Loved It? Hated It? What did you think of "Reversal?"

[President_Luthor]

I won't add too much on all things Felicity, other than they continue retconning Oliver's motivation for being a vigilante in the first place. Lots of lionizing, somewhat disingenuously on the part of the show, of first Diggle and then Felicity's role and influence on his choice to be a vigilante.

Anyone remember righting his father's wrongs, saving his city, or honouring Tommy's memory etc. That's not fan headcanoning, that's series canon.

I'm not saying they had no influence on his mission, they have, and their influence has grown in recent years -- but the prominence they place their influence on him 'from the start' is exaggerated at best esp during his pre-S3 era. None of them were on Lian Yu, Hong Kong or Russia. What's Yao Fri, Slade, Anatoly etc. ... chopped liver? (It's similar to Alex on SG saying Kara wanted to be a reporter her whole life. Uhh, no she didn't.)

Having said that, I would welcome FBI involvement in digging into Cayden, Elena, etc. One can hope for some realism on this front. Domestic terrorism seems like a good reason for federal involvement. Maybe there will be blowback on Helix and friends down the line.

Sure there was some coddling of Felicity esp. from Oliver's end, no surprise ... but I was pleased to see Diggle as team lead tell Felicity to take a time out aka this isn't a request.

I was also happy to see Oliver briefly get over his post S1 fear of computers😄. Oliver also said something about the Overwatch setup being so user friendly even William could use it.

Less seriously, maybe the Civil War clash isn't between Diggle and Oliver, but between Diggle and Curtis ... over the title of top Olicity shipper. By the end, they'll both be weeping as much as drunk Barry on this week's Flash. Guys, there can only be one Maid of Honour and Thea probably has dibs on it.

Unless it comes out that Iris is much closer to her as a friend, in OffscreenVille, than even the series itself realized.

Curtis: "You've been Skyping with Iris every week for the past three years? And you've been going to Mexico together every Xmas? She's your BFF?! I thought your big secret was that Caitlin was still Killer Frost. All the truths I once knew have melted into nothingness..."

[Amarice]

I won't add too much on all things Felicity, other than they continue retconning Oliver's motivation for being a vigilante in the first place. Lots of lionizing, somewhat disingenuously on the part of the show, of first Diggle and then Felicity's role and influence on his choice to be a vigilante.

Do you mean that they're doing again something like this with OTA/Olicity, shoving it into the viewers' faces?

Anyone remember righting his father's wrongs, saving his city, or honouring Tommy's memory etc. That's not fan headcanoning, that's series canon.

I remember. That's probably why it was a good decision to get off on the stop called Season 5 finale. Sigh.

[President_Luthor]

Do you mean that they're doing again something like this with OTA/Olicity, shoving it into the viewers' faces?

This week was Felicity's turn re: lionizing her character and giving the shippers some fan service. 'Cause as you might have heard, they apparently "suffered" so much neglect in S5 thanks to the emphasis on the Prometheus arc.

Last week, the show was putting Diggle on a pedestal when he was having doubts about assuming the GA leadership role. One could argue Diggle was there from the beginning, sure -- but the impression left after Oliver's pep talking him was that Diggle was a, or even 'the', significant reason/cause for his becoming a vigilante. Huh? They were laying it on a bit thick that ep., unnecessarily too. Have you not heard your own opening credits monologues from S1 and S2, Oliver Queen?

I could accept Diggle being one of the significant reasons why Oliver would continue with his mission, esp. in S5 when Diggle kept the team afloat when Oliver had thrown in the towel -- but this is a different notion from what they're trying to suggest now: that Diggle had a much bigger/important role in it 'from the start' than what actually transpired on-screen. Diggle was actually around when Oliver first donned the hood in SC back then, but he sure wasn't around on Lian Yu, on the Amazo, in Hong Kong or in Russia.

In this ep., they laid it on a bit thick for Felicity in this regard, which is regrettable as they haven't done it as much in the previous 3 eps. I will say they are trying to write Felicity as a character (as in, outside the the Olicity stuff) a little bit better in S5-S6, objectively speaking, compared to S3-S4. Her having a start-up with Curtis may finally give her a life outside of the Arrowcave, and might give Curtis something more to do.

With the caveat that they still cling to the irksome things that bugged me about the OTA stuff: the lionizing, the series saying that someone is trustworthy, inspiring aka telling vs showing, the inexplicable retconning/revising of Oliver's motivations in order to bolster or elevate an OTA member etc.

The plus is that Wild Dog was the b.s. caller last ep. and (rightly, I might add) brought up his concerns about Diggle's rocky start as team lead to Oliver. Lives were at stake and Rene had more than fair grounds to raise any concerns with Oliver.

And in previous eps. it was Dinah who was the constant b.s. caller in Diggle's situation. Diggle coming clean would make the most sense -- and he was this close to doing so -- but he chose not to when Oliver handed him the GA mantle. CW and secrets 'n lies, they can't resist it.

In this ep., Diggle did in a sense "order", not suggest, a time-out for Felicity during her Alena-related hijinks, but most of the time esp. around Oliver, her Helix/Cayden-related errors in judgment/behaviour are glossed over.

It's all the heavy-handed OTA lionizing (an unfortunate throwback to S3-S4's tone) that is irksome, even more than the Olicity romance angle. The romance is there, it exists, I just don't dwell on it. It's the pointless praising of this or that character when it's incongruous with what actually happened on-screen in previous seasons that bugs me more. SG's Kara wanted to be reporter "her whole life", Diggle "inspired" Oliver to be a vigilante. Oookay.

It's like the show likes to willfully neglect its own season opening monologues from earlier seasons, let alone the actual events from those seasons. Yao Fei, Tommy, Slade, Maseo and other pre-Hood figures just cannot catch a break ... in terms of getting due credit for their own significant contributions to Oliver's journey at times.

As for the ep. itself, the seeds for Diggle and Oliver's Civil War-type rift are being sown, for a variety of reasons. I wish secrets and lies wouldn't be a factor but it's the CW ... so I guess I should have expected it.

As I'm a week behind - not by choice - (thanks local network!), I won't know what happened tonight until next week.

(Avoiding spoiler threads for now, because I don't actually want to be spoiled about next week. A novel idea, eh?)

[Amarice]

I don't want to quote your whole post, President Luthor, but crap... Given your description it seems that season 5 was for fans of S1/S2, while season 6 is aiming for get the praise OTA/Olicity/Felicity. Maybe I will wait for season 7 then, as there should be another change of tide.

Given my sentiment to the show it's really, really, really sad to hear what happened AGAIN, even though I hadn't watch anything of S6 except one or two scenes on YT. I simply can't understand why professional writers go there and write something worse that a fan fic writer could write during a lunchbreak. But well, it seems that OTA folks get what they wanted. Felicity praise, Diggle as Green Arrow (at least we know where Connor got an idea XD but srsly, no one noticed that GA has a different skin colour now?) and Oliver sidelined to doing... something (baking omelettes for William?). After all the Arrow can't be the most important character in "Arrow". As for Dig as GA - I guess he is not shooting a bow? This way another unecessary element in "Arrow" was eliminated - archery. More time for TV hacking and saving the Internet. XD

The writers of the show don't seem to understand the difference between internal motivation and having allies. Yes, Dig and Felicity, and dozens other people helped Oliver. He would be dead without them most likely. But it all started with him, one man army. He would carry on even if he was left alone - because he wouldn't be able to abandon this life. This hood and the bow was his life.

A couple days ago we were joking that having Felicity in job would be actually useful (my colleague also watched "Arrow", but she gave up after 6x01) - she would hit backspace three times and - a miracle - all our data is updated, every technical problem solved, no delays, no manual work to do. XD And scripts are writing themselves. Lol.

Knowing me I know that after watching this I would be superpissed off and in Cupid's mode. Better to stay away. That's what my favorite psychiatristy from "Arrow" would advise. (Btw. let me know in case either Cupid or Doctor Pressnall make a return - those are the only two things that can bait me at this point).

As I'm a week behind - not by choice - (thanks local network!), I won't know what happened tonight until next week.

(Avoiding spoiler threads for now, because I don't actually want to be spoiled about next week. A novel idea, eh?)

If I may ask - are you from Canada?

[President_Luthor]

They did find a work-around for the bowless GA: the team designed a crossbow thing that Diggle can shoot. So they wisely addressed the 'Diggle ain't an archer' issue early, though not early enough for his initial outing ... when the bow was more like a baton for him.

I liked the stuff they've given Dinah and Rene but, again, they're still treated as background players esp. in this episode. I'm hoping this is a 'one and done' OTA heavy phase and they get back to the main stories and keep the OTA-ing dialed down a notch.

I am in Canada. We just had our first snowfall today, it's more like a dusting of icing sugar where I am. But it is collld now.

One of the specialty channels airs Arrow on its US date here but it's not in every cable package and I wouldn't get to watch it live on Thursdays regardless. So I have to watch it on the following Wednesday on one of the main networks here.

My guess is this season will be a platoon of villains, between Cayden, the crossover Big Bad(s), other foes and the Richard Dragon dude, which might be a wiser course. A season-long villain only really worked with Slade in S2 and then Prometheus last year and they were fortunate the actors were up to the challenge those times.

[Backward Galaxy]

FBI Story - Don't care. Don't care. OMG, don't care.

Dinah Story - I like her, but I don't buy the character. You just found out the love of your life is alive, you talk to him for 2 seconds, and you determine that there's nothing left of the good man you knew? I understand that heat of the moment reactions are often over-the-top and that characters are allowed to calm down after being given time to think, but it all just felt very forced. Didn't work for me.

Deathstroke - When Oliver said to that guy in the prison that Slade is not a man to make angry, I laughed and said out loud, "Man, he's gonna kill EVERYBODY." And that's damn near what he did, lol. That was fun. And I liked Amell's performance in this one as sort of a sidekick/keeping-Slade-in-check kind of guy. Nice work from him.

[Freawaru]

This week was Felicity's turn re: lionizing her character and giving the shippers some fan service. 'Cause as you might have heard, they apparently "suffered" so much neglect in S5 thanks to the emphasis on the Prometheus arc.

I am just glad I don't go there and read this kind of stuff.

Last week, the show was putting Diggle on a pedestal when he was having doubts about assuming the GA leadership role. One could argue Diggle was there from the beginning, sure -- but the impression left after Oliver's pep talking him was that Diggle was a, or even 'the', significant reason/cause for his becoming a vigilante. Huh? They were laying it on a bit thick that ep., unnecessarily too. Have you not heard your own opening credits monologues from S1 and S2, Oliver Queen?

Maybe it is too late but I really agree with Oliver here. Diggle was the reason. At the beginning of season one The Hood was not a vigilante as we know it. He was an assassin with a list. It was Diggle who FORCED Oliver to go beyond the list and save his city in other ways - like giving money to those in need and going after the bad guys who were not on The List. In 1.6 "Legacies" Diggle first asked Oliver to do so (going after the bank robbers) but Oliver told him "no", but that he would stick to The List. So, yes, Diggle was the significant reason for Oliver to become a vigilante rather than an assassin with a List. And I might add as Diggle didn't know Oliver really well then he also was taking quite a risk doing what he did. Oliver might have reacted differently to Diggle's ploy - but he didn't and I think it was due to this that Diggle started to really trust Oliver. I think Oliver saw that, too, and knew that he would loose Diggle if he reacted differently. So basically Diggle made Oliver choose between sticking to the List (and eventually killing Diggle) and becoming a vigilante in the sense he is now and keeping Diggle alive and in the team.

buthe sure wasn't around on Lian Yu, on the Amazo, in Hong Kong or in Russia.

No, but all this lead to Oliver only going to "right his father's wrongs" - violently at that. Mainly Waller and Talia pushed him into that direction. His role model was, IMO, Slade. At the beginning of season one basically Oliver was an agent, who infiltrated and killed targets. Only difference was that he didn't work for some agency but did things for his own reasons and the infiltration was into his own family, friends and city.

The plus is that Wild Dog was the b.s. caller last ep. and (rightly, I might add) brought up his concerns about Diggle's rocky start as team lead to Oliver. Lives were at stake and Rene had more than fair grounds to raise any concerns with Oliver.

I agree.

[BkWurm1]

I always thought that the EMP thing happening right after the 'heartbeat tracker program' locating Chase in the Bunker (which we're expected to believe he escaped when all exits and entrances were sealed to the point Oliver and Felicity had to practically blast their way out) was too fishy. Now we know that Cayden James (who programmed that heartbeat tracker) seems to have had at least a passing relationship with Chase to know his final plan (not to mention the fact that Laurel trusted him to get her out of there, suggesting she had at least seen him before), I can't help but think the ONLY thing I was off on regarding is that the EMP was indeed meant to trap Oliver and Felicity while Adrian kidnapped William and Samantha, instead of being Cayden James 'tying up loose ends' as I thought would be the case. I've never got the impression Cayden James was some innocent hacktivist for one simple reason:

He was being held at an ARGUS blacksite, while SLADE WILSON, who led a freaking siege of an American city perpetrated by super-soldiers, has a bed and hygienic facilities, as does Digger Harkness, who tried to kill the woman who was Amanda Waller's right-hand and who became the Director of ARGUS. If ARGUS gave those two decent cells, then WHAT would make ARGUS hold someone in a black-site like they were holding Cayden James?

See this is the thing that let me fully question Lyla holding him. Even Lyla said she was holding him for his POTENTIAL danger, not what he'd actually done. To have some comptuer guy, even one as clever as James locked up in a black ops site with no facilities, hands cuffed and a bag over his head like that when they felt confident to keep mass murders secure in a simple cage was super overkill. It made it seem pretty reasonable to question what Lyla was doing.