Season 7 Spoilers Thread

[Amarice]

Long time no see.

Can someone who still watches the show tell me if the prison scenes are good enough to watch 7x01 and 7x02 after skipping season 6 entirely?

[Shelby Kent]

Long time no see.

Can someone who still watches the show tell me if the prison scenes are good enough to watch 7x01 and 7x02 after skipping season 6 entirely?

Hi Amarice! Hope all is well with you!

As someone who saw only about 5 episodes over the past 2 seasons, and who came back only for the prison episodes (unless I change my mind), I'd say 7.1 had some good Oliver-prison scenes(good fights, Oliver working out, interesting moral dilemma). Apart from prison life, I also enjoyed what they did with Rene, and seeing the substitute green arrow. So I didn't feel like 7/1 was a huge waste of time. Though I don't think the show can ever get back to the atmosphere I liked in S1&2.

As for 7.2, I don't know what to tell you. I would suck at being a critic b/c I respond primarily emotionally and so don't always pick up on the more objective structural aspects, and what really bugged me throughout the episode was what felt like a lot of bad acting (and probably bad written dialogue to be fair to the actors). In fact, it was very distracting and took me out of the show multiple times. (It probably doesn't help that I'm watching Daredevil this week!) Generally, there was less focus on Oliver, no prison fights; he did have a moral dilemma which I thought was well-done. He has a new prison buddy, though, who, for me, brought the quality of his scenes down. In other matters, I thought most of the Longbow Hunter scenes were decent and engaging, and the Dinah-Laurel interaction, while I thought had some problems, was more engaging than the Dig-Felicity-Curtis-Rene re-team up, which just feels like recycled team stuff (Tiresome dynamics). Of course I hated everything with Felicity, and there was way too much Felicity for my tastes (I'd rather listen to someone raking their nails down a chalkboard AND voluntarily rub corrugated cardboard against my teeth than deal with that much Felicity ), but at least they did have her respond a bit differently near the end, when she and Dig had a final discussion in the episode. Also, there were no Substitute Green Arrow scenes, which was disappointing.

I don't think there are too many more eps with Oliver in prison (maybe about 3-4 more at the most?) so my plan is to keep watching through that point. I suspect 7.1 might have had the best prison scenes, but who knows? Maybe one of the subsequent episodes will surprise me.

[President_Luthor]

It's still early in the season, but so far the prison scenes are likely the best part of the episodes (they're the reason I want to tune in this season) and Oliver may be inside til practically the crossover. During the hiatus, they've said they had to actually go to the network censors to clear some of the stuff they've been planning -- and they're probably things in prison.

The prison violence might make some of the CW viewers squeamish, but for other viewers we're liking what we see so far. A part of me wishes Arrow side-stepped the crossover ... so Oliver can stay in prison through the new year haha.

The flashforward scenes are okay, there's still a mystery in what they all mean, but whether they can sustain it the whole season is the question. The older Roy's the main guy in those scenes, so I'm looking forward to seeing what his place will be in all this.

The Team Arrow stuff is par for the course. They've largely buried the hatchet re: silly civil war and it's unusual to see Dinah be the law-and-order voice in the group -- but I guess she has to be as the new police captain. Laurel's arc hasn't ramped up yet, other than her brief team-up with Dinah. It's still too early to know how it'll play out.

I actually like that FBI agent Watson takes crap from no one -- not from Oliver, Diggle or from Felicity. And she is right: Oliver and team's predicament is largely of their own making. Oliver chose to put on the hood, the team chose to follow his mission, Oliver chose to make this deal and go to prison. His hand may have been forced on several fronts, which is unfortunate (esp. for William) but in the end choices were made. And he and the team made them, willingly most of the time.

The new regime is less spoiler friendly -- the whole flashforward thing was a big secret I'm glad they kept. I'm not a fan of the previous Arrow era's spoiler-happy trend (too many spoilers tended to ruin the viewing experience for me), so I'm mostly relieved the S7 audience now has to watch the show more like it's the late 1990's with slow dial up internet aka spoilers harder to come by.

[BkWurm1]

At this point I think Beth and the NO SPOILER policy tends to go too far in overcorrection. No spoilers, sure but how about some teases? They aren't doing a great job of building interest in the second half of the show. There's no clear direction for any of the characters at this point. And the FF's are feeling pretty pointless as anything but a way to drag the present day scenes down

[President_Luthor]

While they've been sparse with even teases -- there's supposedly a Suicide Squad 2.0 on deck -- and may be keeping their cards under wraps more than fans may like, I'd prefer this than the virtual spoilerama that we had in the build-up to the Elseworlds crossover. I'd much rather discover easter egg x or y on my own than have TPTB tell me: "Hey, look out for easter egg x here and y over there". Not surprisingly MG's fingerprints were all over the crossover.

[darkphoenix21]

Arrow’s 150th episode is going to be a documentary-style episode narrated by Kelsey Grammer

http://www.greenarrowtv.com/arrow-ep...plot-revealed/

[TheSecretVampire]

While they've been sparse with even teases -- there's supposedly a Suicide Squad 2.0 on deck -- and may be keeping their cards under wraps more than fans may like, I'd prefer this than the virtual spoilerama that we had in the build-up to the Elseworlds crossover. I'd much rather discover easter egg x or y on my own than have TPTB tell me: "Hey, look out for easter egg x here and y over there". Not surprisingly MG's fingerprints were all over the crossover.

http://www.greenarrowtv.com/arrow-spoilers-past-sins-description/

Looks like it's the episode after the next one. Also, looks to be heavy on Oliver/Laurel scenes....about time they had episode where Oliver and Laurel were in several scenes, together...or rather Oliver and Black Siren.

[darkphoenix21]

A Laurel lead 'Birds of Prey'-inspired team-up episode will air in this back half of this season. Showrunner Beth Schwartz has left it to the audience to figure out who’s on team Laurel

https://tvline.com/2019/01/18/arrow-...pired-episode/

It’s not much of a mystery of who could be on the team

[costas22]

Didn't they already do a Birds of Prey episode 5 years ago? Including The Huntress and the real Black Canary?

[Haggard01]

Didn't they already do a Birds of Prey episode 5 years ago? Including The Huntress and the real Black Canary?

Well you know how just great these people are at remembering the show's own canon, I mean they never a canon error. (total sarcasm obviously if you couldn't tell)

But yeah they had one with Sara, Laurel and Helena in season 2.

[President_Luthor]

As much as I realllly enjoy seeing this Laurel throw shade and sass at anyone and everyone who deserves it, I do want her to do more. If she's part of some sort of rule-bending, anti-hero BOP in all but name, I'll take it. (We all know they already had a BOP before but the show seems to have collective amnesia about the pre-S3 Arrow era.) There's apparently going to be some backstory on her Earth-2 history.

To make up for the lost posts on here, some random observations:

-Diggle's ARGUS arc has been slow burn, which is fine for the moment, esp. since he spends less time this season as the Arrowcave's lead cheerleader and more as an agent. The alliance of convenience with Diaz could make things interesting. But I feel that this arc really needs to stick the landing for Diaz' sake, as his character peak may have hit at the Slabside breakout.

-The Slabside breakout ep was great, and by CW standards --- exceptionally violent, in a good way. No kid gloves here, it was a vicious bare-knuckles brawl. Loved Bronze Tiger's arc. Maybe he's now cleared for Suicide Squad service, but in a legal/official capacity?

-The Elseworlds crossover was alright, but its role as just a stage-setter for next year's Crisis took some steam out of it. The Crisis-X crossover remains the one to beat. What was irksome was the other shows going out of their way to make Oliver's brand of heroism look bad while Barry and Kara's look good. On the plus side, Oliver offered up something to save their lives and we have no idea what it is. Maybe he found some cosmic work-around ... or could this be setting up how Oliver punches his ticket out?

-There may be fans that want a return to the Queens nuclear family subplots, but I'm okay with William away at Offscreenville Prep School. Rene's kid Zoe is cooler than him anyway lol.

-Felicity can obviously be divisive in the fandom, but in the post-MG era she has been tolerable, even likeable at times, esp. when Oliver is nowhere in sight. Kinda made me wish Oliver was in the slammer til Easter lol. A surprising highlight was her team-up with Laurel, a better Dark Felicity descent than the Helix stuff. For those who simply cannot stand Felicity, a lowlight was her and Team Arrow shrugging off Watson getting reassigned ... after she had helped them out. Not cool.

-I want to like the flashforwards, but so far they're just ... there. While I want to discover why and how Star City turned out that way, it's also another slow burn arc that needs to stick the landing. Cool to see Future Roy though.

[TyrantLord]

-I want to like the flashforwards, but so far they're just ... there. While I want to discover why and how Star City turned out that way, it's also another slow burn arc that needs to stick the landing. Cool to see Future Roy though.

Honestly I'm kinda surprised they're doing them at all. I stopped watching the show again once Oliver got out of jail, so I'm not fully up to speed with what's happened in the flashforwards other than people telling me they think it's them setting up Felicity as a future main baddie, but strictly for the future scenes. Somehow something will happen to change that future for the present day story lines but the filler time needed for these episodes will show a felicty gone breaking bad and doing what it takes to accomplish her own means after going to far in her own dark side.

But I'm gonna take a wild guess and say Oliver changed that in the present somehow probably with some puking-in-the-mouth love spew and by the end of the season that whole fiasco will be wiped out of the timeline.

[darkphoenix21]

The CW has renewed nearly their entire lineup...including all the Arrowverse shows

https://tvline.com/2019/01/31/cw-ren...flash-charmed/

[costas22]

Man, no show on this network with a demo of at least 0.4 ever ends. It's one of the positives of not watching the Arrowverse anymore, to be honest. I kept following Smallville for 10 years, but I have no desire to do that with more shows that flatter to deceive. WB and DC are not in my good graces these days anyway (although I should move to The Batman movie thread for the rest of this conversation).

Anyway, so what's the deal here? On Michael Rosenbaum's podcast, Amell alluded to the fact that his contract was ending at the end of S7 and that he had serious reservations about continuing. Has he signed a new contract? Or has he agreed to appear in a few episodes and have his character written off in the Crisis crossover? I assume they introduced Emiko this season exactly because they needed a backup lead character in case they have to kill off Oliver?

[TyrantLord]

Man, no show on this network with a demo of at least 0.4 ever ends. It's one of the positives of not watching the Arrowverse anymore, to be honest. I kept following Smallville for 10 years, but I have no desire to do that with more shows that flatter to deceive. WB and DC are not in my good graces these days anyway (although I should move to The Batman movie thread for the rest of this conversation).

Anyway, so what's the deal here? On Michael Rosenbaum's podcast, Amell alluded to the fact that his contract was ending at the end of S7 and that he had serious reservations about continuing. Has he signed a new contract? Or has he agreed to appear in a few episodes and have his character written off in the Crisis crossover? I assume they introduced Emiko this season exactly because they needed a backup lead character in case they have to kill off Oliver?

I'm with you on this one. The CW just doesn't know when to quit on its shows. Smallville and Supernatural are prime examples. Smallville took way too long and it's clear they still don't have an end game plan to this day for Supernatural. What's worse, I've stopped watching that show completely now because I feel like they slapped me in the face by bringing back Charlie and Bobby but without bringing back the real Charlie and Bobby.

Emiko is most def their back up plan and way to essentially reboot Arrow once Amell gets written off. From what I'm told she's literally the female recycled version of Oliver, complete with using dead parents as her motivation for costume and the mystery of who killed them drives her mission. Someone told me she's even using a hideout almost identical to Oliver's original cave beneath the club in season 1.

So yeah, the CW's def getting ready to hit the reset button on Arrow soon-ish. So I guess it doesn't matter in the end that most of the original cast from season 1 is gone or dead. By next season or season after it's gonna be a whole new show basically with only a handful of these new masks remaining. I'm told Wilddog is gonna be her "Diggle", even.