X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

aka the “how many tropes can we cross off our list” episode…

Laurel, whose father is a recovering alcoholic, is turning into one herself over the death of her boyfriend and of course won’t listen to anyone.

Surprise, Sarah is alive but won’t tell her family cause ‘things’ and she is having something of the same existential crisis as Oliver did so of course he has to mentor her.

Felicity isn’t even dating Oliver but seems to feel the need to be jealous at everything because her character is being reduced to a love interest.

Oliver saves the life of the man he’s at odds at making them friendly.

Said man being the good guy who wants to help the people but, surprise, is actually the bad guy, go figure.

Oliver does surgery on himself to remove a bullet and despite having no medical training manages not to cause massive internal bleeding or rupture a vital organ.

But hey, “the Mayor” having his “city hall” in the strip club… now that is classy.

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Have the writers ever even read a detective novel? Or even watched an episode of Law & Order?

There are almost a dozen victims and two… TWO… use the same hand cream. “That can’t be a coincidence!” Really? That’s how you going to have him break the case, with a huge freaking leap in logic instead of actual detective work which may lead to discovering several of the women to have purchased said hand cream. Why do the writers continue to ignore basic logistics? Because yes, it can totally be a coincidence, especially when you haven’t looked at anything else yet and just pluck that out of the air.

And OMG Laurel, it’s not all about you, you freaking whiny diva. Your father nearly lost you cause of that crazy serial killer, he has this wonderful emotional moment, then Arrow comes in and saves the day, and all you can think about is yourself and your bloody guilt for being the biggest idiot by deciding that exiting a burning building was more of a guideline than a legitimate strategy. I guess they were trying to go with a ‘near death life changing experience’ for her but it played out horribly.

Though, that said, this is one of the better episodes because, amazingly enough, Oliver didn’t have the lead in it. It was mostly about Dresden and the serial killer, and also Harper and Black Canary (or whoever that is).

I amend my earlier statement, can this show be about Diggle, Fecility, and Dresden (Officer Lance, whoever, he will always be Dresden to me).

Seriously, there was more emotion and real gravitas in this episode with Dresden than seen all through last season with Olivier. Paul Blackthorne is an under-appreciated actor and really sold this episode. When he was there thinking he was going to watch his daughter die, the man freaking brought it and you felt for him… moreso than any of the blank-slate or overly whiny/angsty stuff seen by the rest of the cast.

Then whiny Laurel had to ruin it.

But hey, Doc Fraiser, always good to see her.

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Can we just make this the Diggle and Felicity show?

Seriously, Oliver is a complete waste of space and totally unlikable as a character. This would be good if he was the antagonist or even if he was a secondary character, but he’s the title character! But him and Laurel are painfully annoying in their characterizations, esp since both have now done 360s. Now Arrow doesn’t kill and now Laurel is ‘vengeance is thine!’. On paper, it sounds good, in practice, it’s just a little WTF? It’s called ‘character development’ not ‘character shake it like a Polaroid picture”.

Speaking of WTF, the flashbacks are as pointless as ever and only serve to make Oliver even more unlikable and seemingly stupid (hello, unprotected sex in the jungle?).

Diggle and Felicity are the only characters that really seem to have heart and consistency. But Oliver continues to crap all over his friendship with Diggle, only at the end of the episode apologize for being a douche, then continue to be a douche in the next episode. Felicity is the smartest one of the bunch and her sassiness is a welcome break from the brooding, except she keeps being reduced to the ‘awkward innuendo statement’ and yet another girl who has the unexplainable hots for Oliver.

On a side note, the sister has been much less annoying so far…but we’ll see how this whole thing goes down with Roy “Red Arrow” Harper helping out Oliver. He might be good for her, we’ll see.

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I think the writer’s notes got mixed in with the script…

There is a lot of dialogue in this episode that is literally just the characters talking about their characterization and about how they should probably change it. Oliver shouldn’t really kill people. Oliver and Laurel really should feel guilty for what they did. Etc. Everyone was getting character shifts, flipping on how they were last season due to the events in the Glades. Some of it’s reasonable, but others it’s like the writers figured this would be better for the character, so let’s change it.

While yes, it’s a good thing that Oliver isn’t just dropping bodies everywhere, and seeing Tommy’s stupid death (cause it was literally stupid, he just stands there waiting for the roof to fall) can change a person… the way it’s presented is so monotone and simplistic that I can’t help but wonder if these writers even understand the meaning of nuance?

Oh, and everyone is still whiny.

Seriously, everyone whined, except Walter, but he had like five lines.

The logistics weren’t nearly as bad… no, strike that, they were. Olivier’s Tarzan swing in the beginning was way to slow or that landmine was way too old. And if they had to parachute onto the island… then how did they get off it? You know… I’m just gonna stop there.

The good news is that the show hasn’t gotten any worse, they didn’t try to drastically change up anything (which might have actually been a good thing, but also very bad). So fans of the show are going to get more of the same. Which is good for them… and…. yeah… this is going to be a long season…

p.s. City of Heroes was an awesome game…

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Arrow: A Study In Hypocrisy.

Seriously, I kinda lost count as to the how and why Oliver kills people… I mean, four episodes ago Oliver killed all of Vanch’s underlings without batting an eye but like “No, you can’t kill Vanch cause that would be vengeance not justice!” Erm… huh? What about the underlings? I’m so confused…

As for Huntress, I admit not being up on the Green Arrow or Birds of Prey mythos… but I’ve been told she’s not a bad guy. Is this some kind of Xena stuff where she starts out bad and eventually is made good? Maybe she forsakes the horrible goth-wannabe wardrobe and starts kicking it old school? Perhaps that’s for season two…

Okay, so the River Song meeting Dresden moment wasn’t as epic as I had hopped… in fact… did Alex Kingston forget to act? Seriously, what was going on there?! What was she going for, the anti-River Song?

Oh, and Oliver loses another girlfriend… I’m totally rolling my eyes… his love life is really annoying. There are too many other relationship things going on right now with other people that something has to give and I think Olivier’s should be it. Yes, he’s the lead character, but we need to see him characterize through being Arrow… his relationships with his family and friends… not though his girlfriends. Ugh.

Speaking of relationships… Thea was getting it on with Red Arrow… so ‘Speedy’ was making out with ‘Speedy’… I understand them wanting to skip the Robin-esque background of the original Speedy but calling his sister Speedy instead and then having her hook with him… creepy… and what was up with that knife fight? He just decides to randomly do a really bad interpretation of Spider-Man? What can I say, it was awkward.

Now, when this show started, the flashbacks at least tried to tie into what was going on in present time. However, now the flashbacks is just like a mini-series running alongside Arrow as its own thing. That kinda makes it better now… as much as it’s annoying that they are wasting time they could be using to flesh out the characters, the flashbacks actually now have a purpose and a drive independent of the present story. This shows promise.

But I’m still confused…

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And the writers prove they (unfortunately) understand the meaning of irony.

That building had nothing but glass windows… and Captain Jack was standing there for like half an hour… so why didn’t Deadshot shoot him?  Why didn’t Deadshot go for the head-shot? Why did only the one cop go up to the stairs? Why didn’t she find her way to the penthouse? But before that, why was he having a date on a night he KNOWS something will happen?

Seriously, the logistics of this show drives me batty sometimes!

Speaking of Bats… towards the end were they channelling Spider-Man ala Green Goblin? Psst, that’s Marvel! Though I suppose it could be canon to the Green Arrow comics… I can’t be bothered to check it out. I do read DC’s Suicide Squad and Floyd is a much better/complex character in it than in this show.

Overall, it was still a better episode than the front end of this season, they toned down the relationship drivel and didn’t do too much with the flashback… but it still wasn’t a good episode by any means.

Oh, River Song shows up and says “Hello Laurel”… no “Hello sweetheart”? Arrow. I. Am. Disappoint.

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