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[sc:astop]As Oliver continues his battle with Cayden James, and the old and new Team Arrow trios work closer together, strong opinions and leadership strategies on both sides clash over whether to trust Vigilante, leaving our heroes facing conflict from both outside and inside the Arrow cave.
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[sc:as]
I would like to play the Flash card already, why is Dinah not the focus of this week’s banner Cammie, she was there! 🙂
I’m conflicted because realistically this is probably a good episode but the more I think about it the more I want to slam my head on a desk over things mainly pertaining to Dinah; maybe it’s my fault for expecting a deeper story but then again what’s wrong with wanting quality?
The reasons I dislike this episode are because of the following…
1. I don’t like Black Siren froze killing Vince and it wasn’t because she was debating on how! The guy betrayed the team she should have no problem taking him down, she has killed for less! Quentin has not been in her head long enough to make her doubt things and she even said then she’s not Laurel so please stop with the redemption tease; there is nothing wrong with having quality bad guys for an extended period of time “Arrow”; you did Malcom why can’t you do Black Siren?!
2. Everything that has to do with Dinah excluding the last literal minute of the episode because BRING ON ANTI-HERO DINAH!
Poor Dinah felt so much like the girlfriend I feared they’d make her in this plot instead of being the awesome addition they introduced when she appeared. To be fair to the writers they did like 40% good on setting ideas up but the follow though was 60% bad; for example: as a former undercover officer, who by the way got caught for pushing things too far, Dinah should have known not to call Vince back when Cayden said meet in 5 minutes because if he wasn’t suspicious before he would have been then, it just felt like an unnecessary move especially given Vince sent the files. Again her choices lead him to getting killed and after one time at that you would think she’d be more cautious. They could have had her at least argue it with the group!
It felt mainly like Dinah reacting to her hero boyfriend instead of doing that plus still being her badass self; she just felt kind of sidelined to me in order to speed things up and I wasn’t crazy about that because it made her feel kind of out of character. I’m fine with her wanting to help Vince, but she didn’t feel completely like the Dinah we’d met who advised caution on missions because she knew what could happen if you screwed up.
Also yes Vince turned out to be a good guy but I still feel it was unrealistic Dinah was on his side so fast; true they have history but she also saw him kill people and attack the team and as Cammie says he did leave knocked out in a park versus letting her wake up at home/a hospital so it would have been more organic to me personally if she had reservations about trusting him. She could still be sad he “died” (note: quotes are in use as I’m applying soap opera rules to their version of Wolverine – if we don’t see him buried, we must see the 100% on the spot tested DNA backed identified body in the casket then it closed and buried, and the grave undisturbed for at least 6 months before you can be pretty sure the person is dead) but it doesn’t mean she had to believe his story completely from the start. I wanted to throw up each time they kissed because it felt so cliche.
And what is with Canaries not attempting their cries in situations? Okay I’ll give the writers points here as a beam was on her chest area but she was kind of talking so couldn’t we have seen an attempt to try in that extreme situation? She didn’t know if the boys were coming so for all she knew she was going to die there as well – even if you can’t knock off the beam at least show a baby sound wave trying because Dinah doesn’t seem like someone who would freeze under pressure in that particular situation. Again I get her not knocking it off, I’m fine with that, but at least show her trying.
I understand I might be being a bit hard on the writers this week and things aren’t as bad as they seem and I’m possibly faulting them for other writers mistakes but I just don’t like the feeling that Dinah felt more like a cliche girlfriend in a superhero costume than Black Canary who’s loved one that did shady stuff so she had a right to have reservations about them was in danger. Again she just felt more reactive than making choices that fit her past situations and current knowledge. And again maybe it’s due to the history of female characters getting this plot a majority of the time that has me overly sensitive but I just did not like how Dinah was written overall this episode.
Again to be fair to the writers she was not as bad as I’ve seen other female characters treated but I do think they could have done a little better with her writing arguably. I’m just glad they didn’t have Dinah fault Felicity for Vince’s death when he did get called back thus causing her to leave the team and give evil Laurel a spot because that would have sucked all around so that is something good they did with this episode and the character.
NO REDEEMING EVIL LAUREL!!! I’m fine with them teasing her redemption but please don’t do it writers as you need long term quality villains and if you bring “Laurel” back it’s just going to make people angry again you killed her off in the first place instead of letting her retire to show that’s an option for heroes as well. Also Katie Cassidy is killing it showcasing these talents please continue to let her do so longer than half a season! #KeepBlackSirenEvil
I’m all for anti-Dinah showing up as she’s the version I got excited by in her intro where she questions the team and Oliver isn’t the only dark one on the squad; anti-heroes, or even the idea a character is an anti-hero, are hard to come by on series so I’m for Dinah showcasing that type of character. That said lets pump the breaks on killing evil Laurel please as we just got the cool villain!
A nice promo by Lord Mesa for the event – https://mobile.twitter.com/lordmesa/status/959473865985474560/photo/1 .
The repeat plot with Dinah and Vince which lead nowhere overall, they basically ended up where they started, is just another reason I’m not keen on this episode; I love it’s Dinah heavy but sadly it didn’t really do anything new as Cammie said so it just leaves me feeling bummed versus excited.
The catch 22 choice was great and I’d love to see more of those on the series; I do feel Vince could have waited because as Diggle said he’s Wolverine so he could last longer than Dinah thinks especially if it’s just a rookie torturing him but I do get Dinah going with her history. It was just a really great organic drama plot for the episode! Also I’m with Flash in OTA does need to be in check at times because Oliver does not have the best record of making good choices, true the mission might succeed in the end but it will arguably cost you more in the end because of his lies breaking the team or people being killed because of situations they go into to help him out. I get they’re the originals with experience so I’m fine with them having a majority of right calls but their record shouldn’t be perfect.
It’s a great debate topic to toss out there but I’m left asking “Why would Alena be anti Oliver?” and if she has the power to turn Cayden on him why couldn’t she be the Cayden herself if she wanted revenge on him…how does someone else taking him down satisfy her if she is the big bad? They’re in a lose-lose situation I think if they involve her too much because if you say she’s pro team then as Flash debated it kind of makes Felicity pointless as well as lowering the others ability to pull off big jobs but if she’s pro Cayden she’s just like the others working with him and that’s nothing new so I’m not sure I want to see her involved anymore than she has been personally. She helped the team win a battle but not the war yet so that’s a good showcase of her talent without making the others feel irrelevant. She could be a bad guy later but for now I lean towards her sitting the rest of this story out myself; a fun discussion though!
Very well said by Flash regarding why Arrow needs a team; if you increase the strength of the good guys you can bring in more realistic bigger bads to fight and that makes for good action moments so while I get what Cammie is saying I do feel it’s a good thing they’ve added members.
Lol you know it’s bad when Cammie won’t even talk about Renee, “I’ll just say one thing and then I’m not talking about Renee anymore this episode”.
If they’re going to do a true raging Canary plot for Dinah I hope they don’t just sway to the side of her causing problems because she’s emotional because that would be annoying to me for the fact Dinah is also a detective so she’s got intelligence thus for every issue she creates she should have a moment where she also succeeds. If they just have her screw up so Oliver can yell at her later to seem like a top dog I’m going to be very disappointed! Again given her track record with undercover work I’m for her making mistakes but I don’t want that to be all she does on this mission – let her succeed as well to show her tactical and planning skills so it’s believable if we see her leading the squad or even part of the squad one day because Oliver needs help.
Julianna’s costume is definitely better!
No to Dragon killing Cayden unless they’re going to be doing something huge with him afterwards because so far he’s not done enough for me to buy he could lead after Cayden, certainly not Anatoli or Black Siren at least. Honestly Dragon is about as memorable as Boots, as Flash called him, at this point and until he’s on screen I forget he could show up at times; they just haven’t done anything memorable with him after Diggle got better, you could have had anyone selling him the drug at this point and nothing in the plot would change. If anyone in the group kills Cayden I’d rather it be Anatoli because I could see him leading and it would add to him becoming KGBeast later for sure because I can’t see Laurel doing it as she had the chance but didn’t take it this episode; she could go do her own thing if Anatoli took over because she has no loyalty to him, although then working together in an episode could be fun to see, and then we could get rampaging evil Laurel which would be fun!
I’m honestly starting to sweat this Cayden plot paying off because I worry it’s either going to be really anti climatic after all this great build up or it won’t make sense; granted there’s nothing to support it won’t go well but I’m just nervous because it’s been so good so far it would be sad if the payoff didn’t match what we’ve seen so far.
“The Devil’s Greatest Trick” is the halfway point roughly for the season so could this be the end of Cayden by revealing to him he’s been played and we have the real big bad for the rest of the season? If Cayden does go would it be via death or might help team Arrow defeat the bad as a way to say sorry and then escape leaving him to become a recurring character? Okay that last part wouldn’t be very satisfying but it’s just a thought that’s popping up right now. It could also be in relation to how Dinah goes on this rampage faulting others, rightfully so because they killed Vince physically, only to learn it was really because of her choices that Vince died and had she not rushed to save him he might be alive so she’s created all of this destruction for nothing really thinking she was doing some good.