Arrow

[GoGo Yubari]

Visual representation of the second half of Arrow season 4:

though I can't get with the "there's not enough Ollie on his own show" people. There was plenty of Ollie, and he was boring as fuck. Feels like the show's searching for depth on characters who really don't have depths to plumb, because it's not that kind of show.

[Benji]

I think they're confusing "not enough Ollie" with "far too much Felicity". The writing is the worst thing though, just an absolute joke of a show at this point.

[Benji]

The ending wasn't as bad as I was lead to believe, but still not good. So long Arrow, unless you get a new (or old) show runner and I somehow find that last bit of good will for you, it's been... something.

[Chris2K]

I found the finale to be pretty poor and the last scene(s) to be bafflingly incompetent and Lint's list of plot holes is quite the burial. The Flash ending happening before this one also causes so little sense to be made, I realise they're different shows but surely there must be some communication between them other than "hey guys, we're doing Flashpoint so you may need to adjust your stories a bit" "Flashpoint? Felicity isn't in that, so we'll just ignore it."

[Benji]

Arrow's finale has been one day on going for threeish weeks of TV, chronologically it's before Flashpoint.

[Chris2K]

I'm no time travel expert when it comes to this, but surely it shouldn't matter if the timeline was adjusted ten years ago?

[GoGo Yubari]

22 hours ago, Benji said:

I think they're confusing "not enough Ollie" with "far too much Felicity". The writing is the worst thing though, just an absolute joke of a show at this point.

Oh, no arguments there. I just think perception of that actual problem has distorted perspective on all the other problems, some of which are outright worse and all of which is tied into, yeah, the writing. They have absolutely no rational sense of perspective on anything, it feels like, and now I have no confidence that they know what the show's weaknesses are because they backslid into almost all of them in the second half of this season.

Supposedly the season 5 villain will not be mystical in any way, and that's... a start? I guess? But removing the convoluted mysticism won't prevent them from dwelling on boring angst (OLLIE HAS DARKNESS IN HIS SOUUUUUUUUUL/Ollie has an illegitimate child oh noes/Felicity's cartoon character mom doesn't like her supervillain dad GASP), or thinking that people intensely typing on keyboards makes for good TV.

1 minute ago, Chris2K said:

I'm no time travel expert when it comes to this, but surely it shouldn't matter if the timeline was adjusted ten years ago?

I think that would just be a logistical mess to have to explain or factor in on short notice, especially given that it's entirely possible people watch the actual shows in different orders and whatnot (I even do that a little, though I made sure to watch the Legends, Flash, and Arrow finales in order of air date just in case). If the Flash finale doesn't affect the next season then I'm gonna be pretty annoyed, but I don't blame them for holding off on that for a couple months.

[=BK=]

Geoff Johns:

“Let’s say you’ve been given the position of writing Green Arrow from scratch,” he posits, rhetorically. “Clean slate. You might say, ‘Okay, I’m going to write this new character,’ and when someone says, ‘Well, what about Black Canary,’ you might say… ‘nope.’ That means you completely misunderstand these characters.” 

[Lint]

He's right.  I wasn't even a Green Arrow fan prior to the show and even I knew Green Arrow and Black Canary are a huge thing.  What happened would be like Clark Kent hooking up with the Daily Planets tech support girl and not caring when Lois died. 

7 hours ago, GoGo Yubari said:

Supposedly the season 5 villain will not be mystical in any way, and that's... a start? I guess? But removing the convoluted mysticism won't prevent them from dwelling on boring angst (OLLIE HAS DARKNESS IN HIS SOUUUUUUUUUL/Ollie has an illegitimate child oh noes/Felicity's cartoon character mom doesn't like her supervillain dad GASP), or thinking that people intensely typing on keyboards makes for good TV.

Don't even fucking get me started on THIS.  "Oliver, you sent you child that I never knew about away forever without asking me!  We're done!  Oh Mom, you sent my father that I've actually been re-establishing a relationship with away without asking me?   Thats cool, we're still besties!"

[Benji]

4 hours ago, Kirkland said:

Geoff Johns:

“Let’s say you’ve been given the position of writing Green Arrow from scratch,” he posits, rhetorically. “Clean slate. You might say, ‘Okay, I’m going to write this new character,’ and when someone says, ‘Well, what about Black Canary,’ you might say… ‘nope.’ That means you completely misunderstand these characters.” 

Is that something he's actually said in reference to Arrow? Where's that?

10 hours ago, Chris2K said:

no time travel expert when it comes to this, but surely it shouldn't matter if the timeline was adjusted ten years ago

We had this discussion in GoT the other day >_> There's multiple time travel theories, some might be instant, some might create branching universes, some might be delayed or course corrected etc etc.

[Steeb]

1 hour ago, Benji said:

Is that something he's actually said in reference to Arrow? Where's that?

https://www.inverse.com/article/15892-dc-comics-and-film-s-boss-geoff-johns-lays-out-the-company-s-path-forward

[Vince Russo]

The writers of Arrow have fallen into the trap of getting so into being able to do what they want, that they don’t stop to think whether they should be doing it in the first place. They’re so into being able to take things in what they feel are exciting directions, which they think are exciting because you wouldn’t expect to see them, that they never bothered to wonder why fans don’t expect to see them. Case in point is the killing of the Black Canary/Laurel Lance. There’s a reason fans didn’t expect it. Because they didn’t want to fucking see it. There are characters fans will accept dying. They might not like it, but they’ll accept it. Black Canary/Laurel Lance was not one of them. But these genius writers were so in their own heads, so into the idea of being able to do the unexpected, that they never thought about whether it was something fans would want to see. And no, the Earth 2/Mirror Universe concept is not an acceptable workaround, so let me repeat myself; to the writers of Arrow, I say fuck you.

[Benji]

1 hour ago, Vince Russo said:

Earth 2/Mirror Universe concept is not an acceptable workaround, so let me repeat myself; to the writers of Arrow, I say fuck you.

To be fair, it should be since Laurel Lance originated on Earth-2. The rest of what you said I largely agree with, but if they use Earth-2 Laurel then it's actually being more faithful to the source if anything. Potentially the Earth-2 Canary could also have a faithful version of her story with Sin and Lady Shiva too. This show's Laurel was not a good version of Black Canary though, so it could wind up right in the end, but I won't be watching because the writing is so weak.

[GoGo Yubari]

I honestly don't care about Laurel and think the show is better off with, at bare minimum, Earth-1 Laurel dead. I think if they had cast or written it correctly then it would be a tragedy, but they did none of that (though Katie Cassidy has been great as both Laurel and Earth-2 Laurel on The Flash so I find it hard to blame her). If a Superman show completely whiffed on Lois I'd be perfectly happy with them moving on and doing something different too. Obviously I know the significance of the relationship, but by season 2 I was actively rooting against it.

and for the record (FLASH FINALE SPOILERS):

Spoiler

it'd probably be Earth-3 Laurel if they wanted to go that route, considering that the Jay Garrick version of Flash is from there.

 

[marksbros6]

For me, I emotionally checked-out of Arrow last season about when Felicity decided she was really in love with Ollie (when she was in a relationship with Ray Palmer) and broke up with him, to travel with Ollie and crew to Nanda Parbat to try to stop him becoming Ra'iSH Al-Ghul (lol never knew that was how it was pronounced) because of luuuurve.

It was done in the space of a few scenes (literally breaks up with Ray, flies to N.P, ends up in bed with Ollie iirc) and just felt really false? Same criticism of Ollie and Felicity breaking up, it felt like it was done purely for drama and so they can reconcile down the line.

Up to that point (Ollie and Felicity getting together) I think the show had a nice groove. Both with its developing mythology, the relationships between the characters. I thought Ray and Felicity had good chemistry together actually, certainly more natural than Ollie and Felicity and I always felt they were put together for the benefit of the 'shippers' watching the show and commenting online rather than the story, I think the characters make better friends than they do a couple, it's like Batman dating Oracle? Ollie is this-universe' Batman effectively, I just feel he's lost his focus on 'the mission' and now the series resembles more of a soap-opera than an action-show, the bad-guys and 'saving the city' is almost in the background this season where before the 'family dramas' have all been a distraction from the main-story, an 'added extra' and that format worked and made the show so engaging.

Speaking of Oracle; Felicity was WAY more interesting when she was paralysed? (That sounds mean)! But it gave her character an arc, something to struggle against, and suddenly BOOM, cured with nanites! I know it's a fantasy show, but it would have been better to explore the consequences of it, it would have given Ollie a chink in his bad-ass armour (as Felicity was in a wheelchair because of him, his 'failure'). Instead it's almost like 'hey remember when Darkh attacked us and you were paralysed for a couple of weeks there?' I could have the same criticism of Arrow being back in action last year so soon after his duel with Ra's as well. He goes from 'Stabbed in the chest' to 'swinging on ropes' in the space of a few episodes. Show him doing re-hab, physical therapy, falling off the damn salmon ladder! You don't just shrug off being stabbed in the chest, even in peak physical condition.

I also never got the level of hate for Katie Cassady/Laurel? Yeah there were times when her character wasn't great, but then the whole series took time to find it's feet. And this was a damaged character, losing her sister at a young age, divorced parents, alcoholic father, addictions of her own? So she was unpredictable, and unreasonable as a character and people didn't like that but for me that somehow made her more 'real' in a way. Then she found her sister, and lost her all over again and I think that's when the writers realised what they wanted to do with her. Of course the backlash then was that Sara Lance's character had been killed off and Laurel was 'replacing her' but it all led to the stand-out moment (and it was the last truely powerful scene in the show for me) of her digging up her sister's corpse, flying to Nanda Parbat and immersing it in the Lazarus Pit to bring her back. Wow. From then I think Laurel was my favourite character on the show (Especially with Ollie/Arrow ever more marginalised), she effectively took the lead of the team when Ollie and Felicity skipped town to be happy in suburbia.

For me writing the show I'd have kept Felicity with Ray, she didn't win Ollie back from the League anyway with luuuurve it was all part of his plan to join them. And with Ray off with the Legends have her be paralysed. Let the story run. People end up in wheelchairs in real life and don't have a magic-wand make them all better. When Ray gets back and finds out, deal with him being angry at Ollie for not protecting her, have him feel guilty himself for not being able to save another woman he loved. Give the characters real dramas to agonise over. Relatable. Not 'you didn't tell me about your son that you never knew about who's Mum was blackmailing you not to tell anyone about...'

You don't need the grave. They re-visited that grave scene so many times before we found out who was in it. Such a cheap writing trick, what's wrong with subtle forshadowing? Laurel's death would have had so much more impact if no-one knew a character was going to die! Don't have Laurel die. Have Felicity being paralysed as Ollie's big failure. Put Felicity in a glass case in the Batcave a-la the Robin Costume...an airtight one (jokes). But turn that into a big thing. It should have been a big thing! Is anyone going to even remember her in the wheelchair?

Have Ollie guilty for his failure because he took his eye off the ball and got his friends hurt. Have him become Batman in a green hood for all intents and purposes, driven, relentless about saving the city, beating up petty thieves. Give him a vicious edge, return him to being THE VIGILANTE. THEN the story could be how Laurel (the only girlfriend/ex-girlfriend of Ollie's on the show who we've never 'seen' him with since his return) brings him back from that. Always thought that Laurel/Ollie was the relationship the show was building to, after he sailed off with her sister, got stuck on an island for years then came back from the dead. And Amell/Cassidy always looked very natural with one another when they've shared screen-time IMO, I always really bought that these were two characters with a LOT of history who knew one-another the best. Can't see that Laurel would have left Ollie after finding out about his son and the circumstances around it because they've overcome worse (presumed dead, cheating with her sister, sister presumed dead, OMG you're actually The Arrow...).

Flash, by contrast, has been all about dealing with the BIG BAD this season. Girlfriend for Barry, how he and Iris feel towards one another is all good, but it's been an aside to 'How are we going to beat ZOOM. HE'S STILL OUT THERE" (Ok so maybe that phrase was a bit over-used this year). It's a shame that both shows, that share a writing room, haven't been able to deliver the same quality. 

[Draevyn]

Just got a chance to watch the Season Finale and my opinions have all pretty much been stated, with even more vehemence than I could really put into it so I won't even bother. I haven't given up on the show like some others have said they will but next season has to be much better than this one or it'll be a lost cause for sure.

[DFF]

I think season 3 and 4 were both a step down from 2. Saying that, I'd still take them over the majority of the first half of season 1.

I think it's a shame that the back end of 4 became so convoluted, because Neal McDonough has been pretty brilliant as the big bad this season.

As for writing out Lauren/Katie Cassidy - I'm fine with it. While I thought she was pretty good in her run on Supernatural, I never warmed to her on Arrow. I thought she looked akward in the superhero get-up. I think the show didn't help itself by Sara turning out to be a more interesting character and, in my opinion, a better fit casting wise.

As for the finale. Eh, it was silly. However, I did kind of like the pseudo-reset at the very end, bringing things down to just Ollie and Felicity. As much as Felicity has grated the past season and a half ish, I still think she can be redeemed with a change in direction and a step-up in writing. If season 5 runs with her more being like she was in 1-2, then fine.

I'm interested to see how they work Flashpoint into the show. I'm hoping it is relatively subtle on Arrow.

[Tkasto]

A Spoiler for Season 5:

Spoiler

On Saturday, Arrow star Stephen Amell made the surprise announcement that Cody Rhodes will be appearing on Season 5 of the show.

 

[Benji]

In which one of the writers of Arrow tries to get support for Olicity.

Nice reminder of why I'm not back next year.

[GoGo Yubari]

the only thing worse than ragey Arrow fans shoehorning the Felicity stuff into literally any conversation tangentially related to Arrow is people involved in the show poking them with sticks. Cui fucking bono, dude.