason for Malcolm to hide the truth for several months, when his end goal was for Oliver to fight Ra's; 3) Malcolm has no reason to believe that Oliver would actually defeat Ra's. (And the whole, "well it's a win-win for MM regardless" argument just doesn't hold water for me when he went to all of these ridiculous lengths, which are wholly unnecessary if he's equally happy to have Oliver killed.)

 

I refuse to even engage with the notion that Malcolm cares about Thea (or Oliver) (or anyone), even in a "twisted" way, because no he obviously doesn't, and there is no part of his storyline that supports that idea. So the time we've already wasted on the Aw He's Not All Bad story is just that, wasted time.

 

So, yeah, I guess I find myself in the camp that Malcolm--despite JB's limited screentime--is the biggest problem of the season. He just barely edges out Laurel for me, but only because at least she's always been around and we knew they would do something with her. There was no actual need to bring MM back, and certainly not in this way.

 

But on the other hand, I would guess that the EPs are probably working harder to appease KC than they are JB, because again, they didn't need to bring him back if they didn't want to. So I could believe that ultimately, they've made more decisions about the direction of the season based on what they needed to do to get KC into that BC costume, than they have to make MM relevant again.

Edited February 23, 2015 by Carrie Ann

[Shanna]

I thought that Thea would be the lead in the Thea-Malcolm storyline. That was what I was looking forward too. Turned out it was the opposite.

So much this! I don't think the problem was bringing back Malcolm per se, but bringing him back only to do a bunch of idiot plots to justify. And even Malcolm's writing has suffered because of their laurel obsession because some of the stupidest stuff has to do with his manipulation of Thea to kill Sara and everyone going along with that. They had to have Oliver protect Malcolm and go off to meet his 'death' because of Sara's death, so that's about laurel too. And they had to get him of screen because they needed time for laurel. So about half of the Malcolm issues are actually about supporting laurels story.

Can you imagine if tommy had been the one who came back from the dead this season instead? Maybe he could have been training with Thea and it would make more sense why everyone trusted him and would have been so much more interesting.

[Chaser]

Carrie Ann brings up a good point. Why did Malcolm wait for Oliver to find out about Thea and come to him? Why didn't he go to him right after it happened with the video?

 

Malcolm literally came to town with Thea, killed Sara and then want back to their lives in Colto. Malcolm didn't even make the choice to come back, he had Thea do it. Did Malcolm assume that Oliver would come looking for Thea after Sara's death? That's a really big assumtion because Oliver could have decided Thea was safer away. And Thea made no contact with Oliver while in Colto, why would Malcolm think she would listen to Oliver?

[apinknightmare]

And Thea made no contact with Oliver while in Colto, why would Malcolm think she would listen to Oliver?

 

She did make contact with him, she was just texting him lies. Which is also stupid, because assume she even told Malcolm that she left Roy a note  about not wanting to be weak anymore or whatever - Malcolm would also have to assume that Roy would give it to Oliver to make Oliver suspicious enough about Thea's whereabouts to even go looking for her. It took Oliver MONTHS to get suspicious when he kept telling Thea to send him pictures of where she was and she never did and wouldn't call him back, so....

Edited February 23, 2015 by apinknightmare

[statsgirl]

I'm bitter because there are so many good storylines lines suggested here, much better than what's been playing out on screen.

 

Oliver's identity crisis is as ridiculous as Laurel's BC costume.

[calliope1975]

I not sure I can point to one thing this season that caused everything else to fall apart. Sara's death, yes, but I'm not sure which terrible decision came first. There are so many cylinders misfiring this year, I not sure where even to begin.

 

I'm super bitter than given about an hour, I could come up with a story that gets them to this same place, but still keeps the integrity of the characters and doesn't insult the audiences' intelligence. I could also give you a logical reason for Laurel to become BC, introduce Ra's al Ghul and Ray Palmer, and maybe even keep Merlyn around. I could probably, if I tried really hard, devise a scenario where Sara died that wasn't a complete waste of a great character. And I'm only a mediocre writer. I'm sad we couldn't get a great writer's take on this season.

[blixie]

 

I refuse to even engage with the notion that Malcolm cares about Thea (or Oliver) (or anyone), even in a "twisted" way,

 

Hmm I think before this season I could have bought into a story where he did/does, but I think we're dealing with the same people who thought lying to Lance was "understandable", that using Sarah's voice was "cool", and that Ray is some kind of benign "fun" stalker, that you could call him stalker repeatedly like it was FUN, and he'd be embraced and rooted for.

 

I still think Laurel becoming Black Canary is the reason we are getting all of this Malcolm related stupid, and that if they had brought him back for a story ABOUT Malcolm and his relationships with Thea/Oliver, we'd y'know be getting a story about Malcolm/Thea/Oliver. Instead what we got is an assinine Rube Goldberg convolution of plot where Malcolm drugs Thea to get rid of the Sara/Canary problem, to solve the Laurel Black Canary issue, all to eventually lead to a Ra's Al Ghul adversary.

 

The writers chose to use Malcolm as the connective tissue between Sara and Ra's and Oliver, regardless of whether it made sense, because they aren't creative enough, or talented enough to think of something better.

[statsgirl]

I dunno, I think they might be creative enough if forced to, but the problem is that they thought they didn't need to.  They thought if they broke up the original Team Arrow, put Oliver and Felicity at odds, and started throwing characters from the comic books at the wall, viewers would be happy.  Because that's what the audience wanted, more comic book characters living up to their comic destinies.

 

Going by the spoilerTV poll, less than 20% of respondents came from the comic books, and of those who didn't, 3/4s aren't buying the comic books even now.  Big mistake.

Edited February 23, 2015 by statsgirl

[Sakura12]

With the ratings still holding steady, I don't think they will ever go back to the original premise of the show called Arrow.

 

Next season I expect another 1 or 2 male heroes to show up and we'll get their comic destiny story. They will still have more pointless flashbacks of Oliver, because he's the technical lead and needs the most screen time. When his past journey means nothing now since anyone off the street can be a hero with no training. They just want a show with a bunch of masked heroes running around fighting bad guys. They may throw Felicity and Diggle a bone to pretend to keep those fans happy or use them to prop the next person to put on a mask. Whatever the original premise of this show was, it's now in the garbage with Sara. 

 

This is no longer a show about Oliver's journey towards becoming Green Arrow, it's about a bunch of untrained people that decided they want to be heroes because comics 

Edited February 23, 2015 by Sakura12

[apinknightmare]

I don't know, I don't really have a problem with heroism coming easy to some people. I don't think all heroes journeys need to be full of angst and pain. It's taking a long time for Oliver because of everything that he went through - he's got to undo half a lifetime of being a frivolous, vapid shit, a scared kid on an island, a guy who had to kill to stay alive, an ARGUS informant against his will, a member of the Bratva, and a stone-cold, unrepentant murderer. Personally, I don't care if it takes Roy (and to an extent, Laurel) a few months or a year in show time to become a serviceable fighter. It doesn't lessen Oliver's journey, IMO. He's on a more emotionally broken path than any one else on this show was, apart from Sara. 

 

And honestly, I don't really care to invest myself in Roy or Laurel or Ray's emotional journey, so I'm okay with it being sped up. I don't mind watching Oliver learn his lessons and trip his way into becoming a hero, although I could do without some of his repeat dumbassery. 

[Sakura12]

They don't need to filled with angst but they do need to be filled with actual training. That's the part that is bothering me. I don't care if their lives were horrible or comfortable, I just want them be trained if they are going to put on a suit to fight crime. 

 

Having Roy and Laurel out there with no training whatsoever, is undermining Oliver and Sara's training not their journey. They had a horrible things happen to them, yes. But they trained like hell to become the heroes they are/were trying to be. 

Edited February 23, 2015 by Sakura12

[apinknightmare]

They don't need to filled with angst but they do need to be filled with actual training. That's the part that is bothering me. I don't care if their lives were horrible or comfortable, I just want them be trained if they are going to put on a suit to fight crime. 

 

Fair enough. I honestly don't care if Laurel or Ray ever get on-screen training, because then I'd have to watch it. And I really don't want to watch it.

[kismet]

Not to sound like LL, but she was always destined for that mask. What I mean is that by naming a main character DLL and then placing her in a show based on GA, she was gonna be BC, it was only a matter of time. What I dont understand is why they had to make all this convoluted plot w/ Thea killing Sara to get to that point. They could have made her journey to BC without Sara's death. Or if they really felt they needed to kill Sara, they could have done it without including MM. Now what they have is a poorly executed house of cards where all the plot is falling in on each other because it wasnt well thought out and too dependent on each other. Last year the plots & arcs stood on their own which made sense. This year everything is connected and not in an effective way. So we're having to endure week after week of someone being stupid or OOC to justify getting to whatever plot destination they need to be at. When all they had to do really was just make LL want to take a more active role in defending the city after being inspired by the Canary. If they wanted Ras to be the big bad, they could have had him come after the city without involving Sara's death by the mere fact that MM was still alive and responsible for the Uprising. They could have found a more creative way to connect the Arrow into protecting his city from Ras without making him defend/work with MM. Its not that they brought MM back, its that they failed to execute a good way in bringing him back. It's almost like they're trying to hard to be clever, when that is not necessary all the time. 

[kismet]

Fair enough. I honestly don't care if Laurel or Ray ever get on-screen training, because then I'd have to watch it. And I really don't want to watch it.

They should use all these hiatus weeks the CW is giving them to send them all to training camps and then jump the timeline when they return. That way we have a win-win. People will be properly trained and we wont have to be bored watching it. There is no need to make us watch all of this hero development/training of side characters. The good thing about Sara when she entered is she was already trained and hit the ground running. When the Flash came back, he already had his powers. The hero journey on Arrow, really only needs to be about the Arrow.

[apinknightmare]

I mean, we only see one hour out of a week and sometimes more of these people's lives. All they have to do is mention what they're doing on their off time, maybe do a quick training montage like they did at the beginning of 3x05 - and call it a day. 

[statsgirl]

I'm sure the character named Dinah Laurel Lance was destined to be the Black Canary.  Until season 1 aired and both the character and the actress ended up being hugely problematic.  And then they compounded the problem by creating Sara as the perfect Black Canary in all but name.

 

And having created a mess, instead of trying to fix it slowly and logically, they doubled down, creating some happy viewers and a whole bunch of really unhappy ones.

 

Connecting Ra's to Oliver through Sara would have made much more sense and better storytelling, but then Sara would have been around to show up Laurel's inadequacies.

[Sakura12]

It makes me think when shows like Gotham can be more shocking than Arrow and shows like Banshee can honor a dead character better than Arrow, if the first two seasons of Arrow were a fluke with fancy stunt work and dedicated actors.

[Chaser]

I'm still bitter that he said Thea and Felicity would be sharing lots of screentime in the second half, only to say its been pushed back. Now they have filmed up to what 18/19? No Thea and Felicity scenes on the horizon.

[AyChihuahua]

 

Thea's apartment/

And not even the whole apartment.  Otherwise they would have had the Thea/DJ love scene in her bedroom, instead of the living room of the apartment she shares with her older brother who could come home any minute.  

[MostlyC]

A reminder:  This is a spoiler-free thread.  The Bitterness thread where you talk about how much you don't like what has happened IN THE PAST on Arrow. 

 

By definition, spoilers are things that HAVE NOT YET AIRED.  

 

Ergo, it does not belong here until AFTER the spoiler has ceased to be a spoiler.

 

 

 

[Guest]

I'm still bitter that he said Thea and Felicity would be sharing lots of screentime in the second half, only to say its been pushed back. Now they have filmed up to what 18/19? No Thea and Felicity scenes on the horizon.

 

Moved to spoilers thread.

Edited February 24, 2015 by Guest

[statsgirl]

Marc Guggenheim said they spent a lot of money on the Atom costume, and it's so cool, it like it comes from a movie.

 

Okay, I understand that's why we don't get to see Thea's apartment beyond the greatroom, or Felicity's beyond the living rooom. and we have no idea where Roy lives  these days (his old house in the Glades?) and we won't see Big Belly Burger again because it's now Jitters.  But good writing doesn't cost any more than bad writing and there's no excuse Thea and Felicity never having shared a scene other than a group one, or Diggle's apparent estrangement from Felicity since the last time they had a scene together was in Left Behind.

[Delphi]

Honestly in my opinion this season could have been so much better with actually just minor changes, in the season premiere the killed Sara for sick shock value. Unnecessary. You could have had both Laurel and Sara on the roof where Malcolm shot her from a distance, Laurel watches her fall but the body is gone by the time she gets to the alley, let's say Nyssa was also with Sara and took her body home to get all Lazarused up. Or have Nyssa steal the body from the foundry, but you have the benefit of seeing the team grieve. The fact that her body has gone missing only drives them further, especially in the sense that it drives Laurel to expand her training.

They tell Quinton that his daughter is missing, but not dead. They have no body, they don't know. But he can still be mad at Laurel later when it comes to light that she was shot off a damn roof.

Nyssa comes to town, having already resurrected Sara, but leaves this out. It's unimportant resurrected or not she wants revenge.

Oliver could still be reluctant to hand over Malcolm because of Thea. Ra's can be an actual villain, showing up to fuck shit up. Oliver can still sacrifice himself, but for the city, not Malcolm. Wakes up in Nanda Parbat being nursed by Sara! Hey Sara! Oh your pretty insane from the resurrection, I feel you girl, that's rough. She's not stable enough to do anything as the canary in Starling, well that's okay, it gives your sister more training time.

They just make the wrong decision at every turn and it's really frustrating for me. No one I know would watch this show with me when it came out and I convinced all my friends to give it a chance and now they've stopped watching and I'm sitting on my couch twiddling my thumbs going..."it used to be so much better, here watch this Olicity video on YouTube and look at these scenes from two years ago"

Eta/change: actually, have Sara come back with Oliver. She can use her blind Lazarus rage to actually train Oliver to defeat Ra's and train Laurel to be competent. With wildcat and Sara and maybe even Thea training her I can see her as black canary by season four. Sara could retire. After her ordeal I think she could just be tired of the life and trust Laurel to do it for her abd step in when needed, it's not like there isn't two Canaries in the comics

Also Ray wouldn't be a problem if it was organic. It's like they saw people enjoy Barry as the flash and thought they'd do it again but forgot that people liked Barry as himself before the flash. Plus, I think it would have worked better and have been better received if they had been granted access to Ted Kord.

Edited February 24, 2015 by Delphi

[Shanna]

Marc Guggenheim said they spent a lot of money on the Atom costume, and it's so cool, it like it comes from a movie.

.

So...iron man.

[statsgirl]

Freud would have a heyday with these guys, with their Oliver/Batman and Ray/Ironman projections.

[Ariah]

Freud would have a heyday with these guys, with their Oliver/Batman and Ray/Ironman projections.

But what does that make Laurel?

 

A BlackCat projection (with the new costume...)? A dominatrix fetish? An afterthought of a great character that once was and never will be...?