Loved it? Hated it? What did you think of Nanda Parbat?

[starbead]

I really liked this episode.


It was bit predictable, especially since I've been lurking here a lot the last week looking for clues (my fault for spoiling it for myself...), but it still kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. The ending may not have been a surprise for me, but it is a twist for the characters. None of them will see it coming. In the next ep, after Oliver scrapes his jaw off the floor, he gets to go home and explain to everyone exactly why he's not dead. I am especially looking forward to Nyssa's reaction to that one.

The fight scenes were great, but what really held me was the interactions between characters. All of Diggle's scenes were awesome, as well as Thea and Roy. Laurel and Nyssa discussing Sara was nice, too. I could almost picture Sara laughing at Ra's.
I also really like Felicity and Ray. That part did surprise me. Glad to see her with someone who makes her happy. And that "when I'm with you I forget all about the mission" line is exactly what she wanted to hear. Oliver isn't gonna say that any time soon.

Laurel/Canary rage-fighting Merlyn, and she's lucky; he clearly wasn't even trying. Oliver is right about her being ruled by her emotions. Not complaining about Laurel, really. I like the character, LOVE her as Black Canary, I just wish she wasn't always angry. Maybe if they dosed her with miracuru then put her in a snake venom coma for a few weeks, she might mellow out a bit. It did wonders for Roy. (I kid...maybe).

Also, really liked the contrast between Merlyn terrified and begging for his life, and Oliver fearlessly pleading for Diggle's. Actually, considering all of the scenes between Ra's and Oliver (all three of them), the offer makes a lot of sense to me. Oliver has made an impression. I'm guessing that doesn't happen to Ra's all that often.

If there was any disappointment, I guess I was expecting more of the episode to to take place in Nanda Parbat. I'm sure there's more to come in the next ep, though.

People are questioning Oliver's motives for saving Malcolm and/or trying to work with him to bring down Ra's. It was actually explained, at least to me, during the Oliver/Diggle scene. Oliver was PISSED that Ra's beat him (the fall) and he does not want to lose again.

This. Oliver gave the "save Thea's soul" thing, which was still partly the reason (and has been hinted at since last season), but he didn't actually know why he needed to go face Ra's again. He just knew that he did. Diggle brought it up before they left and again when they were chained to the floor, where Oliver finally admitted that Thea's soul wasn't the only reason.

[strike101]

to be honest im putting a fork into this season. I'm gonna wait till all the eps are out and then watch them all back to back. then onto season 4. this has been highly disappointing

Characters are making utterly ridiculous decisions left right and centre. Some of the highlights:

- Oliver putting Malcolm under his protection from the league because apparently he cant protect thea
- Malcolms grand plan of having Oliver kill Raas. I mean he MUST know Oliver has no chance there if he doesnt himself!
- Thea going MENTAL at malcolm because he didnt tell her Oliver is the arrow. After everything Malcolm has done, apparently that tipped her over the edge?
- Olivers all too predictable "I cant be with Felicity because i'm the arrow". <- not that I'm complaining that they're not together. I hate Olicity!


The only positives are Nables Raas and Brandon Rouths performance. The rest of the story is going nowhere.

[Backward Galaxy]

I got the feeling that Thea's guilt was over what she'd done to Sara, not so much turning Malcolm in. So I will say that I can somewhat understand him keeping the secret from Thea about her role in Sara's death, but him going to rescue Malcolm was not nearly about Thea but about himself. And in doing so, he put Diggle in danger and risked Thea having his death on her conscience.

I don't think I agree with your interpretation. I think Thea's conscience was affected by all of it. Whether or not she feels responsible for Sara's death is unconsciously moot to her because she absolutely is responsible for Malcolm's (in her head, she assumes he's dead). So, murderer or not, she is a killer, and that is why she gave the sword to Nyssa. She can't deal with that right now.

And selfish may not be the right word, but he disregards the feelings of others all too often. Like asking Thea to put her feelings aside and work with Malcolm, or failing to see that Laurel deserved to know what happened to Sara and failing to show even an ounce of sympathy or empathy when she did find out.

To be fair, Laurel did the exact same thing to her own father. She hid the truth about Sara's death because she was afraid of what would happen to him.

[smllvllfn]

I thought the episode was ok, but not as exciting as they were making it out to be. I was more shocked with Oliver getting stabbed and pushed off the mountain. Ray and Felicity I find to be forced. I think Barry and Felicity seemed more natural than Ray and Felicity. Their last scene last night just made me think that they just made Felicity what Isabel told Oliver everyone thought she was last season. I got a laugh out of Thea telling everyone what she did after Oliver told her not too, though I didn't think Laurel would blame her.

[dreamsofnever]

I don't think I agree with your interpretation. I think Thea's conscience was affected by all of it. Whether or not she feels responsible for Sara's death is unconsciously moot to her because she absolutely is responsible for Malcolm's (in her head, she assumes he's dead). So, murderer or not, she is a killer, and that is why she gave the sword to Nyssa. She can't deal with that right now.



To be fair, Laurel did the exact same thing to her own father. She hid the truth about Sara's death because she was afraid of what would happen to him.

You could be right about Thea. I still do wish that Oliver showed more care toward the people in his life, but hopefully that's part of his journey this season. It was good that he finally realized that he'd been a little foolish in the scene with Diggle.

And you're very right about Laurel hiding the truth from her dad being very similar. I didn't care for that plotline either. I definitely won't say that Laurel has been perfect this season, but I am a little weary of the 'secrets and lies' plotlines and it doesn't speak well to any character that's lying to another for their own good.

[Spudinnsky]

Great Episode!!
My first reaction to the end of the episode was: "Wow, that's pretty awesome, being chosen by Rah´s to be his successor"
but then i realized that A: IT IS for the League of Assassins and B: There´s no way Oliver would ever accept that role! I don´t think we have the slightest possibility of that come to life, but it would be pretty awesome to see Rah´s training Oliver to be his successor and eventually Oliver nailing Nessa (I´m just saying ahaha). Other Interesting thing that could happen is Arrow discovering his lost child and bringing him to the League.
Then I kept thinking about how could that possibly happen and occurred to me that if Rah´s threaten to Kill his entire fam and friends that would be possible. Rah´s would claim one last wish as "king" of the LOA and say that his fam and friends would only be safe as long as He was the King of LOA. I totally could see the directors head that way at least for a couple of episodes until Arrow figure out a way that deal.

[Spudinnsky]

OMG Felicity is turning in to such a unlikable character! uhrg!
1st the constant wining and complaining and almost crying every time she talks;
Now the sleeping with ATOM wtf!? She kissed Barry and Now Ray? - the show directors totally messed that up for us, in my opinion.
They got away with her kissing Barry but SLEEPING with Ray before giving it to Oliver!? Well, that's love right? lol, total BS btw. They could ´ve continued to tease us with a possible relationship between Ray and Felicity as they did with Barry but to me shes is Oliver´s ***** no matter what, but now shes just a Super Hero groupie honestly that's how i saw her after sleeping with Ray. They could have easily added another hot women in ATOM love cycle without taking the charm out of Felicity´s character. She went from a Adorable super honest, geeky but awesome sexy hacker personality to a Wining, unlikable *****. To me her sleeping with Ray means that she´s gonna sleep with all Hero complex muscled guys (sorry), even more when it came to my knowledge that Ray will push Felicity back. It will be like: hey ***** thanks for fixing my suit and helping me with it and having sex with me btw bye xD She will kinda deserve it, but it will bother me a lot when that happens and she will "finally" remember her love for Oliver (just like a *****).

I really hope they bring back the clumsy talking fascinated with Arrow sexy hacker Felicity next season. She became almost as unlikable ***** as Laurel (whom i never liked as a character btw), a character that only messes things up even more for everybody!

[strike101]

OMG Felicity is turning in to such a unlikable character! uhrg!
1st the constant wining and complaining and almost crying every time she talks;
Now the sleeping with ATOM wtf!? She kissed Barry and Now Ray? - the show directors totally messed that up for us, in my opinion.
They got away with her kissing Barry but SLEEPING with Ray before giving it to Oliver!? Well, that's love right? lol, total BS btw. They could ´ve continued to tease us with a possible relationship between Ray and Felicity as they did with Barry but to me shes is Oliver´s ***** no matter what, but now shes just a Super Hero groupie honestly that's how i saw her after sleeping with Ray. They could have easily added another hot women in ATOM love cycle without taking the charm out of Felicity´s character. She went from a Adorable super honest, geeky but awesome sexy hacker personality to a Wining, unlikable *****. To me her sleeping with Ray means that she´s gonna sleep with all Hero complex muscled guys (sorry), even more when it came to my knowledge that Ray will push Felicity back. It will be like: hey ***** thanks for fixing my suit and helping me with it and having sex with me btw bye xD She will kinda deserve it, but it will bother me a lot when that happens and she will "finally" remember her love for Oliver (just like a *****).

I really hope they bring back the clumsy talking fascinated with Arrow sexy hacker Felicity next season. She became almost as unlikable ***** as Laurel (whom i never liked as a character btw), a character that only messes things up even more for everybody!

Are you serious? Felicity has been incredibly unlikeable for a long time now. Ever since she became a permanent team arrow member really. The whole olicity is Ruining the show and I'm over the moon she's with atom now! Hopefully olicity is ktfo for good

[dark sister]

Meh... I didn't hate it, but they crammed way too much plot in just one episode. It felt rushed and none of the plots had enough time to develop properly

[President_Luthor]

It was a pretty good episode. I tuned out the alleged "hype" around this episode, so the reveal about Ra's looking for a successor in Ollie was a surprise to me, if not unexpected. They've borrowed from the Batman mythos before and Ra's seeking an "heir to the demon" is another example. It could be interesting to see how Nyssa will react, esp. with Malcolm saying that Ra's was not fond of the Nyssa-Sara pairing and that it might affect her place as heir.

Most of the secrets and lies this season have, in one way or other, been addressed as of this ep. and I'm beyond relieved Laurel and Thea aren't going to bear melodramatic grudges over the Sara secret for weeks on end. And kudos to everyone for calling out Ollie on his too-long secrets and lies nonsense. There were some great moments with Thea and Roy, as well as Laurel and Nyssa. Laurel going off to attack Malcolm was reckless, of course he was going to best her -- but her scene with Ollie underlined the point that she doesn't answer to him in the way the other team members might. Olle spent much of this episode explaining everyone's motives (or at least, what he thought they were), whether it was his place to or not. Ollie may be in a catch-22 situation re: needing Malcolm to defeat Ra's, but it wasn't going to sit well with Laurel or Thea that they are helping the guy who had a hand in killing Sara. Thea has had a lot of secrets and lies to digest in a short amount of time and while she may be "innocent" of actually killing Sara, she will be responsible if Malcolm is killed. Ollie may have been stoking the melodramatic fires this ep. on other fronts, but on trying to save Thea's soul from the guilt of killing her father he was on the money.

I won't go on about what others have observed about Olicity here and this season in particular, only that the more the show has fanned it, the worse it affects Felicity's character development. Now that Ralicity has moved on to the next level, we finally get a pause/relief from Olicity. The Ray/Felicity stuff could just as easily have been cut-and-paste into another episode, its only link being Felicity not liking Ollie's scheme to go back to Nanda Parbat. Ollie accomplished two things by going there: 1- he got to be a best man, and 2- he got himself an unusual job offer.

With the bulk of the secrets/lies and the Olicity nonsense behind us, I'm hoping the next few eps. will be good.

[dark sister]

OMG Felicity is turning in to such a unlikable character! uhrg!
1st the constant wining and complaining and almost crying every time she talks;
Now the sleeping with ATOM wtf!? She kissed Barry and Now Ray? - the show directors totally messed that up for us, in my opinion.
They got away with her kissing Barry but SLEEPING with Ray before giving it to Oliver!? Well, that's love right? lol, total BS btw. They could ´ve continued to tease us with a possible relationship between Ray and Felicity as they did with Barry but to me shes is Oliver´s ***** no matter what, but now shes just a Super Hero groupie honestly that's how i saw her after sleeping with Ray. They could have easily added another hot women in ATOM love cycle without taking the charm out of Felicity´s character. She went from a Adorable super honest, geeky but awesome sexy hacker personality to a Wining, unlikable *****. To me her sleeping with Ray means that she´s gonna sleep with all Hero complex muscled guys (sorry), even more when it came to my knowledge that Ray will push Felicity back. It will be like: hey ***** thanks for fixing my suit and helping me with it and having sex with me btw bye xD She will kinda deserve it, but it will bother me a lot when that happens and she will "finally" remember her love for Oliver (just like a *****).

I really hope they bring back the clumsy talking fascinated with Arrow sexy hacker Felicity next season. She became almost as unlikable ***** as Laurel (whom i never liked as a character btw), a character that only messes things up even more for everybody!

Felicity doesn't own Oliver s***, he was the one who pushed her away, and she has the right to go on with her life, meet other people, and sleep with whoever she wants because she is a single woman.

Seriously, this comments about Felicity being a s*** and a w**** because she had sex with a man she finds attractive make me sick

[JDBentz]

I've had some time to assimilate the story and think about it from what one would call an 'objective' perspective. I watched the episode again and put myself in the mind of someone who would have NOT spent a whole lot of time on forums like this one, hashing things out and speculating down to the last minute detail of what could happen. Guess what? The show WOULD be a game-changer if I hadn't spent all the time speculating on forums like this.

Regarding Felicity's decision to sleep with Ray: if you're pissed about this, than I say you're a rabid Olicity fan who can't handle their little fantasy world being broken. Guess what? Felicity told Oliver she was moving on, basically, and she has. Oh, and for once, she was a bit more like her old self, and less of the whiny crying irritant that she has been the past few episodes. Felicity is not owned by ANYONE (unless you count DC Comics), and honestly I've always found that sort of mentality SICKENING. I don't care if you're a man or a woman, if you see the world in that fashion, you need to get out in the world and realize that things are changing. This is not the comics; nor are things going to be so orchestrated as in the comics, where they have a relative plan to follow. The writers and showrunners of this show have said themselves they've gone off in a direction they didn't intend on occasion and usually its paid off.

Regarding Ra's' offer: if you've bothered to read the articles available here on KSite, you know that there was always going to be a very different villain for this season. Let's face it: if they did the whole 'destroy Starling City' plot again, the city would be declared a hazard zone and the people moved out. They even established this in the first episode of the season, that another attack like that might have truly dire consequences for the city. So this time, the threat is not so much to the city, but to Oliver himself. This season they've said is about identity and the battle for Thea's soul. If I'm not mistaken, Oliver took down several LoA members LETHALLY last night (though if the LP is in play, they might not be dead completely). Ergo, he has reverted, slightly.

Also, as others have pointed out, unlike with Batman, Oliver IS a killer (reformed or resurgent, you decide) and therefore the offer to be in charge of the League would be more tempting to him.He has said many times this season, and Slade himself said this as well, that Oliver Queen is slowly being scraped away, leaving only the Arrow. This season has to be about him finding that balance, and having the temptation of the League, where he can fully allow himself to do what he feels is necessary for justice, is definitely going to help with that decision.

I suspect that once Ra's knew Oliver lived, he had decided to test him. But I don't think he had already decided such when they dueled.

Me? I stay by my rating of 10 for story, and because if I hadn't spent all this time speculating with everyone here on the forum, the episode would have ended with a game-changer.

[Arrowaddict22]

I still go back to what Diggle said to Oliver a couple of episodes ago - the arrow team has become more than Oliver's crusade. The producers have said that this season is about identity crisis for Oliver. So here we have a fork in the road - he can continue to serve justice on his city, or he can serve justice on a global basis. Oliver can leave starling city and leave behind everyone. they are all pretty much better off than they were when the series started: Thea is now sober, Diggle has purpose, a wife and child, Roy is not the angry youth getting into trouble, Laurel is well ......Laurel

[Carmine-Infantino]

I gave the episode a 7. It had a lot of good individual moments, but sort of blah when you put it all together. The action and the fight scenes were quite good, but that's due to the stunt team, not the actors. The big problem was that it was all so predictable. The writers promised a big twist, and didn't deliver. They need to stop over hyping the show, and giving out too many details ahead of time.

[spotteddog]

Overall I gave the episode a 7. Thea had some really good beats, especially in her interactions with Laurel. I always enjoy seeing Malcolm have a prominent role in an episode because his character is so damn easy to hate - love it !! I did not like or not like the Ray/Felicity scenes - the whole situation seems so damn contrived, I guess I just don't care.

I do have one big question though - is A.T.O.M. ripping off Iron Man or Superman ? Because this dude bears absolutely no resemblance to the Atom of the comics.