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

[KSiteTV]

What did you think?

[President_Luthor]

There's a lot I could say about this ep. .... but it's reallllly late on the east coast now.

Let's just say:

-Someone wanted a separation

-All is still not well with Diggle and Oliver.

-Vertigo, Vertigo, Vertigo

-Prometheus!!!

-S1 Arrow (okay, Oliver in S1 Hood gear) storming a police station full of crooked cops

-Quentin gets his best scenes this season, with just Oliver. He's firmly in Oliver and GA's corner.

-Holy crap I think Raisa had more air time in this ep, than most of the season! #WilliamsPrimaryCaregiver

-More Prometheus. And if Prometheus isn't enough for you, there's lots of Adrian Chase too. But he's dead, you say? Well, yes. But no -- and Oliver learns some hard truths from him. Chase was awesome.

-An Oliver-centric episode, one of the best this season (I know, a lukewarm season so far) --- but an ep with, like, 60-70% time with Prometheus, taking out a long-term lease on Oliver's head ... it was pretty sweet. Maybe Oliver has finally put to bed his identity crisis this season. Maybe.

I'll delve more into it later. 'Night all.

[JDBentz]

I'll be brief cuz I'm tired.

- The best part of the episode was the opening scene.

- Oliver has apparently lost the resistance he built up to Vertigo in that a very small amount screws him over the same way it used to take full vials of the stuff to do.

- Dialogue might as well have been written by Olicity fans.

- Oliver decides to get back to solo'ing it, but we'll see if that sticks.

- Guggenheim is gonna have pissed a lot of people off with this one. Teasing a return of The Hood, so to speak, and then backtracking like the coward he is.

5/10 and most of that five is earned from the first scene and the Prometheus/Adrian Chase scenes. The rest is meh.

[President_Luthor]

With Felicity, they backtracked within one episode. From her saying she wanted a separation (even Quentin thought that was going a bit too extreme) to her doing a 180, glossing over that she actually said it, and telling him she's not going anywhere like "glue". Oliver was in S1 Hood mode (in an insanely suicidal mission, mind you), if not for Felicity's love and faith in him. I think she borrowed a page from Flash S4 Iris' playbook. Love cures vertigo sickness as much as it does Speed Force insanity.

Thank God for Prometheus. Even as a figment of Oliver's Vertigo-induced mind, he made more sense re: Oliver's identity crisis in one episode than that civil war nonsense ever did. Loved how he just popped up everywhere, even in the city hall meeting all decked out as Adrian Chase -- messing with Oliver's head.

The Vertigo versions of Laurel and Rene guilt-tripping Oliver came off as a bit CW cheesy, but I did like Chase egging Oliver on throughout his delusional state.

Still not optimistic about Quentin in spite of his scenes with Oliver. I guess they didn't want Oliver to be totally abandoned. Was never a fan of his loopy Black Siren arc, but maybe he'll have something else plot-wise on deck after this ep.

At least they didn't have Diggle and Oliver make nice after one episode. After their big blowout, it wouldn't make sense if they patched things up now. Another plus: Felicity couldn't magically wave their beefs away with a few words.

They didn't do that great a job in staging the eventual Diggle-Oliver split, clouded as it was with the civil war fiasco and Dig's bizarre desire(?) to be GA, but a philosophical schism was brewing with these guys -- and it's not going to be mended quickly just because Felicity wants it to.

[Freawaru]

This one had hooked me on Arrow again. Not only an Oliver centric pot, where he had to face his inner problems again, but also some revelations to questions I had been wondering for a long time. Apparently villains don't want to simply kill Oliver or his friends/family because they fear he will become a martyr and things will get worse for them. Oliver himself thinks this, too, as to his dialogue with Chase in his hallucination, but also does not seem to have any clue how he survived Ras' al Gul's sword and the fall afterwards in the first place. Means the writers have not forgotten this mystery (and hopefully will one day present us with a good and plausible solution) and it is also possible that villains don't try to kill him any more because after all that Oliver had survived they believe it would not work. Some metaphysical reasoning maybe (that could be true in Arrowverse after all).

Chase was great again. Felicity I liked too, after Oliver first interpreted her "we need some space" as permanent, she seemed to have only meant that he should get a grip on his emotions again before interacting with people. I would not have understood her extreme reaction to Oliver's anger as she had known about this since the beginning (Already in season one he apologized for his "adrenaline"). Also her trying to mend the Oliver/Diggle split was in character and her plan not working, too. Raisa appearing in his hallucination was a good idea. In general Oliver having another hallucination made sense as well, as he has had them ever since he had been drugged on Lian Yu.

Black Siren good or evil - they still keep it open. She might consider herself having infiltrated Dragon's organisation.

[President_Luthor]

It's also amusing to think William is now pretty much cool with the idea that Oliver, Felicity and friends are vigilantes. He's almost 'too' well-adjusted to the notion that he's probably not going to be able to see his dad or Felicity most nights because of their night jobs. I hope he and Raisa share similar movie and TV tastes, because the kid's going to be spending plenty of nights vegging on the couch in front of the TV.

William: "Aww, Raisa, do we have to watch 'Keeping up with the Kardashians' tonight?"

Raisa: "You know the rules. You don't finish your asparagus, we watch Kylie and Kendall fight over lip gloss again."

They've done a pretty good job with Black Siren in keeping her true intent vague and uncertain. She could easily dive into the redemption arc, or blindside the lot of them -- Oliver and Dragon included -- if she chooses to do so. They didn't do as good a job of explaining the how's and why's of Quentin's hare-brained obsession in making a connection with a total stranger from another Earth that so happens to look like his eldest daughter, but it now looks like climbing up the political ladder may yet save him from the Reaper. Maybe.

I also loved how 'Vertigo' Chase was just sitting there at the city hall meeting, throwing in his two cents as the city council was ripping Oliver's credibility to shreds. Chase made the episode better than it would have been without him, as he was really the only villain so far who got Oliver to the point where he wanted to give up his entire mission for good.

I would say so far that, at this point in the season, S6 is a bit better than S4 but not as good as S5.

[TheSecretVampire]

Of course, Felicity could run super fast in her "super" shows to get there in time to save Oliver from further self destructing, ugh. I don't mind the save but OF COURSE, she gets there just in time.


The only highlight here was seeing Adrian Chase. All of scenes were pure gold and even though he only appeared via due to effects of Vertigo in Oliver, he made me forget all about The Dragon. Not to downplay The Dragon because I think he's been solid so far this season, it's just that Chase is so much better than him as villain and it's not even close.