Loved It? Hated It? What did you think of "My Name Is Oliver Queen?"

[Dagenspear]

I find it funny that Guggenheim is apparently Satan while Kriesberg (your DC Lord and Savior) writes what you all consider to be the worst episode of the series and he gets a cop out because "he's preoccupied with Flash"

Good Lord you all are insufferable. This season has not been perfect by any stretch of the imagination (ahem Olicity ramped up to 1000% for the Tumblr fangirls) but you all act like the apocalypse is nigh. This show is still good and at worst decent enough. If you don't like it then by all means please wait until it comes out on Netflix or whatever because by watching it live or on DVR within a week you are sending a message to the studios that you appreciate the direction of the show.

Rant over.

The show isn't decent. It's below average. It's a D. It used to be a B or C.

[Carmine-Infantino]

They just released the "Legends of Tomorrow" trailer on line. It shows Sara climbing out of the pit and Ray shrinking for the first time. Getting to see Sara fight with her staff again was a real treat.

[President_Luthor]

It would be such a waste if Heyerdahl (an incredible actor: the stuff he's doing on Hell on Wheels is Emmy-calibre) was only used in the finale just to be discarded. And Darhk, whoever he turns out to be, does have water from the Lazarus Pit. Once they introduced the Pit, death on Arrow is not necessarily a permanent thing. Ask Sara. Even Ra's 1.0 -- who is essentially immortal in the comics -- could return if the Pit is in play, though it's a moot point now that Malcolm is Ra's 2.0. (3.0 if we're counting Ollie's brief reign before the sneaky LOA handover in Thea's loft). And if herbal tea and penicillin is enough to bring Ollie back to life, then anything is possible.

It's fine that they want Arrow (and more so in Flash) to be a springboard for a new superheroes, my only concern is that this should only be secondary to telling Arrow-universe-centric stories. They should be wary of slipping into the superhero/easter egg bonanza trend they did in the later seasons of SV, where everyone but Clark seemed to get more focus. They seem to have a better handle on it with Arrow and Flash, but it's still a slippery slope and a case could be made that focusing on ATOM played some part in detracting attention from some of the more Arrow-centric plots and characters. In some ways it's unavoidable -- they needed to give ATOM/Ray a proper launch as a superhero, and one who could hold his own on another show -- but this show is Arrow ... not Justice League. Team Arrow's roster, both inner circle and associated allies, has grown by more than a few members now, so any future superhero origin plots on the show should be used sparingly and wisely.

[Quark]

They just released the "Legends of Tomorrow" trailer on line. It shows Sara climbing out of the pit and Ray shrinking for the first time. Getting to see Sara fight with her staff again was a real treat.

Whilst the trailer looks awesome it kind of makes the whole of Season Three with Sara's death redundant. I can just imagine everyone having a go at Oliver for making Malcolm the next Ra's but then it is revealed, out of the goodness of Malcolm's heart, that Sara used the Pit. Then all is forgotten.

[134sc]

I have not read everything online, but from what I've seen it looks like this episode is getting some negative reactions.

This whole season has been a set-up season, in that, the whole plot was designed to get Oliver to this point. To this point where he is in a good place and that he wants to explore living...not just existing. I was always under the impression that Oliver started his crusade based on a sense of pride and duty; not because he enjoyed it. This season especially it was quite obvious that he was getting tired, both mentally and physically. As much as Oliver told Diggle he did not want to die, I believe that was more wishful thinking then anything else. Oliver knew that there was only one way this ends: death. And when it became apparent that Ra's would stop at nothing to see Starling perish, he was ready to sacrifice himself in order to save his city. But as with most plans, his failed, but in a good way. It allowed him to see what his crusade has spawned in Diggle, Laurel and Thea and it also allowed him to really examine what he wants out of this new found opportunity at life.

We can argue the execution of this season endlessly. Personally, there were some awesome moments, some not so awesome moments and some down right stupid moments. Regardless, what cannot be argued is where we leave Oliver Queen: happy. This is significant because when Oliver decides to dawn that Green Hood again, for whatever reason, he will be in a much better place. My hope is that he lightens up a bit, doesn't take himself so seriously and maybe starts to enjoy his hero status (from what I've read it seems as though that is where the creators want to take him).

As for this episode, I don't understand what people were expecting. This episode is just a microcosm for the season. It heavily focused on the mental and emotional aspects of Oliver and his team, with some cool action sprinkled in throughout. This episode had to be viewed through the filter of this season, and in doing so I really enjoyed it. Plus, I was hoping that Oliver would end this season in a happy place and be better positioned to be more emotionally stable going forward, so the fact that this happened made me excited for whats to come, because I know that this show will get back to its GREEN ARROW roots. So that's a big plus for me.

Finally, for those of you that will really miss this dark tone. Fear not, I believe that flashbacks will have that covered. Where present day Oliver and flashback Oliver are in terms of their mental state are complete opposites. I appreciated the parallelism. Flashback Oliver is truly now on the road to pilot Oliver.

Looking forward to season 4

[SteelyGal]

Just formally announced Caity Lotz will be playing the White Canary on the spinoff show.

So they are bringing Sara back as a villain and an enemy of Black Canary.

[Carmine-Infantino]

So they are bringing Sara back as a villain and an enemy of Black Canary.

Don't know if she will be a villain or not, but Caity Lotz said in an interview Sara's personality was going to be different, and there would be consequences from using the pit. I think it's a pretty safe bet the two Canarys will clash at some point. I just want to know who gets stuck telling captain lance his dead daughter isn't dead ...again.

[Amarice]

To cut the long story short - the scene I enjoyed the most was the Arrow's hood and stuff being stored in boxes police's evidence room. Also Lance's words "Another attack? Wait, it is this May already?" made my laugh and the twist with Merlyn becoming next Ra's was something not so obvious.

Although this episode was quite watchable - Barry's cameo, Oliver's plan to crash the plane to bring down Ra's, destroy virus and killing himself in the process, Oliver losing his humanity after torturing that guy and confrontation with Damien Darhk accomplice - those were good scenes.

But then again we had again loads of nonsense, more Olicity (yeah, sure, the only thing Ollie wants is to be happy with Felicity, apparently he doesn't want to save his city any more), plane crash, which nobody could surivive, Ra's jumping out of the plane without putting on the parachute first and what I found the most riddiculous of all - Oliver suriving three sniper's shot straight to the chest. Srsly? I wonder how dumb it all can become?

The finale mirrors most of the season three - very, very poor with a bunch of separate scenes/subplots which made sense/were enjoyable. Happy that we finally reached the end of it. Wish season 4 was better, but I right now I don't believe in the showrunners. First they would have to realise what crap they were doing this whole season and apparently they think that the show is getting better. On the contrary. They managed to ruin pretty everything, which I liked about season 1 and 2.

[OPRIAL]

+ Malcolm becoming Ra's
+ Damien Darhk, seems like a dominant villian which they need to save the series.

- Ra's, they made him ridiculous. They made the whole LoA ridiculous.
- Felicity, how couldn't Ray land his suit after having it for like a month (flash 1x18) while Felicity just put the suit on, knew exactly where Oliver would fall and land perfectly.
- Oliver didn't even name Tommy when he told Malcolm that he would never forgive for what he did to Thea and Sara. Cant see why he would forget his bestfriend for life who died in front of him while talking to his father.
- The ending, I would accept the ending if it wasn't a season 4 but WOW that was weird, boring and ridiculous.

Episode: 2/10
Season: 4/10
Best episode of season 3: The climb 8.5/10
Best villian: Brick 8/10

Character rating
Diggle: 6/10 - Didn't do much this season
Laurel: 8/10 - Good development but it went too fast, excited for her in s4.
Thea: 6.5/10 - Liked her for ep 3-14 but then she didn't do much but good development for her too.
Quentin: 2/10 - Didn't do anything, he just existed, got annoying in the second half of the season.
Ra's Al Ghul: 5/10 - Good actor, started in a good way but they could've done so much more with him.
Roy: 7/10 - The character I was looking forward to the most, he was great and took some big steps while Oliver was "dead" but they could've done more with him aswell
Maseo: 5/10 - OK, not so much to say about, they should have shown some training between him and Oliver in the flashbacks.'
Nyssa Al Ghul: 7/10 - One of the hottest characters on the show (Huntress). But I wished they would've use her more. Hope she's in s4.
Oliver: 7/10 - He showed great leadership in the first episodes but was mentally knocked down after ep9. He was great as Al-Sahim and that would have been a nice storyline, didn't like what he became in the end. He listened to Felicity too much
Felicity: 2/10 - I rated her 9 in s1 and 7 in s2 so what happened? Her role was too big, being Olivers computer experts, Olivers "girlfriend" and being Ray's "girlfriend" and that didn't fit her. She should stay the way she was in s1. They made her a superhero in like 1min. Cried too much.
Olicity: 0.2/10 - It started out pretty cute with those quotes in s1 and a part in s2, but then it got out of control. And the ending was just disgusting.

[SteelyGal]

I was not a fan of this episode. Oliver promised to bring Sara's killer to justice but instead he made a deal with her killer by making him the new Ra's al Ghul. Yet, I am suppose to be fine with it because Oliver gave him a tongue lashing at the end. (A side note, bringing Sara back from the dead using the Lazarus Pit doesn't give Malcolm a pass in my book.) Then having to watch Nyssa knell before Malcolm nearly made me vomit. Maybe she is willing to give Malcolm her loyalty in exchange for him using the pit on Sara. Since they are bringing Sara back from the dead, the fear of dying no longer exists on this show because they can just bring the dead back whenever they want with the pit. So Laurel, don't worry about your dad's ticker ever again.

I felt like Felicity whined through most of this episode which I found annoying along with her willing to let countless of people die just so Ray could save Oliver. I'm not surprised she used Ray's suit to save Oliver because she has shown she is willing to do whatever it takes to save him. When Oliver and Felicity return, I hope they have a strong and healthy relationship that lasts until the series ends so we are not inundated with relationship woes.

I really wish they would give Black Canary her own show. Even though in the hero department, Laurel has made great strides this year, I feel the show is not allowing her to be the great heroine she is suppose to be. I hope I am wrong and next year her fighting skills will surpass that of the White Canary, we will find out she is a metahuman and she doesn't need an electronic device for her Canary Cry.

[President_Luthor]

134sc: I think you've summarized well what they wanted to achieve with this finale. Ollie is long overdue some peace of mind and they wanted to get his character to a place where he won't snap and crumble into broken mess. His soul has taken a severe beating and does need a vacation. I won't even begrudge Felicity for going along for the ride, symbolically speaking. It would be hard to get Ollie to his GA destiny if his soul is broken by series' end. The execution of it had its flaws, but you're right in that they wanted to get Ollie to a better place than he was at the start of the season.

It will be a brief respite and no one should expect that it could -or should- last for long. On this show, happiness comes rarely and lingers around less so. Not even Ollie is immune to this reality.

I'm expecting the flashbacks in S4 and 5 to take Ollie to pretty dark places. And he will have to go there to become S1's The Hood.

I think most viewers would agree that they overplayed the Olicity hand this season, to the point where it eventually affected the season finale on several fronts. In other reviews I've read, they've suggested that Felicity is more in love with the idea of Oliver Queen / The Arrow eg. as a hero, as a symbol than the man himself. She sees him as the embodiment of a latter-day Robin Hood and the cruising into the sunset represents her idealized notion of her dream becoming reality. (It also begs the question: which "version" of Ollie is she really in love with? Does this idealized version of Ollie even exist?) Ollie wants to believe it's true, even needs to believe it -- but with his past and his fragile conscience it will likely prove to be just that: a dream that can't be realized in the end.

It's been said before, but they've spent most of S3 telling us (repetitively) that Oliver and Felicity have believably made the transition from friends to lovers. (And, no, "it happened in the comics Season 2.5" doesn't count here. If we didn't see it on screen -- it didn't happen.) Whether this transition was convincing enough for viewers is a matter of debate. As a viewer, I'm still not 100% sold on it.

They kept hammering away at it, hoping the audience will accept it, flaws and all, but all it did was reinforce the idea that they wanted us to digest their melodrama without suffering indigestion.Subtlety, as opposed to this season's blatant pandering, would have gone a long way in changing this impression.

It didn't help that Ollie appeared to be increasingly clueless or indecisive as Season 3 wore on without Felicity's input/advice/wisdom Even if Diggle and others gave the same advice.

Felicity has an important, critical role on the series. Just not the one she occupied in S3 -- that of a CW network romantic foil and Season 3 melodrama standard-bearer.

(And, yeah, Ollie, if you're going to hold a grudge against Malcolm do it properly. You will never, ever forgive him for what he did to Sara, Thea -- and Tommy, your best friend, during The Undertaking in Season 1. Tommy must be royally miffed over in "CW dead characters' purgatory" )

[BkWurm1]

what I found the most riddiculous of all - Oliver suriving three sniper's shot straight to the chest. Srsly? I wonder how dumb it all can become?

In the next scene Nyssa says League armor saved his life which was also implied from the way SA played it after Felicty saves him with Rays suit.

they've suggested that Felicity is more in love with the idea of Oliver Queen / The Arrow eg. as a hero, as a symbol than the man himself. She sees him as the embodiment of a latter-day Robin Hood and the cruising into the sunset represents her idealized notion of her dream becoming reality. (It also begs the question: which "version" of Ollie is she really in love with? Does this idealized version of Ollie even exist?) Ollie wants to believe it's true, even needs to believe it -- but with his past and his fragile conscience it will likely prove to be just that: a dream that can't be realized in the end

.
The show flat out has her say repeatedly that she knows who he is no matter his name or if or not he is wearing a hood. She's the one that is able to point out to Oliver he doesn't have to just be Oliver Queen or the Arrow, that he's become something new. She accepts all who he is. She loved him even when she thought he'd been brainwashed. She knows him better than almost anyone. She doesn't have an idealized love for him, I mean for goodness sakes, she just forgave him for letting them all think he was killing them AND once again dealt with his tiresome habit of tring to fix his problems by dying. She knows his flaws. Doesn't matter, she loves him.

Even when she was furious with him for going against his own principals and yes, betraying Sara's memory, she only said she didn't want to be a woman he loved, never that she stopped loving him.

And it is Oliver with the dream of riding off into the sunset, not Felicty. His dream. One that he had nearly every night since he almost died.

[Red_Arrow]

Holy frack, that episode was... not very good. Everything seemed so rushed—streamlined as an attempt to cover up the messy writing for the episode and Season 3 as a whole—and failed to reach the mark because of it. Perhaps, I expected too much. I hoped against hope that "My Name is Roy Harper... uh, I mean Oliver Queen" would fix all the problems Arrow had this season, writing-wise. And change my outlook for Season 4. Neither happened. Oh well, at least it's over and I can put it all behind me. Next season can't be worse, can it?

There were some good moments. Quentin's "The city is under attack. Must be May!" line was probably the best. One line doesn't make an episode good, though. I also liked Ray's final scene where he was talking to his suit, but the explosion was unnecessary and held little weight. Although, it is possible that some viewers didn't know about the spin-off (my mom didn't). Malcolm taking over the League was cool as well; however because Sara is returning, Laurel and Nyssa's feud/grudge with him will be lessened. Sounds like a dead storyline to me.

Overall, the finale was an anticlimactic mess and overwhelmingly disappointing. But I'm hoping Season 4 changes its course to avoid the jagged rocks ahead. A watery grave awaits if it doesn't. 7/10

[NightHawk777]

Something tells me no one on the team, including Felicity, will be fine with Ollie handing over the LOA to Malcolm. I'm assuming Ollie telling Malcolm that he'll never forgive him for what he's done to Sara and Thea was supposed to soften the blow to this unpalatable arrangement when all his deal would do is give Malcolm the means to launch more mayhem on a grander scale. This is one secret/lie that will be nearly impossible to justify -- to anyone -- if(when) Malcolm misuses this power. I am truly hoping that Nyssa is going to try to undermine him at every turn and that an internal LOA civil war breaks out. There's still a reckoning due re: Sara's death.

For me there is a lot that was left undone with all of this. Sara's death was once a huge deal, but now it's been swept under the rug. The only thing I can see they may salvage it is if they make Malcolm a big bad guy for this spinoff where Sara is back. Anyway, I'm not thrilled with the way they "wrapped up" this story line.

I also found it amusing how Ollie said he would never forgive Malcolm for what he did to Sara and Thea. It's realistic, but all I could think of was - Did you learn this from Slade too Ollie? Because wasn't this similar to Slades justification in season two?

Most fans want the shipper melodrama to be dialed down on this series, esp. myself (I wanted it set aside this season so that all hands on-deck could focus on ... more and better character development? ... but we all know what happened -- they went with full-throttle Olicity, which ultimately did little in my books to help either of them on the character development front). When they gave Felicity an actual backstory episode this season, I had hopes they were going to further develop her -- and this is key here -- outside of the Olicity bubble. Then it seems they either scaled it back or neglected it completely as the season went on, opting for the well-worn shipper melodrama route.

The Felicity-as-ATOM rescue scene only underlines what many Arrow viewers unattached to any particular ship feel: that they've turned Felicity from an interesting, independent character from S1 and part of S2 into yet another CW Network romantic foil whose fate will be invested in how well or poorly they fare with the protagonist. We can only hope that we'll get a bit of that S1-2 Felicity back in S4 and they leave S3 Felicity behind with the wreckage of that big cargo plane that Ollie operated so expertly.

I agree. I've been rewatching season one with a friend and Felicity is really fun there. Watching that and this season so closely she must have grown or something because it seems OOC. And really, all of these scenes in season one where Ollie has Laurels pic and staring at it. That whole thing seems a joke now. I suppose if I want to keep watching the superb stunt and fight coordination, I am gonna have to roll with Olicity.

(Does anyone else think the Flash could just as easily have done the last-minute save of Ollie at the dam? It would have been so easy to put that in and then have Barry go: "You're ok? I gotta run and deal with Wells.")

Me . I like the way Flash was in this episode, and how Ollie was in the most recent Flash episode [SPOILER]and helped take down RF[/SPOILER]
They kept their respective appearances brief, and useful in the larger scheme of the stories.

It's no surprise that the characters who got their personal melodrama scaled back or at least pushed into the background -- Laurel, Thea and Roy -- became my favourite characters of the season. And Diggle stepping out of the limelight will be hard, especially since the team will need his no-crap common sense advice now more than ever.

I have a feeling that next season is going to begin with Diggle having some big problems.

This season is my least favorite of the three. I no longer feel that I understand present day Oliver. I have enjoyed the flashbacks this season, and I hope we see Tatsu again in the future. I hope the crossovers with Flash and other shows continue. I hope they bring Heyerdal back, I really loved him as Todd (SGA) and Bigfoot and Jack the Ripper (Sanctuary). I also hope the season flows better when rewatching it on DVD.

[NightHawk777]

Perhaps Oliver as mayor is in our future?

Mayor of Starling City is a temporary position. On this show it is such an action packed government position, I've lost count how many have been assassinated.