I was coming here to say the same thing. Casting Vinnie Jones was really inspired.
Cracking episode, but I do cringe at Laurel huffing and puffing and swinging that bo around like a total amateur.
I mean, I get it that she’s still supposed to be learning, but someone who’s been trained by Wildcat ferchrissakes would surely be a bit more competent than that out of the superhero box.
Its total type casting but this is where type casting works great.
Oh that’s fine when it works, and I’m sure there’s self-awareness about it because Vinnie totally has a wink in his eye. ;)
Anyone else feel like the big return was anticlimactic? I guess I was expecting this team-without-Oliver thing to continue for a while longer.
Nice to see a bit of Wildcat, although he totally should have kicked Brick’s ass.
I thought his return was fine, though IT girl’s reaction was kinda out of kilter, I felt. “Why didn’t you contact us?” “I didn’t really have cell service” was a funny response, but better would have been, “I was basically in a coma for the last few weeks trying to not bleed out…” or something. Then she’s mad because in order to protect his family he has to align with a real bad guy - it’s not like he’s super happy about it, but what are his options? Get stabbed in his OTHER lung?
Yeah good episode, bad ending. The whole Felicity thing is becoming way too forced. He tried it the right way and quite literally died. Now hes faced with Ras systematically destroying everyone and everything he cares about, including an entire city. He cant win without knowing how to fight Ras and Merlin is his only option. Felicity is smarter than this. That ending was piss poor writing put in for the sole purpose of creating drama and tension. There had to be a better way to do it.
To be fair, the “Only the student can defeat the master” swordfighter Rule of Two shit is mildly ridiculous, so pinning Merlyn (who Oliver–who lost horribly to R’as once already–has already beaten in combat) as the only hope for learning to defeat the Demon’s Head is stupid. . . they just didn’t have Felicity say that when she was calling the plan ridiculous, because CW, I assume.
I took the whole Felicity rant to be more along the lines that she was pissed that she had to work through the various stages of grief the preceding month pretty much for nothing, and that the first thing Ollie does when he gets back is effectively shit all over Team Arrow’s principled stand not to work with Malcolm Merlyn. She was frustrated and pissed off and just trying to be hurtful, which is why her arguments came out nonsense.
There was no way for Oliver to know that Felicity held Team Arrow to a higher moral standard and kept them from forming an alliance with Merlyn. So what you’re basically saying is that this is a classic case of a woman punishing a man for not knowing something he has no way of knowing but damn it all, he should know anyway? Now that I think about it thats the most realistic thing to come out of this show!
Actually, yeah, I take it back - the writers are actually brilliant now that I give it some further thought…
Pretty strong series of episodes. I agree that Oliver’s return was slightly underwhelming, but Brick worked very well as a villain. For one, he does a good job of illustrating how Oliver is simply on a different level than the rest of his team. Brick, after handling Laurel, Diggle, Wildcat, and Roy with little problem, gets taken out with no problem at all by Malcolm. Team Arrow was able to hold it’s own in his absence, but they really, really need him for any sustained threat.
As for Felicity coming at Oliver. No, Oliver could not have known that Felicity et al had considered going to Merlyn for help, but that’s only part of the issue. Like conVurt said, it’s not just about him going to Merlyn for help. It’s mostly about him telling Felicity he loves her and then disappearing for weeks, giving them no heads up, and THEN the first thing he does upon returning is going to their biggest enemy for help without consulting them at all. Any autonomy they had while he was away is now gone.
And yes, Malcolm is obviously a much poorer swordsman than Ras, but Oliver doesn’t have a ton of experience himself with blades and there’s really no other assassin available with Sara’s death and all. Not sure if Slade would be up for sword fighting lessons on the island. This season has been a little rockier than 2, but I’m still enjoying it a lot. Looking forward to the stretch run.
I’m still annoyed that they’re hiding Sara’s death from her dad. It’s been drawn out far too long, it doesn’t make much sense at all, and it’s exactly the kind of cliched subplot Arrow typically avoided. A poorly justified decision that they’re doing the “right” thing by lying or concealing something that real people would deal with (or at least realize is a terrible idea to conceal), and then drawing it out interminably just so it can blow up in their faces later is such a tired trope, and Arrow has been so good about avoiding it in other areas. Now they’re (basically) impersonating Sara to Quentin’s face? The characters and the writing are usually both better than this.
I assume it’s all tied up in the writers’ quest to ensure that we all completely and utterly loathe Laurel Lance’s character for the entirety of the show’s run. I mean, I think the in-plot justification here is that Laurel thinks her dad is too weakened with this heart condition that magically showed up this season to deal with any painful experience, so she forbids anyone from mentioning or confirming Sara’s death, and they all keep going along with it. . . because. . . they don’t want her to get even more crazy and obnoxious when they don’t listen to her?
If he knew Sara was dead, who would he suspect the blond is? Also, he would go after.the killer in a heart beat, which means Malcolm eventually killing him. I think this is how they keep Lance alive.
Oh, thank god they killed off douchey DJ chick. I fucking hated that character, and what a complete waste even after almost making her/him interesting. Christ what an asshole.
I’m pleased and moderately surprised that Oliver actually told Thea what really happened to Sara. The writers on these shows love to keep secrets from the characters well beyond the point of sanity. When someone actually comes clean about something, no matter how much sense it makes, I’m surprised.
Was nice to see Slade again. Still waiting for the inevitable story arc where the world will end unless he and Oliver can put their differences aside and work together.
I worked on a crossover project once where two universes are thrust together, and heroes from two intellectual properties are tussling and struggling to come together. There was a big bad guy on the board to motivate the conflict, theoretically, but we had so much storytelling we wanted to do with hero misunderstanding hero that we never got around to giving everyone a cause to hate the bad guy. When he appears at the end, his presence in the story is almost without precedent. You know, game’s got to have a boss, right?
Ra’s al Ghul feels like that in this season’s Arrow. We’re spending so much time with everyone but the immortal master of the League of Assassins that we have no idea what his game plan might be. He’s like the boogie man – a name you invoke to scare the kids. The best bad guys have a plan and can be seen progressing that plan. Ra’s al Ghul is nothing but a stuntman with a good PR team.
Yeah that’s a way over-used trope in all these tv shows (the Flash too, notably) and it’s getting a bit tiresome. I was soooo relieved when Thea was positive about the reveal in the previous episode. Her upset at this reveal is perfectly understandable :)
Yeah I haven’t seen this week’s episode yet, but I agree. I was hoping for a lot more of him this season, more like Deathstroke last season.