S07.E10: My Name Is Emiko Queen

[KenyaJ]

1 hour ago, ladylaw99 said:

He hopes the episodes get back on track with Oliver.  Oliver is his favorite character because he is so flawed.  One thing he mentioned to me was he hopes Felicity can give him some insight to the abandonment issue because she was abandon by her father at such a young age.  I told him this is Arrow and not to hold his breath, lol.

LOL. This is the same show that wouldn't even let her give some insight into what it's like to be a victim of gun violence. Your son is totally right. But if the writers reminded us of Felicity's abandonment issues, we'd be even less convinced that she and Oliver abandoned William, and they have to keep us in suspense about that!

[BkWurm1]

9 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

This really bothered me that she lived in Star City yet doesn't have any paper trail, didn't Emiko go to school or did she spend all her time practicing archery.

The other thing that bothered me was the Security Guards were doing their rounds carrying flashlights, inside of a building! Don't make your building so dark that the security guards can't see what they are guarding or if anybody else is in the building. Do indoor security guards really walk around patrolling with flashlights?

Saves the cost of electricity!  

I don't know if they actually do walk around in the dark inside now, it seems like it would be easy enough to just flip on the lights during patrol, but outside, sure, they'd still need them even if the regular path was lit up. 

Quote

I already felt like she [Emiko]suddenly became more interesting opposite of Oliver/Stephen Amell.

This very much.  She and Rene was just boring.  Not invested in either, there were no surprises in that story AND they are too much alike in personality to be interesting to watch.  

[Mary0360]

Having watched the episode, I'm guessing Rene and his slimy cohort are the ones pushing the "Felicitys a criminal/evil" story out there right? Cause they seemed to imply they were the ones really out to destroy the city and that Felicity was trying to stop them.  It still feels like they are making the flash forwards needlessly confusing. 

 

I laugh that after their whole the only people we can trust are each other from Dinah and Rene last season that they end up turning on each other in the future. 

[tv echo]

23 hours ago, SmallScreenDiva said:

Admittedly I fast-forwarded through a bunch of stuff so I might have missed the part where Oliver and Felicity worked on their marriage per the summary?

Showrunner Beth Schwartz addressed this in an interview with CBR prior to the episode airing (warning: rest of this article contains spoilers:

Quote

The synopsis for tonight's episode [710] revealed that Oliver is "focusing on his marriage with Felicity." What does that look like?
After they sort of made amends in the crossover episode and Oliver was really able to see her for everything she's been through since he was in prison and they came to this great understanding, they're in a very good place in their marriage. And then, when he finds out about his half-sister, Felicity is just there for him as his wife, because obviously this is a hard realization for him.

Cutting through the word salad, I think that the episode synopsis was just wrong.

Edited January 23, 2019 by tv echo

[AnimeMania]

3 hours ago, BkWurm1 said:

12 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

The other thing that bothered me was the Security Guards were doing their rounds carrying flashlights, inside of a building! Don't make your building so dark that the security guards can't see what they are guarding or if anybody else is in the building. Do indoor security guards really walk around patrolling with flashlights?

Saves the cost of electricity!  

This requires night vision cameras instead of regular cameras with better visuals. What about the cost of batteries for flashlights, what about endangering the guards as they fumble around in dark corridors and poorly lit rooms, getting eyestrain trying to see bad guys lurking in the shadows, while hearing things that go bump in the night.

[tennisgurl]

On 1/23/2019 at 12:16 PM, Mary0360 said:

I laugh that after their whole the only people we can trust are each other from Dinah and Rene last season that they end up turning on each other in the future. 

Its kind of amazing that they even trust each other now, considering Rene turned on Oliver so quickly last season. I always thought it was weird that NTA were all about trusting each other, when it seemed like one of their members was quick to turn on their leader, and then reject his second chance. 

But then, that works under the radical assumption that anything the Newbies did made any sense...

I almost am fascinated by the idea of Robert Queen as a scathing indictment of the wealthy 1%, these rich people that live their lives in utmost privilege and wealth, leaving behind a huge mess for their poor, scarred children to clean up. Its utterly facinating if you look at it from that angle. Or else I would just ask why Robert is obsessed with passing the buck to his long suffering bestie, his traumatized son, or his abandoned daughter, to clean up his damn messes after he fucked off to the afterlife, and wonder why he didnt use some of the time he clearly had to write all of these letters and lists and diaries instead of getting off his ass and doing something himself. 

Edited January 25, 2019 by tennisgurl

[BkWurm1]

 It occurred to me that Oliver is not going to want to share the results of the DNA blood sample with Dinah.  Might we get a wedge between him working for the SCPD already and please oh please can it be insurmountable. 

Edited January 25, 2019 by BkWurm1

[Mary0360]

1 hour ago, BkWurm1 said:

 It occurred to me that Oliver is not going to want to share the results of the DNA blood sample with Dinah.  Might we get a wedge between him working for the SCPD already and please oh please can it be insurmountable. 

Considering that Dinah got all pissy over nothing in season 6 and quit the team and acted like Oliver was evil, she should consider it insurmountable but NTA have selected memory. See Rene forgetting that he was the one who put Oliver in jail, when he was crying about how he was all alone after Oliver went to prison as everyone else "moved on with their lives" except you know Oliver who was getting tortured on the daily, Felicity who was almost killed and forced to turn to BS cause no one else would help her and William who was sent off to boarding school. Yeah I'm bitter about that line and back to hating Rene.

[calliope1975]

10 hours ago, BkWurm1 said:

 It occurred to me that Oliver is not going to want to share the results of the DNA blood sample with Dinah.  Might we get a wedge between him working for the SCPD already and please oh please can it be insurmountable. 

I wish, but at some point they get those stupid tattoos. 

[BkWurm1]

3 hours ago, calliope1975 said:

I wish, but at some point they get those stupid tattoos. 

At this point all I ask is that the rift gets him to stop working for Dinah.   Working for Dinah.   Gah.  I despise typing that.  

[CloudySky]

The flashforwards are so boooring. But somehow still manage to be more entertaining than Diaz. Why all the Renee? Whyyy.

So Curtis is not part of the tattoo pact? Just as I was wondering whether he got written off the show and I just forgot about it, he shows up.

If Stephen Amell wants to leave, can't they just reinvent the green arrow by merging the multiverse or jumping to another earth or whatever? They can use the actors who want to stay in different roles and get new ones for the ones who leave. It would be more interesting than this soap operaish new sister and Lostesque flashforwards that will never end up making sense.

When I miss new Laurel, you know it's bad.

[AudienceofOne]

This episode just re-enforced that Amell is doing some sort of retirement acting - literally phoning it in while they attempt (unsuccessfully) to build a new show they can still call Arrow. 

They kind of suck at it, which makes me question how they managed to get us watching this in the first place.

On 22/01/2019 at 1:31 PM, GHScorpiosRule said:

This just looked like another back door pilot for a new Arrow should Amell decide to leave.

IMHO, he's already left. No fight scenes, no location shots, no part of the main plot. He's just there to hand the baton to whomever they can finally get us invested in. This week it's Emiko. She didn't impress me much.

On 22/01/2019 at 3:18 PM, catrox14 said:

Is this show still about Oliver Queen as in he's still in it and still the main character? Right?

No.

On 22/01/2019 at 1:19 PM, tennisgurl said:

The rest was a parade of boredom with a bunch of my least favorite characters interacting with a new character who is basically an angsty badass cliche mixed in with a pretty lousy performance. "This is personal! I work alone!" Good lord, did she have one line that hasn't been said by a million action characters at some point? 

"So this is about revenge?

No, this is about justice! Something that's in short supply in this city."

 Good Lordy Lord. Who wrote this nonsense? 

On 22/01/2019 at 1:20 PM, Lunula said:

My GAWD this was a terrible episode. Seriously, was it written by a drunken 12-year-old? The writers seriously want us to believe that a DNA scan takes 15 seconds, then we find out Ollie has a sister, then Felicity tracks down a storage facility is the next 15 seconds and the first damn piece of paper Oliver picks up is a letter detailing his previously unknown sister? 

What database was she comparing the scan to? Or did she just opt for a comparison of Oliver's DNA first on the assumption that green leather is genetic. 

 

On 23/01/2019 at 2:28 AM, BkWurm1 said:

I really don't get why she'd have paid for the storage unit full of her children's momentos from a secret offshore account.  Maybe they should go through the rest of those boxes carefully.   

Oh God, this. The room was full of childhood memorabilia! And are we honestly saying that Oliver wouldn't have had Felicity hunt down every secret storage unit by now? Didn't she already do that in season 1 with the Gambit?

On 26/01/2019 at 9:49 PM, SweetTooth said:

Okay, let me see if I have this straight.

You take a show based around a guy and a team of loyal people. 

Then you have nearly all of them become total assholes, break the team up, have them all working at cross-purposes, show us a future where everyone hates each other even more and maybe killed each other, take away all of their redeeming characteristics, and keep bringing back a highly unpopular character while putting the best part of the show on the backburner.

Then you start the lead character's story all over again, only in a really boring way with a character nobody connects with.

Did I miss anything?

No that pretty well sums it up. The thing is, this episode wasn't that bad in the overall scheme of things. Diaz remains an uninspired antagonist, NTA remain assholes, the flash forwards remain unconvincing, the new person who discovered vigilantism who they're trying to convert to the wonders of team hood is still there - whoever it happens to be this week- and Olicity remains criminally underused. Welcome to the last three seasons. It's just we're all a bit tired of it now. 

Wait, didn't I say I was going to drop this by now? Why haven't I dropped this? God, this is like Teen Wolf. Just cancel it already so I can be done.

[tv echo]

710 (My Name Is Emiko Queen) – Emiko Queen’s voiceover intro:
Emiko (voiceover): "The world is not a fair place. Innocent people die, while the guilty go free. The system is broken, filled with corruption, greed, and apathy. The people who are supposed to protect us are failing us. ... Criminals continue to walk the streets because no one is willing to stop them. The world may not be fair, but everyone deserves justice, and someone looking out for them."

710 (My Name Is Emiko Queen) – Felicity analyzes the blood sample from the crime scene and tells Oliver that the new Green Arrow is his sister:
Felicity: "Whoo! DNA signature confirmed. I knew you were here before you even walked in the door! How's that?"
Oliver: "That's good work."
Felicity: "Thank you. Aren't you a working man now? Shouldn't you be at the S.C.P.D.?"
Oliver: "Uh, they need a little help from Team Arrow. Specifically you."
Felicity: "Cool."
Oliver: "You need to analyze this DNA. It belongs to the new Green Arrow."
Felicity: "Some husbands bring their wives home flowers, and mine brings me blood from a crime scene. They say romance is dead. (Kisses him, laughs) Any idea on who it could be?"
Oliver: "Nope."
Felicity: "Oh, you're no fun. You don't think it could be Roy, do you?"
Oliver: "We are not even on the same continent as Roy."
Felicity: "Yeah. Well, let's find out who our mystery man is, shall we? (Inserts blood sample into machine) Ooh! (Screen shows "MATCH FOUND") (Sighs) Well, shame on us for being so sexist. Our mystery man is actually a woman."
Oliver: "Really?"
Felicity: "Yeah. (Looks at screen) Hey. Can you sit down?"
Oliver: "Why?"
Felicity: "'Cause the, um - well, before you ask, I mean, no, it's not, it's not Thea - the DNA match is on your father's side."
Oliver: "I'm sorry. Say again?"
Felicity: "The vigilante is your sister.

710 (My Name Is Emiko Queen) – Oliver grapples with the fact that he has another sister:
Felicity: "No hits on the state birth index. No hospital records. As far as the government is concerned, your mystery sister doesn't even exist."
Oliver: "Well, my father was always very good at burying his secrets."
Felicity: "Yeah. Hey, you okay? You know, this has to be a shock. Not as big as a shock as maybe becoming the Flash and then fighting alongside Batwoman, but still a shock."
Oliver: "I have come to terms with the fact that my father kept things from us."
Felicity: "Yeah. Hey, maybe you should reach out to her."
Oliver: "I feel like if she wanted to talk to me, she would've come and talk to me."
Felicity: "Oliver, she's running around town dressed like you. I mean, I'm no therapist, but I'm pretty sure the technical term for that is 'cry for help.'"
Oliver: "She has to have a reason."
Felicity: "Yeah."
Oliver: "I don't feel comfortable just barging into her life, not without knowing more. I need answers."
Felicity: "Well, luckily for you, your wife is very talented at finding invisible people. Some even call her a genius. So one thing we know about your father is that he loved a good, old-fashioned paper trail."
Oliver: "He used an offshore account to handle some of his more sensitive financial transactions."
Felicity (using her tablet): "Yep. Recurring payments to M&H Storage in Orchid Bay, and the good news is, the account is still active."
Oliver: "We need whatever's in that storage unit. We need it here immediately."
Felicity: "Okay. Copy that. And... (Viewing tablet) One more thing."
Oliver: "Just one more?"
Felicity: "The account is not registered to your father. It's registered to your mom."

710 (My Name Is Emiko Queen) – Oliver and Felicity search through boxes of Robert Queen's old papers from the storage unit:
Felicity: "If I knew there were this many boxes, I wouldn't have had them all delivered to our living room."
Oliver: "This feels like a waste of time."
Felicity (holding up a childish drawing): "You call this a waste of time? I don't know, you were pretty good. You clearly weren't too happy about Thea being born, though."
Oliver: "Yeah. But she grew on me."
Felicity: "What's that?"
Oliver: "This is a letter to Walter Steele... from my dad."
Felicity: "I always forget that Walter and your dad were friends before Walter and your mother, you know? What does it say?"
Oliver (reading letter): "'Dear Walter, As you know, I haven't always made the best choices. And if you're reading this letter, it means I'm gone. I need your help to right one last wrong. There's a woman - Kazumi Adachi. I loved her. We had a daughter. And I treated both of them unfairly. I abandoned them. I'm not proud of what I did, but I'm trying to make it right. You're the only one I trust with this. Please take care of Emiko.'"
Felicity: "Are you okay?"
Oliver: "No. I don't know what to think. Emiko and her mother were supposed to be taken care of in the event of my father's passing. It clearly didn't happen." (Sighs) 
Felicity: "The secret identity of your unknown sibling has been locked in a storage unit for years. Your mother made sure of it. God. You must have so many questions."
Oliver: "This answers most of them. I mean, it'd be one thing if my father had an affair. He had a second family! He - he had a woman that he wanted cared for, he had a child that he wanted protected."
Felicity: "That he loved."
Oliver: "How am I supposed to believe that he's ever loved anybody but himself? How - how could he abandon them in the first place?"
Felicity: "I don't think Moira gave him much of a choice."
Oliver: "I worked... so long and hard to redeem my family's name after the terrible things that they've done. But abandoning someone? And a little girl? It's unforgivable."
Felicity: "What do you want to do?"

710 (My Name Is Emiko Queen) – In a flashforward scene, we learn that The Mark of Four pact included Dinah, Rene, Roy, Diggle, Oliver, and Felicity:
(Older Dinah shows Older Rene her Mark of Four tattoo.)
Older Dinah: "We made a promise to always keep fighting, to be there for each other no matter what. All of us - you, me, Roy, Diggle, Oliver, and Felicity. We owe her this."

710 (My Name Is Emiko Queen) – In a flashforward scene, we learn that Older Rene and Kevin Dale are behind the plans to bomb Star City:
Kevin: "Yesterday was a bigger success than anticipated. You had them eating out of your hand. A shoo-in for reelection."
Older Rene: "That's not why I called you in. Last night, one of the Canaries paid me a visit. She has the plans. Maybe there's another way for us to achieve our goal."
Kevin: "The Glades is the future. We've always agreed on that."
Older Rene: "My mission to build up the Glades never included wiping out the rest of the city."
Kevin: "Well, Star City's a cancer. The only way to get rid of a cancer is to destroy it."
Older Rene: "The Canary also said Felicity Smoak was murdered. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"
Kevin: "Ms. Smoak was becoming a liability. She had to be dealt with. Is that a problem?"
Older Rene: "Of course not."
Kevin: "Good. I would hate to think that you're getting cold feet, Mr. Mayor."

710 (My Name Is Emiko Queen) – Felicity encourages Oliver to reach out to his sister Emiko:
(Felicity joins Oliver out on the balcony of their apartment.)
Felicity: "You okay? Dumb question."
Oliver: "No. (Sighs) You know, even after everything that I've learned about my father, I just never expected anything like this. He ruined Emiko's life. Just abandoned her."
Felicity: "Well, you don't have to. You said you didn't want to barge into her life without knowing more about her, and now you do, so what's holding you back?"
Oliver: "I just think that I'll make things worse."
Felicity: "Oliver, you became the Green Arrow to right your father's wrongs. What your parents did to Emiko and her mother is beyond wrong. (Oliver nods) You are a better man than your father ever was. Don't make the mistakes that he did. Reach out to your sister. Make things right."

710 (My Name Is Emiko Queen) – Emiko Queen’s closing voiceover; and Oliver contacts Emiko:
Emiko (voiceover): "People say that revenge corrupts the soul. That if you go down that path, you'll never come back. ... But sometimes, embracing the darkness is the only way to get justice. My name is Emiko Queen. I will get justice for my mother, and no one will stand in my way."
(Emiko is standing at her mother's grave.)
Oliver: "Hello, Emiko."

Edited March 24, 2020 by tv echo