S07.E07: The Slabside Redemption

[lemotomato]

3 hours ago, DeadZeus said:

Oliver got his ass kicked badly by Sampson and Brick which is hilarious… Dude was helpless on the floor... Who is this Oliver i mean come on...

Brick maced Oliver before he could knock him down. Oliver’s a superior fighter, not a meta immune to chemicals sprayed directly into his face.

[BkWurm1]

Being pepper sprayed, then drugged, and of course taking a beating while giving a beating all were things that made Oliver flagging when he finally gets to Diaz a bit more realistic.   Fully charged up, Oliver not wiping the floor with Diaz would make me laugh but they spent an hour wearing him out first so I was okay with it.  As long as he won in the end of course lol.  

[apinknightmare]

12 minutes ago, BkWurm1 said:

Being pepper sprayed, then drugged, and of course taking a beating while giving a beating all were things that made Oliver flagging when he finally gets to Diaz a bit more realistic.   Fully charged up, Oliver not wiping the floor with Diaz would make me laugh but they spent an hour wearing him out first so I was okay with it.  As long as he won in the end of course lol.  

I'm okay with it simply from imagining all the lovely TLC he's gonna get at home.

[tennisgurl]

After all of this, I need an entire episode dedicated to Oliver and Felicity snuggling on the couch, while Oliver works on his dream journal, and William adds marshmallows to their hot chocolate, and then they all watch Disney movies together. Thats it, thats the whole episode. 

[Delphi]

7 hours ago, apinknightmare said:

No, they were in Oliver's cell - you can see the blown lock in the scene when he closes the door, LOL.

  This bothered me so much,  i was just so confused, like, there are cells here that you haven't blown up.  

[JamieLynn832002]

28 minutes ago, Delphi said:

  This bothered me so much,  i was just so confused, like, there are cells here that you haven't blown up.  

Me too. I think they were going for the poetic justice of Diaz being the new inmate 4587 and they also needed to be in Oliver's cell so Diaz could rip the picture but leaving the guy who has repeatedly expressed his desire/attempted to kill you, your wife and your child in the one cell in the entire prison that you absolutely know doesn't lock is just so stupid that it really hurt what should have been a badass Oliver victory scene. 

[Cthulhudrew]

Holy F, Diaz sure sucks the life out of every scene he's in. Threadbare character with motivations that still don't make any sense, poor performance by someone who really can do better (at least in other roles I've seen).

This would have been a great ultimate showdown with many of Oliver's other enemies- Chase, Vertigo, even if they'd elevated Brick into Diaz's role here, it would have been really cool. But no, we have Dumb Diaz. Thank Rao he's apparently gone and done.

Other than that, it wasn't terrible. The fight scenes were better than usual- that tracking shot with Turner and Oliver was pretty cool. Not Daredevil S3 prison oner cool, but really good for the DCU shows. And of course Turner's role was pretty awesome, even if it was a bit too abrupt. Hopefully we see Bronze Tiger in action with the Suicide Squad down the road. (And bring Michael Rowe back as Deadshot FFS!!!)

On 11/26/2018 at 6:05 PM, Primal Slayer said:

The entire episode, the prison is about to blow up and Oliver just walks out and outside everything looks fine and dandy, no one is worrying about anything. 

Not to mention, when the camera pulls away and we see that Slabside is one big island... where exactly did the car bringing Diaz drive in from? I'm going to have to go back and look, but it didn't look big enough to need a prison transport from the helipad to the jail...

[Mellowyellow]

Finally catching up to the rest of the episode.

I was not into the idea of Oliver fighting in jail and thought this episode would be the pits but I realised while I was watching this (and to my delight I was watching reasonably properly and not cutting my nails or pulling out grey hair at the same time etc, I only surfed for gems while Diaz was monologuing) that if I can't have Olicity or Felicity in an episode, watching Oliver fight some grubby crooks is still WAY WAY WAY better than watching Dinah's stank face or enduring Curtis.

***

OMG!!! The wee little villain! "Make them pay" as he waves his gun around. I am cracking up!

I knew it was bad but I didn't think it was like funny bad!!!!

A gang of evil cloned cutesy Felicities flashing Oliver before they attempt to subdue him would be more menacing! 

Clearly they know how to write Badass (see Turner, see Turner and Oliver walking around maiming inmates without breaking a sweat) so why are they writing the little gerbil like this?

The image of him mumble screaming something unintelligible about "ash" and holding two wires together! Bahahahahhahahaha

***

Damn that was a good smooch at the end! Just the right amount of smoochiness for a reunion (cuz it would be kinda weird to tongue right at that moment). I kinda like the whole Diggle vanishes thing at the end! It's so very Arrow it was awesome! "A" grade Olicity scene! 

[AudienceofOne]

But this episode was DUMB. So dumb. Everything was dumb.

I can't get past it.

Edited November 28, 2018 by AudienceofOne

[BunsenBurner]

I wonder what this episode would look like with all the scenes with Diaz cut out, besides being shorter.  His attempt at burning down the concrete prison and the cgi fire scene wouldn’t be there and looking stupid. The wasted scenes of Diaz not actually doing anything but sitting and/or standing doing nothing but mumbling would be gone. He never actually does anything that makes me think he’s the scary bad guy. His enhanced strength never comes across because he doesn’t seem to know how to show it. At least Slade looked frightening with or without the Mericuru. Diaz is all mumble and very little action. It’s like others have stated,  if he hadn’t been maced and drugged Oliver wouldn’t have even been breaking a sweat at the end of the show.  

If Turner had been the big bad and he and Oliver, both in peak prison trained condition, had been fighting each other the entire episode it would have been a completely different story.  They both would have been tired with maybe a touch of exhaustion setting in but they actually looked like they were fighting and were doing it well. Having Turner, acting like a real fighter,  in this episode showed what a good fighter was and diminished what little attempt at acting Diaz tried to achieve thereby ruining the first 40 minutes of the episode for me. 

Olicity was golden. 

Diggle’s magical disappearance added a touch of unintentional humor to the ending. 

 

Side note. I also wonder if that limp Oliver was showing  at the end, if the last scene was filmed towards the end of the week, was due to the occult break and not actually acting. 

Edited November 28, 2018 by BunsenBurner

[tv echo]

Here's my head canon as to what happened at the end (with Diggle's mysterious disappearance and the cliff's mysterious appearance)...

When Oliver was in prison, he read The Count of Monte Cristo book quite a lot and made up these fantasies in his head of getting out and being reunited with Felicity. So when he actually got out of prison and hugged Felicity, we - the viewers - were transported into Oliver's mind where he was living out his fantasy as influenced by The Count of Monte Cristo story. Of course, Diggle was not in this fantasy, so that's why he disappeared. In short, the Olicity kiss/hug transported us all for a few minutes into Oliver's happy mind. ;)

Edited November 28, 2018 by tv echo

[GHScorpiosRule]

16 minutes ago, tv echo said:

Here's my head canon as to what happened at the end (with Diggle's mysterious disappearance and the cliff's mysterious appearance)...

When Oliver was in prison, he read The Count of Monte Cristo book quite a lot and made up these fantasies in his head of getting out and being reunited with Felicity. So when he actually got out of prison and hugged Felicity, we - the viewers - were transported into Oliver's mind where he was living out his fantasy as influenced by The Count of Monte Cristo story. Of course, Diggle was not in this fantasy, so that's why he disappeared. In short, the Olicity kiss/hug transported us all for a few minutes into Oliver's happy mind. ;)

Since Oliver was reading that book, and since I never got my John Reese Caviezel showing up as Cayden's TRUE AND LOYAL henchman protector, then why couldn't they have him show up as Edmond Dantès? Like as another prisoner, watching as Oliver walked to freedom? You know, this guy:

No. I will never NOT be Bitter at the lost opportunity.

[Mellowyellow]

I saw the line from the book and googled it to cast the Arrow characters in their roles.

Seems like there is no direct parallel? Felicity does not fit in with the love interest in the book.

@GHScorpiosRule I hope that one day in S10, for your sake, when Arrow decides to recycle yet another storyline, Jim Caviezel stars as the S10 big bad to torment Oliver and Co by trying to avenge Cayden James who was his uncle/father/tailor who make him nice suits etc. He will go by the name Jason Reese and the storyline will be no more WTF than the 3D one! 

Edited November 28, 2018 by Mellowyellow

[GHScorpiosRule]

12 minutes ago, Mellowyellow said:

@GHScorpiosRule I hope that one day in S10, for your sake, when Arrow decides to recycle yet another storyline, Jim Caviezel stars as the S10 big bad to torment Oliver and Co by trying to avenge Cayden James who was his uncle/father/tailor who make him nice suits etc. He will go by the name Jason Reese and the storyline will be no more WTF than the 3D one! 

At least Caviezel can play scary and menacing. And his fighting skills are about equal with Stephen's.

The movie was all kinds of nonsense. The Caviezel version, that is, though enjoyable. And the director even said he didn't give any flying fucks about the book, and just wanted to do his version of it. But it also has a verra young and hawt Henry Cavill.

[KenyaJ]

3 hours ago, BunsenBurner said:

Diggle’s magical disappearance added a touch of unintentional humor to the ending. 

It's already as legendary as Oliver leaving Roy twitching on the ground in 317.

[GHScorpiosRule]

49 minutes ago, KenyaJ said:

It's already as legendary as Oliver leaving Roy twitching on the ground in 317.

Yeah, but while I laughed at the former, it  still irked me. But the latter? Made me 😆😆😆😂😂 because of the shitty friend Diggle has been to Felicity this season.

[BkWurm1]

14 hours ago, JamieLynn832002 said:

Me too. I think they were going for the poetic justice of Diaz being the new inmate 4587 and they also needed to be in Oliver's cell so Diaz could rip the picture but leaving the guy who has repeatedly expressed his desire/attempted to kill you, your wife and your child in the one cell in the entire prison that you absolutely know doesn't lock is just so stupid that it really hurt what should have been a badass Oliver victory scene. 

I'm going to have to go with the head canon that Oliver blowing up his door only popped the lock but didn't destroy the locking mechanism. How he knew that, I don't know but who knows, maybe he and Lyla discussed jail lock tech before breaking Diggle out that one time.  

I do wonder now where Oliver got the battery he had hidden in his soap.  And also just how long he spent carving the PERFECTLY symmetrical hidden compartment in his soap.  And also if the fact that the soap was in pristine unused condition meant he didn't USE soap when he showered.   

Edited November 28, 2018 by BkWurm1

[insomniadreams88]

14 hours ago, JamieLynn832002 said:

Me too. I think they were going for the poetic justice of Diaz being the new inmate 4587 and they also needed to be in Oliver's cell so Diaz could rip the picture but leaving the guy who has repeatedly expressed his desire/attempted to kill you, your wife and your child in the one cell in the entire prison that you absolutely know doesn't lock is just so stupid that it really hurt what should have been a badass Oliver victory scene. 

I think it's funnier to imagine that the door didn't lock and Diaz didn't even think to check and just waited there until guards/whoever came to collect him, found the door unlocked, shrugged and moved him to another cell. 

[Mellowyellow]

4 minutes ago, BkWurm1 said:

And also just how long he spent carving the PERFECT:Y symmetrical hidden compartment in his soap.  And also if the fact that the soap was in pristine unused condition meant he didn't USE soap when he showered.   

😂😂😂took me a good few seconds to realise it was soap since it was perfectly carved like you said. I thought it was an oddly shaped plastic container at first!!!

Will always adore the Olicity kiss but man he must have smelt funky. 

Do soda cans in pillowcase really work as a weapon? I'm tempted to carry one around with me in my cotton grocery bag. 

[BkWurm1]

1 minute ago, Mellowyellow said:

Do soda cans in pillowcase really work as a weapon? I'm tempted to carry one around with me in my cotton grocery bag. 

Given that I've dropped a can and had it just bust the whole side open, i'm guessing in real life they'd be good only for the first swing or so.  Unless maybe they took the time to freeze them solid and then even if the aluminum split it wouldn't matter.  I'd go for a nice wrought iron bookend personally.  

[Mary0360]

Who was it here who said this episode is probably their attempt to try and get an Emmy nom? 

[BkWurm1]

I saw SA tweet about how they should get an Emmy for the stunts in it, but they wouldn't get an Emmy because they don't get Emmy's.  So at least they are realistic about it.  Or at least he is, lol.  

[JenMD]

I've just realized I can finally release my Funko Oliver from "prison".  At the end of the S6 finale, my sister took a glass and plopped it over Oliver and there he has stayed, under glass on the end table.  At least he got to watch tv...

As for the disappearing Diggle/scenery problem, my guess would be they filmed Felicity and Diggle in a different location at a different time, not realizing the end result wouldn't match and then just didn't have the means to fix it or figured, "Olicity reunion! Who's going to notice?".  Except of course it's so noticeable everybody caught it.

[tv echo]

[bethy]

I appreciated how many people in the comments for that tweet noted that they’d left out the best part - the kiss - and the disappearance of Diggle.

[Primal Slayer]

According to SA, they will be fixing the Diggle situation, most likely for the netflix showings. 

[Mary0360]

11 hours ago, BkWurm1 said:

I saw SA tweet about how they should get an Emmy for the stunts in it, but they wouldn't get an Emmy because they don't get Emmy's.  So at least they are realistic about it.  Or at least he is, lol.  

Well is the Emmys like the oscars were members have to vote the winners? 

 

I mean I'd argue that Dare Devil has done as good  (maybe even better) stunt work on a consistent basis as has Arrow and even they haven't won an Emmy (they have been nominated though) and I think Dare Devil has probably got more name recognition then Arrow does. So it's probably one of those things for Arrow that unless they do something that really stands them apart from the pack the voters are probably not familiar with the show enough the way they are with more popular or well known shows like Game of Thrones, Dare Devil, Westworld, Walking Dead etc who seem to get Emmy wins and noms. 

[BkWurm1]

3 hours ago, Primal Slayer said:

According to SA, they will be fixing the Diggle situation, most likely for the netflix showings. 

Nooooo!  I want the case of the mysteriously missing man to stay forever.  No take backs!

[tv echo]

[DeadZeus]

On ‎28‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 12:58 AM, lemotomato said:

Brick maced Oliver before he could knock him down. Oliver’s a superior fighter, not a meta immune to chemicals sprayed directly into his face.

Sorry for my late response but sure, he shouldn't be immune to mace. But when ppl wave a gun in his face he has no problem with them so why does he allow himself to get maced? By that logic ppl can easily cap him in the face...

I did not think about the fact that he was still drugged and not 100%... But don't forget that earlier in the show Oliver kicked the asses of a dozen of goons while being drugged. 
The biggest reason he got destroyed here is so Turner gets his moment to shine. Not cuz he was 100% imo.

 

Anyway my biggest issue is the error at teh end of the episode, how that got aired is beyond me... And Oliver suddenly getting up and stabbing Diaz out of nowhere… How did that work?

[DigitalCount]

My question is how Diaz was so affected by what Oliver did. Like you said, Oliver was losing (badly) before he suddenly hopped up, fresh as a daisy, and stabbed Diaz before headbutting him a few times. Diaz then crumpled, completely defeated, and could no longer move or stand; all he could do was stare and pathetically twitch on the floor. What? How? Didn't he have superpowers a moment ago?

I feel like I must have missed something.

Edited December 5, 2018 by DigitalCount

[tv echo]

This episode re-aired last night. And, yes, Diggle was digitally present at the very end when the camera panned out of the Olicity hug.

[Taryn74]

On 2/19/2019 at 12:52 PM, tv echo said:

This episode re-aired last night. And, yes, Diggle was digitally present at the very end when the camera panned out of the Olicity hug.

Ha ha yeah, I wait until Arrow hits Netflix to watch the new seasons then I go back and read through the commentaries after I watch the episodes, so I was very lost.  I even went in and rewatched the last few seconds again while saying "He's right there! Sure he's still as a statue, but he's right there!"  Should've known that many people wouldn't be wrong, heh.

[tv echo]

707 (The Slabside Redemption) – Oliver Queen’s voiceover intro:
Oliver (voiceover): "My name is Oliver Queen. After six years of being a vigilante, the only way to achieve my goal and save my city was to confess to being the Green Arrow. Now my family and friends must carry on my mission without me. I am no longer a hero. I am Inmate 4587."

707 (The Slabside Redemption) – Ricardo Diaz threatens Oliver, Felicity and William:
(An escaped Diaz is visiting Oliver in prison.)
Diaz: "You're gonna die today, and I'm gonna be the one who's gonna do it. But before that, I'm gonna make you suffer... the way you made me suffer. And when I'm done with you, oh, I'm just gonna, you know, pay a little visit to Felicity. Yeah. And little William. And I'm gonna make sure that this time, I finish the job."
(Oliver slams his phone repeatedly against the glass panel separating inmates from visitors.)

707 (The Slabside Redemption) – Diaz tells Oliver that Felicity tried to kill him while he was in police custody:
(Diaz is beating up Oliver in the prison.)
Diaz: “You’re not surviving this. You just don’t know when to quit, do you? I guess what you and Felicity have in common, huh?”  
Oliver: “Don’t you say her name.”
Diaz: “Felicity. Do you know she tried to kill me? She put a gun right to my face. She was about to pull the trigger.”
Oliver: “I don’t believe you. That’s not her.”
Diaz: “It is now. (Tears Oliver’s photo of Felicity and William in half) It’s what you made her.”
(Oliver fights back and stabs Diaz. He bashes his head into Diaz’s head repeatedly. Diaz falls to the ground. Oliver picks up the two pieces of his photo of Felicity and William, as well as his The Count of Monte Cristo book. He walks out of the cell and closes the door.)

707 (The Slabside Redemption) – Oliver finally walks out of prison, where Felicity and Diggle are waiting for him:
(A bruised, bloodied and injured walks out the exit of Slabside Maximum Security Prison. Diggle and Felicity are standing there, waiting for him. Felicity goes up to Oliver. They kiss and hug each other, as the camera zooms out from the scene.)

Edited March 22, 2020 by tv echo

[tv echo]

MG's edited 707 Olicity reunion scene, after Diggle is digitally added back into wide shot...

Edited 707 Olicity reunion scene (zoomed into zoom-out of Olicity reunion hug)...

Edited May 6, 2020 by tv echo