Arrow

[Immortal Weapon]

It's a death trope. You can't be fridged and left breathing. If you're just getting rid of an annoying character via injury or some other means, I believe they call it being put on a bus.

The fridge trope is doing something horrible to a character (usually a love interest) to force the hero into action or force character development. The character doesn't have to die to achieve this effect. Daredevil's wife Milla was fridged during Brubaker run by having been mentally tortured by Mr. Fear to the point she has to be permanently institutionlized just to make Matt's life hell.

[Jmacq1]

The fridge trope is doing something horrible to a character (usually a love interest) to force the hero into action or force character development. The character doesn't have to die to achieve this effect. Daredevil's wife Milla was fridged during Brubaker run by having been mentally tortured by Mr. Fear to the point she has to be permanently institutionlized just to make Matt's life hell.

To be fair, they COULD "put her on the bus." Basically have stuff go down in Starling, and Diggle or Thea or someone calls Ollie, begging for help. Ollie wants to go, but doesn't want to abandon his life with Felicity. Either A: Oliver leaves Felicity after an argument or B: Felicity tells him to go, but that she can't live her life like this, etc... thus breaking up.

While I think Fridging is a possibility (I'm still totally calling paralyzed to make her Arrow-Oracle), I also think it's entirely possible that they both just come back to help. Or heck, maybe they're already back in Starling when the new season starts, having enjoyed their sunny vacation/pseudo-honeymoon and now back home with their "family" but not actively crimefighting (until spurred to action, of course).

[maczero]

They listened far too much to Olicity fans. They killed off a character Oliver was genuinely in love with and was happy with , just so they can pair off Felicity and Oliver and have that riding off into the sunset ending.

I believe Ollie loved Sarah but wasn't "in love" with her. IIRC, they rekindled their relationship when the two were in very bad places emotionally. Sarah had just been told by Laurel that she wished Sarah had never come back and Ollie...well he's always been screwed up. I'm not saying I buy Ollie & Felicity as true love anymore than I buy Sarah & Ollie, it's just that I didn't feel Sarah was Ollie's endgame. In my opinion, what Ollie and Sarah had was more of a bonding over a traumatic experience moreso than romantic love.

I don't see how Sara is a better fighter than Laurel--since it's stuntwomen who are doing all the action. Is the allegation that the stuntwoman who handled Sara's scenes was a better stuntwoman than the one who handled Laurel's scenes?

I'm pretty sure Caity Lotz is an accomplished martial artist so yes I'd say she and her character are better fighters than Laurel and the actress that plays Laurel. And I believe the actors do most of their fight scenes.

Again, people hate Laurel and look for excuses. Why did no one complain that Roy learned to shoot and an arrow and do PARKOR flips in a few weeks?

Roy was doing those parkour movements even before Ollie trained him. In fact, I was hoping Ollie would break him out of that habit.

As for how Ollie was able to help out the Flash against Dr. Wells, I've been scratching my head on that one. Is it possible that he could've made a brief detour to Central City after they captured Nyssa in the episode a few weeks ago?

[Dayton]

Yea, I really liked Felicity at first. She was the voice of reason, she didn't belong there but she made it work. Now she is self centered, pushy and whiny. I truly can't stand her (and Emily's horrible acting).

I think the worst part (prior to the finale) was just how self-righteous she was about everything. Diggle was bad about it at times, but it was never was as terrible with him. The acting doesn't help, but then again it's hard to be any worse than Stephen Amell.

[Jmacq1]

As for how Ollie was able to help out the Flash against Dr. Wells, I've been scratching my head on that one. Is it possible that he could've made a brief detour to Central City after they captured Nyssa in the episode a few weeks ago?

I think it's pretty clear that the showrunners really don't give a hoot about the timelines matching up particularly well. There was a mild token effort made to clarify it in this episode, but it still really doesn't make much sense. It was the same thing with Ray and Felicity's crossover with Flash (and then Cisco's cameo in Arrow) a few weeks back. The bottom line is that somehow Ollie got away from Nanda Parbat and came to Central City (which y'know, for anything but supersonic Jet Fighters should be at least a 12+ hour flight one way if it's in the Hindu Kush), then got back in time for his wedding/etc... And somehow Ra's didn't know about any of this or find it suspicious that Ollie was gone for a day.

To be fair, I can't entirely fault them on it...it isn't as if the comics make much of a point of specifying the timelines when someone guest-stars in an issue....

[kalorama]

So, now the season is over, what exactly was the point of killing of Sara? Other than fast-tracking Laurel into a role she isn't suited for, purely on the basis of "because she's got the same name as the Black Canary in the comic books" (a name she doesn't use anyway!), what narrative purpose did fridging Sara actually achieve?

Aside from the half-arsed 'whodunnit' aspect of it (which ultimately panned out into 'it doesn't really matter whodunnit'), it's never felt like there's been any real consequences or fallout from Sara's death, save from an occasional bit of moping and then teaming up with the guy who (indirectly) murdered her (simply as part of the most contrived and ludicrous plan ever conceived).

And for all Ollie and Nyssa's protestations of never forgiving him and swearing vengeance, basically Sara's murderer still got away with it and got exactly what he wanted... with Team Arrow's help!

I honestly can't think of another show that's treated a character with that much disrespect. Sure, Caity's coming back in LoT, but we still don't know in what role. And even then, that doesn't really justify the pointless death and subsequent trivialising of Sara's death this year.

Sara's death was far from pointless. It had major effects on and consequences for both her sister (which was the plan from the beginning, since before the first show with Sara/Canary aired) and her father, as well as Thea. The fact that you don't personally care for how those consequences were handled/presented doesn't make them trivial.

I do agree that Merlyn's lack of any lasting cost for his role in it was poor choice, but that's sometimes what happens when villains get too popular. If it wasn't, Joker, Magneto, Bullseye, Deathstroke, and Sabertooth would have all been wiped off the board decades ago.

[The Darknight Detective]

I'm pretty sure Caity Lotz is an accomplished martial artist so yes I'd say she and her character are better fighters than Laurel and the actress that plays Laurel. And I believe the actors do most of their fight scenes.

Well, we have her on the new Legends of Tomorrow show as Sara/White Canary, so all is good in the world.

[Jmacq1]

I do agree that Merlyn's lack of any lasting cost for his role in it was poor choice, but that's sometimes what happens when villains get too popular. If it wasn't, Joker, Magneto, Bullseye, Deathstroke, and Sabertooth would have all been wiped off the board decades ago.

As noted in a couple other threads: After the Legends of Tomorrow teaser, I'm suddenly about 80 percent convinced that Malcolm's end of "the bargain" is bringing Sara back via the Lazarus Pit.

[kalorama]

As noted in a couple other threads: After the Legends of Tomorrow teaser, I'm suddenly about 80 percent convinced that Malcolm's end of "the bargain" is bringing Sara back via the Lazarus Pit.

Maybe, but that's still a bit Bullshit though. Wasn't Merlyn the one who told Ollie that the Pit only works in very rare/certain circumstances and gave all the stern warnings about what the pit does to the poeple it brings back? We still don't know if Thea actually escaped any serious after effects. Have they been keeping Sara's body cryogenically frozen? Because otherwise, there's probably not enough left to bring back, after a year in the dirt. And after all the crap he went through with Lance, knowing Sara is alive, again, and not telling him?

Yeah, yeah, I know . . . "comic book . . TV . . . blah blah."

Just sayin'.

[The Darknight Detective]

As noted in a couple other threads: After the Legends of Tomorrow teaser, I'm suddenly about 80 percent convinced that Malcolm's end of "the bargain" is bringing Sara back via the Lazarus Pit.

80 per cent is way too low. I'm thinking more like 99.999999 per cent.

[Jmacq1]

Maybe, but that's still a bit Bullshit though. Wasn't Merlyn the one who told Ollie that the Pit only works in very rare/certain circumstances and gave all the stern warnings about what the pit does to the poeple it brings back? We still don't know if Thea actually escaped any serious after effects. Have they been keeping Sara's body cryogenically frozen? Because otherwise, there's probably not enough left to bring back, after a year in the dirt. And after all the crap he went through with Lance, knowing Sara is alive, again, and not telling him?

Yeah, yeah, I know . . . "comic book . . TV . . . blah blah."

Just sayin'.

Comic Book, TV, and Writers for whom consistency is clearly not their strongest point.

[Hatestorm]

That finale was all over the place.

A lackluster ending to a poor season.

[David Walton]

So, with LEGENDS OF TOMORROW coming out next year, is anyone else scared that ARROW is on the fast track to being the red-headed step-child? Maybe it's not fair to say this, but it really doesn't seem like the producers put nearly as much thought or effort into ARROW this year as they had been. I was at least expecting some kind of amazing showdown at the end, but it was miserably lackluster and even goofy (I'm looking at you, Iron Felicity).

Next year they'll have FLASH, LEGENDS OF TOMORROW, and some of them will be working on SUPERGIRL.

Don't get me wrong, a mediocre season of ARROW beats AGENTS OF SHIELD at its best. Still, if I'm comparing ARROW to ARROW, this season has me concerned. I think the cast deserves better material than they got.

My personal suggestion? First and foremost, dump the Oliver/Felicity relationship. It's dragging everything down.

And secondly? Let Oliver embrace his role as Green Arrow. No more not knowing who he is, wanting to retire, blah blah blah. They're heading into SMALLVILLE territory where they come up with ridiculous dramatic obstacles to keep Oliver from being the hero that we all know he is. I don't want a ten year origin story.

[Jim Kelly]

Maybe Felicity's missing father will turn out to be Vandal Savage. That could put a kink in her relationship with Ollie.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

I was reading an article earlier saying Ollie will come back in S4 more wittier like the GA from the comics. So if true then it does look like he will become the GA, as referenced in Flash.