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    trishamAllison Shoemaker
    12/08/17 9:26am

    The reception was a delight (it’s so weird to see everyone happy, and I love that the show keeps bringing back the neighbors from Ivy Town) but everything else fell flat. I really didn’t understand the new team’s indignation at being “spied on” for one night. Did the writers forget that last year, Curtis followed Felicity to Helix by putting tracking tech in her pancakes? Or that Dinah has now kept multiple secrets from the rest of the team (Quentin shooting Not Laurel, Dig’s injury).

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      Raven Wildertrisham
      12/08/17 10:18am

      Plus, spying on virtually everyone in Star City is what Felicity DOES. Can they really be so upset about getting the same treatment?

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      ohlisaRaven Wilder
      12/08/17 1:18pm

      Not to mention, Curtis put tracking nanites or whatever in Felicity’s pancakes last season to track her to Helix. He has zero business being hurt about her tracking him.

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    Hubert O'HearnAllison Shoemaker
    12/08/17 4:50am

    Right with you on your review. “Oh, so we’re going there again?” I’ll tell you what i would have loved. Rather than Rene being the stoolie (which makes no sense as he doesn’t even have a job if Oliver is in jail), what if it had been Not Laurel? Would not her DNA be an absolute match for Dead Laurel? What a great scene if she takes the stand. Neither Oliver nor Quentin could explain how they know Not Laurel is Not Laurel without de facto outing Oliver as the Green Arrow.

    But that’s why I hate ‘mid-season finales’ as a concept. Stuff gets way too rushed into one false cliffhanger. Now, if there had been even a two-episode arc of tracking the Team to find the stoolie, then the reveal that they had been tracked would have had some meat to it, let alone or perhaps because of the fact we would learn more about the individual team members in their private lives. Would such voyeurism make Felicity, Diggle or even Oliver uncomfortable?

    Wouldn’t that have been a ton more interesting than Oliver just blowing his cool for the eight gajillionth time?

    Cheers!

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      StealthfireHubert O'Hearn
      12/08/17 6:05am

      I agree this would have been better handled as a two-parter. Oliver’s swan dive into paranoia probably would have landed better if they set it up a little more—make us really feel the fear and betrayal—but with the crossover I guess they just didn’t have time. Instead we find out about the traitor from a brief line from Quentin, which robs it of a lot of drama and makes Oliver’s reaction feel overblown.

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      Minimum MausHubert O'Hearn
      12/08/17 11:34am

      what if it had been Not Laurel? Would not her DNA be an absolute match for Dead Laurel?

      Great. Now I have a new question about alternate Earths. Already I’m surprised by how many doppelgangers there are considering how many people die on those worlds who haven’t died on the main world and vice versa, and how much needs to fall in place for an individual to even be born (their parents meeting, their grandparents, all the way down the line, and then each couple would have had to have sex around the same time on each planet).

      Say that all happens, would the DNA still be a match? How much would different environmental factors matter? Would the DNA be a match, or would it look like it came from a family member?

      You know what? I’m beginning to think these science fiction shows that give us a chance to see characters we’re familiar with act in completely different ways may not be entirely scientifically plausible...

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    Matthew CataniaAllison Shoemaker
    12/08/17 6:37am

    Thea quitting was one of the worst aspects of last season! Now that the team quit, it’s the perfect time to put Thea Queen back in action as Speedy! I get the feeling the writers don’t care about making me happy anymore though.

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      Evil LincolnMatthew Catania
      12/08/17 10:49am

      Totally agree. They had better have something really cool planned for Thea to make up for her not being on the team. I did like the badassery of her stepping in front of the much larger Quentin to protect him from Black Siren. And Black Siren’s threat that next time she would put “Speedy” back in a coma was horrifying on several levels.

      Is it weird that everyone calls her “evil Laurel” instead of Black Siren now? I don’t really mind, it just seems like a conscious choice that I am not sure I understand.

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    SpencerAllison Shoemaker
    12/08/17 8:21am

    Loved that scene at the beginning with Oliver and Lance. That was so damn touching. They have come so far, and it has all been earned!

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      MadMadMacSpencer
      12/08/17 9:13pm

      Yes that was nice.

      Though I have to admit I got a tiny Pulp Fiction vibe once I saw the wrist watch.

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    ohlisaAllison Shoemaker
    12/08/17 7:15am

    I don’t care for the OTA vs. newbies turn at all.

    Mainly because I’m wholly invested in Diggle, Oliver and Felicity as a team - I have been for 6 years. I do not care one bit about the newbies. While I think Rene working with the FBI to get his daughter back is understandable (weird, considering he bucks authority at every turn and Oliver was already taking steps to help him get her back anyway, but understandable), he didn’t ever act like he had real regret over doing it, which gives the impression that he doesn’t care very much about the lack of trust he got so angry over, so...no investment there.

    I also don’t care about Dinah being angry considering she was harping on Digg about his secret keeping while keeping her own. Curtis’s stance is...whatever, I guess, although if the team looking into him at first hurt him so much I’d think it’d affect him wanting to work with Felicity on their business as well.

    Curtis and Dinah also seem really unbothered by the fact that Rene turned, and completely unconcerned that any of this pesky vigilante business could be turned around on them. So dumb.

    I liked the scene between Quentin and Laurel I suppose, but I hope the story about her dad wasn’t supposed to give some grand insight into how she turned into a murderer. I hated Quentin’s hopeful “Laurel” after she let him go - SHE IS NOT YOUR DAUGHTER. That he’s trying to find traces of HIS kid in a complete stranger who happens to look like her is so dumb - especially given last week’s episode full of Nazi doppelgängers.

    Team Baddie is pretty weak. There’s Anatoly whose villain turn I can’t take seriously given the years of history between him and Oliver. I don’t care about Dinah’s drama, so Vince’s reveal is totally flat for me. I suppose I should worry that she’s cozying up with the enemy, but I don’t. Richard Dragon is 3D printing drugs, so he’s not exactly terrifying, and Cayden James is just walking around collecting random pieces for his villain arsenal with only a vague “I’m going to destroy your city” vibes. There’s no urgency or real sense of threat with these people.

    On the positive side though, I do like that Oliver admitted that he was being a bit hypocritical for being angry with Rene over something that he himself has also done. I think his character growth this season has been amazing, all things considered. I also enjoyed the reception - it’s nice to see these people having fun and doing things outside of crimefighting. Not sure how Felicity’s dad is walking around without being swarmed by the FBI - Samanda Watson is just really terrible at her job I guess.

    Anyway, Arrow - you’ve been my favorite show for ages, but you’re dragging. Pick it up in the second half, please!

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      pat34usohlisa
      12/08/17 11:38am

      Mainly because I’m wholly invested in Diggle, Oliver and Felicity as a team - I have been for 6 years. I do not care one bit about the newbies.

      Stopped here, could not agree more, I wish I had more stars to give.

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      pearlheartgtrpat34us
      12/09/17 6:19am

      I’m actually glad they are out (at least for now). Dinah was the only one I liked out of the three.

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    -samAllison Shoemaker
    12/08/17 6:06am

    Before this episode, if you had asked me about Felicity’s dad I would’ve said he was dead. I really thought he had died doing something heroic in the season 4 finale.

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      Raven Wilder-sam
      12/08/17 10:16am

      No, that was Felicity’s ex-boyfriend.

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      SpikeSeagullRaven Wilder
      12/12/17 7:33am

      As I was struggling to remember just who this dead ex-boyfriend of Felicity’s was, I came to the startling discovery that she actually has *two* dead ex-boyfriends: the hacker and the cop; and that is a poor track record, Felicity!

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    Evil LincolnAllison Shoemaker
    12/08/17 10:53am

    Rene, I believed in you. You let me down, Hoss.

    It was a nice touch when it was revealed that Rene’s place had flowers on the table and was cleaner than Curtis expected, because his daughter was coming over.

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    HiemothAllison Shoemaker
    12/08/17 3:39am

    I feel the show hitting those same beats is partially due to the show having been so reliant on the Batman approach while also not being able to logistically do what the Bat-books do. And I’m not claiming that as a slam on the show or refusing to acknowledge certain core differences.

    The eternal mistrust of Oliver, while constantly learning why he needs to trust his team, is pretty much from Batman as is the repeated disbanding of the team. However, in the comics it doesn’t happen every year as it is usually a shift in creative or cleaning the table for something new, for example the current BatClan is so bloated that it is basically guaranteed that the next editorial burn that thing to the ground. When that disbanding happens on the show, though, the creative doesn’t change and its basically a bump on the road to the same thing than before. Thus it ends up feeling a lot more repetitve than the comics, especially because they don’t want to commit to the sense that Ollie will die alone and how that family is the accomplishment.

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      Marshall Ryan MarescaHiemoth
      12/08/17 12:02pm

      “You were told one of us betrayed you, which was ABSOLUTELY TRUE, and you didn’t trust us?”

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    DarthWill3Allison Shoemaker
    12/08/17 10:42am

    I’m pretty sure that breaking up Team Arrow had been Cayden James’ plan from the beginning. Like the Thinker, he’s had his eye on them since the start of the season. We’re dealing with evil geniuses whose brains are more dangerous than any martial art or meta-human power combined.

    If I didn’t know better, I’d say James supplied Agent Walker with the info on Renee, which led to his becoming an informant. It would make sense, wouldn’t it? Not that I’m saying Walker and James are in cahoots.

    To be honest, I thought Evelyn was the informant. And why not? She used to be on Team Arrow. She may have even survived the explosion on Lian Yu. No surprise if she had gone to Walker in her quest for vengeance.

    Seeing Curtis stress-eat Renee’s burger made me laugh a lot. ROFL

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      AzureDarthWill3
      12/09/17 10:29pm

      I completely forgot Evelyn existed. Is it just assumed she died off screen?

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      DarthWill3Azure
      12/12/17 4:54pm

      Maybe we’ll find out in the rest of this season.

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    SpikeSeagullAllison Shoemaker
    12/12/17 7:47am

    1. I hope the first episode back from winter break gives us some sweet salmon ladder action. Oliver needs to work out these feelings of mistrust.

    2. The “you were spying on us” objection really rang false. Yes Oliver got too paranoid too quickly and should have just talked to the team first because that’s a healthier, more mature way of handling the issue, but the fact that they’re all always lying to and then forgiving each other makes it really hard to buy into concerns about personal privacy.

    3. I loved Felicity’s mom making a big deal about them not having a Jewish wedding. I wish they had a Jewish wedding (or reception). Especially the week after defeating inter-dimensional Nazis.

    4. I know it’s tough to bring in characters who have left the show for basically cameos, and then find an excuse to have them not get involved in the action and leave again, but it would have been nice to see Roy (although is he still on the lam?) or Rory (still hoping my boy Ragman makes a return).

    5. At least Thea was appropriately mildly bitter about not being invited to the “wedding”, considering Barry could literally have picked her up in one second and ran her to the ceremony along with Digg. Thea is the best.

    6. Leagues of Villains are harder to pull off than Leagues of Heroes because the villains typically have competing interests and clashing personalities/styles, so you have to give them a reason to work together and stay together without robbing them of their individual flair. Either you get lots of A-class psychos in a temporary fragile alliance, where the fun is watching them try not to implode; or you get one ringleader and a bunch of fairly useless criminals who become useful only to fulfill very specific roles. It looks like we have the latter here, but the framing of the show with everyone entering and stepping up to stand in line with Kaden? Bad. Don’t oversell these goons, Arrow. They are just goons. Focus on Kaden.

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