tv echo January 30, 2020 Share January 30, 2020 (edited) Arrow Review: Fadeout (Season 8 Episode 10) January 29, 2020 Brianna Martinezhttps://telltaletv.com/2020/01/arrow-review-fadeout-season-8-episode-10/ Quote It almost feels like there isn’t necessarily enough time to dive into it this new Earth, so it offers snapshots of it all. * * *Felicity Smoak’s return to Arrow feels like a grounding component for the hour, as she is the last remaining aspect of life before the Crisis happened. Seeing her process seeing adult Mia is heartbreaking, leading to their formal introduction and conversation at Oliver’s funeral. It’s a bittersweet, emotional moment that allows Mia to share with her mother her experiences with the father that she finally got to meet and train alongside with. * * *Emily Bett Rickards and Katherine McNamara do an excellent job bringing the emotion and allowing for the importance of her meeting him get its moment. * * *David Ramsey does a spectacular job throughout as well, conveying that emotion and the loss of his best friend, and the man who became like a brother to him. From his comments to the documentary crew to his incredibly touching eulogy, it’s heartbreaking to see Diggle work through the loss. * * * The final big fight scene, while impressive and a final tribute to the skillful stunt crew Arrow always had, feels like it goes on for a bit too long. The entire flashback, even, feels oddly placed and leads to many questions about the purpose of the flashback itself. * * * Though it’s nice to see Oliver Queen go out on one last mission, the early days of his relationship with Diggle, and the old lair, it just seems like something is missing. * * * It’s fitting that the final scene of the series is Oliver and Felicity’s reunion after 20 years away. * * *Stephen Amell and Emily Bett Rickards convey all of the happiness, relief, love, heartbreaking joy, and an overwhelming sense of peace of being reunited after 20 years so perfectly as Oliver and Felicity meet again, in what I can only assume is a parallel dimension or reality that Oliver creates for them. * * * The payoff on that one Olicity flashback on Arrow Season 3 Episode 14, “The Return,” was surprising and fantastic, especially as the realization dawns on the audience that he’s going to tell her about the very first time he actually saw her, a moment that elicits no shortage of tears. * * * That final line and the last shot hit so very hard and leave you in a massive puddle of tears, not only with the acknowledgment that Oliver’s story is done, but also that he really will be at peace in this place he created for the two of them. * * * Oliver Queen has gone from a man convinced he must be alone and can love no one to a man wholly motivated by love and doing what’s right for those he loves. It’s been a beautiful journey to watch over the years. The series finale isn’t perfect, and it may not be what I envision for Oliver Queen (I have many words on that), but “Fadeout” does show that Oliver saved the city (and the multiverse), honors his massive sacrifices for those he cared about, and has Oliver living out the rest of his life with the love of his life by his side. * * * - The lack of interactions between Felicity, Moira, Teenage William, Thea, and Moira is a little disappointing. * * *- Does Felicity going through the Monitor’s portal mean that the Star City we saw during the Arrow Season 7 flashforwards is canon in a way? Is it a parallel reality? It honestly feels very late in the game to introduce story changes on that level. - If Felicity is alive and in this paradise dimension or whatever parallel reality they are in, does this mean that Oliver (or his soul) remains alive because he became Spectre? - The lack of Original Team Arrow throughout the hour is disappointing, considering it’s our last chance to Oliver, Felicity, and Diggle together, and just how important they always were to Oliver as both the Arrow and the man himself. Edited January 30, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo January 30, 2020 Share January 30, 2020 (edited) Arrow: Series Finale - "Fadeout" Review By Jesse Scheeden 29 Jan. 2020https://www.ign.com/articles/arrow-series-finale-fadeout-review Quote Quite a few old friends, as it turns out. "Fadeout" shows us Lex Luthor wasn't the only one to manipulate reality and create a new Earth more to his liking. Ollie apparently tweaked Earth-Prime so that doppelgangers of nearly all the loved ones who died over the course of the series are now living in the reborn Star City. It's a clever twist that allows the series to end on a very upbeat and hopeful note despite, you know, everyone grieving for the dead main character. It says a lot about Ollie that he went through the trouble of giving all these people - his mother, Tommy, even poor, twisted Emiko - a second chance without trying to reclaim his own life. And perhaps most importantly, the method behind these "resurrections" dances around any concerns about cheapening their original deaths. Those deaths still happened, just in a universe that no longer exists. * * *And certainly, writers Marc Guggenheim and Beth Schwartz knew their biggest priority had to be Emily Bett Rickards' Felicity. Season 8 has been able to coast by without Felicity up to now, but it would have been unthinkable to wrap up without bringing her back. Rickards delivers an emotionally charged performance to cap off her Arrowverse tenure, with Felicity juggling her grief over Ollie, her fear at losing William too and the profoundly strange sensation of meeting an adult version of her infant daughter. And fittingly, it all culminates in a sequence that finally reveals what became of 2040's Felicity at the end of Season 7. This episode is somewhat vague (intentionally, no doubt) as to whether Ollie still exists in Spectre form or is truly and completely dead, but all that really matters is he and Felicity finally get that happy ending they failed to achieve at the end of Seasons 3 and 7. If "Fadeout" does anything right, it's in passing the torch from Ollie to Diggle. David Ramsey really shines here as a man mourning his brother and struggling to decide what his purpose is in a world that no longer needs Team Arrow. The flashbacks help highlight that brotherly dynamic and show just how far the two have come since 2012. And happily, this episode implies we'll be seeing a lot more of the Diggle family beyond Ramsey's guest role in next week's The Flash. Their move to Metropolis suggests John and/or Lyla might be part of the supporting cast on Superman & Lois. And it sure seems like that John Diggle: Green Lantern fan theory has well and truly come to pass. * * * "Fadeout" is an imperfect but ultimately effective conclusion to a long-running superhero saga. With Crisis already having handled Oliver Queen's last and greatest sacrifice beautifully, this episode is free to explore the aftermath and spend one last hour with old friends. The finale makes excellent use of the series' two most critical supporting characters, sending Felicity on her way and teasing even bigger and better things for John Diggle. The series fails to achieve closure with certain other characters (Slade Wilson being the most glaring example), but at least the finale knows its priorities. Edited January 30, 2020 by tv echo 1 Link to comment
tv echo January 30, 2020 Share January 30, 2020 (edited) Arrow season 8, episode 10 series finale review: Fadeout by Scott Brown January 29, 2020https://bamsmackpow.com/2020/01/29/arrow-series-finale-review/ Quote Honestly though, it also is a bit jarring to see Oliver to return to his killer self that he was in the first season. This is definitely the point though as it really puts into perspective how far the character has come since the series began. The guy who began as a murderous vigilante became the savior of a universe. That’s one heck of a character arc. * * *But, it’s impossible to conclude this without talking about the final scene. Oliver and Felicity reunited once again. The journey for these two has been filled with happiness, heartbreak, and everything in between, so to see them finally get a happy ending? It’s a joyous moment. They finally get the happy ending that they deserve. * * * While not a perfect finale, with some small thematic hiccups, Arrow ends on an emotional high-note that leaves you with the feeling that this won’t be the last time that these characters will appear. Edited January 30, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo January 30, 2020 Share January 30, 2020 (edited) ARROW Series Finale Review By AMELIA EMBERWING Jan. 29, 2020https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2020/01/29/arrow-series-finale-review Quote For instance, we replay Earth Prime Laurel’s death. In that moment, she tells Oliver that he’ll always be the love of her life. Not twenty minutes later, the resurrected Tommy tells Earth 2 Laurel that he and her doppelgänger were married. Meanwhile, Emiko has returned but still isn’t quite a member of the Queen family despite Moira being alive all this time. There’s also a pesky subplot where Mia Smoak has to save the present-day version of her big brother from a criminal the episode goes out of its way to show that Oliver spared eight years ago. What I’m saying is that there are a lot of peculiar choices made to justify the return of characters who are meant to be there at the finish line. Those choices aside, the finale still works. I wouldn’t call it the best by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a sufficient “see you later” that manages to pack more than a few emotional punches. It also takes a few moments to prove that the series might be over, but it’s still got a few tricks up its sleeve. * * * A lot of the conversation in the finale is focused on how Oliver Queen became a better man. The beauty of Arrow has always been how human it is – even if it does often take that humanity to an infuriating degree. There are times where the series was downright excruciating, and it took a long while for it to right its ship. But I’ll be damned if it didn’t eventually succeed. Oliver did become a better man. He showed that painfully flawed people can still be heroes. That they can claw past the broken versions of themselves they’ve hidden behind and turn that pain into power. And, most importantly, that they can use that pain to inspire others. It’s that focus that makes the finale a success in spite of all its rough parts, and the attention to that legacy really gets it to the finish line. * * * And then there was Olicity. Most of you have spent years reading my reviews for this show on this very website. You know exactly how much I love the character of Felicity Smoak. To me, she’s the one-off character who saved the series. She was only supposed to be there for an episode, and instead brought so much light and so much chemistry that she became an integral part of Arrow almost immediately. Love it or hate it, she and Oliver’s story has been critical to the series, and it got exactly the squishy, romantic, heart-felt ending that it deserved. After all the pain, betrayals, deaths, breakups, rage, and tears, a simple “we have all the time in the world for me to talk to you,” is how their story ends as the two look out at their cozy new pocket universe. It’s sappy and maybe even a little saccharine and that was absolutely the correct way to close it out. They saved their city. Their time for all that hurt is over. Edited January 30, 2020 by tv echo 1 Link to comment
tv echo January 30, 2020 Share January 30, 2020 (edited) Arrow Season 8 Finale Review – ‘Fade Out’ JANUARY 29, 2020 BY JESSIE ROBERTSONhttps://www.flickeringmyth.com/2020/01/arrow-season-8-finale-review-fade-out/ Quote But, really the focal point of the episode is Diggle. He, now, carries the burden and shows it, of carrying on the endless mission Oliver started. With no crime in Star City, there are no need for vigilantes as the Diggle family and Dinah both leave to Metropolis. When all the heroes and loved ones of Oliver are gathered for his final goodbye, no one knows what to say or can’t find the words. It falls on Diggle’s shoulders once again, and he does an admirable job. It’s a strong speech that defines exactly who John is: loyal, loving, warrior. They truly were brothers and always will be and John uses that as his shield against the pain of Oliver not being there. Diggle’s steadfastness next to Oliver has been the support this show has leaned on more times than I can count, and I always loved even when the roster was blown up, Diggle nearly always remained as Oliver’s best friend and brother. * * *If Diggle was the emotional anchor of the episode, Felicity was the ship. Her appearance alone stirred emotions all throughout her pitch perfect performance all over this episode. She was the latest character to have met her child as an adult and her poignant comment gave the ultimate weight to it, saying “She’s right there but she’s also at the house, waiting for me.” When she finally does talk to adult Mia, it’s gut wrenching in all the best ways in face of this sad moment. The payoff to the finale last year when the Monitor takes her to see Oliver works as well, in a quietly sweet moment that you didn’t want to end. She finds herself in a Queen Consolidated office, a bit confused, high top ponytail Felicity from Season 1. Oliver is waiting and tells her this is his mother’s office, where he first saw her. She is confused but Oliver puts the ellipses on it saying “I have plenty of time to tell you the story.” It’s a satisfying finale, as we’ve already come to grips with Oliver’s death at this point. Seeing most of the fan favorite characters who were killed over the years actually alive was a nice moment as well, and don’t think I haven’t forgotten to mention Diggle’s amazing discovery at episode’s end (something that’s been teased for quite a while.) For any Arrow fan, this has to be a satisfying conclusion but then again…..was it? Edited January 30, 2020 by tv echo 2 Link to comment
tv echo January 30, 2020 Share January 30, 2020 (edited) Arrow Series Finale – “Fadeout” Review Posted By: Taylor Cole on: January 29, 2020https://thenerdstash.com/arrow-series-finale-fadeout-review/ Quote The more I reflect on Crisis on Infinite Earths, the more I become disappointed in it. While still enjoyable, it never kicked into that next gear and it didn’t fully manage to give Oliver Queen his swan song. Hearing Stephen Amell voice his frustrations to Smallville’s Michael Rosenbaum about his character’s death and the crossovers, in general, added more fuel to that disappointment. Thankfully, “Fadeout” managed to rectify all of that in spades and that’s why it worked so well as a series finale. * * * Is that season 1 version of Oliver completely badass? Most definitely and you can bet we will talk about that action scene in a little bit. But, that season 1 Oliver is not a “good guy”. He’s not supposed to be. It has always been characters like Diggle, Quentin, and Felicity who helped bring the “human” part of the Oliver character back. That’s why this was such an amazing creative call because it actually showed us Oliver’s growth as a character over the past 8 seasons. * * *In terms of performances, OG Team Arrow absolutely crushed it. Stephen Amell, David Ramsey, and Emily Bett Rickards all delivered outstanding performances that were genuinely emotional. It was hard not to tear up, especially during Diggle’s final speech and at the end with that really cheesy ending. But, even the cheesy way to close out the series felt earned due to those stand-out performances and the previous 40+ minutes of well-executed closure. Edited January 30, 2020 by tv echo 1 Link to comment
tv echo January 30, 2020 Share January 30, 2020 (edited) Arrow – Season 8 Episode 10 Jan 29, 2020 | Posted by Craig McKenziehttps://kneelbeforeblog.co.uk/tv/arrow-fadeout/ Quote The focus on Diggle is a great idea as Oliver’s mission impacted a lot of lives with many of them appearing here. It would have been so easy for the episode to be overloaded with cameos and fan service but using Diggle as the anchor means that everything comes back to him before becoming unwieldy. Diggle becomes the audience’s rock just as he was Oliver’s and that’s a perfect way to take the viewer through the final step in the journey that ends with saying goodbye to the show. * * * Accepting that Oliver gifted his friends and family a better world that undoes a lot of the heartache endured over the years opens up a can of worms with the lack of Earth-1 Laurel’s resurrection being the only element the episode actually addresses. There’s no real answer for why the Earth-2 Laurel is the only one there though subtext implies that she is living out her second chance and deserves the opportunity to carry on with it. It’s unclear why Rene’s wife, Rory’s father, Diggle’s brother, Dinah’s partner Vincent, Barry’s parents and pretty much any other loss suffered by a character on any of the shows. I’ll personally choose to believe that Oliver provided the spark that rebooted the universe and that reboot had some unintended side effects rather than the whole thing being a conscious design on his part. * * *Felicity’s absence throughout the truncated final season was certainly felt so it was great to see her back for the final curtain. She is largely a background character with a couple of key scenes mostly focused on her inability to hold herself together. The moment she realises that the adult Mia is right in front of her and being reluctant to meet her because she doesn’t want to skip the joy of watching her grow up was great as was Mia making that decision for her by approaching her. The final scene that picks up from where season 7 ended with Felicity being taken somewhere by The Monitor was a beautiful way to end the series. Felicity joining Oliver in the afterlife that is made to look like Moira’s office at Queen Consolidated because that’s where Oliver first saw her was a really poignant moment. They get to be together in peaceful bliss for eternity as a reward for their collective sacrifices which absolutely works for me as an ending for them. Edited January 30, 2020 by tv echo 1 Link to comment
tv echo January 30, 2020 Share January 30, 2020 (edited) Review: The Arrowverse Says Its Final Goodbyes To Oliver Queen In Arrow’s Emotionally Moving Finale POSTED JANUARY 29TH, 2020 BY DARRYL JASPERhttps://sciencefiction.com/2020/01/29/the-arrowverse-says-its-final-goodbyes-to-oliver-queen-in-arrow-emotionally-moving-finale/ Quote Of all the interactions, the single most impactful face-to-face was Felicity seeing her daughter all grown up. Just like Oliver, Felicity is overcome with both the joy and improbability of the circumstances. For her to be able to speak to her daughter without the pain, anger, or resentment that colored their relationship in last season’s morbid future, was about as incredible a gift as she could have hoped for. Katherine McNamara continued where she left off last week, embodying the traits necessary to carry on the mantle of Green Arrow. It was wonderful to see Emily Bett Rickards back for this final goodbye and even better that Felicity, so like Steve and Peggy in Endgame, gets her own final dance with her love spending the afterlife with Oliver in a world of his creation, just for the two of them. It may not be Heaven in the Biblical sense but spending eternity (if it is that) with the one you love most… there may not be a greater paradise. * * * Throughout Crisis, I mentioned more than once how similar the events were to Avengers: Endgame. “Fadeout” further emphasizes this, not only with the those once dead being returned but even Oliver and Felicity getting their own patch of Heaven. Much like Endgame was not the best or my favorite MCU film, neither is “Fadeout” the best the Arrowverse has offered. Where this finale parallels the MCU’s swan song (as it has been thus far) is creating a level of emotional satisfaction, joy, and heartbreak not achieved by any single episode in the entirety of the Arrowverse. Some may call this recency bias and they may be right. All I know is that I will remember “Fadeout” with a warm and bittersweet smile for years to come. Edited January 30, 2020 by tv echo 2 Link to comment
lemotomato January 30, 2020 Share January 30, 2020 The way the GATV reviewer could barely spit out something nice to say about the Olicity ending was amusing. And really? Olicity was the most divisive thing about the show when there was NTA vs OTA and the never ending carousel of BCs? 9 Link to comment
Mellowyellow January 30, 2020 Share January 30, 2020 2 hours ago, tv echo said: Out of curiosity (but with some dread), I read GATV's review of 810 - it wasn't as bad as I expected, although I'm perplexed by the writer's belief that there are now two Felicitys... Arrow #8.10 “Fadeout” Series Finale Recap & Review Matt Tucker January 29, 2020http://www.greenarrowtv.com/arrow-8-10-fadeout-series-finale-recap-review/ 😂😂😂 He's so spooked by her he's scared himself into believing there are two Felicities floating around to haunt him now 🤣 4 Link to comment
tv echo January 31, 2020 Share January 31, 2020 (edited) Goodbye, Arrow. Goodbye BY: LISSETE LANUZA SÁENZ ON: JANUARY 30, 2020 https://fangirlish.com/2020/01/30/goodbye-arrow-goodbye/ Quote Please don’t ever come back. Into my life, into the world, into existence. Please, let me forget I ever invested my life into something that was going to end up being so …unsatisfying. I hated Tony Stark’s death. It soured the MCU for me to the point that I have, to this day, not been able to watch Spider-Man: Far From Home. But hey, at least Tony got 5 years of happiness, and though he absolutely shouldn’t have been the one to snap, he made the kind of choice it’s hard to judge him for – he was saving the universe, his wife, his daughter, Peter and all his friends combined. Oliver, in the meantime, barely got any time with his wife or daughter, very little quality time with his son, and oh yes, sacrificed himself for plot reasons and shock value, or maybe because someone had to die in a crossover called Crisis on Infinite Earths, and who else were they willing to sacrifice if not the guy whose show was ending? * * * Thankfully, I was never interested in watching the spin-off. I could care the same amount of nothing about Mia, the Diggle kids, Laurel and Dinah. I also don’t really want to invest in the rest of the Arrowverse, either, at least not the shows already established. How’s The Flash gonna end? Is Barry gonna sacrifice himself for Iris? Will Kara do so for her sister on Supergirl? Is death the only ending these people understand? * * * You know who’s not gonna be here to find out? Me. * * * So goodbye, Arrow. I thought I was going to miss you, but if this final season taught me something, it’s that you and I were never destined to be together. If anything, I should thank you for reinforcing the Game of Thrones and Avengers: Endgame lesson: that there will always be writers who place “edgy” and “shocking” over the one thing finales should be: satisfying. Edited January 31, 2020 by tv echo 2 Link to comment
tv echo January 31, 2020 Share January 31, 2020 (edited) Arrow Did What the DCEU Couldn't: How the CW Series Birthed a Superhero Universe By Jesse Schedeen Updated: 30 Jan 2020https://www.ign.com/articles/arrow-series-did-what-dc-universe-couldnt-cw-birthed-arrowverse Quote Arrow has now wrapped up an impressive eight-season run with its recent series finale, "Fadeout," but never let it be said the show isn't leaving behind a clear, lasting legacy. Arrow has spawned numerous spinoff series throughout its time on air, creating a shared universe that just pulled off its biggest and most ambitious crossover yet in the form of Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Arrowverse is exactly the sort of cohesive, interconnected universe WB has been struggling to build on the big screen. Why has the Arrowverse succeeded where the "DCEU" has failed? Join us as we celebrate the legacy of this critically important superhero series and how it serves as a lesson for other studios hoping to establish their own shared universes. How Arrow is the Iron Man of the Arrowverse * * * The thing most studios forget is that you can't build a cinematic universe without an Iron Man. That is, a movie that serves as a proof of concept for that universe while still telling a complete and satisfying standalone story. Iron Man certainly offered hints of a larger shared universe, but director Jon Favreau wisely kept the focus on Tony Stark's compelling origin story. Only once it became clear the audience demand was there did Marvel began constructing a shared universe in earnest. Arrow really is the Iron Man of the DC TV universe - or at least the corner of it executive produced by Greg Berlanti, which has been dubbed the Arrowverse. The first season was very self-contained and small in scope relative to what came later. While filled with references to the larger DCU (including that now-iconic shot of Deathstroke's mask in the pilot), Arrow didn't start out by trying to establish a full-fledged franchise. Only halfway into Season 2 were the seeds of Arrow's first spinoff series finally sown. Creators Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Andrew Kreisberg knew that there was no point in trying to create a Flash or Supergirl if fans weren't first invested in the story of Oliver Queen. * * *The Building Blocks of the Arrowverse Looking back on the series as a whole, Arrow provides a really fascinating case study of how the Arrowverse has grown and evolved over the years. When the series first started, it was clearly inspired by Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. Season 1 is a fairly grounded story of a billionaire playboy donning a costume and becoming the vigilante his city needs. Characters who have superhuman powers in the comics, like Count Vertigo, were given a more realistic makeover for the show. * * * It wasn't until Season 2 of Arrow that it began introducing true metahuman characters. Season 3 introduced the Atom and the death-defying Ra's al Ghul, while Season 4 brought magic into play. Once it was up and running (pun intended), The Flash introduced larger-than-life concepts like time travel and alternate universes. Only after several years of building and expanding did the Arrowverse become as colorful and varied as the comics that inspired it. Watching recent episodes of the truly bonkers Legends of Tomorrow, it's easy to forget the Arrowverse was ever anything remotely resembling The Dark Knight. * * *Arrow's Winning Formula If Smallville offered a rough, imperfect look at how the DC Universe could work in live-action, Arrow honed a formula that has since carried over into most of its spinoffs. The series began with a clear mission for Ollie - the desire to save his city - and a five-year flashback structure that promised to chronicle his evolution from carefree playboy to hardened vigilante in painstaking depth. No other Arrowverse series has committed to the flashback/flash-forward formula as much as Arrow, but all use that motif to some degree or another. * * * The series introduced a supporting cast of friends and family, all of whom were slowly exposed to Ollie's secrets and drawn into his crusade. Many of those supporting characters wound up becoming costumed heroes in their own right. Arrow showed us the origins of Red Arrow, Black Canary, and numerous others. In turn, The Flash gave rise to new heroes like Vibe, Killer Frost, and Elongated Man, while Supergirl has built up new heroes like Guardian and Dreamer. Arrow showed how important it is for a hero to have a tangible legacy and inspire others to take up the same cause. That's the very basis of the upcoming Green Arrow & The Canaries spinoff, if it gets greenlit to series. There are other ways in which Arrow's influence is felt throughout the rest of the Arrowverse. It's become mandatory for every show to have its own Felicity Smoak character - a snarky, brilliant sidekick who handles all the tech-y grunt work. Felicity begat The Flash's Cisco Ramon, Supergirl's Winn Schott and Brainiac-5, and Batwoman's Luke Fox. With Slade Wilson, Arrow showed that the best villains are often the ones with close personal ties to the hero - leading to betrayals and victories that hit home all the more. Without Season 2's Deathstroke storyline, would we have other Arrowverse greats like Reverse-Flash, Zoom, and Lena Luthor? Ending the Hero's JourneyArrow is ending by doing something we rarely see in other superhero shows or even in DC's comics. It's bringing Oliver Queen's journey to a close and giving him a definitive ending. After eight seasons of watching Oliver Queen fight and sacrifice to protect his city, anything less than a total and lasting victory would have been a disappointment. Thankfully, Crisis created a scenario where Ollie was able to gain ultimate power and use it to restart the multiverse. He sacrificed his own life, but he completed his mission in the process. * * *Arrow makes a strong case that every good superhero series needs a proper ending. After spending the better part of a decade with Stephen Amell's Oliver Queen, fans need that sense of closure in order to move on. And as we say our goodbyes to Arrow, it's hard not to wonder where characters like Barry Allen and Kara Danvers will find themselves when their respective shows end. Arrow's most valuable lesson is that no shared universe should stick around forever. Edited January 31, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo January 31, 2020 Share January 31, 2020 (edited) This is another long article, so you may wish to read the entire thing at the link... Arrow Ends, But Leaves Behind an Unmatched TV Legacy By RUSS BURLINGAME - January 28, 202https://comicbook.com/dc/2020/01/28/arrow-ends-but-leaves-behind-an-unmatched-tv-legacy/ Quote Arrow will end tonight, with a heartfelt finale and a final farewell to Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), who became something else and saved his city after five years in Hell and eight seasons on The CW. There will likely be a lot of sentimental write-ups of the finale and rose-colored looks back at the series -- and we're here to tell you that it deserves every bit of the love that it's going to get in the coming days and weeks. Arrow, while (like its heroes) never perfect, was a smart, fun, and ambitious show that stretched the barriers of what grounded, gritty comic book adaptations could do on television while also jump-starting a revolution in the way casual viewers perceive superhero shows. * * * When Arrow launched, it had something of an uphill battle: Stephen Amell was at a disadvantage because he was playing Oliver Queen, a character who mainstream audiences only really knew from Smallville. Rather than trying to bring back Justin Hartley to the role, executive producers Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim went in a very different direction. That left Smallville fans disappointed and frustrated, and their complaints would continue to be heard -- albeit with reduced volume -- for most of the show's first season. At the same time, abandoning the look and feel of the Smallville Green Arrow seemed especially strange because late 2011 -- just before Arrow premiered -- saw The New 52 debut in the comics, with a costume for Green Arrow that more or less adopted the look of Smallville. It seemed like maybe nobody at DC had any idea what was going on with Arrow. It also seems almost unbelievable now, but some fans were skeptical of producers Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim's involvement, which would have been understandable enough: a year or so before Arrow hit the airwaves, executive producers Berlanti and Guggenheim had been two of the credited writers on a critically-panned film adaptation of Green Lantern. The pair, Guggenheim later revealed during a Comic Con International panel for his 2014 novel Overwatch, had requested that if their pitch for a Green Arrow pilot, then called The Hunter, did not go forward, the general public would never even find out they pitched on it. It's from that place that Arrow managed to fundamentally transform the way fans -- and studios -- saw comic books on television. The series was the foundation on which a sprawling, interconnected universe of TV has been built, including The CW's two highest-rated shows. * * * That meant that in order to feel organic, the universe had to build on existing structures. The biggest risk, obviously, was the one that paid off the most: introducing true super powers into the world of Arrow with "The Scientist," the season two episode that introduced the world to Grant Gustin's Barry Allen. Initially just a nerdy CSI who had a crush on Felicity (just like literally everyone did at that point in the show; it was hard not to), Barry was struck by lightning in the episode's final moments of the next episode, "Three Ghosts," setting up a pilot for The Flash, which Gustin would topline for the following season. It was an immediate critical and ratings hit, becoming The CW's highest-rated new show in years and maintaining an iron grip on its place at the top of the network's lineup. Even as the universe around it began to expand and explode, Arrow managed to retain its own visual style and unique personality. It was a challenge, no doubt, to set up a world where there were time-travelers and aliens while still feeling like a grounded story about a small group of people standing against corruption in their city was the center of that world. There were hiccups from time to time, but in general it worked very well. * * * A lot of that is the writing. A lot of it is the performance by Stephen Amell, who delivered an iconic and believable version of Oliver Queen, a character who had only ever been treated like a supporting character outside of comics. Elevating characters out of also-ran status and making them fan-favorites was something Arrow has been good at all along -- and it will ultimately leave a lasting impact on TV, film, and comics that feature DC's characters. You could count on one hand the number of people who cared about Felicity Smoak or Damien Darhk before the Arrowverse came along. And, in all of those cases, it is as much or more the casting as the writing or even the core of the characters. Very little of what makes Felicity appealing in her TV form, after all, came from Gerry Conway and Rafael Kayanan. * * * After tonight, Arrow is gone -- but it leaves behind a legacy that almost no other show can match. It deserves every nostalgic, rose-colored word of praise it's going to get because without it, the comics-on-TV landscape could potentially look very, very different today. Edited January 31, 2020 by tv echo 1 Link to comment
tv echo January 31, 2020 Share January 31, 2020 (edited) The Clock Tower: Let’s Say Goodbye to ‘Arrow’ Posted on Thursday, January 30th, 2020 by Amelia Emberwinghttps://www.slashfilm.com/arrow-finale/ Quote And then there was Olicity. Like most OTPs, this one caused some strife among shippers. We won’t dive into the toxicity that runs rampant in that culture, but I’ll definitely acknowledge that this relationship wasn’t for everyone and those folks made themselves heard. That acknowledgement goes hand-in-hand with the fact that Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak’s relationship wasn’t just an integral part of the series, it’s a huge part of what eventually saved it. The two are opposites of the same coin. Her humanity made him better. His darkness taught her to be hard when she needed to be. There was definitely some trial and error on both sides as the show sorted itself out, but you get the idea. Their ending (the pocket universe everyone had suspected) was perfect. No more wars, no more vendettas, just the rest of their lives in their own little corner with each other. Edited January 31, 2020 by tv echo 2 Link to comment
tv echo January 31, 2020 Share January 31, 2020 (edited) Arrow: 5 moments from the series finale that highlighted the show’s legacy by Shaun Stacy January 30, 2020https://culturess.com/2020/01/30/arrow-series-finale-5-biggest-moments/ Quote Laurel doesn’t understand why Oliver brought back Quentin, Moira Queen (Susanna Thompson), and Tommy Merlyn (Colin Donnell), but didn’t bring back Earth-1 Laurel. She’s worried about it being her fault, since she is now on Earth-1 and wonders why Oliver didn’t “fix this.” Quentin quietly tells Laurel that there is nothing about her that needed to be fixed, giving her a hug at the same time. Earth-2 Laurel was always looking to earn Oliver’s respect, and, in the end, she finally got it. * * * In the comic books, Oliver Queen (aka Green Arrow) and Dinah Lance (Black Canary) are one of DC’s most popular power couples. So, you could imagine everyone’s surprise that neither Black Canary ended up being the love of Oliver’s life on Arrow. Instead, it would be Rickards’ Felicity Smoak, who was previously a relatively minor character in the comic books. However, the actress’ charm, screen presence, and chemistry with Amell turned a guest-star stint into a seven-year series regular. Fans of the show were torn between “Olicity” and wanting Oliver to indeed end up with Laurel. Following the birth of their daughter, Felicity and Mia went into hiding as Oliver dealt with the Crisis. However, upon learning of Oliver’s death, Felicity returns to the fold for one last mission and to be with Team Arrow to say goodbye. The final scene of the show flashes back to the previous scene of the Monitor and Felicity about to step through a portal in the year 2040. After exiting the portal, Felicity finds herself in an afterlife modeled after Oliver’s first memory of her. It’s here that she is finally reunited with Oliver for eternity. Thea and Roy Get Their Happy Ending Laurel Doesn’t Need to Be Fixed The Dead and the Living Return to Pay Their Respects John Gets the Surprise of His Life Olicity for Life (And in Death) Edited January 31, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo January 31, 2020 Share January 31, 2020 (edited) “Arrow” Bids Farewell! By LaDale -Jan 30, 2020https://www.canyon-news.com/arrow-bids-farewell/104511 Quote I mean Stephen Amell came onto the screen and lit it on fire. The guy was perfect in the role and making things greater was the fact that audiences got to see this character evolve over several seasons. Oliver Queen, aka the Green Arrow was an everyday being. He really did not have that superhero power that so many other iconic characters showcased in the past. That was the one thing that made this character such a treat to watch. No, most of us aren’t billionaires like Oliver, but he was grappling with rather to be a hero and how to go about it. * * *However, the one thing that has drawn so many of us to the series was the love affair between Oliver and Felicity Smoak. Yes, Felicity returned to the series this season and I’ve always loved this character. She was quirky, she was nerdy and from the moment she first laid eyes on Oliver, the audience knew these two were destined to be together. I don’t’ know why the writers attempted to place Laurel and Oli together from the start, it just never clicked for me as a viewer. We knew who we wanted together, and while it took nearly three seasons before it finally happened. It was not without trials and tribulations. I mean Felicity nearly died as a casualty because of enemies Oliver made, their kids grew up without a father, her life was threatened multiple times people. If that is not love, then please tell me exactly what is. Witnessing those final moments of the two as Felicity visited 2040 was the final touch of a sendoff that was well worth the wait. She was reunited with her one true love and it was at the place where the two first laid eyes on one another. Man, this final episode just reminded me how much I enjoyed this series and how I might have to go back and re-watch a few seasons to bring back that nostalgia. I mean it’s rare to find a series that entertains on such a level, but “Arrow” you did it the best. You’ll be truly missed! Edited January 31, 2020 by tv echo 1 Link to comment
tv echo January 31, 2020 Share January 31, 2020 (edited) Ask Matt: A 'Fresh' Spinoff? Plus 'Arrow,' 'Whiskey,' Midseason Scheduling & More Matt Roush January 31, 2020https://www.tvinsider.com/910125/ask-matt-arrow-finale-fresh-off-the-boat-spinoff-68-whiskey/ Quote Arrow Left Us Satisfied, But Enough With the Arcs Question: The seasons leading up to the end of Arrow were pretty uneven, but the last episode was pretty satisfying. The thing the drives me nuts about Arrow and some of the other CW superhero shows is having a Big Bad for an entire season or longer. I enjoy a new story each week a lot more. Having Diaz kick Team Arrow's butt for 20 episodes or more just got boring. Love the crossover episodes, though: nice change. Thoughts? — Sharon, Maine Matt Roush: By all accounts, including our Arrow expert Damian Holbrook's terrific post-mortem, the Arrow finale was everything a fan could want. Plus Felicity! However, I get where you're coming from about the extended arcs. If all you watch is the CW superhero shows and can follow all the interconnectedness and serialized storytelling, more (super)power to you. But for the rest of us, who operate on a broader canvas, it can be a drawback, and when the shows began to introduce parallel worlds and multiple timelines, I pretty much checked out of the entire "verse." Simplicity and economy are not crimes in TV storytelling, and while making these shows episodic and formulaic procedurals-in-capes is probably too much of a course correction, there should exist a happy medium. Your point about the Big Bad each season is also a good one. I've noticed it most with The Walking Dead, which I almost dread returning to next month, because I'm so tired of that grotesque Alpha — and of Negan, for that matter. I miss the days when the heroes were facing the existential zombie threat more than going to war with each other. (I know the point is that man is the real monster here, but I get it already.) Edited January 31, 2020 by tv echo 2 Link to comment
tv echo January 31, 2020 Share January 31, 2020 (edited) Arrow: Oliver Queen’s Journey Was Always About Love John Koli January 31, 2020 https://moosegazette.net/arrow-oliver-queens-journey-was-always-about-love/968/ Quote But why did Oliver Queen’s vigilante journey get started? What kept him going along the way? What gives him the strength to make the final sacrifice to save the multiverse? Well, I’ll argue that the central theme of Oliver’s redemption, and of this ending was none other than this: love. It was his father that got him started, but his mother and his sister, as well as Laurel and Tommy who inspired Oliver. He wanted to be better for them, and he wanted the city to be safe, not for himself – he didn’t think he deserved that – but for those he cared about. Then, he found a partner, a friend, and a brother. And Diggle inspired him every day to create the kind of world where his friend could go off, get married, have kids, all the things Oliver never thought he could get for himself. Except, of course, Felicity Smoak walked into his life, and his purpose, which had always been about the people he cared about, shifted. First, it was about protecting her, about keeping her safe. Then it was about more than that; it was about her happiness, her peace. And for Felicity to get that, Oliver would have sacrificed anything, even himself. But Felicity didn’t want that. She wanted him. And slowly, Oliver’s purpose changed, once again. It wasn’t just about making others happy, about saving the world for others. It was about his own happiness too, his own love, and his very own happy ending. This all ties to the decision Oliver made during Elseworlds, a decision that would come to head during Crisis on Infinite Earths. It was a decision to, once again, sacrifice for the good of others, for the good of the multiple worlds, as it would turn out. * * * Later, the decision became even clearer during Crisis on Infinite Earths. It wasn’t just about Barry and Kara; it was about preserving the future, not just a future. And Oliver Queen wasn’t going to stand by and let the people he loved suffer because he wasn’t willing to make that ultimate sacrifice. * * * Because the thing is, Oliver Queen was now a father. And all that love that had always driven him to do things, inspired him to be better, was focused on two people: William and Mia. And Oliver the father would sacrifice anything for that love, even his own overdue happiness. Now, I’m not exactly a fan of the ending Arrow gave us. I firmly believe that heroes should get a chance to live out their happy endings, and that sacrifice isn’t the only way. But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the journey of Oliver Queen, or the overall theme of the series. Because yes, even for the super-tough vigilante known as the Arrow, love can be the way. Love can be the reason. And that doesn’t make him – or anyone – any less of a hero. Edited January 31, 2020 by tv echo 4 Link to comment
tv echo February 1, 2020 Share February 1, 2020 (edited) Arrowverse: A Marvel fan reflects on Arrow’s ending by Wesley Coburn January 31, 2020https://bamsmackpow.com/2020/01/30/a-marvel-fan-looks-back-on-arrows-ending/ Quote But it was a tremendously well-done show, and Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) rightfully was the key to the Arrowverse in the same way that Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) was to the MCU. * * * The first two seasons are almost Shakespearian in Oliver’s grand quest to get revenge on his father’s enemies while, at the same time, tackling the inner turmoil of dealing with the consequences of his past actions and navigating everyone else’s perceptions and expectations for him after returning from Lian Yu. Gradually, after teaming up with Diggle (David Ramsey) and Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards), but especially so after Tommy’s (Colin Donnell) death in “Sacrifice” (1.22), Oliver’s violent and self-destructive tendencies are toned down as he learned mercy. * * *Arrow‘s beginning showed that a deep, sprawling and multilayered story based on comic book characters could work if the character relationships were strong enough and, now at Arrow‘s ending, the TV landscape as a whole is much better for it. The action scenes were very violent, predating the brutality of Daredevil, but they fit the grounded and gritty landscape of Starling City. Also, archery is so much cooler visually and creatively during fights than simply using a gun all of the time. Rickards’ performance as Felicity and Willa Holland’s portrayal of Thea often get overlooked, but they both brought significant acting ability to the series and provided a sense of structure in Oliver’s life. This was never more clear than with Ollie striving to set a good example for and protecting his little sister and with Felicity progressing from his co-worker in vigilante activities to becoming his wife. * * * With Oliver’s death, the Arrowverse loses one of its greatest heroes and though the torch has been passed onto his daughter, Mia, things won’t ever be the same. Edited February 1, 2020 by tv echo 2 Link to comment
Trisha February 1, 2020 Share February 1, 2020 Allison, who wrote Arrow’s reviews on the A.V. Club, appears on this week’s Televerse podcast to do the spotlight feature on Arrow. I haven’t listened to it yet, but their spotlights are usually the last 45 mins: http://www.theteleverse.org/episode439/ Link to comment
tv echo February 2, 2020 Share February 2, 2020 (edited) Arrow - Fadeout - Review Posted by Lisa Macklem at February 01, 2020https://www.spoilertv.com/2020/02/arrow-fadeout-review.html Quote Arrow came to an end with “Fadeout” written by Marc Guggenheim and Beth Schwartz and directed by James Bamford. The episode mainly focused on the aftermath of Oliver’s death but still managed to find a tiny role for Stephen Amell (Oliver) by shooting some new flashback material – and the one very satisfying scene that saw Oliver and Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) united in – we assume – eternity. This episode wasn’t as bad as I feared it might be, but it was still a bit anti-climactic – thought it could hardly avoid that. * * * Laurel (Katie Cassidy) goes to see Lance. This was another great scene – Cassidy and Blackthorne are always great together. She’s consumed with guilt that Lance is back and HIS Laurel isn’t. He tells her that she’s fine – there’s nothing wrong with her and she deserves to be there. But it is a really good question as to why Oliver didn’t restore the Laurel that he loved…. * * * And then we just need to have Oliver and Felicity reunited. I loved that he had her arrive in Moira’s office and we get the flashback to her very first appearance. So some satisfying moments in this finale – and nothing that really leapt out at me for being completely wrong. I’ll take it. Arrow certainly leaves behind a legacy. I still find it hilariously wrong, however, that we are still calling it the Arrowverse when that show has now been cancelled/mothballed – whatever you want to label it – Arrow is no more. I really hope that that statue of Stephen Amell as Arrow is really in Stanley Park – or wherever that was shot, because Arrow also leaves behind a legacy in the film and television industry in Vancouver. How many people owe their livelihoods to that show – and the many, many others now shot there? What did you think of the finale? Did you love it? Hate it? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below! Edited February 2, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo February 2, 2020 Share February 2, 2020 (edited) ‘Arrow’ Series Finale Review: “Fadeout” Lynsey Neill February 1, 2020https://www.purefandom.com/2020/02/01/arrow-series-finale-review-fadeout/ Quote So, amongst the many reasons I fell in love with this show, one of the most prominent reasons was Oliver Queen. Once he starts adapting to the realities of what being back in Star City entails, and his subsequent efforts to save it, Oliver truly started living again beyond crossing names off a list. * * * John Diggle is the one who always the one with sage advice and wise words at his exposal. So, when Felicity Smoak said, “it should be you,” I felt that. * * * While this ending wasn’t necessarily a surprise for fans given the end of 7×22, we were however gifted with context and more than one confirmation. Yes, when Felicity entered the portal she met with Oliver. Yes, Oliver remembers the first time he ever saw her. They met here, in this Queen Consolidated office because this is where it all began. Felicity has always reminded Oliver of his humanity. And when he first saw her here, and when he fell in love with her here, and this is where he’s reminded of home. As Felicity runs into Oliver’s arms you can literally see the life being breathed back into her. You can feel Oliver once again be anchored and at peace with Felicity by his side. They can both breathe again. There was no other way to end this show. They’re each other’s home, and now that Oliver is now Spectre, that can look like whatever they want. They can look in on their kids, FINALLY manifest a vacation in Aruba, and be happy. They’re okay. And that means I can be okay too. He has all the time in the world to tell her… that she’s his happy story. * * * - Tommy is so delightful. It was nice to see Colin Donnell play Tommy, and not Earth-X Tommy, or Fake Face Guy Tommy, or Angel Tommy, just Tommy. - We were robbed of a Moira and Felicity moment! - Also, where’s Mama Smoak? - I love my Mia and William, but I could have honestly done without a last mission. I think the episode would have been stronger if it was flashbacks (with Felicity included), funeral/statue unveiling, then Olicity reunion.- P.S.: Felicity Smoak is not dead, she did not kill herself, Spectre Oliver created another plane for them. Olicity is immortal, thems the facts. - P.P.S.: Felicity Smoak is not a bad mother for going to Oliver. Her kids are grown ups, and want their mom to be happy. - Looks like John Diggle is the new Green Lantern! Edited February 2, 2020 by tv echo 1 Link to comment
tv echo February 2, 2020 Share February 2, 2020 (edited) 17 hours ago, Trisha said: Allison, who wrote Arrow’s reviews on the A.V. Club, appears on this week’s Televerse podcast to do the spotlight feature on Arrow. I haven’t listened to it yet, but their spotlights are usually the last 45 mins: http://www.theteleverse.org/episode439/ Allison thought it was a perfect finale as far as Arrow goes, but compared it unfavorably to The Good Place finale. In other words, it was an imperfect finale but appropriate for Arrow. Allison used to be an Olicity shipper but her enthusiasm waned with subsequent seasons. The second female podcaster is an Olicity shipper. The one male podcaster never understood Olicity and did not see any chemistry between SA and EBR in their Nanda Parbat sex scene. He apparently quit watching after S4. (Huh?!) The three podcasters assumed that Felicity committed suicide to be with Oliver in the end and that Oliver & Felicity were all alone in an empty QC building as their afterlife. (I disagree.) Edited February 2, 2020 by tv echo 2 Link to comment
lemotomato February 2, 2020 Share February 2, 2020 37 minutes ago, tv echo said: Arrow certainly leaves behind a legacy. I still find it hilariously wrong, however, that we are still calling it the Arrowverse when that show has now been cancelled/mothballed – whatever you want to label it – Arrow is no more. I really hope that that statue of Stephen Amell as Arrow is really in Stanley Park – or wherever that was shot, because Arrow also leaves behind a legacy in the film and television industry in Vancouver. How many people owe their livelihoods to that show – and the many, many others now shot there? How does she admit what a big impact Arrow made and in the next breath say that it shouldn’t be called the Arrowverse? It’s called that because Arrow started it all. That doesn’t change just because the show is over before the rest. 1 Link to comment
tv echo February 2, 2020 Share February 2, 2020 (edited) Arrow: All 8 Finales, Ranked BY ANDY BEHBAKHT FEB 02, 2020https://screenrant.com/arrow-cw-every-finale-episode-ranked/ Quote 1/8 Fadeout (Season 8 ) The final episode of the series is the best finale for Arrow out of all of them that have happened. Following the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths, “Fadeout” continued the emotional fallout with Oliver still dead in this new Earth. The series finale reveals several changes that Oliver did to Earth-Prime’s continuity, primarily through the resurrection of a lot of dead characters who had been integral to Arrow since the start. But in the end, Oliver still stayed dead as the world comes to terms with the Green Arrow’s passing and the sacrifice he made. Even though they held on to the stakes of Oliver’s decisions in the Crisis, fans of the character still got, in a way, the happy ending for the hero. The final scene reveals that Oliver gets joined by Felicity in the afterlife, thanks to the Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) taking her there in the season 7 finale from 2040. It’s a refreshing way for a superhero series to end as Oliver’s legacy lives on through his allies and loved ones while he lives happily ever after with Felicity. Edited February 2, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo February 3, 2020 Share February 3, 2020 (edited) Arrow: Fadeout by Shari February 2, 2020https://www.douxreviews.com/2020/02/arrow-fadeout.html Quote This review was difficult to write for many reasons. Chief among them, I, like the characters (and I suspect the cast and crew), are saying goodbye to someone we’ve grown to care deeply about. But while no episode could possibly hit all the grace notes I hoped for nor answer all the post Crisis questions still whirling in my head, damn if they didn’t try. * * * In fact, the only central characters to remain dead were Robert Queen and Earth 1 Laurel, although we learn Laurel lived long enough to marry Tommy. I’m not sure how Moira became the multiverse expert but I believe her when she said that Robert’s death was necessary to ensure Oliver became the man that he did. Just as I believe that Earth 1 Laurel died so that Earth 2 Laurel could live. Even in the improved universe everything has a cost. * * * Endangering William has been done ad nauseam. And while it was nice to see everyone, not only did it feel like overkill for one non-powered individual, they were literally not needed. Yet, in the final showdown between Mia and the kidnapper, we’re left to wonder if Oliver’s original act of mercy was the right decision. And if Mia would be better served by making a different choice. Once again, we’re faced with the knowledge that there are no easy answers and there may not be a right choice. Arrow, unlike the rest of the shows in the Berlanti-verse, was always at its best when it was morally gray. * * * The need to cover that much ground comes at a cost. Showing how Moira survived muddies the flashbacks of Oliver’s redemption arc. And why show how that change occurred, and not Quentin or Tommy’s survival? Or Emiko’s. I’d love to know what changed to give Emiko faith that she would be accepted by the woman who went to such lengths to make Emiko's life hell in the version we were privy to, or by the sister with which she has no biological ties. In short, I wanted more time. Watching this made me regret that one of the two post Crisis episodes was spent on a backdoor pilot that posed questions that may never get resolved instead of allowing any and all of the above storylines the depth and breadth they deserved. * * *Oliver: “Hi. Glad you could finally make it.” Edited February 3, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo February 3, 2020 Share February 3, 2020 (edited) Quote Arrow debuted on The CW in October 2012, and I have watched every single episode of the series since its premiere, all 170 of them, plus the several hours that have made up the crossovers in recent years. However, even though I’ve been a devoted fan of the show since 2012, I only really started writing and talking about Arrow online in 2014, at the beginning of Season 3, and it wasn’t until the start of Season 5 in 2016 that I started reviewing it weekly. I bring all this up not to try to be a fandom gatekeeper. It doesn’t matter when or how you started watching Arrow, whether it’s been appointment television for you every single week since it premiered on The CW, or if you binge-watched all previous seven seasons over the summer on Netflix. I only mention these details to illustrate just how long Arrow and its characters have been a part of my life and how, during that length of time, the series and its world has been a consistent companion for me, even when I didn’t like a particular episode (or in the case of Season 6, a particular season). So saying goodbye to Arrow and Oliver Queen, Felicity Smoak, John Diggle, and many of the other individuals that have populated the Arrowverse is tough. It’s truly like ending a chapter of my life, especially because, after writing this review, I don’t know when I’ll write a TV review again. It’s been refreshing to take a step away from most series I watch, including Arrow for the second half of this final season, and just enjoy them again as a fan. However, it’s also nearly impossible for me to watch an episode of Arrow and just “watch as a fan”; I’m always thinking critically about it in some way or another, piecing together the important themes and character moments that have been a fabric of the series over the past seven-plus years. And that was the case here one last time with “Fadeout,” which I found to be a fitting, beautiful conclusion to Arrow and the story of Oliver Queen, even if part of me wishes there had been more Oliver in this last episode. * * * By dying during Crisis and creating a new multiverse as Specter, Oliver finally saves Star City, essentially erasing all crime from its streets, and brings back the loved ones he can so that they are able to live fuller and longer lives with those they care about. That’s a wonderful final act, one fitting of the effort, commitment, and resilience Oliver has consistently demonstrated throughout Arrow‘s run. But universe-destroying deities and supernatural-powered beings from purgatory were never what the series was about. It’s great that Arrow has been able to embrace more of its comic roots in recent seasons and get a little more ambitious and just plain weird with its storytelling, as it has helped to usher in new CW superhero series, from The Flash back in 2014 to Batwoman just last year. Before all of that, though, and up until its final episode, the one main through-line of Arrow‘s storytelling has been the need to embrace love and help from others, which in turn can help us better ourselves. * * * People may share stories about how the Green Arrow stopped the Anti-Monitor and saved the world; however, Felicity Smoak, John Diggle, and Sara Lance will talk about how a broken man who believed he had to be a lonely, bloodthirsty monster in order to honor his father learned to become one of the best men alive by opening his heart to friendship, love, and compassion from a solider-turned bodyguard, an overly qualified IT girl, and a whole host of wannabe vigilantes. These ideas will continue to serve as Oliver Queen’s legacy: that vulnerability is strength, not weakness; that attachment inspires and empowers instead of threatens; and that redemption can be possible through faith, hope, and love. And how does Arrow confirm that those are the most important lessons that Oliver both learned on his own and taught to others during these past eight seasons? By ending the entire series with Oliver and Felicity reuniting in the afterlife that Oliver has constructed: his mother’s old office at Queen Consolidated, where he first saw Felicity. Because that moment for Oliver, even though it’s before he ever speaks to Felicity and before he reveals himself as a vigilante to her, serves as the true beginning of his journey, of his evolution into not just the Green Arrow, not just a better hero, but a better person. That first moment Oliver sees Felicity is the first moment he allows the light to cut through the darkness he experienced on Lian Yu and lets the possibility of optimism and joy and true happiness fill him. That moment is when Oliver Queen allowed the light and love of Felicity Smoak to lead him where he needed to go, from stopping the Undertaking to battling Slade Wilson to facing off against Adrian Chase to sacrificing his own life to ensure the rebirth of the entire freaking universe. That moment best represents what Oliver Queen’s journey has all been about, and emphasizing its importance in the final scene of the entire series proves that, while Arrow was and always will be a superhero show, it’s also a love story, one of the best ones I’ve ever seen and one that I will miss dearly, even though I’m know it’s the right time to say goodbye. * * * - I am so pleased with the amount of Felicity we get in “Fadeout,” and as usual, Emily Bett Rickards delivers a terrific performance. I already mentioned Felicity’s reunion with Mia being one of my favorite moments from the finale, but I also love that the finale writers had her hug Diggle first when she returns to the bunker. Honestly, having Felicity, Diggle, and Mia anchor this finale injected some much needed emotion into this final episode, which it was missing without Oliver in the present-day scenes. * * * - Also, watching Mia refuse to kill and honor the legacy of her father was more emotionally affecting to me than almost anything we saw in “Crisis” or the spin-off episode. I’m just sayin’. - I’d say the same thing I said above regarding Paul Blackthorne’s expert delivery of the line, “Because sweetheart, there’s nothing about you that needed to be fixed,” which, at least for me, humanized Black Siren more in one scene than so much of the storytelling of the past two seasons. I really enjoy Katie Cassidy’s performance as Earth-2 Laurel, but I hope the writing for her is more consistent if the spin-off gets ordered to series. * * *- “It’s a long story. Lucky for us, we have all the time in the world for me to tell it to you.” Edited February 3, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo February 3, 2020 Share February 3, 2020 (edited) Continuing my retrospective, here's some of what the execs and producers said about Arrow in 2012 (prior to the pilot airdate)... -- WBTV President Peter Roth: “We’re working very, very closely with DC [Comics]... We’re making sure that each of the original characters are honored, are respected, and any changes that we make are being made with the sanction and endorsement of DC. ... I would say that, tonally, the show probably lives most closely – in terms of analogy – to the world of Jason Bourne."https://tvline.com/2012/03/07/cw-arrow-pilot-likened-to-jason-bourne-films/ -- AK: "We were heavily influenced, obviously, by Chris Nolan’s take on Batman, especially the second movie, 'The Dark Knight.' If you pull Batman out of that movie you’re essentially left with Michael Mann’s 'Heat.' It really is just a crime thriller. Truly, the only fantastical thing in it really is Batman. That’s the way we approached this material. Oliver could just as easily have a gun and a ski mask. The only thing that even makes it a comic book is the fact that he wears a hood. The only reason he does that is it’s not so much to wear a costume as much as it is that’s how he feels most like a predator. That’s how he gets back into the mindset of the hunter on the island. And to conceal his identity. He’s not wearing tights. He’s not dressing up to dress up. Given that, there is very little about it that’s sort of comic book-y."http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/21/arrow-cw-executive-producers-interview_n_1815057.html -- AK: "There’s no supervillains or superpowers on the show. No aliens. This is the world of Oliver Queen. But, that doesn’t mean you won’t be seeing a lot of familiar characters from DC; they’ll just be seen in the context of the world we’ve created."http://nerdist.com/the-cws-arrow-takes-aim-at-our-expectations/ -- MG: "I’m so surprised by the number of questions we’ve gotten about DC characters and superheroes and everything. It’s interesting to me because we don’t really see the show as a superhero show. We see it as more like a crime thriller. It’s designed to appeal to comic book fans, obviously. That’s why we’re putting in all the Easter eggs and everything. But it’s also designed to appeal to a much larger audience. The most gratifying thing that I hear is from a lot of women, quite frankly, going, 'I did not expect to like this show, but I really liked it.' The phrase I hear a lot is, 'It’s not for me but I loved it.' I’m like, well it is for you. There’s character and there’s heart and there’s emotion and then there’s a lot of soapy elements. It’s totally for you. But that’s not what people expect when the poster is a guy in a hood with a bow and arrow. That’s the appeal of the show."http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/21/arrow-cw-executive-producers-interview_n_1815057.html -- MG: “In terms of secrets, for us, the secret is Oliver... One of the things we’re doing is, we don’t really consider the show a superhero show. We consider it more like a hero show; more like a crime thriller, and as with any with crime thriller, you’re going to have a mystery. Except unlike CSI where it’s a body drop at the beginning of every episode, the mystery is Oliver. Oliver is the case of the week, basically. Each week we’re peeling back the layers of his character, both in the present and in the past. We’re going to be continuing the flashbacks into the series, so you’ll get to see what happened to him on the island, and it won’t always be the things that you expect. We’re trying to always surprise the audience, so the mysteries and the twists come out of character as opposed to out of plots. ... One of the things that is part of the DNA of the show is the emotional complexity, the emotional resonance of the relationships between the characters. ... Part of the show is a soap opera. Part of the show is a character drama. And that’s, I think, one of the very importants of the show. It’s not just Oliver beating up bad guys every week.” http://www.greenarrowtv.com/interview-marc-guggenheim-unlocks-the-secrets-connections-in-arrow/ -- MG: "Arrow always gives the bad guy of the week the opportunity to do the right thing, that's one of moral guidelines we're allowing... When he kills, it's for necessity, it's not random violence. He'll have characters come into the universe that question those. ... The list is the jumping off point... Circumstances aren't always the same; part of Oliver's evolution of a hero is moving from his mission of revenge to redemption and to help people and stop crimes and moving away from just the agenda of righting his father's wrongs to helping to save the city."https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/tca-2012-arrow-dc-comics-comparisons-changes-355824 -- MG: "We’re always trying to take a 'world outside your window' approach.(*) This is not a show about superheroes; this is a guy taking the law into his own hands like a vigilante. We’re always asking ourselves the question: is this something that could happen in the real world? How do we make this believable? It’s not only 'would this happen?' but also 'how would the people in this world react to these events?' What would the cops do if they noticed a crimefighter in their midst – put a spotlight on the roof? [laughs] They’re not even all on the same page with calling him the Green Arrow; they’ve got a bunch of different names for him. Their reactions help set the tone for the show because they’re the audience’s reactions. They take their cue from the characters’ reactions. As long as the characters are grounded and realistic, that’s what the audience will take away from the show."http://nerdist.com/the-cws-arrow-takes-aim-at-our-expectations/ (* tv echo: I found this 2012 comment by MG striking, considering that the series just ended with Oliver & Felicity literally looking out at their new world through a window.) Edited February 3, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo February 4, 2020 Share February 4, 2020 (edited) ‘Arrow’ Had The Perfect Ending To Me BY: ERIN E. GROSS ON: FEBRUARY 3, 2020 https://fangirlish.com/2020/02/03/arrow-had-the-perfect-ending-to-me/ Quote Lizzie and Alyssa both had their say about Arrow, but now it’s my turn. They both hated the ending, but I personally loved it. Why? Well, for one big reason. Now, I will be honest, I see the whole other side. But I am going to ask you to bear with me. I believe that Oliver got his happy ending. * * * I get the fact that Oliver didn’t get to watch William or Mia grow up. He wasn’t there for a lot of their firsts, things that happen in life that shaped them, and everything in between. But Oliver did what he did because he would give anything and everything to protect his children and family. * * * The truth is – people come and people go. It’s not an easy fact of life, but it is part of life. What makes us all happy is different. And I firmly believe that Oliver’s first happy ending was knowing that his children were going to live and be okay. * * *And the second – Felicity. Now, I know – I know… people will say that he was robbed of a happy ending because they both weren’t alive to watch their children grow old. They weren’t there to watch their children get married. They weren’t there to have grandkids. But the thing is – sure, that’s not happy. But I think that what we’re missing is that it all of us can have ideas about what a happy ending means to people. But life isn’t always about happy endings. Sometimes life is about peace. And sometimes finding that peace is a happy ending for that person. Oliver and Felicity are at peace with each other. They find themselves in each other. I don’t think that Oliver could have done everything he’s done if it weren’t for Felicity. Breaking her heart killed him – but knowing that she’d find him someday and there would be peace in each other is what kept them both going. Everything came full circle. Everything started over in a place where they would forever be the best versions of themselves for themselves. For Oliver, bringing her back to the place that he first saw her was what he wanted. He wanted to see her again where he saw her the first time. And that isn’t for us to judge, but I will. I will tell you that to me, the way he looked when he saw her was at peace. HE WAS HAPPY. IT WAS HIS HAPPY ENDING. I believe that there is no ending that would have pleased everyone. But I will say that it pleased me. Edited February 4, 2020 by tv echo 1 Link to comment
tv echo February 4, 2020 Share February 4, 2020 (edited) A few early reviews of Arrow when it debuted on The CW in 2012... -- The Washington Post article (Hank Stuever) titled "‘Arrow’ review: A vigilante with good aim" (Sep. 13, 2012): Quote The Green Arrow, a bit player in the DC Comics universe, gets a sleek revamp in this CW action-adventure adaptation, which has at least two things going for it: archery, which might already be so last year to finicky teens, and lead actor Stephen Amell, who will definitely make some viewers, um, quiver. * * * There is absolutely nothing new about anything seen here — including Ollie’s “Hamlet”-like Oedipal issues about his mother’s remarriage and the pomposity that lurks on every parapet in comic-book movies and TV shows — and yet “Arrow” has nice aim. https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/arrow-review-a-vigilante-with-good-aim/2012/09/13/6c973962-fdcf-11e1-a31e-804fccb658f9_story.html?noredirect=on -- The Hollywood Reporter article (Tim Goodman) titled "Arrow: TV Review" (Oct. 3, 2012): Quote You don’t have to be a DC Comics nut to realize Arrow essentially is Green Arrow, though some liberties have been taken with the overall story (as is common in comic book adaptations). You can argue it out among yourselves whether Arrow nails the details or just the spirit of Green Arrow, but the fact is, not that many people know of the superhero avenger anyway, so nevermind all that. * * * All of this fits perfectly with The CW’s love of superheroes and hunks. Arrow stars Stephen Amell, and he’s got the abs of steel, the good-looking mug and athletic ability. And he fires off any number of arrows of varying makes. Some kill you, others don’t. Some blow up. Others penetrate concrete and stick there. Have a 7-year-old boy make a list of awesome arrows, and they are pretty much in this show. * * * But intricate plot development is not that important at The CW. As long as Arrow has action, arrows, fighting, flirting and a brewing romance, it’s all good. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com//review/arrow-tv-review-375856 -- Boston.com article (Sarah Rodman) titled "‘Arrow’ falls short of a bullseye" (Oct. 9, 2012): Quote Genre fans should be pleased by the action-oriented hour. Eye-candy addicts will enjoy Amell’s moves, and he’s got the broody superhero attitude down. And for drama fans normally unwilling to dip their toes into comic-book waters — and suspend disbelief that a boozy party boy nearly driven mad on a remote island for five years would now know how to hack computers — it has an ensemble of good players. “Arrow’’ isn’t quite a bullseye on its first shot, but it hits the target. https://www.boston.com/culture/tv/2012/10/09/arrow-falls-short-of-a-bullseye -- Time Out Chicago article (Jessica Johnson) titled "Arrow | TV review" (Oct. 10, 2012): Quote The Arrow pilot will look remarkably familiar to anyone who recently re-watched Batman Begins. Amell's hero, however, has a ruthlessness about him that's surprising and captivating. He gives the impression that he left that island a wild animal and is clinging to his mission as way of staying sane, just barely keeping the mask of Oliver Queen on during the day. The fight scenes are visceral and exhilarating. The rest of the show, however, is a bit soft. The supporting cast takes a backseat to the introduction of the Arrow personality and thus, they all feel a bit stale. Katie Cassidy's Laurel Lance fills the love-interest slot as a do-gooder attorney and former girlfriend of Oliver's who found out he was cheating on her when her sister died in the boat accident. The character's soapy introduction gives little indication that she'll live up to her comic book alter-ego anytime soon. Oliver's strongest relationship is with his little sister, Thea (Willa Holland) who worshipped him as a child and has struggled in his absence. If Arrow could transfer some of that wildly kinetic energy in the action sequences into the rest of the show's storytelling, it would elevate the show significantly. https://www.timeout.com/chicago/things-to-do/arrow-tv-review -- A.V. Club article (Erik Adams and Alasdair Wilkins) titled "Arrow: Arrow" (Oct. 10, 2012): Quote Erik Adams: ... But despite obvious budget constraints—the yacht disaster that strands Oliver features some shoddy CGI work—Arrow rarely pales in comparison to those films. Sure, Amell lacks the standard-operating gravitas to back up his character’s playboy side to the same degree as Christian “I’m buying this hotel and, uh, setting some new rules about the pool area” Bale. But like the Green Arrow of the comics, this pilot sets about drawing on its inspirations without lingering in the shadow of the bat. To that end, the first episode of Arrow adopts a uniquely acrobatic style for its action sequences. The choreography of these fights requires Amell and/or his stunt double to move like a werewolf trained in parkour, a smooth swiftness that matches the movement of Oliver’s arrows. Oliver sports a motivation all his own, as well. He’s out to avenge his father’s death, sure, but his is also an arc of redemption. As the too-on-the-nose voiceover indicates, the man who washed up on that island and the guy undermining fat cats while donning a green hood are totally separate entities. An additional area where Arrow diverges from its predecessors is in its flouting of Smallville’s “no tights, no flights” rule; Green Arrow shows up in full costume by the pilot’s climax, an outfit that circumvents the problems of translating comic-book getups to three-dimensions by ditching the Battling Bowman’s domino mask for a streak of green eyeshadow that’s more Adam Ant than Neal Adams. It’s a good look, though. * * *Alasdair Wilkins: An unexpected strength of Arrow is how well it understands its limitations. Trying to recapture the tone of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy on a CW budget should be a recipe for disaster, but Arrow is careful in playing to its strengths and minimizing its weaknesses. Amell doesn’t show a lot of range in the pilot—and voiceover is clearly not his forte, although anyone would struggle a bit with Oliver’s over-explanatory monologues—but he’s good at playing a grim badass, as well as someone pretending to still be a rich jerk, which are the two main modes the pilot requires of him. The task of making arrows look cool onscreen might seem like an obvious case for some bad CGI, but Arrow demonstrates Oliver’s incredible skills by showing just his initial shots from the bow and then the final results, leaving the seemingly impossible part of the shot to our imagination. The flashback scenes set on the open ocean—an area the CW has rather infamously struggled to portray well in previous shows—are carefully shot to minimize the amount of dodgy-looking green-screen backgrounds. The result isn’t perfect, but Arrow’s strong sense of what’s in its wheelhouse and what isn’t results in a pilot refreshingly low on cheese. ... There are still some logical problems that need addressing—in particular, Oliver seems to possess skills in his superhero toolkit that couldn’t possibly have been learned on a deserted island—and it remains to be seen how the coming, welcome influx of other DC Comics characters will mesh with the fairly self-contained approach of the pilot. But most everything about the Arrow pilot suggests the show is in strong, confident hands, and this might be the one gritty superhero show that doesn’t embarrass itself in the attempt to live up to Christopher Nolan’s definitive blueprint. http://tv.avclub.com/arrow-arrow-1798174538 -- The Guardian article (Stephen Kelly) titled "Does Arrow hit the target?" (Oct. 23, 2012): Quote If it sounds familiar then that's because it is. Created in 1941, the Green Arrow was originally intended as a sort of archery-based alternative to Batman, albeit one which eventually went on to favour progressive, socially conscious politics over just, say, punching everyone in the face. And while Arrow tries its best to distinguish itself, that's not the only debt owed to the Caped Crusader. Arrow's tone of gritty realism is an obvious product of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight films – a trilogy that finally showed comic-book adaptations can be conduits for serious, intelligent storytelling. Arrow's tale doesn't quite hit that target, on the evidence of this first episode, and the show's central concept struggles to justify the brooding tone. It was challenge enough to make Bruce Wayne's descent into darkness plausible, but the Green Arrow is not a man of armour, tanks or advanced weaponry – he is a man who dresses up as Robin Hood. It's a hard sell for those who have not already invested in the character and one made harder by a clunky script – "Come on, Laurel, we're lawyers, not miracle workers!" – and a tendency for actors to ham it up over sad soap-opera strings. This especially goes for the Amell, whose Queen lacks the conviction needed to make him the likeable, traumatised badass he's trying to be. Instead: he appears uncomfortable and awkward. But Arrow does have potential. The creators have departed from the source material and given Queen, an orphan in the comics, a family who are not all that they seem. This element, combined with flashbacks unravelling his time on the island, lays the framework for a plot with a real chance at depth. And that's without mentioning the cheeky, foreboding nods to fans: a fleeting shot of the black and yellow mask of the villain, Deathstroke, in the opening sequence; Queen's sister being referred to as "speedy" – the name of the Green Arrow's sidekick – and the full name of love-interest Laurel: Dinah Laurel Lance. AKA, Black Canary. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2012/oct/23/arrow-hit-the-target Edited February 4, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo February 4, 2020 Share February 4, 2020 (edited) Final Episode: CW’s Arrow: Season 8 Episode 10: “Fadeout” recap, breakdown and final thoughts on the series By Chad A. Burdette on February 3, 2020 https://blog.timesunion.com/comicbooks/final-episode-cws-arrow-season-8-episode-10-fadeout-recap-breakdown-and-final-thoughts-on-the-series/19858/ Quote To tell the truth, I didn’t start watching and following the show until about the fifth season after being finally convinced that it was worth my time. When I first saw the news that Green Arrow would be coming to the CW Network I had a bad feeling because of my experience with Smallville (still haven’t made it past Season 2). I think it was around the time that Flash started and the two shows crossed over for the first time that I decided to go back and give ARROW a chance. * * *Do I think that Oliver is gone for good? No, as it seems that they have a few possible storylines from the comics, mainly Quiver by Kevin Smith, which deals with Oliver coming back from being dead. This setup began in Season 7 with the introduction of Stanley Dover, the Star City Killer, who later tries to take over the soulless Green Arrow, forcing Oliver in paradise, to return to the resurrected physical body. It is nice to see that Oliver and Felicity got to spend forever in a paradise dimension following the events of the CW Crisis much like the Golden Age Superman did after the original Crisis (yeah called it the end of last season.) This final episode of the series satisfied while leaving many questions to be explored in the future in the Green Arrow and the Canaries spinoff and throughout the rest of the Arrowverse series, especially since they all share the same Earth. * * * - The Van Wayne warehouse is a reference to the shortlived DCU Powerless sitcom which centered around the employees of Wayne Security, a subsidiary of Wayne Enterprises and overseen by Bruce Wayne’s cousin Van Wayne (Alan Tudyk), which designed technology that could protect ordinary civilians from the dangers posed by supervillains. - While the episode did address that Earth-1 Laurel still died, it never said how or why which was disappointing. * * *Overall, the Arrow series was a wild and fun ride and one that I plan on revisiting in the future to see how it holds up over time. Edited February 4, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo February 4, 2020 Share February 4, 2020 (edited) Arrow season 8 is coming to Netflix tonight by Bryce Olin February 4, 2020https://netflixlife.com/2020/02/04/arrow-season-8-coming-netflix-tonight/ Quote Arrow season 8 is coming to Netflix very soon! You can watch the final season of the series starting at 12:01 a.m. PT on Wednesday, Feb. 5. Many fans will be staying up late on Tuesday night to binge-watch the last season of the show that started it all at The CW. * * * The final season of Arrow is heading to Netflix eight days after the series finale aired on The CW. Netflix and The CW used to have a deal in place that brought all new seasons of The CW shows to Netflix eight days after the finale aired. Unfortunately, that deal is no longer in place for new seasons of newer shows, but Arrow is still a part of the deal that expired last spring. * * * There are only 10 episodes in this season, so it will make for a relatively quick binge-watch, especially when compared to other seasons of the show. Unfortunately, you will not be able to watch the full Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover. As we have mentioned before, the crossover is made of individual episodes of The CW shows, and those individual episodes will be added to Netflix exactly eight days after their current seasons end. Edited February 4, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo February 5, 2020 Share February 5, 2020 (edited) Fadeout - Arrow Music Notes 8x10 Austencello Feb. 4, 2020https://austencello.tumblr.com/post/190655141784/fadeout-arrow-music-notes-8x10 Quote Tommy and Laurel meet as Tommy is trying to wrap around his mind of previous realities where he died and the fact that he is meeting his wife’s doppleganger. Tommy and Laurel’s theme “Surprise me” (1x03) plays as he shares that he married Laurel 1 in this life. * * * Mia meets Felicity for the first time as an adult as high synths and violins play which is used in emotional moments especially with Felicity. There are echoes of a melody like “Honor Memory” (1x02), giving space for the emotions as Mia tells Felicity that she got to meet her dad who taught her how to be a hero as echoes of Oliver’s hero theme are heard. * * * As Felicity prepares to leave in the future, the music is sad and full of loss playing “Everyone Left” (5x02). This was used in 7x22 when Felicity, Mia and William were at Oliver’s grave before she left so it makes sense for that to continue as she has been waiting a long time to see Oliver. A high electronic changes locations (almost heavenly) as she walks through. The music is in major (different for a show set in minor) bringing light and happiness with piano and strings as Felicity arrives in a version of the QC office. Harp (Felicity’s instrument) and piano (Oliver’s) play Oliver’s hero theme as she looks at his picture with the red pen in her mouth. It is a quiet intimate, peaceful moment as she turns and sees Oliver smiling at her and the harp quietly plays a repeating note as she greets him and they kiss. Then the Olicity theme “The one I love” (2x23) plays in the cellos as she tells him that this is so nice despite being a little confused that they were in a version of his old office. One of the ways it is made so quietly peaceful is the lack of any movement under the main theme, usually piano or harp moving underneath. Everything is stripped away except their love theme as they see each other for the first time in 20 years. Oliver tells Felicity that he wanted to meet where he first saw her and the flashback from Season 3 is shown. Violins, female voice, and guitar harmonics are added as he continues that they have all the time in the world to tell her about it. Musically having the voice brings memories from 3x20 and 3x23 when they drive away reminding us of Oliver declaring: “I’m happy.” Oliver and Felicity have found peace and happiness as they are reunited with their theme soaring before the Arrow theme plays one last time as the show comes to a close. Edited February 5, 2020 by tv echo 1 Link to comment
tv echo February 5, 2020 Share February 5, 2020 (edited) Continuing my retrospective, here are some media mentions of Felicity Smoak in their reviews of 1x03 when that Arrow episode aired on Oct. 24, 2012... A.V. Club review (Alasdair Wilkins)* - "Deadshot isn’t the only DC Comics character to debut in this episode, as Oliver gets technical support from Felicity Smoak, who started out as a supporting character for the eternally underutilized Firestorm. Emily Bett Rickards is fun in the role, even if I’m not sure which is more on the nose: just how much Oliver’s home life resembles Hamlet, or how explicitly Felicity points it out. Still, anything that gets Oliver talking about his work, however vaguely, can only be a good thing, so I look forward to seeing her again."https://tv.avclub.com/arrow-lone-gunmen-1798174756 (* In rebuttal to certain fans' claims that Olicity turned Arrow into a soap opera, it's worth noting that this A.V. Club reviewer also wrote that Arrow's "soap opera elements are on display in a big way" in this early S1 episode.) ComicsAlliance recap (Matt D. Wilson) - "Deadshot eventually exits through the window and Arrow grabs up his laptop. Like any good vigilante, Ollie takes the laptop directly to the offices of the multinational corporation his family owns. Specifically, to helpful-well-beyond-believability IT whiz Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), known to comics fans as Firestorm's stepmom. She and Ollie awkward and quirk their way through some excruciatingly strained banter until he finally asks her to salvage whatever she can from the laptop. ... Back at Queen Consolidated, Felicity has found some stuff on that laptop: Namely, those blueprints Deadshot was studying. They're for the Exchange building, the place where the auction for Unidac is happening. Oh no! After some confusion about Shakespeare (seriously, Ollie, how did you not read Hamlet in high school?), Felicity reveals that the laptop belongs to a guy named Warren Patel, one of the other Unidac bidders."https://comicsalliance.com/comicsalliance-recaps-arrow-episode-1-3-lone-gunmen-review/ Digital Spy review (Morgan Jeffery) - "Recovering Deadshot's bullet-riddled laptop, Ollie charms Queen Industries IT tech Felicity Smoke - basically a hot, blonde, female Lucius Fox - into salvaging any useful material, and links Deadshot to tycoon Warren Patel, who's been using the paid killer to bump off rival buyers in an auction to purchase alternative energy company Unidac Industries."http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/s206/arrow/recaps/a433255/arrow-recap-deadshot-hits-the-target-in-lone-gunmen.html#~pmzsdpj2BFg7fq Entertainment Weekly article (Nuzhat Naoreen) - "Natch, Arrow ditches the burgers to go after his target and a gun/arrow fight ensues. (For a guy named Deadshot, he certainly misses as lot!). Deadshot manages to escape through a window, so Arrow makes off with his bullet-ridden laptop. He takes the computer to Queen Corp’s IT department, where he convinces a very flustered (and pretty!) technician to help him restore it. (I have a feeling we’re going to see more of her as the season progresses). She tells Oliver that the laptop has blueprints of the Exchange building where the Unidac Industries auction is scheduled to take place. She also discovers that the laptop belongs to one of the bidders, Warren Patel."https://ew.com/recap/arrow-season-1-episode-3/ ScreenRant review (Kevin Yeoman) - "On a brighter note, Diggle’s not the only one Ollie may be trusting with his secret. ‘Lone Gunmen’ also introduces another DC Comics character in Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), who manages to handle some vigilante-related tech issues without being too nosey about the whole thing. Rickards is fairly sharp in the role, and it would be nice to see her character develop into someone Oliver – or even Arrow – begins to utilize on a more regular basis. At any rate, getting an outsider’s take on the whole Queen family drama somehow makes Oliver seem more well-rounded, like pointing out his family foibles keeps the character from becoming too lost in himself. Still, overtly pointing out the similarities between the Queens and Shakespearean tragedy might be a little too on the nose – even for this show."http://screenrant.com/arrow-season-1-episode-3-lone-gunmen-recap/ TV.com review (Noel Kirkpatrick) - "Speaking of allies, Oliver has enlisted the charmingly babbly Felicity Smoak as his tech expert. I’m not familiar with Smoak in the comics, save for the fact that she’s a software business guru, so I can’t offer much comparison, but I liked Emily Bett Rickard’s work in her few scenes. Along with Tommy, I suspect that Felicity will bring a nice bit of levity to the show."http://www.tv.com/news/arrow-lone-gunmen-review-mostly-dead-on-29914/ TV Equals review (Kristen Elizabeth) - "We also meet a new character this week, a bubbly blonde IT tech who I honestly hope we see more of, as she might be a potential love interest for Oliver who, quite frankly, could use one after this episode."http://www.tvequals.com/2012/10/24/arrow-season-1-episode-3-lone-gunman-advanced-review/ Edited February 5, 2020 by tv echo 3 1 Link to comment
tv echo February 5, 2020 Share February 5, 2020 (edited) Arrow Series Finale Ending Explained Lacy Baugher Jan 29, 2020https://www.denofgeek.com/us/tv/dc-entertainment/285583/arrow-series-finale-ending-explained Quote “You Have Saved This City” hinted that wherever the Felicity of 2040 was headed with the Monitor, a reunion with Oliver waited at the end. “Fadeout” closes that circle as the show returns to that moment in time, and shows us what was on the other side of that portal. It’s Moira Queen’s office, just as it looked in Arrow Season 1, even down to the infamous red pen that Felicity was chewing on when she and Oliver met. Everything is bright and sparkling outside Queen Consolidated, and the sun is shining. It’s very possible we’ve never seen Star City this clean. It looks beautiful. Oliver appears, and he and Felicity embrace in what is possibly one of the most earned and satisfying kisses in the multiverse. Because it’s not just a man being reunited with his wife, sweet as that is. And it’s not just a woman that’s been waiting for half her life to see the man she loved again. It’s all a promise – that Oliver’s sacrifices meant something, that he had finally earned his reward, that he gets a chance at the one thing he’s been denied for the past eight years and then some. Peace. Arrow doesn’t precisely specify where exactly Oliver and Felicity are though. Are they dead, in a heavenly afterlife? Are they living in some kind of perfect dream dimension? There's event a hint of a parallel with how things ended up for the Golden Age Superman and Lois Lane at the conclusion of the Crisis on Infinite Earths comic, which saw them sent to a pocket dimension paradise to be togethr forever. Is this a Choose Your Own Adventure kind of thing? And does it matter? Personally, I’m here for the afterlife theory, if only because it adds the slightest edge to things and makes it all a bit bittersweet in a way that I find appealing. But no matter where they are, the explanation is the same. Their happy ending is each other, and they’ve earned it after all this time. * * * If the last time we see Oliver Queen is looking out over the best version of the city he worked so hard to save, with Felicity at his side and an eternity in front of them? It’s hard to imagine how Arrow might have wrapped up more perfectly. Edited February 5, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo February 5, 2020 Share February 5, 2020 (edited) Arrow Season 8 Blu-ray & DVD Coming April 28 Craig Byrne February 5, 2020http://www.greenarrowtv.com/arrow-season-8-blu-ray-dvd-coming-april-28/ Quote Arrow Season 8 is coming to Blu-ray and DVD on April 28, and so is a Complete Series set, Warner Home Video has announced today. The set even includes a bonus disc with ALL of Crisis on Infinite Earths! * * *The CW’s Longest-Running DC Series ARROW: THE EIGHTH AND FINAL SEASON Contains All 10 Exhilarating Episodes from the Eighth and Final Season, Plus Special Features and Deleted Scenes! Available on Blu-ray™ & DVD April 28, 2020 Blu-ray also includes a Limited Edition Bonus Disc with All Five Episodes of the DC Crossover Event: Crisis on Infinite Earths and 6 Crossover Bonus Features! BURBANK, CA (February 5, 2020) – After eight remarkable seasons, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and DC mark the end of an epic era with its final installment of the suspenseful and action-packed series with the release of Arrow: The Eighth and Final Season on Blu-ray & DVD April 28, 2020. Get ready for nonstop action from start to finish with all 10 action-packed episodes from the eighth and final season, plus the show’s 2019 Comic-Con Panel, the broadcast special Arrow: Hitting the Bullseye and deleted scenes! A limited edition bonus disc featuring all five DC Crossover Event: Crisis on Infinite Earths episodes will be available exclusively for fans who purchase the Blu-ray. Arrow: The Eighth and Final Season is priced to own at $24.98 SRP ($29.98 in Canada) and $29.98 SRP for the Blu-ray which includes a Digital Code (U.S. only), ($39.99 in Canada). Arrow: The Eighth and Final Season is also available to own on Digital via purchase from digital retailers. Arrow: The Complete Series will also be available for fans to own on Blu-ray and DVD for $189.99 / $169.99 SRP ($249.99 / $229.99 in Canada). The bonus disc is included in the Blu-ray Complete Series set. * * *BLU-RAY & DVD FEATURES The Best of DC TV’s Comic-Con Panels San Diego 2019 Arrow: Hitting the Bullseye (Special) Deleted Scenes * * *BLU-RAY BONUS DISC All Five Epic Episodes of the DC Crossover Event: Crisis on Infinite Earths from Supergirl, Batwoman, The Flash, Arrow and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow Bonus Disc Features: § Crisis Past and Present: Kevin Conroy Bat Legend § Crisis on Infinite Earths: The Architects Return § Crisis Past and Present – Superman vs. Superman § Characters in Crisis: Pariah § Crisis Management § Character in Crisis: The Anti-Monitor 10 ONE-HOUR EPISODES 1. Starling City 2. Welcome to Hong Kong 3. Leap of Faith 4. Present Tense 5. Prochnost 6. Reset 7. Purgatory 8. Crisis on Infinite Earths: Hour Four 9. Green Arrow & The Canaries 10. Fadeout Edited February 5, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo February 6, 2020 Share February 6, 2020 (edited) ARROW’S BLACK CANARY MADE ME A BETTER FAN Tricia Ennis Feb. 5, 2020https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/arrows-black-canary-made-me-a-better-fan Quote Like a lot of comic book fans in the age of social media, if a creative team was planning to bring one of my favorite characters to life you could guarantee I had thoughts. Really, they were more like rules, and if the creators weren't going to adhere to these rules then their version of the character was not only bad, it was wrong. For this reason, when Arrow announced its second season would introduce the Black Canary as played by the newly-cast Caity Lotz, I was pissed. After all, Arrow already had a would-be Black Canary in Katie Cassidy's (Dinah) Laurel Lance, who they had been setting up slowly over the first season to eventually join the vigilante team later on. How could they completely flip the script on fans, fans like me, who were waiting for this hero to take the stage? I vented my outrage on social media, mostly in Facebook posts that were, thankfully, not public but which do rear their heads in the site's memories every fall. It never morphed into outright abuse, but it certainly could have. This type of outrage is far from rare, perhaps especially among comic book fans. We don't tend to like it when you change our favorite character or story to fit a new take. These days, the most rigid and outright abusive versions of these fans tend to show up in the cases of films like Wonder Woman or Black Panther or Captain Marvel, cases where women or people of color take center stage. The complaints may range from changes to the costume to the actor not being attractive enough or countless other perceived slights. Often, these general critiques are lobbed into the open on social media to be liked and retweeted into feeds throughout the site. Other times, the "outrage" becomes targeted campaigns intended to tank a film ahead of its release. Such was the case with Captain Marvel, in which a contingent of angry comic fans flooded the film's Rotten Tomatoes page with negative reviews ahead of its release in an attempt to lower its audience score as much as possible. These negative reviews were left by people who hadn't yet seen the film and led to Rotten Tomatoes completely changing the way the audience score works. In other, much more personal cases, fans target creators and actors directly, spewing hate into the comments of their Instagram posts or their Twitter mentions. ... * * * And it's not just racists and misogynists who perpetuate this type of toxic fandom, even if it may seem like it much of the time. Shippers, fans heavily invested in various relationships on a series or in a film, have been known to attack writers and actors when their specific ship is not made canon. ... * * *So what does all this have to do with me, Caity Lotz, Black Canary, and Season 2 of Arrow? As I already said, my complaining on social media about the changes they had made to one of my favorite characters thankfully never made it to the abusive stage, but they were still, in some ways, unkind. More than that, though, they revealed a version of myself that was unwilling even to hear these creators out, to see the story they were creating and decide its quality on its own merits rather than as a comparison to a glorified version in my head. I decided, without evidence, that these writers and actors did not know or care about the material as I did. How could they? They had changed it so much. But I was wrong. If you know me, follow me on Twitter, have read my writing, or ever been within a five-mile radius of me, you probably know that these days Sara Lance is my favorite character across all Arrowverse shows. This was true even before she left Arrow to join the crew of the Waverider over on Legends of Tomorrow. It was true before she was killed and brought back to life on Arrow. It was true, possibly, even before the end of that second season. In creating Sara Lance the way they did — making her the Black Canary, creating her connections to those characters and that story — the writers, and Lotz, created a character I loved just as much as the Dinah Lance in the pages of my favorite comics and one who stayed true to the essence of that original character, her story, and her legacy while allowing that same creative team to expand the overall narrative of the show. Without something I had previously railed against in public, I would never have gotten something that I have even more publicly praised. In fact, the two are exactly the same thing seen through fresh eyes. * * * To the racists and misogynists, I have little to say, as we know they are unlikely to cease their onslaught no matter the argument. But to the fans, the real ones uneasy and quick to judge something different than what they know, I say this: creative ideas, and comic book characters, in particular, do not belong to any one person or to any one version. They are not set in stone. They change over time depending on the person or people to whom they have been entrusted. We may not like every adaptation of a character we have held dear, but if we limit our thinking to only those preconceived ideas of those characters locked away in our minds and our memories we may miss a wonderful story that otherwise could never have been told. Edited February 6, 2020 by tv echo 5 Link to comment
tv echo February 7, 2020 Share February 7, 2020 TV SHOWS WE'RE LOSING IN 2020 — AND WHAT TO WATCH INSTEAD by Fred Topel | February 6, 2020https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/shows-we-are-losing-in-2020-and-what-to-watch-instead/ You're a fan of: Arrow (2012) ...You should watch: every other CW superhero show Arrow began the current wave of CW superhero shows, together dubbed "the Arrowverse" in its honor. Green Arrow (Stephen Amell) himself finally gets to hang up the hood in the eighth season, but he’s left behind six other superheroes, all with Fresh Tomatometer scores. You could start with the first spin-off, The Flash or go to a different Earth to visit Supergirl. Some of the Arrow cast ended up on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. Now there’s Black Lightning and Batwoman keeping the streets safe in their action-packed weekly adventures, and fans will soon have spin-off series Green Arrow and the Canaries, starring Katherine McNamara (Shadowhunters) as Oliver Queen's daughter Mia Smoak, taking up the Green Arrow mantle. Knowing Arrowverse overlord Greg Berlanti, there are probably even more on the way. So if you've been immersed in Arrow, and the crossover events haven't yet lured you to one of the other series, now's your chance. Had your fill of the CW's DC offerings? Time to turn on DC Universe for titles like Titans, Doom Patrol, Swamp Thing, and Harley Quinn. Link to comment
tv echo February 11, 2020 Share February 11, 2020 (edited) I'm still not convinced that they're dead dead... Arrow Ended In The Best Way Possible Andy Behbakht Feb. 10, 2020https://screenrant.com/arrow-series-finale-ending-good-best-ending/ Quote But in its final hour of the series, it stuck to the events of the Crisis by allowing the hero to no longer to be with his allies and loved ones. However, the Arrow series finale still allowed Oliver a happy ending beyond life. Emily Bett Rickards’ Felicity Smoak, who left the series after season 7, returned for the finale. It was implied in the season 7 finale that Felicity, in 2040, was somehow going to join Oliver, who had been dead for 20 years at that point. Despite the shake-ups that were caused when Earth-Prime was created, the moment from the season finale wasn’t changed. While Felicity in the present attended her husband’s funeral, it’s her future counterpart where the character’s story gets their ending along with Oliver. Even if season 8 didn’t have any Oliver and Felicity moments, the series finale still had the Emerald Archer be joined by his true love in the afterlife. Despite being dead, they managed to find their way back to each other as they, beyond life, get to live happily ever after, concluding Oliver’s story in a more than satisfying way. Edited February 11, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
lemotomato February 11, 2020 Share February 11, 2020 I don’t think anyone associated with the show has said they were dead dead. But given Andy’s biases, I’m sure he wants to think they are. I’ve watched some of the more popular reaction videos (Blindwave, etc) and all of them presumed that Oliver was still the Spectre and Olicity were living in a different dimension he created. 4 Link to comment
Featherhat February 11, 2020 Share February 11, 2020 I know the show used the word "afterlife" but I'm surprised more of these comic focused sites aren't going with a paradise dimension as that fits with the COIE books. Pretty sure anyone associated with the show has said Oliver's only "Spectre Dead" and very much available for guest staring in your crossovers, possible spin off, Flash episode (please no) as soon as SA is willing or enough time has passed to make an impact. 3 Link to comment
tv echo February 14, 2020 Share February 14, 2020 (edited) I only quoted a few portions, but the entire article (which is long) is worth reading... FOR THE LOVE OF LOVE: THE REVEALING NATURE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE Sarah Coury February 14, 2020https://comic-watch.com/movies/for-the-love-of-love-the-revealing-nature-of-superhero-romance Quote To be human is to love. Someone. Something. Sometimes. If writers want their characters to feel real, then they first have to decide how their characters handle this facet of their humanity. * * *When it comes to superheroes, the predominant form of love seems to be romantic, particularly in regard to content that is consumed more by mainstream culture. Although there is no shortage of epic and meaningful non-romantic relationships in the MCU, the X-Men movies, the Arrowverse, and the various DC cinematic universes, the most famous examples of love are consistently between two people who are romantically invested in one another. Steve and Peggy, Arthur and Mera, Tony and Pepper, Bruce and Selina, Diana and Steve—the list goes on and on, and then it goes on some more. * * *Much like the way fairytales and greek myths have evolved throughout their centuries, superhero narratives are beginning to claim their place among prevailing and adapted literature. With decades of content behind them, they serve as something of a time capsule—a point of reference throughout history that articulates the thoughts of time. They hold a mirror up to who we are now, who we have been before, and they beg us to behold our growth. * * * Superheroes allow us to see what we care about most in the world. They help us come to terms with the human experience and the results are in: the human experience is love. In and out, up and down, then and now. It’s inescapable, and it extends far beyond just Clark and Lois. The Arrowverse thrives on romance, riding on the relationships between Oliver and Felicity or Barry and Iris. Sam Rami used Peter and MJ to essentially launch the modern superhero industry. From studio produced, box office hopefuls like the Fantastic Four to Netflix originals like Jessica Jones or Luke Cage—we love love. And superheroes especially seem to love romance, because we ourselves love romance. Edited February 14, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo February 15, 2020 Share February 15, 2020 (edited) How ‘Arrow’ and Stephen Amell Hit the Bullseye and Left a Lasting Legacy on Superhero Television Megan January 28, 2020https://www.nerdsandbeyond.com/2020/01/28/how-arrow-and-stephen-amell-hit-the-bullseye-and-left-a-lasting-legacy-on-superhero-television/ Quote On October 10, 2012, The CW, who already had success in the superhero market with Smallville for 10 seasons, debuted a brand new comic book series. This time, based on billionaire playboy Oliver Queen aka the Green Arrow, with Stephen Amell portraying the hooded vigilante. Since then, what was only supposed to be just one show with no planned spin-offs has launched a whole universe of series and characters, appropriately named “Arrowverse”. Throughout the series, more characters would be introduced, including Felicity Smoak/Overwatch (Emily Bett Rickards), John Diggle/Spartan (David Ramsey), Thea Queen/Speedy (Willa Holland), and more. * * * Throughout the years, fans have done numerous things to show their love for the Arrowverse’s flagship show. In 2017, a group of fans, who called themselves Olicity Bench Project, raised funds on a GoFundMe page to get a bench dedicated to Arrow‘s power couple, Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak. Over just one week, fans from all around the world raised over $7,000, nearly double the group’s goal of $4,000. The money would also go towards preservation of Stanley Park in Vancouver, BC where the bench is located and in the same city where the show is shot. The dedication reads, “In celebration of the unthinkable, Olicity.” And then the quote, “We found ourselves in each other,” which is something that the couple said to each other in the show. Amell even visited the bench shortly after, and posted it on his Twitter. * * * In 2019, another group of fans started the Goodbye OTA Project as a way to say goodbye to Arrow. Originally, the project was a way to say goodbye to the Original Team Arrow trio (Oliver, Felicity, and John), raising funds for two billboards in Times Square depicting the characters, and had quickly turned into raising funds for charities as well as helping an Arrow crew member who was battling cancer. In total, fans raised over $14,500,000 for billboards, charities, and personalized gift baskets that were sent to Amell, Rickards, and Ramsey. Read here to find out everything that the project has raised money for. It should be noted that it’s not just the fans that are doing stuff for the cast, but the cast is returning the favor. At the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con a fan named Sarah inspired the cast, everyone in the panel room, and everyone watching at home. During the Arrow panel, Sarah had gone up to ask a question to Amell. She told him that since she’s a fighter of cancer, she was wondering if he was going to make any more Fight Cancer shirts. The room erupted in applause and after asking her name, where she was from and if it was her first time (it was her third year in a row at SDCC), Amell asked if she would be returning the next year then proceeded to give her his necklace, telling her to give it back the following year. In 2018, Sarah did indeed come back and returned the necklace at the SDCC Arrow panel. Amell got up and walked over to her, saying he’s only stolen one thing from set. After Sarah gave him back the necklace, he gave her his bow and whispered into her ear. At Arrow‘s final SDCC panel in 2019, Sarah returned and gave the bow back, Amell giving her his jacket from the show. It only shows just a sliver of what the fans mean to the cast and what the cast mean to the fans. * * * Shows like The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow, even Supergirl and Batwoman, wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Arrow. ... * * *The universe that Arrow created will forever be known as the Arrowverse, it started with Arrow but it doesn’t end with it. It’ll keep going, for however long. Arrow and Stephen Amell will forever live on in The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman, Black Lightning, the newest series, Stargirl, and whatever comes after, including the potential Green Arrow & the Canaries spin-off with Cassidy, Harkavy, and Katherine McNamara (Mia Smoak). The legacy of Arrow has changed superhero television and created a universe that will live on forever. Thank you, Arrow, for the action and romance and comedy, the characters and the storylines. Thank you, Stephen Amell, for creating a legacy and universe, that essentially wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for you. Thank you for bringing Oliver Queen to life and the incredible character development that we have seen over the years. Thank you to the entire cast and crew of Arrow for bringing these characters to life and interacting with fans on social media and at conventions. Thank you for being our escape from our everyday lives to this fantasy world. Just, thank you. Edited February 15, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo February 18, 2020 Share February 18, 2020 (edited) Apparently there's a LMG interview in the new Starburst issue... Edited February 18, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo February 18, 2020 Share February 18, 2020 (edited) Don Cheadle, David Ramsey, and More Stars Reflect on Their Black Superhero Roles BY KEISHA HATCHETT FEBRUARY 18, 2020https://www.tvguide.com/news/black-stars-reflect-superhero-roles/ Quote In celebration of Black History Month, some of those elite black superheroes — including Mike Colter (Marvel's Luke Cage), Don Cheadle (MCU), David Ramsey (Arrow), Ja'Siah Young (Raising Dion), China Anne McClain (Black Lightning), Joivan Wade (Doom Patrol), and Wayne Brady (Black Lightning) — are reflecting on their iconic roles and the influence their characters have had. * * * Meanwhile, David Ramsey spoke on the significance of having characters in the genre who are specifically written as black. "Someone asked me back in [Arrow] Season 2, 'Does it make a difference that John Diggle isn't just a black superhero but he was written as black superhero?' And I said, 'You're damn right,'" Ramsay recalled. "This guy was at all times, in all ways, a black superhero. And I think that's important for the culture of our business and it's important to our culture in this country, really, because it's been a long time coming." Edited February 18, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo February 22, 2020 Share February 22, 2020 (edited) The Arrow Series Premiere Is a Pilot Episode Good Enough to Launch a Universe: Retro Review JOSHUA M. PATTON FEBRUARY 21, 2020https://comicyears.com/tv-shows/the-arrow-series-premiere-pilot-episode-review/ Quote Pretending we don’t know that Arrow will spawn some seven or eight series, the series premiere is just a good pilot episode. It begins with the interestingly shot sequence of a bewigged Stephen Amell’s Oliver Queen firing an impossible shot, hitting a bonfire with a flaming arrow. We see images of him being rescued over some expository narration. (This is followed up, for good measure, with an expository news report and an expository doctor diagnosis.) By the five-minute mark, Oliver reunites with his family, and we know he’s lying. * * * It also establishes the fine line of heroics that Oliver Queen (known as “the vigilante” for the first couple of episodes) will walk. He is not Batman. He has no compunction about killing. Though, another great detail, the first person whose life he takes he has to “justify” to himself. In this first episode, we don’t know if the Arrow will be a hero or an anti-hero, like the Punisher. So, comics Easter eggs aside, this first episode is simply a story about a man on a quest for revenge. I see its potential today, with the benefit of hindsight. At the time, I didn’t like his willingness to kill, but I couldn’t deny that the show just felt right. * * * The other way the pilot episode of Arrow set itself apart from other superhero dramas is the debate about lethal force. Every cop procedural on the planet has the “heroes” killing people in the line of duty, and no one bats an eye. Costumed heroes, on the other hand, are often held to a higher standard. With Arrow, we get to watch the hero have that debate. And he decides killing for the greater good is necessary. This debate continues throughout the successive seasons, but the Arrow falls on the side of that debate that superheroes typically don’t. Yet, it’s not so black-and-white as “killing” versus “no killing,” and that’s what made the show more than the sum of its parts. * * * When Arrow first debuted, the producers declared that the show wouldn’t feature magic or superpowers. This was a promise they went back on as soon as the second season. Still, that first episode promised a more grounded comic book story, along the lines of the Dark Knight trilogy. Using a bow and arrow to fight crime is inherently silly. Still, by taking all of it seriously without asking its audience to embrace any high-fantasy concepts helped sell the idea. The audience who enjoys the Pretty People In Situations™ fare on the CW and comic fans both found something they could latch on to with this episode. This was to be a modern-day Robin Hood who had to right his family’s wrongs and find his way back to his One True Love. Again, if you made it this far being unspoiled about Arrow, we’re not going to ruin that. Still, it’s not a spoiler that this show paved the way for the Arrowverse. By the fourth season, Arrow sat at the center of full-fledged shared universe. The grounded vigilante show gave way to speedsters, super-people, and immortal hawk gods. And, it’s been a gift to the fans, especially those of us who never dreamed it was possible to see these characters done well on television. Only, there is no hint of that in the Arrow series premiere episode. It’s just a deeply personal story about a conflicted hero taking on an impossible mission to save his city. Edited February 22, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo February 24, 2020 Share February 24, 2020 (edited) Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo 2020 Preview: ‘Arrow,’ ‘The Umbrella Academy,’ ‘Star Trek,’ and More February 22, 2020 Charles E Henninghttps://telltaletv.com/2020/02/chicago-comic-and-entertainment-expo-2020-preview-arrow-the-umbrella-academy-star-trek-and-more/ Quote After the heartbreaking finale of Arrow, I’m sure Olicity fans will want to take one last look at their power couple before they sail into the sunset together. Stephen Amell (Arrow, Heels) and Emily Bett Rickards (Arrow) will both be available for autographs, photos and a panel later in the day. Even if you aren’t a fan of their relationship, you can at least thank them for their contribution to creating Earth-Prime. Edited February 24, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo February 24, 2020 Share February 24, 2020 (edited) LaMonica Garrett | PRIMAL February 7, 2020https://www.starburstmagazine.com/features/lamonica-garrett-primal Quote Here in the UK, Crisis on Infinite Earths is soon to be upon us. How much fun was it to suit up and play the Monitor and the Anti-Monitor in that world of comic book characters? It was amazing. I’m a comic book nerd, I grew up reading comic books and watching tons of animation – DC and Marvel. I’d been auditioning in that office for David Rapaport for years, and I didn’t get it. But that goes back to my point, they kept bringing me in and I’d gotten close to other roles. I believe everything happens for a reason. I’m so glad I didn’t get the other role that I was close to getting and they waited until now to use me. Suiting up? It just kept getting better and better. I didn’t know who I was auditioning for, and then they told me it was the Monitor. The first thing I think is, “Oh, I wonder if they’ll do Crisis?” I’d only signed on for four episodes – for Elseworlds and maybe one after – and then they called us and were just, “Alright, it’s going to be bigger. We want him for next season.” Then Crisis on Infinite Earths was introduced, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger. When I found out I was also playing the Anti-Monitor, I was like, “You guys gotta be kidding me!” My manager always say to never repeat this, but this is one of those jobs that you’d do for free because you’re just fanboying out and just having fun in this space. It’s not often that you get to do a job where you just love everything about it. From the research in the beginning, to the 15-hour days, to sitting in make-up for two-and-a-half hours, I enjoyed everything. * * *Once things play out for the Monitor and the Anti-Monitor in Crisis, is any chance we could see you return down the line? Regardless of the fate of these characters, the concept of alternative worlds and varying timelines means nothing is ever quite as final as it may appear… If they call me in the future, I’d jump through those hoops automatically. In the comic books right now, the New 52 Justice League reintroduced the Monitor and they’ve reintroduced the storyline where the Monitor has a mother now, Perpetua. And then there’s World Forger [the brother of the Monitor]. If they tackle a storyline as big as Crisis for television, who knows where they are two, three, four years from now. If the Monitor comes back to life or the Anti-Monitor’s around, I’d most definitely jump back into this space – and they know that, they know how much fun I had being around this environment. * * *From seeing the stars of the Arrowverse in interviews and on social media, and from speaking to a few of them over the past few years, it comes across as if this shared universe has a fun, family feel to its sets. Coming into this world, was it at all daunting or was everybody just welcoming from the get-go? Yeah, it was a little intimidating when the train is already moving and you’re the last one to jump on board. But the whole community has been open arms. They embraced me like this was my home. Even though I was just passing through, they embraced me. The fandom, the fans, the writers, the actors. From everyone I’ve been around, they’ve all embraced me. I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. Sometimes you walk into one of these situations and they’re closed off and a little cold, and sometimes they embrace you. This time, they just happened to embrace me. It was awesome. That’s why they know that I’d come back whenever they call, should my schedule permit it. Edited February 24, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo February 24, 2020 Share February 24, 2020 (edited) NCT takes the limelight with its custom Honda CB750 ‘Green Arrow’ Michelle Liew February 20, 2020https://imotorbike.my/news/en/2020/02/nct-green-arrow-honda-2/ Quote FORGET ABOUT THE ARROWCAR, WOULD OLIVER QUEEN RIDE THIS? TAKE A LOOK AT THE GREEN ARROW OF BIKES BY NCT! * * * It has been said that looking at greenery can be good for the eyes as the colour green is very soothing to the eyes. We are not so sure if it only applies to just plants but this lean and green beauty right here is definitely something you would want to lay your eyes on. The Honda CB750 has played an integral role in the modern custom motorcycle scene. The built of the bike has been the ideal base for custom bike garages and Austria’s National Custom Tech Motorcycles (NCT) is no stranger to the wonders of the CB750. Coming to your attention like a shot fired from an archer, NCT presents to you its version of ‘Green Arrow’. * * * Now onto the highlight of the bike: the paint scheme. The special exterior of the bike is fairly calculative. With the majority of the bike donning a black coat, the metallic forest green draws your eyes to the livery. It features red pin-striping and the turquoise Honda logos at the bottom of the tank. It also has a bespoke metal “NCT CB750F” plaque just behind the seat. Edited February 24, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
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