Loved it? Hated it? What did you think of Restoration?

[BkWurm1]

On the question of "Original Team Arrow" of course Oliver and Diggle worked together alone first but no one called Oliver and Diggle Team Arrow. No one used the term Team Arrow until Oliver had an actual team, not just one awesome guy. That's where the original team stuff comes from since they operated for a least the length of a season just the three of them. (Back half of 1 and 1st half of two) Then Roy was loosely added. Later Sara hung around for a while but even during that time in the back half of season two, Sara and Roy came and went.

It really wasn't until the start of season three that Roy was a regular and active teammate. And by the halfway point Laurel joined and by the end there was Thea but the facts remain, Oliver's team originally was just Diggle and Felicity. They have just a little more history working together than the others. He called them his partners by the halfway point in season two. Something Roy never got. Now the dynamic of the new team is more a coalition of equal voices. The original team just had a different kind of development. It's no big deal unless one wants to think otherwise, but it's a lot quicker to type OTA than Oliver, Diggle and Felicity.

As for Felicity scaring off Double Down, well I appreciated that for once the show acknowledged that a machine gun with seemingly no end of bullets is more threatening than a few arrows even if the operator was merely spraying the bullets in a constant but unskilled barrage. And the episode already provided the in show reason why he was leaving town rather than regrouping for another attack. Dahrk was only giving him the one chance. Not being prepared for a machine gun, Double Down had no choice but to back off. It's not a question of skill since clearly Felicity had none. The weapon is too deadly even without precision. It spits out bullets too fast for that to matter. And her very lack of skill made her completely unpredictable.

The only suspension of disbelief I have to suffer is why they never use such weapons in the field.

[DoubleDevil]

I just finished rereading the Forgotten Realms Avatar Trilogy (Shadowdale, Tantras and Waterdeep) and recalled how formative and influential Greek mythology was in my youth and why such world renowned writers like Homer and Plato were able to get me to absolutely dislike the mythos so completely that to this day I'm uninterested in any storylines involving the Greek gods. Such all powerful beings as the gods are reduced to spoiled, bickering children and humans are nothing more than pawns in their childish games. Arrow is going with the childish bickering and intrigue while elevating unworthy figures to near godhood in their perfection, and that with writers that are nowhere nearly as talented as Homer or Plato.

[Shelby Kent]

Arrow is going with the childish bickering and intrigue while elevating unworthy figures to near godhood in their perfection, and that with writers that are nowhere nearly as talented as Homer or Plato.

Now I know you're not talking about the most worthy Goddess Felicitas here .....

[DoubleDevil]

As for Felicity scaring off Double Down, well I appreciated that for once the show acknowledged that a machine gun with seemingly no end of bullets is more threatening than a few arrows even if the operator was merely spraying the bullets in a constant but unskilled barrage. And the episode already provided the in show reason why he was leaving town rather than regrouping for another attack. Dahrk was only giving him the one chance. Not being prepared for a machine gun, Double Down had no choice but to back off. It's not a question of skill since clearly Felicity had none. The weapon is too deadly even without precision. It spits out bullets too fast for that to matter. And her very lack of skill made her completely unpredictable.

The only suspension of disbelief I have to suffer is why they never use such weapons in the field.

"Seemingly no end of bullets"? Sorry but even a 30 round magazine is empty in well under 1 minute (I've fired a pistol for the first time in my life, changed magazines and emptied it too in under 20 seconds and that was 1 round after another without autofire) unless you can control the bursts and Felicity didn't take a second magazine. TV distorts such things continually but the threat is far smaller than usually portrayed (I hardly even hit the target, from 20 rounds I think I had 4 hits on paper with maybe 1 fatal hit and contrary to Felicity I was actually aiming and not shooting with my eyes shut). Fullauto fire is used for large mobs where you don't care who or where you hit (such as an approaching army) or to scare an opponent (usually termed "cover fire") because chances of actually hitting a target are very slim due to a lack of control over where you're targeting your shots and Felicity was obviously using fullauto (reminds me of a basic training army recruit that ran out of ammo and asked his drill sergeant how that happened). No doubt that a gunshot can be fatal and that even somebody completely unskilled can kill somebody but this scene was way to far out in leftfield for me even if I take into account that people don't need to reload in movies/TV. Why Double Down ran instead of facing Damien's wrath I can accept, I can't accept him not finishing off Felicity and Curtis seeing he's supposedly some hotshot assassin. It's the same misconception as Oliver claiming he was OK after taking Double Down's card to the chest because he was wearing Kevlar. Kevlar doesn't stop sharp edged weapons unless it's backed with ceramic plates, it only stops blunt objects such as bullets unless I've missed some relatively new revolutionary breakthrough in modern body armor.

[costas22]

On the question of "Original Team Arrow" of course Oliver and Diggle worked together alone first but no one called Oliver and Diggle Team Arrow. No one used the term Team Arrow until Oliver had an actual team, not just one awesome guy. That's where the original team stuff comes from since they operated for a least the length of a season just the three of them. (Back half of 1 and 1st half of two) Then Roy was loosely added. Later Sara hung around for a while but even during that time in the back half of season two, Sara and Roy came and went.

It really wasn't until the start of season three that Roy was a regular and active teammate. And by the halfway point Laurel joined and by the end there was Thea but the facts remain, Oliver's team originally was just Diggle and Felicity. They have just a little more history working together than the others. He called them his partners by the halfway point in season two. Something Roy never got. Now the dynamic of the new team is more a coalition of equal voices. The original team just had a different kind of development. It's no big deal unless one wants to think otherwise, but it's a lot quicker to type OTA than Oliver, Diggle and Felicity.

It depends on how each fan interprets things, but I consider Sara and Roy as members of the team since the early days of season 2 because Oliver brought them into the fray (Sara helped with the Mayor in Crucible and Roy started helping with intel in Identity). Even if they weren't members of the team all the time, at least one of them was when the other was missing. Imo it was just Oliver, Diggle and Felicity from episode 14 of season 1 until episode 2 or 3 of season 2. So if we look at the history of the team in numbers, it was just 2 members for roughly 11 episodes, 3 members for 11-12 episodes and over 3 members for the rest of the series. I fail to see what's so special about the "OTA", as the show itself established it.

But again, the mileage of each fan varies and I never had an issue with anyone considering Oliver, Diggle and Felicity as the original team. What bothers me is the show taking a clear stance on such a devisive matter and not even being subtle about it. By referring to the "OTA" 4-5 different times, it felt like an attempt to poke fun at those who disagree with the term.

[Haggard01]

Ok so here's my review. A enjoyable episode and one will I rewatch probably from time to time with being able to tune out certain things easier and that these days is saying something.

Now there are quite a few things I needless to say i just didn't like.

---

First the good stuff.

I liked the action in this episode.

Diggle and Oliver repairing their friendship to a degree or at least getting back on some ground was enjoyable and long overdue in my opinion.

The Nanda Parbat stuff was enjoyable all around.

Malcolm Merlyn well once again proves to me why I think he is the most interesting and better villains the show has done. He's one of my top 3 right alongside Slade Wilson and Damien Darkh.

I have the feeling that the Laurel/Nyssa friendship is well after this episode probably over.


I'm glad the Lazurus Pit is destroyed just so that crutch of well stick them in the pit is done for.

The Malcolm and Thea scenes are good as always. They really show how Malcolm needs the father of the year award. (sarcasm)

Sara is back. This should be interesting.

Curtis Holt is starting to grow on me.

I like how Diggle told Oliver about the truth about HIVE.

Also I did enjoy seeing the classic team from season 1 moments and if this is them working on getting the show back to what it once was then I'll take it. Plus I did like the drinks at the end just because good character moments and it's nice to see them being normal on this show.

The flashbacks because I know I'll probably go into detail later are getting to be really good this year. I'm enjoying seeing Oliver as The Hood really beginning to take shape considering that was one of the things that drew me into the show originally. I've missed seeing this badass version and having him with a hair cut works.

---

Now the stuff that I just didn't like.

Mostly it's just one person Felicity Smoak. I have a few new reasons for wanting Felicity to be the one in the grave.

The moment with the crane which I was just shaking my head as soon as they began doing it. Forcing her to oh look how she can be part of the action to hacking and controlling isn't this so cool? No it really it's not. Because other wise what's the purpose of Oliver and Diggle being there. Her usefulness comes from behind the computer only and not literally being there.

I just don't want to see anymore moments like this although I have the feeling they will.

Second the was the amount of times she used OTA frequently and it's like no they are not. I wanted to verbally puke my guts up due to the obviously Guggenguts pulled it word from word straight off of Tumbler/Twitter. There's fan winks and nods then there is stupid. This was just plain dumb.

Oliver and Diggle were the original team. Which yes two people can be considered a team.

Third was her telling Oliver and Diggle they need to resolve their issues. Here's the thing both Oliver and Diggle are grown men well over 30 most likely and Oliver said he was done waiting for Diggle to come around. If anything he should have been the one to say to Diggle your attitude is going to get us killed and any person caught in the cross fire due our personal problems.

Felicity shooting a machine gun and never getting hit by Double Down's card was just pure making Felicity the fan angel pandering. Basically in this episode and others her massive thing of never being able to make a mistake or make one and there is no consequences is what really aggravated me.

[BkWurm1]

, I can't accept him not finishing off Felicity and Curtis seeing he's supposedly some hotshot assassin. It's the same misconception as Oliver claiming he was OK after taking Double Down's card to the chest because he was wearing Kevlar. Kevlar doesn't stop sharp edged weapons unless it's backed with ceramic plates, it only stops blunt objects such as bullets unless I've missed some relatively new revolutionary breakthrough in modern body armor.

That's why I mentioned the never ending bullets, her gun didn't run out of bullets therefore he couldn't wait until she ran out, cause the TV version wouldn't. So it made sense for DD to take a hike. Dude is also an expert in ripping tattoos off his body and throwing them, not how long it takes to go through bullets. So yes, its a TV gun. That was my point to why he left. The comment about why they didn't bring them in the field was sarcasm but I should have used an emoticon to make that clear.

As for the Kevlar thing, it's still less painful than on the Flash where they used a cold gun to first freeze laser beams into something solid and then break them so they wouldn't trip the alarm.

I'm perfectly happy fanwanking that his suit does have those ceramic plates (or the Cisco equivalent) and that Oliver stopped listening to the details past "will stop bullets and knives"

[President_Luthor]

The ep. was okay for what it accomplished.

Ollie and Diggle needed to sort out their differences, and while I'd like to believe they could reach this conclusion without Felicity having to tell them to do so -- they both made fair points (though I would still lean towards Diggle's side of the issue). If they truly are friends and feel it's a relationship worth having then both sides do need to a) earn back the trust and b) be given the opportunity to do so. Yeah it was a bit cheesy that Ollie literally had to take a bullet/bio-playing card to earn this right to "make it up", but I guess it's a plus this means it's one less too-long grudge they can exploit in S4 for melodrama.

Anything involving the Pit, the LOA and Malcolm Al Ghul at this point demands a wide berth re: suspension of disbelief -- at least with me. Whenever any member of Team Arrow goes over there, the motivation could be anything from barely logical to practically hare-brained. Sadly, both Thea and Laurel going over there is closer to the (many) nutty schemes the team has had re: visiting Nanda Parbat. Thea for thinking and trusting that Malcolm could "heal" her in the way she wanted, and Laurel for thinking that bringing Sara back from the dead is wise. Keeping it a secret from Ollie is a non-issue at this point, since he wrote the book on secret-keeping on this series and, as Thea said, him leaving Team Diggle to their own devices during his hipster exile means he doesn't really get a say into what they do, not like in previous seasons when he was the undisputed team shot-caller. (And yes, I think Ollie's exile involved wearing ponchos, listening to as many obscure bands as possible, wearing ironic t-shirts, experimenting with hot yoga and drinking plenty of lattes.)

[I'm chalking up all S4 Nanda Parbat subplots to: it's unfortunate narrative blowback from wedging a backdoor LOT-related plot into Arrow, its purpose basically to bring back Sara from the dead. It may be too early to assign responsibility for how it turns out or how well it fits into S4, maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised, but I'm checking off the 'Convoluted subplot due to LOT' box now.]

I'm still hoping for a Nyssa faction vs. Malcolm faction LOA civil war and if Nyssa's Pit sabotage means we're on the road to it then I'm all for it. So she turned the Pit into ... a hot tub full of Pepto Bismol? And do we know if in this universe there is only one Pit ... or more than one? Darkh supposedly has a stash of Pit water so it remains to be seen if we've seen the last of the Pit's powers.

Felicity taking the elevator down to the Arrowcave can't be the greatest idea with DD in hot pursuit, but I think it was in character that she had no clue how to use an automatic weapon. And I do think the whole "since always" remark about her being a badass can be taken ironically. She knows she's not a badass on the combat front, I don't believe she thinks she actually is, and we know she's not ... but Curtis is none the wiser. He might not entirely believe it so much after Felicity's non-prowess with the gun, but it was a funny situation. We can only assume that it's Diggle's stash of guns since he's the only one on the team who uses it in the field. Ollie certainly knows how to use one but again, he chooses not to use them in the field.

We could debate forever the credibility of Felicity being a CEO or how she appears to resolve things in the nick of time (like the Pit, and Ollie surviving his first duel with Ra's due to penicillin and tea, one must invoke a degree of suspension of disbelief here), but in the context of the show I'm glad she does have another world -- the Palmer Tech one aka the "real world" -- where she has a role and a purpose. Felicity 24/7 in the Arrowcave ... now this would stretch credibility in the sense that she's bound to have a life (her job, non-Arrow circle of friends, etc.) outside of all things Arrow.

Quippy Ollie around Felicity I expect, but what I'd expect more is one day Diggle or somebody else telling them: "Hey kids, keep the PDAs off company time, k?" [Again I refer to the infamous "Schmoopie" scenes from Seinfeld]. Olicity isn't quite there yet, but make no mistake -- they've entered the off-ramp towards it.

I'm so glad Darkh is unapologetically evil and NM totally sells it as believable. Team Arrow is (rightly) so out of their depth with him at this point. They will need help.

[BkWurm1]

The moment with the crane which I was just shaking my head as soon as they began doing it. Forcing her to oh look how she can be part of the action to hacking and controlling isn't this so cool? No it really it's not. Because other wise what's the purpose of Oliver and Diggle being there. Her usefulness comes from behind the computer only and not literally being there.

When I complain about people complaining that Felicity should keep in her place, it is stuff like this that comes to mind. This is actually a problem? Seriously? She' been activating stuff remotely since early on. Blame the stunt team for wanting to mix things up if you want but there is no reason to think that if motorcycles can fly and humans can just yank teeth out that Felicity could not remotely operate the crane. It must be a thing because this isn't even the first time I've seen it done on a show. It's such a odd thing to complain about. She's helping too much? What? It's not like there will be cranes at most locations where the team is fighting. Although people plotzed when she shut a door last season as well.

Oliver and Diggle were the original team. Which yes two people can be considered a team.

But neither Oliver or Diggle thought of themselves as Team Arrow or even Team Hood or Team Vigilante. That came up when Roy was introduced and she admitted she called them that sometimes. They can't be Original Team Arrow if Felicity is the one that coined the term about her, Diggle and Oliver.

[BkWurm1]

Third was her telling Oliver and Diggle they need to resolve their issues. Here's the thing both Oliver and Diggle are grown men well over 30 most likely and Oliver said he was done waiting for Diggle to come around. If anything he should have been the one to say to Diggle your attitude is going to get us killed and any person caught in the cross fire due our personal problems.

They both went off separately, too stubborn to admit they needed help and both almost got themselves killed and neither were willing to admit it and they are all on the same team and their idiocy affect the hole team, yeah, she as the outside viewpoint and close friend to both was perfectly right to step in and call them on their foolish behavior. The whole reason she yelled at them was because they couldn't get to that place on their own, or at least not fast enough to keep themselves alive.

The resolution could have been that they couldn't keep working together but then that means then the team knows it needs to find some other boots on the ground back up for both or either. This stupid pretending everything is fine but taking dumb risks had to stop. Both were grown men but neither were acting like it. They got the scolding they deserved. I suppose she could have had Lyla tear into Diggle but she was out of town if you recall.

[BkWurm1]

And I do think the whole "since always" remark about her being a badass can be taken ironically. She knows she's not a badass on the combat front, I don't believe she thinks she actually is, and we know she's not ...

I took the question about being a badass and her answer, since always, to be a comment on attitude rather than fighting skills. Sure, she went through some decidedly non bad ass periods in her life, but the ability to keep going under pressure, that's always been there.

My bigger issues was why they would writer Felicity as not knowing a poker term when in season one we found that she knew her way around casinos and was a card counter. And lived in Vegas. And her mom was a cocktail waitress in a casino where Felicity kind of spent her childhood. How she managed to be an expert in card counting but not know the correct poker term is beyond me.

[JDBentz]

I took the question about being a badass and her answer, since always, to be a comment on attitude rather than fighting skills. Sure, she went through some decidedly non bad ass periods in her life, but the ability to keep going under pressure, that's always been there.

My bigger issues was why they would writer Felicity as not knowing a poker term when in season one we found that she knew her way around casinos and was a card counter. And lived in Vegas. And her mom was a cocktail waitress in a casino where Felicity kind of spent her childhood. How she managed to be an expert in card counting but not know the correct poker term is beyond me.

Agreed on this. Especially the whole 'she knows how to count cards, grew up in Vegas, but doesn't know a poker term' bit. When one calls back to 1x21, when she went into the underground casino, its ridiculous writing. But honestly, at this point, we can assume that the writers don't even know their own story anymore beyond the flashbacks.

[acer15]

The Cure for Thea was to kill someone in her family or blood line? If that is true I guess what they will have Sara do is take out her father now that his is part of H.I.V.E

[JDBentz]

The Cure for Thea was to kill someone in her family or blood line? If that is true I guess what they will have Sara do is take out her father now that his is part of H.I.V.E

No. In order for Thea to cure her bloodlust, which was inspired by the circumstances in which she was forced to use the Pit, she has to kill the person responsible for putting her in that position, the person who ran her through. But since Nable!Ras is dead, the only cure is to sate the bloodlust in the way her father showed her.

So if this show weren't focusing on just setting up "Legends of Tomorrow" at the moment, we might get a nice storyline about how Sara has to constantly fight the urge to kill Thea since she was the one, unknowingly or not, who killed Sara.

[BkWurm1]

No. In order for Thea to cure her bloodlust, which was inspired by the circumstances in which she was forced to use the Pit, she has to kill the person responsible for putting her in that position, the person who ran her through. But since Nable!Ras is dead, the only cure is to sate the bloodlust in the way her father showed her.

So if this show weren't focusing on just setting up "Legends of Tomorrow" at the moment, we might get a nice storyline about how Sara has to constantly fight the urge to kill Thea since she was the one, unknowingly or not, who killed Sara.

It was pointed out to me that the actual phrase was whoever "hurt" Thea. Leaves door open for Malcolm to get what's coming to him maybe?