Arrow. Green Arrow tv show.

Yes. They do stuff like that every so often.

There was an episode season 3 (forget exactly which) where the entire Act One was basically nothing but an action sequence.

I wonder if that's a writing choice, or a directorial one.

http://comicbook.com/dc/2017/03/27/arrow-brings-katie-cassidy-back-as-a-series-regular/

yay

I'm reaching my limit.◊

So she's coming back, what are they doing to do with her?

edited 27th Mar '17 1:24:21 PM by Cross

kill her off again because twitter still likes felicity better?

Hmm. See, though, this isn't her. They aren't bringing back the Laurel that died. They are explicitly bringing back her Evil Twin from Earth-2, Black Siren. Who they have already been shown to be, if not evil, at least very, very bad.

It would be very, very interesting if they tried a redemption arc for Black Siren. Because she looks like just Laurel, but is very different. So when Quentin or Sara interact with her, it would be very different.

Plus, they already have a new Black Canary, Dinah Drake, on the team, so would that mean they would have two women with sonic screams? Or is Dinah going away?

Guess I haven't followed this season as well as I thought I did, but how in the heck is Prometheus on the same level as Oliver? It makes a good connection the comic book character, in that he seems to have an equal, if not superior skillset to the entire Arrowteam (high political position, ninja skills, competent ally in Artemis the same way Diggle is to Oliver, less competent, albeit likable black party member in Church (Curtis), and money and resources probably through Talia (Felicity).

That makes sense.

But what I don't get is the emphasis on Talia this season. She's the reason Oliver is so skilled? She's the reason Prometheus is skilled, she trained him?

What.

Seasons 1 and 2 emphasized that Oliver was becoming The Hood through his experiences on Lian Yu, with Yao Fei, Shado, and Slade. Those five years in hell made him someone else... something else.

But now Talia walks in and suddenly her training is just better. I can buy that for Oliver, maybe she's the part of his training that finally conceptualizes the Arrow persona, fine. Oliver already has the physical and mental capacity, he just needs guidance.

But Prometheus had none of that. Unless Talia abducted him and trapped him on an island for five years, what did Adrian have? Malcolm I could buy, because there's an undisclosed number of years he spent in the League of Assassins. The wiki says Adrian spent four years training but doesn't describe at what point this began - we know he spent a good deal of time just investigating Oliver.

Even if he'd spent his time studying the Hood, Talia wouldn't have any reason to train him until after the events of Season 3, so the four years Adrian spent obsessing couldn't all have been dedicated to training with Talia to hunt Oliver. I'm not sure what the time gap between Season 3 and 5 is (the wiki is saying that Adrian found her in 2015), but still.

Did Oliver's Training from Hell count for nothing? It's bad enough that you had random mooks kicking his ass in Season 4, but now this asshole can just train with a ninja-lady from Ninja Assassins R' Us and instantly be as good, if not better than Oliver (split his arrow with a shuriken, easily got the jump on Church, which Oliver failed to do throughout the first third of the season).

Granted, Laurel trained with Nyssa for x weeks/months and was able to fight off League ninja who'd likely trained most of their lives, and then Oliver went from getting sodomized by Ra's to beating him in the exact same kind of duel, and of course there's Malcolm, who despite being older and unprepared was able to take Oliver down in their second battle - so this might not be unprecedented.

edited 28th Mar '17 5:27:13 AM by Soble

Ollie's experiences on the island aren't what made him a good fighter. They're just what made him particularly ruthless and disturbed enough to become the Hood.

But then Talia added onto that by giving him fighting skills. Fine, that makes some sense, ignoring how Amanda decided Oliver would be a good assassin/agent in Seasons 3 and 4 because screw those seasons.

But Adrian has no excuse - he just went to Talia and came out Adrian: Ninja Warrior.

Ollie had some fighting knowledge from Lao Fei, Shado and Slade. Talia just made him better. And seeing as how she was trained by the League of Assassins, I fail to see how her making Adrian a skilled fighter is a problem.

But he did it in arguably 1-2 years. Without any of the hardship Oliver went through. Talia built upon what Oliver already had forged inside him. Adrian is a sociopath.

You have a man who spent 5 years surviving, hardening himself to the world training in multiple disciplines, albeit haphazardly, versus a man who lost his dad, trained with a ninja, and came back stronger, tougher, and more agile than him.

Malcolm at least, likely, spent years with the League. How are the al Ghuls so good at training that people become Bad Ass'es in a matter of weeks to months?

edited 28th Mar '17 6:56:08 AM by Soble

Hmm. See, though, this isn't her. They aren't bringing back the Laurel that died. They are explicitly bringing back her Evil Twin from Earth-2, Black Siren. Who they have already been shown to be, if not evil, at least very, very bad. It would be very, very interesting if they tried a redemption arc for Black Siren. Because she looks like just Laurel, but is very different. So when Quentin or Sara interact with her, it would be very different.

Sadly, I don't have any faith of this turning out well.

You're focusing on just one example of writer inconsistency though.

Why is Oliver nearly matched physically by Adrian? Rule of Drama-that's it.

Its why Vigilante can fight Oliver one and one and the outcome somewhat be in question but Vigilante can also go toe to toe with Wild Dog, Diggle, and Mr. Terrific and take two of them out (the only reason Curtis got the win and not one of the others was because it was his episode to shine).

This is an action tv show, not an RPG with hard defined stats. And even if he was, maybe Adrian juts rolls really well.

I don't think Ollie had any extensive hand-to-hand training until season 3.

As far as I can tell, he spent a year or two learning how to hunt, shoot, and fight with knives and swords from Slade and Shado, and then he picked up a lot of brawling experience until year four (he's still kind of sloppy in terms of fighting when he's in Hong Kong, but seems fairly skilled when he's back on the island). In Russia, he learns about explosives and other criminal activities, spends a lot of time street-fighting, and Talia apparently shows him some torture techniques off-screen, as well as inspiring him to synthesize those talents into the Arrow persona. However, we don't see them do any intensive training, and it doesn't seem like he spent that much time with her.

My point is that Ollie seems to come into season 1 without any formal or long-term training, before being trained by Ra's Al-Ghul himself for a time (several weeks? months?). If we assume that Chase begins his transformation into Prometheus post-season 1, then he has two years to train non-stop in martial arts, without any of the distractions that Ollie had. Then, post-season 3, Talia picks him and gives him another year of League of Assassins training. If we assume that Chase is the same kind of freak-of-nature, physically speaking, that Ollie seems to be, this seems reasonable to bring him to a similar level.

I wanted Black Siren to become a regular Flash villain.

Every one of Diggle's scenes reminds me that if Amell got tired of the job and left, that the show could easily continue on.

Not that I want that to happen, but dude deserves to lead his own show at some point.

So a few more police are dead, the Bratva hate Oliver, and the hacking group are probably going full supervillain probably next episode, and all for what?

Moral victory, hooray.

The action in these recents episodes alone is better than those in all of Iron Fist, which is very disappointing to say. And now it seems that Chase is on the defensive, at least for one episode. Better than nothing I guess.

We've got several episodes left. Honestly, Chase probably hasn't hit his high note yet-nor should he have.

I wish Oliver had stayed broken a little bit longer to give it actual weight and meaning. Fingers crossed he won't suit up anytime soon.

Well, at least they outed Chase as Prometheus to the public. So he's going to have a hard time just walking into City Hall now.

Other than that, the episode was kind of lame in that it was pretty much Diggle telling Oliver over and over again that he wasn't going to give up. I kind of wish that this had been more like Angel Season 2, where Angel fired everyone, went kind of dark, and ended up sleeping with Darla. At least then, the arc lasted for more than one episode.

I do like that Curtis is becoming more badass — his T-Spheres are pretty awesome now and I like that he was the one who made it possible to out Chase.

<.<

Thank you for that.

I think making Oliver's funk only last one episode was a calculated choice. His extended evil period in season 3 was, in my opinion, one the lowest points of the show. Of course, a happy medium would have been ideal, but I think the writers playing it safe was better than the opposite.

I really like the turn with Anatoly—going from Ollie's conscience in Russia to becoming a genuinely evil villain, without losing his sincerity. He's a genuinely tragic character in many ways; even if we don't see his actual fall, his actor is really selling me on him being a bad guy wracked with guilt.

edited 30th Mar '17 11:33:49 PM by illegalcheese

Anatoly is also proof that Prometheus is wrong, he's not someone who moved towards evil because Oliver was in his life, he's someone who made that move because Oliver wasn't there to hold him back.

It'd be funny if Anatoly, despite his enmity with Oliver pointed that out to Prometheus if he had the chance.

If someone who doesn't even like Ollie anymore was willing to defend him like that, it'd punch a real hole in Prometheus' philosophy.

Then again, Hypocrite that he is, I doubt Chase would even care.

Technically, Anatoly would never have become head of the Bratva without Oliver, so Oliver is sort of responsible for Anatoly being in such a corruptive position.