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

[Dagenspear]

Darhk was yet another villain that looked good on paper, but in execution turned out to be meh despite NM's considerable talent in selling it. Umm ... at least he didn't mope about Shado or ship Olicity. I guess that is a plus? The magical connection was also something that never really meshed with Ollie's universe.

I'm sorry, but I wouldn't look at Damien Darkh, as he is here, and think that this villain would look good on paper.

S4 as a whole suffered from the usual Berlantiverse sins of here-and-there plot and characterization issues and the frequent defaulting to melodrama (baby mama drama anyone?). But it has also -- in case anyone forgot -- did much of the heavy lifting in launching LoT. Large chunks of S4 were not even Arrow-related and were more LoT prologue episodes, culminating in the massive crossovers. Flash might have paid a bigger price in its crossover ep., but Arrow's first half was cannibalized in service to a series that, in hindsight after its S1, is merely good and not the televised greatness some fans believed it to be as it carved swaths of content out of Arrow's first half.

Arrow's committed some of the same errors it's done before, but other problems were the fallout of propping up a brand new series. For these errors, I will lay fault squarely at LoT's door. They get no pass on it.

I don't see how LOT is responsible for the poor writing, plotting and characterization this season. Only like 3 episodes were devoted to LOT setup, 4, I suppose, if you count the side story aspect in the episodes prior to Haunted, but even then I could easily count the Firestorm setup. The Flash had a similar way. It had the Captain Cold episode, the Firestorm one and the crossover. Arrow's problem is that they refused to do it in a sensible and had Laurel put Sara in the LP, instead of having that be what Damien Darkh was holding over Quentin's head and had olicity have a melodramatic freak out about the Ray thing. Same with the crossover. The olicity nonsense was thrown into that episode for no real reason. Taken's ending wasn't because of LOT, neither was Laurel's death or the lack of planning devoted to Laurel's death or the pointless Felicity paralysis, or Malcolm's weird revenge scheme that went nowhere, his flip flopping, Nyssa pulling a cure for bloodlust out of nowhere despite having a freakout at Laurel about Sara's bloodlust earlier in the season, the flashbacks, them somehow tying directly into the present day storyline again, despite none of the characters involved having any connection to them and the nonsensical Quentin and Donna romance. None of the real problem's this season were LOT's fault. Have a very great day you and everyone!

God bless you! God bless everyone!

[Amarice]

For those of us who welcome those influences, it may mean we'll be getting back to hopefully a glimmer of some of that next season. Like Flashback Waller said, the darkness will always be a part of him. And it seems even Felicity acknowledges that this is the case in the finale, the Ivy Town-spawned naivety proven to be unworkable in the streets of SC.

Thank you for the tip! I imediatelly run to YT to watch the scene with Amanda. The chest with Yao Fei's/Shado's hood and bow appearing again was a nice one.

Watched also the final fight scene with Darhk. I generally liked the concept of Random Ordinary People standing up for the vigilante hero - they are certain motives I easily buy. Also Oliver-Quentin scene was nice. They are my favorite "ship" of the show, I won't lie.

The fight itself - there was some arrows flying, thats good, but a bit too much of throwing punches. Again some archery nonsense like the arrows flying out of the quiver and that arrow which wounded Darhk in the cheek ended up in some civilian, I guess? But there were minor things overall. Darhk was talking some nonsense, but I liked the ending - yes, I can't imagine Oliver letting Darhk live.

With different writers and showrunners for season 5 there would still hope for the show. With the current team I guess there is none.

[Amarice]

I'm sorry, but I wouldn't look at Damien Darkh, as he is here, and think that this villain would look good on paper.

Darhk could work as a villain if that whole magic nonsense was cut out and he would be a boss of an evil organization (that would be Hive) which wants to seize the control over the city - something like mafia which covers swindles with legal businesses.

Destroy everything is so booooring. Of course, there can be an enemy, who wants to level down everything and just sit in the middle of nothingness covered in ashes, but this plot was done three times in the row. Eh, must be may, as Quentin would say. An enemy who disguise himself as a normal businessman - that would be a challenge for people's hero!

[Raissa]

I actually enjoy the magic more than the grounded approach. It's all in the writing. For example, JB's Dark Archer comic, penned with his sister, features magic in keeping with the S4 theme, and it's better put together than large portions of his on screen narrative at this point, imo. There are two issues of that left, and I recommend it.

[TheSecretVampire]

The finale was really weak. IGN gave it a 3.8 and I agree....of the 4 shows now with Supegirl on CW, Arrow's finale was the worst of the 4. It left me with little desire to continue watching this show. The thing that was quite comical to me was how Darhk was able to kill that hacker with his magic....in the middle of the fight with Oliver, without any magic being thrown at Oliver...like huh? That battle was really weak considering Oliver toasted Darhk some episodes ago when Darhk's power suppy was cut out and yet here, Oliver struggled for a while. Lots of inconsistencies in Oliver's fighting levels.

[Amarice]

I actually enjoy the magic more than the grounded approach. It's all in the writing. For example, JB's Dark Archer comic, penned with his sister, features magic in keeping with the S4 theme, and it's better put together than large portions of his on screen narrative at this point, imo. There are two issues of that left, and I recommend it.

Of course it depends from the writing. I think many worn-out tropes can be sell in fiction/films/shows - really, it's impossible to come up with something entirely new - look how many adaptations of Robin Hood mythos we have - Arrow is one of it.

I've read yours and others user posters about Dark Archer comics and if it's more like "Arrow" anothology than that awful "Arrow 2.5" which was poor both in writing and in drawing I'll surely read it once I have more time for comics.

[President_Luthor]

I'm sorry, but I wouldn't look at Damien Darkh, as he is here, and think that this villain would look good on paper.

You missed the part of my post where I said the execution was where they failed. My meaning of "on paper" = in theory aka in theory, it may have been a good idea to have Arrow face off against a villain who possesses powers beyond the team's ability to battle aka magic. On-screen, obviously they couldn't pull off what they wanted with their villain. A sin the Berlantiverse has also repeated, and more egregiously, with Zoom and Savage -- villains who began cool but were watered down in the writing by the finale.

I don't see how LOT is responsible for the poor writing, plotting and characterization this season. Only like 3 episodes were devoted to LOT setup, 4, I suppose, if you count the side story aspect in the episodes prior to Haunted, but even then I could easily count the Firestorm setup.

I would say The Flash got off lucky. They had to do some Firestorm build up, and their own crossover was meh but this is nothing compared to having Arrow stories sidelined in the first half of S4 to service LoT's set-up. Did we see 3-4 Flash episodes essentially surrendered just to prop up LoT's launch. No -- this happened primarily on Arrow. Again, you missed the part where I actually say: 'S4 as a whole suffered from the usual Berlantiverse sins of here-and-there plot and characterization issues and the frequent defaulting to melodrama' aka flaws of Arrow's own that it alone is responsible for. I never said LoT is responsible for all of Arrow's problems, as your post is insinuating. What I did say is that LoT is responsible for gutting chunks of Arrow's S4 content in the lead-up to the crossover/LoT prologue eps. and this had an impact on S4's quality as a whole. I consider them more LoT eps. than Arrow ones, since they had little to do with Arrow itself. With this interpretation, Arrow's season 4 got "chopped" by 3-4 episodes of content. Some fans are free to believe otherwise, excuse LoT for it, I just won't share that belief

As for the LoT-specific grievance I have re: Arrow S4, LoT will get no pass from me. It must share some responsibility for S4's flaws (Note: not all ... just in case this point was missed the first time) and we'll have to agree to disagree on this.

(I've more than said my piece about this specific issue previously on both Arrow and LoT forums.)

[costas22]

I think both shows tried to incorporate LoT elements to the same degree. For example, Stein became a member of Team Flash. Kendra was Cisco's girl for a cup of coffee. Cold had his usual Rogues style episode with papa Snart. On the Arrow front, Ray really had one episode devoted to him (Lost Souls) and even that was connected to Damian Darhk. As for Sara, her episode (Haunted) was indeed all about her finding her soul. But is that any different than the Flash episode where Jax became part of Firestorm? Plus, unlike Jax and Stein, Sara has a rich history on Arrow and her storyline was tied to Laurel and Thea.

Just my take, but LoT affected both shows in roughly the same manner. And the result was indeed a spell where both shows felt disjointed. But all that was until episode 8 of their respective seasons.

[Who]

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

Not sure how to feel about this season. Supposed to be more lighter then last season but a lot of folks ended up dead. Oliver Queen graveyard on island getting bigger and bigger. Guess Damien's daughter is an orphan now.... Thanks to Oliver. Yeah she was kinda creepy but I still feel bad for her.
Let's see things I liked about this season.
Liked that Damien was a no nonsense bad guy. NM was great.
Liked Curtis.
Liked Quentin/Donna.
Liked Constantine showing up.
Oliver running for and becoming mayor.
Liked the magic.

[JDBentz]

Thank you very much! So, is it safe to say that Laurel's death had no real point all things considered? And can you tell me what's up with Quentin? I heard on reddit that he was fired and took off with Donna. Is that true or just hyperbole? Have a very great day you and everyone!

God bless you! God bless everyone!

They tried to shoehorn some stuff in about Laurel, but I would say there really was no point to her death, as most people predicted would happen. Dig, Felicity, or Quentin would have been much greater. And yeah, Reddit is actually right on that. Its not hyperbole (though I hear from other sources they've all turned into Class A Moronic Nutjobs) sadly.

[Raissa]

There's a cool interview talking about the stunts in the final battle with Darhk. The whole things worth a read, but they brought up interesting points about the extras I hadn't considered...

Why are the extras the most difficult part in planning out the scene? I would think it would be the other way around.

Bamford: Extras aren't allowed to fight. So the trick of that is to blend the extras in in some capacity into the action while keeping them safe, and to maintain the intensity of the scene. We spent a lot of time studying crowd scenes in other TV shows and movies to learn a lot from what other people haven't done. I myself am particularly very cognizant of issues that we don't want to repeat or see within our action. We want to make sure there is nobody just standing there. There's a famous scene in Scarface where there is one little man in that riot scene wandering around with a two-by-four, just swinging at the air, walking back and forth. I pick him out every time I watch that film. I use that as an example of action with no reason behind it. I bring that up whenever we put together a huge crowd scene like this. I don't want to see any wasted motion. You can really tell, in a crowd with hundreds of people, if one or two people aren't fighting, or if one or two people aren't engaged in some form of intense movement. They stand out like a sore thumb.

Makaro: In the midst of planning out every little movement, you always have this fear that you're going to miss somebody and then they'll get away with it. But as soon as the cameras stop rolling and we start editing, your eye is just drawn right to it. Those are the flaws we try to hide and try to keep from happening.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/arrow-season-finale-action-sequence-897510

[BkWurm1]

So, if I got this right, Diggle went back to the war? Because of darkness? Does that make any real sense for his character? It doesn't sound like it does to me. And Thea randomly threatened to kill a little girl, even though Thea would rather die than kill rapists and murders and fought the urge to long enough to be dying of LP bloodlust sickness? Is it just me or is this OOC behavior? Have a very great day everyone!

God bless everyone!

I can see Diggle retreating to the structure and more clear cut rules of being a soldier and simply the distance from his normal life to just put his head down and follow orders and try to process and get his head back on right, or at least that being the idea behind his actions.

He left his whole life behind but at that same time didn't want to be aimless. As for the pesky thing about enlistment time, I'm sure they can do something through Argus to get around that or they could say that due to his high level of experience and his decorated history that he went back under his rules, agreeing to do the job but retaining some independence. It sounds murky but I've read it done in enough books so it must at least be possible in rare cases. Not to mention Arrow really doesn't worry itself over real life issues. If they want him out of the military, he will be out. I have a hard time believing they would ever have him dishonorably discharged though. That's just not our Diggle.

Thea freaked out that she threatened the life of a little girl but I'd only find it OOC if she would have gone through with killing the kid and I don't think she would have. In the moment where she's desperate to save Oliver's life though she would have been willing to say just about anything. Still, I think her taking a break is a good idea. She was promised a spa day way back at the start of the season and got dragged to Nanda Parbat and then a vacation and got kidnapped and drugged. Definitely a good time to step back and figure out her life. Speedy may still be a part of it, but there has to be more to it than just putting on a mask.

I'm hoping that does not include her reverting to her party girl ways. That would be three years of regression. She hasn't been that girl for a long time.

Thank you very much! So, is it safe to say that Laurel's death had no real point all things considered? And can you tell me what's up with Quentin? I heard on reddit that he was fired and took off with Donna. Is that true or just hyperbole? Have a very great day you and everyone!

God bless you! God bless everyone!

Quentin was actually given the green light to come back to the police force but he found his heart just wasn't in it.

Initially he was leaving with Donna at Felicity's request so Donna would be safe but they never got far because Oliver's speech was on the radio and it inspired him to return to help (he said Donna was somewhere safe but I think she also returned with him since the only real "safe" place was 100 miles from Star City and then later she was with him as he left town again, so she returned with him but just wasn't in the middle of the chaos) Then once DD was defeated Quentin said he was going home to pack and he and Donna were leaving indefinitely.

The finale was really weak. IGN gave it a 3.8 and I agree....of the 4 shows now with Supegirl on CW, Arrow's finale was the worst of the 4. It left me with little desire to continue watching this show. The thing that was quite comical to me was how Darhk was able to kill that hacker with his magic....in the middle of the fight with Oliver, without any magic being thrown at Oliver...like huh? That battle was really weak considering Oliver toasted Darhk some episodes ago when Darhk's power suppy was cut out and yet here, Oliver struggled for a while. Lots of inconsistencies in Oliver's fighting levels.

They addressed why a couple episodes Oliver was able to fight off DD but couldn't now. DD was powered up by those 10,000 plus deaths. Oliver said that the hope Felicity had in him wasn't enough against the supercharged by death Dahrk. That's where the crowd backing him up and believing in him came in. Powered by the hopes of the city, Oliver was again able to repel DD's magic but it didn't strip Dahrk of his powers, they just didn't work against Oliver.

So that's why DD was still able to sense when Cooper stopped working to destroy the world and kill him. He only lacked his magic when facing off against Oliver.

I think both shows tried to incorporate LoT elements to the same degree. For example, Stein became a member of Team Flash. Kendra was Cisco's girl for a cup of coffee. Cold had his usual Rogues style episode with papa Snart. On the Arrow front, Ray really had one episode devoted to him (Lost Souls) and even that was connected to Damian Darhk. As for Sara, her episode (Haunted) was indeed all about her finding her soul. But is that any different than the Flash episode where Jax became part of Firestorm? Plus, unlike Jax and Stein, Sara has a rich history on Arrow and her storyline was tied to Laurel.

Just my take, but LoT affected both shows in roughly the same manner. And the result was indeed a spell where both shows felt disjointed. But all that was until episode 8 of their respective seasons.

We were stuck with Ray's whole origin story, 18 episodes worth of it, in season three so I will agree that Arrow paid a higher price than Flash to bring about LoT. He did a tiny bit of transitioning Felicity at Palmer Tech but the great majority of those scenes where all about Ray and his suit and him becoming the Atom. She was his supporting player and he didn't even interact with the rest of the cast until the very end. One of the (many) problems of season three was the tonal disparity within the episodes as they shifted to and from Palmer Island. So while season four I don't think Arrow suffered too much from setting Ray up for Lot, they still paid a huge price the prior season IMO.

I also think that what they did in the Arrow crossover episode for extra drama by having Felicity and Oliver have a fight that went zero to sixty so fast that it was over the top and out of character not only IMO spoiled the crossover episode but also cast a pall over all the episodes until the hammer finally dropped. I don't think the baby mama story line would have been nearly as awful if we hadn't all been waiting and knowing it was going to end very badly. I think they put the overreaction in 4-8 so they had something else to undo to up the stakes in the crossover so since the crossover was all about the Hawks and Vandal Savage and launching Lot, yup, I see how the strings being pulled to do LoT majorly messed with Arrow.

Next year there isn't any new characters to introduce but I do worry that Barry's selfishness in resetting the world will end up dictating some stuff on Arrow. The writers on Arrow have enough issues juggling their storylines, they do not need another show's crap getting in the way.
(which was wasted in both show on introducing character on LoT that aren't even remaining on the show next year)

[Haggard01]

So we are finally here at the end of Arrow season 4. It's been quite the ride.

Like usual I fast forwarded through the Smoak stuff that didn't have Oliver in the scene.

The ending fight of the people of Star City led by the Green Arrow and Darhk with his Ghosts fighting was done well.

I was actually surprised Oliver killed Darhk in the end. What Amanda Waller said at the end of the darkness never leaving him then even Felicity commenting on his spilt between killing and not was nice to see. I like that they gave Oliver some of his teeth back of not just going to stand around with a threat that's to great.

Steven Amell of his speech on the car was great acting.

Now Felicity well the time they spent on her goes without saying since clearly they couldn't take away from the main star of the show. Proven by her being the only one to stay behind and the whole needing to talk to Cooper.

I wish Darhk killed Donna instead.

For Malcolm, well they really need to come up with a plan for what they are going to do. One second he's their friend then next wanting Oliver dead now back to helping. I guess to be fair to Malcolm the whole world is about ready to be nuked so we all know just how much he considers his own survival above everybody else.

Diggle coming clean to Lyla then them keeping Lyla in character of reassuring him with it being mature was very nice to see. I wish they could do that for another relationship.

The Flashbacks where like they have been all season. It was nice to see Amanda Waller show back up along with the trunk continuing his hood and notebook. Next year is going to be Russia which let's hope is better.

With Diggle leaving if he's going back into the military it makes no sense on how he's going to get out of it by next season rolls around other than just reasons. Heck it makes no sense Dig going back into the military period.

Oliver being mayor is all find and well but doesn't he have 24 hour protection? Like the same reason Laurel had to chose between Black Canary and just being a lawyer. So it's going to look a little ridiculous if Oliver having 24 hour protection still manages to be GA but they used the same reason to have Laurel give up being BC.

Over all, I'd don't have a very high opinion of this episode and for sure not this season. If this episode people decided to be done for good I don't blame them at all.

Because if there's any chance of them salvaging Arrow back to at least half way to early seasons they have a lot of work to get done. Of course with the current crew of Guggenheim and Mericle, my realistic side is not very hopeful that will happen.

[BkWurm1]

They tried to shoehorn some stuff in about Laurel, but I would say there really was no point to her death, as most people predicted would happen. Dig, Felicity, or Quentin would have been much greater. And yeah, Reddit is actually right on that. Its not hyperbole (though I hear from other sources they've all turned into Class A Moronic Nutjobs) sadly.

If I had my way I'd ban killing off any regulars off the show. Just killing someone is a lazy way of upping the consequences. If the show just flat out takes that off the table, they would be forced to be more creative and I think it would have been more satisfying all around. But instead they decided for whatever reason at the start of the season to kill someone in the cast.

I'd much rather lose a character whose absence doesn't really mess up the dynamic of the show than one that would take away something big in the long run. Killing Diggle, Felicity, or Thea would have IMO taken away too much. Quentin was the one I expected but his death would have had even less of an impact on the team (while also taking away a flavor that no one else on the show replicates.) Laurel would have been very upset but the rest of the team would have only been mildly affected.

Laurel's death wasn't so big that it will affect the dynamic of the show forever but it was big enough that it provided a lot of emotional fallout for the rest of the season. It likely won't be a big long term thing next season on Arrow but I do expect Laurel's death to strongly hit Sara over on LoT next year. So while no, I don't think Laurel's death on Arrow did much, that's likely one of the big reasons why they decided they could kill her and while killing Quentin on Arrow wouldn't have created a new storyline for Laurel to explore since they did the death of a loved one before for her, Sara's never been in that position before, so Laurel's death will create a new aspect to Sara's storyline.

[JDBentz]

If I had my way I'd ban killing off any regulars off the show. Just killing someone is a lazy way of upping the consequences. If the show just flat out takes that off the table, they would be forced to be more creative and I think it would have been more satisfying all around. But instead they decided for whatever reason at the start of the season to kill someone in the cast.

I'd much rather lose a character whose absence doesn't really mess up the dynamic of the show than one that would take away something big in the long run. Killing Diggle, Felicity, or Thea would have IMO taken away too much. Quentin was the one I expected but his death would have had even less of an impact on the team (while also taking away a flavor that no one else on the show replicates.) Laurel would have been very upset but the rest of the team would have only been mildly affected.

Laurel's death wasn't so big that it will affect the dynamic of the show forever but it was big enough that it provided a lot of emotional fallout for the rest of the season. It likely won't be a big long term thing next season on Arrow but I do expect Laurel's death to strongly hit Sara over on LoT next year. So while no, I don't think Laurel's death on Arrow did much, that's likely one of the big reasons why they decided they could kill her and while killing Quentin on Arrow wouldn't have created a new storyline for Laurel to explore since they did the death of a loved one before for her, Sara's never been in that position before, so Laurel's death will create a new aspect to Sara's storyline.

Good points. However, regarding your post about Quentin above: I'm pretty sure he was told that his suspension was no longer a suspension, but permanent. He said something like when he was told that, he found he didn't mind it as much despite having only ever wanted to be a cop all his life. I'd have to re-watch that scene to be sure, though.