Post by stargazer1682 on Feb 1, 2019 3:27:31 GMT
Or possibly Amaco Queen, going by the voice over at the end of the episode. I'm guessing that must have been recorded early on, seeing how she said her own name the other way earlier in the episode; and everyone else has pronounced it "Em-Ee-ko"
Interesting episode, especially being the first to come back from the break. Am I just not seeing someone else's discussion thread on this, that no one's talking about the latest episodes; or did everyone else put off catching up on the shows for almost two weeks?
I honestly wish I could get a bead on what their long term intention is for these flash forwards, because they are bleak as hell; and as I've previously expressed in past discussions, it arguably makes everything in the present pointless, because we know that whatever they're doing, a) The city survives, Dinah, Renee and Felicity survive, at least up to whatever ambiguous point in the future this is happening in, but more importantly it all effectively goes to hell, in one sense or another. Sure, things look great for the "glades," but everything else is looking pretty shitty. So by that metric it looks like the characters fail spectacularly.
The thing that's most striking to me about how they're framing the flash forwards is that it reminds me of a similar peak into the future in the comics during the Futures End storyline. Mind you, DC (and Marvel too) have a tendency to show a less than bright future; generally with the intention of some facet of the story playing out where the past is altered and the future we're shown is invalidated. So I can't help but wonder if that is ultimately their plan; because otherwise, what would be the point? But as usually they're taking their sweet ass time.
Meanwhile, in the present day, it's really starting to feel more and more like they're setting things up to transition Stephen Amell out of the show and continue on with a new Arrow and a new team. It kind of seems like Oliver's story is already done; he's been outed as the Green Arrow, he's done his time and for him to put on the suit again seems disingenuous to any type linear character development. There's no impetus there any more for him to color outside the lines; just by virtue of him being made an official deputy of the SCPD works against that point.
What I think would have worked better is if he had found out about Emiko before getting out of prison and sought her out; and in the process takes her under his wing as mentor and trains her to become the new Arrow. Or virtually anything else, because he comes out of prison with the cleanest slate he's had in 7 seasons and pretty much over a decade when you account for his journey starting when he set sail on the Queens Gambit. This should have been a completely new chapter for him.
It was also really cringe-worthy watching him take the blood sample from crime scene for Felicity to run - and not even take it, but to be given it, so Dinah can "benefit from his resources". Really? The SCPD doesn't have it's own forensics lab? They're not equipped to run DNA? You literally just met one of the SCPD CSIs. But I guess they don't have Felicity's equipment to process a DNA test in 60 seconds; and I don't know why, because apparently the equipment can't be hard to come by, because what income do either of you even have at the moment? Oliver's not the mayor anymore, so he doesn't even have that income anymore. And is the Helix startup between Felicity and Curtis even still going on, with him work for Argus and Felicity being off the grid for month in witness protection; before taking up her mission to bring in Diaz single handedly? If Oliver is working for the PD now, are they paying him? Or is he just a "consultant"? I mean, for one thing, what good would it do for the Star City police to have Oliver run the DNA independently, even if he's an official agent of the department; presumably that doesn't extend to Felicity, let alone the forensics lab she's setup in her living room. Whatever they found would be inadmissible in course, because the chain of custody is broken. And again, the SCPD would have their own lab to do these tests legitimately; unless they're saying it's still super corrupt from last year. Even then, don't give him the whole sample; let him get a swab and leave something for the police to take in and do their own process by the book. Then you get answers and they still have evidence. Of course that also makes me wonder - I'm the furthest thing from a forensic expert, but would they even really take the shard with the blood in as evidence; especially in a plastic bag said shard might damage? Or would they just swab it, in order to better collect and preserve the actual evidence, which is the blood? But of course if the SCPD tested it that would screw Emiko over, since at the very least the SCPD would promptly being able to connect her to Oliver; and even if they believe he wasn't involved, they'd know it's a strong lead to finding her. The Batman move would have been for Oliver to sneak his own sample unseen, get the test results sooner the SCPD lab could come up with (probably on account of a backlog and paperwork, etc.); and upon learning the results and what it would mean for them to find out, Oliver breaks into the SCPD to steel, swap out or otherwise invalidate the results of the SCPD's test. But who would want to see that, when instead we get Oliver reading a letter from his dad to his step-dad about his secret family; and endless minutes of Oliver talking to Felicity?
On the other hand, it was actually kind of delightful hearing Oliver mention Walter Steal. It kind of made me nostalgic for when this show was actually good. I mean, even Felicity's comment about forgetting that Oliver's dad knew Walter before marrying Oliver's mom reminded me how the start of Felicity's major story when Walter briefly went missing. I almost wish he'd come back, but he's too busy being, in my opinion, the best General Zod ever. This whole train of thought of course prompted me to check when season 2 of Krypton airs, but it still doesn't have a date, dammit.
This whole thing with Oliver being confronted by yet another family secret made me realize how embedded that was in the DNA of the show when it first started; and how much of a void it's left since they killed off Moira and took Oliver out of dealing with problems caused by his family. The formula for the show has become so condensed, I'd kind of forgotten how multifaceted the drama in Oliver's life used to be. He'd be pulled in any number of different direct, between his life as the Arrow and everything going on with his family; with some of it overlapping. And now the drama is entirely centralized; generally with it all being related to directly to Oliver or his identity as the Green Arrow or both. I suddenly have a new found appreciate for the dynamic of Oliver's story really springing from all of his family's secrets and lies; and that being a driving force for Oliver trying to atone for years and maybe even generations of sin after sin committed by the Queen family against Star City and its people.
It especially makes me think how much that could contrast the character to the likes of say, Bruce Wayne. There's no question that Oliver Queen/Green Arrow was created in the mold of Bruce Wayne/Batman; and all these decades since GA was created he still has a hard time shaking the comparison. And I can't help think of this as a defining difference. I honestly would hate it Thomas and Martha Wayne were revealed to have been terrible people who back stabbed and did whatever it takes to get what they wanted. Bruce might invariably have an idealized memory of them, they probably wouldn't have been saints, but certainly good people with big hearts; and the tragedy of their deaths is compounded by the loss of all the good they had done and would do for the city. But then you have the Queens, who are the complete opposite of the Waynes; Oliver and Bruce follow very different tracks, yet find their way towards a similar mission.
Anywho.....
God, I hate this Argus storyline. It has some of the trappings of being a cool storyline, what with them being secret agents blurring the lines between right and wrong in the name of the greater good; and I'm just bored. John doesn't seem like John in this setting and the whole espionage intrigue just isn't working for me.
And in a quasi related rant, it annoyed me seeing Curtis jockeying the support desk for Renee and Emiko; mainly because of how pathetic this show has made Mr. Terrific. Mr. Terrific is supposed to be a bad ass field agent/superhero. Why have they not developed him more? Where's his self-developed ability to cloak himself from technology? Why doesn't he use his T-spheres more? The reason I tie this in with John's Argus story, is because if there's one person who should be part of a story like this, it should be Mr. Terrific. In the comics he was an agent of Checkmate at one point, eventually working his way up to the "White King" designation - a leadership role - in this covert, international agency. If you're going to have Curtis' strong suit be his brains, then put them to use in a story where manipulation and fast thinking would be an asset; have him use his intellect to work out plans no one else sees, leading him to take steps that might lead him down a potentially murkier path.
Interesting episode, especially being the first to come back from the break. Am I just not seeing someone else's discussion thread on this, that no one's talking about the latest episodes; or did everyone else put off catching up on the shows for almost two weeks?
I honestly wish I could get a bead on what their long term intention is for these flash forwards, because they are bleak as hell; and as I've previously expressed in past discussions, it arguably makes everything in the present pointless, because we know that whatever they're doing, a) The city survives, Dinah, Renee and Felicity survive, at least up to whatever ambiguous point in the future this is happening in, but more importantly it all effectively goes to hell, in one sense or another. Sure, things look great for the "glades," but everything else is looking pretty shitty. So by that metric it looks like the characters fail spectacularly.
The thing that's most striking to me about how they're framing the flash forwards is that it reminds me of a similar peak into the future in the comics during the Futures End storyline. Mind you, DC (and Marvel too) have a tendency to show a less than bright future; generally with the intention of some facet of the story playing out where the past is altered and the future we're shown is invalidated. So I can't help but wonder if that is ultimately their plan; because otherwise, what would be the point? But as usually they're taking their sweet ass time.
Meanwhile, in the present day, it's really starting to feel more and more like they're setting things up to transition Stephen Amell out of the show and continue on with a new Arrow and a new team. It kind of seems like Oliver's story is already done; he's been outed as the Green Arrow, he's done his time and for him to put on the suit again seems disingenuous to any type linear character development. There's no impetus there any more for him to color outside the lines; just by virtue of him being made an official deputy of the SCPD works against that point.
What I think would have worked better is if he had found out about Emiko before getting out of prison and sought her out; and in the process takes her under his wing as mentor and trains her to become the new Arrow. Or virtually anything else, because he comes out of prison with the cleanest slate he's had in 7 seasons and pretty much over a decade when you account for his journey starting when he set sail on the Queens Gambit. This should have been a completely new chapter for him.
It was also really cringe-worthy watching him take the blood sample from crime scene for Felicity to run - and not even take it, but to be given it, so Dinah can "benefit from his resources". Really? The SCPD doesn't have it's own forensics lab? They're not equipped to run DNA? You literally just met one of the SCPD CSIs. But I guess they don't have Felicity's equipment to process a DNA test in 60 seconds; and I don't know why, because apparently the equipment can't be hard to come by, because what income do either of you even have at the moment? Oliver's not the mayor anymore, so he doesn't even have that income anymore. And is the Helix startup between Felicity and Curtis even still going on, with him work for Argus and Felicity being off the grid for month in witness protection; before taking up her mission to bring in Diaz single handedly? If Oliver is working for the PD now, are they paying him? Or is he just a "consultant"? I mean, for one thing, what good would it do for the Star City police to have Oliver run the DNA independently, even if he's an official agent of the department; presumably that doesn't extend to Felicity, let alone the forensics lab she's setup in her living room. Whatever they found would be inadmissible in course, because the chain of custody is broken. And again, the SCPD would have their own lab to do these tests legitimately; unless they're saying it's still super corrupt from last year. Even then, don't give him the whole sample; let him get a swab and leave something for the police to take in and do their own process by the book. Then you get answers and they still have evidence. Of course that also makes me wonder - I'm the furthest thing from a forensic expert, but would they even really take the shard with the blood in as evidence; especially in a plastic bag said shard might damage? Or would they just swab it, in order to better collect and preserve the actual evidence, which is the blood? But of course if the SCPD tested it that would screw Emiko over, since at the very least the SCPD would promptly being able to connect her to Oliver; and even if they believe he wasn't involved, they'd know it's a strong lead to finding her. The Batman move would have been for Oliver to sneak his own sample unseen, get the test results sooner the SCPD lab could come up with (probably on account of a backlog and paperwork, etc.); and upon learning the results and what it would mean for them to find out, Oliver breaks into the SCPD to steel, swap out or otherwise invalidate the results of the SCPD's test. But who would want to see that, when instead we get Oliver reading a letter from his dad to his step-dad about his secret family; and endless minutes of Oliver talking to Felicity?
On the other hand, it was actually kind of delightful hearing Oliver mention Walter Steal. It kind of made me nostalgic for when this show was actually good. I mean, even Felicity's comment about forgetting that Oliver's dad knew Walter before marrying Oliver's mom reminded me how the start of Felicity's major story when Walter briefly went missing. I almost wish he'd come back, but he's too busy being, in my opinion, the best General Zod ever. This whole train of thought of course prompted me to check when season 2 of Krypton airs, but it still doesn't have a date, dammit.
This whole thing with Oliver being confronted by yet another family secret made me realize how embedded that was in the DNA of the show when it first started; and how much of a void it's left since they killed off Moira and took Oliver out of dealing with problems caused by his family. The formula for the show has become so condensed, I'd kind of forgotten how multifaceted the drama in Oliver's life used to be. He'd be pulled in any number of different direct, between his life as the Arrow and everything going on with his family; with some of it overlapping. And now the drama is entirely centralized; generally with it all being related to directly to Oliver or his identity as the Green Arrow or both. I suddenly have a new found appreciate for the dynamic of Oliver's story really springing from all of his family's secrets and lies; and that being a driving force for Oliver trying to atone for years and maybe even generations of sin after sin committed by the Queen family against Star City and its people.
It especially makes me think how much that could contrast the character to the likes of say, Bruce Wayne. There's no question that Oliver Queen/Green Arrow was created in the mold of Bruce Wayne/Batman; and all these decades since GA was created he still has a hard time shaking the comparison. And I can't help think of this as a defining difference. I honestly would hate it Thomas and Martha Wayne were revealed to have been terrible people who back stabbed and did whatever it takes to get what they wanted. Bruce might invariably have an idealized memory of them, they probably wouldn't have been saints, but certainly good people with big hearts; and the tragedy of their deaths is compounded by the loss of all the good they had done and would do for the city. But then you have the Queens, who are the complete opposite of the Waynes; Oliver and Bruce follow very different tracks, yet find their way towards a similar mission.
Anywho.....
God, I hate this Argus storyline. It has some of the trappings of being a cool storyline, what with them being secret agents blurring the lines between right and wrong in the name of the greater good; and I'm just bored. John doesn't seem like John in this setting and the whole espionage intrigue just isn't working for me.
And in a quasi related rant, it annoyed me seeing Curtis jockeying the support desk for Renee and Emiko; mainly because of how pathetic this show has made Mr. Terrific. Mr. Terrific is supposed to be a bad ass field agent/superhero. Why have they not developed him more? Where's his self-developed ability to cloak himself from technology? Why doesn't he use his T-spheres more? The reason I tie this in with John's Argus story, is because if there's one person who should be part of a story like this, it should be Mr. Terrific. In the comics he was an agent of Checkmate at one point, eventually working his way up to the "White King" designation - a leadership role - in this covert, international agency. If you're going to have Curtis' strong suit be his brains, then put them to use in a story where manipulation and fast thinking would be an asset; have him use his intellect to work out plans no one else sees, leading him to take steps that might lead him down a potentially murkier path.