Arrow

[Kensei]

Even though there were a lot of stories going on, I'm glad the beginning was Oliver carefully instructing Laurel how to fire his explosive arrow. It was a cool scene. Then things got crazy. Sara gaining her confidence as a hero was good, although I'm not sure it's just going to be that easy (assuming she lives to see season 3). See, all Laurel needed was a well lit area and she could recognize her sister.

As for Thea, I'm hoping she really did try to shoot and kill Merlyn but either A) He's wearing kevlar or B) She's a lousy shot. If he does convince her to take a shot at being a Meryln and not a Queen, I don't want the shift to happen quickly.

Ravager was...frightening. Has Summer Glau played a bad guy before?

Laurel put two and two together one or two episodes ago and realized Sara must be the Canary because of all her scars, her closeness to Oliver and their lame excuses for all their injuries.

Thea and Merlyn- there was the sound of a body falling, but when we get the reveal I could see Merlyn maybe on his knees, opening his suit to reveal his Kevlar with two impacts in it, and saying, "Ok, I can see that you're serious." Then a smile, and "You're more my daughter than you realize."

I thought Ravager was scary too, but they are really playing around with things now as far as translating the comics. Ravager in the comics has been Slade's daughter, whereas if I remember correctly Isobel Rochev was a much older woman who called herself "The Queen" after she took over Oliver's company. Given that much of a change it seems to make it less sure that Laurel has to become Black Canary. Not sure if Summer Glau has played a villain before but she has played a Terminator which can be programmed to be anything.

[pitbull in a skirt]

Don't despair. They chopped Black Canary into two people as the story developed. Absolutely no reason they can't do something similar for other characters.

Ha, they really did.

[Captain Smith]

I liked the episode but threat of 50 Slade-oid super soldiers isn't really very threatening. The soldiers were not invulnerable as seen by them being blown up and stabbed with arrows. A usual large city would have 1000s of police with access to higher powered long arms than their hand guns. The soldiers were vulnerable to being shot in the head - Sara said so.

Also, Star City must be gun control oriented city like NY or Boston. A city like Houston, Atlanta or Dallas is chock full of folks with assault rifles and quite powerful hunting rifles. 50 guys just wandering around would be shot to pieces unless invulnerable and they were just a little tough.

No reason to blow up the city.

[saul_on_the_road_to_damascus]

I liked the episode but threat of 50 Slade-oid super soldiers isn't really very threatening. The soldiers were not invulnerable as seen by them being blown up and stabbed with arrows. A usual large city would have 1000s of police with access to higher powered long arms than their hand guns. The soldiers were vulnerable to being shot in the head - Sara said so.

Also, Star City must be gun control oriented city like NY or Boston. A city like Houston, Atlanta or Dallas is chock full of folks with assault rifles and quite powerful hunting rifles. 50 guys just wandering around would be shot to pieces unless invulnerable and they were just a little tough.

No reason to blow up the city.

Starling City.

[Punisher007]

I liked the episode but threat of 50 Slade-oid super soldiers isn't really very threatening. The soldiers were not invulnerable as seen by them being blown up and stabbed with arrows. A usual large city would have 1000s of police with access to higher powered long arms than their hand guns. The soldiers were vulnerable to being shot in the head - Sara said so.

Also, Star City must be gun control oriented city like NY or Boston. A city like Houston, Atlanta or Dallas is chock full of folks with assault rifles and quite powerful hunting rifles. 50 guys just wandering around would be shot to pieces unless invulnerable and they were just a little tough.

No reason to blow up the city.

Yeah they got hit with arrows, and got right back up. They got blown up by explosives, and got right back up. Isabel gets hit by a big truck going quite fast, and gets right back down. Yeah they'll go down, they just won't stay down for very long.

[Kensei]

Yeah they got hit with arrows, and got right back up. They got blown up by explosives, and got right back up. Isabel gets hit by a big truck going quite fast, and gets right back down. Yeah they'll go down, they just won't stay down for very long.

There don't seem to be any hard and fast rules to their strengths and weaknesses so perhaps the Mirakuru has a sporadic effect that differs from individual to individual. Sara did say that a head shot would kill them, and indeed how in the world could they survive that? My impression was that the one Quentin took out with the grenades was killed, but others have only been stunned by explosives. Merlyn seemed to kill the one he tangled with by stabbing him in the neck with an arrow, presumably opening the jugular and bleeding him out (unless he got back up again and is the person Thea shot, in which case even that might not finish him). Of course they are all the product of blood transfusions. When it comes to pure Mirakuru being injected, we have Slade and Roy. Slade was injected, died, and then minutes later revived on his own. Roy was injected, died, and was then revived by CPR by Oliver. I've wondered if that slight difference results in any difference in their strength levels/healing abilities, etc. And Slade seems to be able to heal from just about anything-- except that his eye never grew back. Why not?

Slade and the others are clearly nowhere near Superman or Hulk or Thor strong, but far stronger than the strongest human bodybuilder or weightlifter. Agree or disagree- would they be just a bit more than Captain America strong?

By the way, on another issue about Slade's army. He freed about 20 prisoners from the prison transport and seemed to have about that many hooked up to receive blood from Roy. How does he now have around 50? Where did the other 30 come from?

[Punisher007]

It's possible that using Roy's blood might have diluted the Mirakuru's potency some what. Or maybe the refining process did that. Isabel was also shot and killed while still normal and then resurrected by the Mirakuru. As for where the others came from, we only saw him bust out 20 from that particular bus. However, that doesn't mean that that was the ONLY "recruitment drive" that he initiated.

[Zorkel567]

Also, Star City must be gun control oriented city like NY or Boston. A city like Houston, Atlanta or Dallas is chock full of folks with assault rifles and quite powerful hunting rifles. 50 guys just wandering around would be shot to pieces unless invulnerable and they were just a little tough.

No reason to blow up the city.

Do remember, earlier in the Season, Oliver and Sebastian Blood, as long as I am remembering correctly, ran a program to collect guns from citizens and pay them back for it.

[Captain Smith]

Some of you missed my point. If you have modern firearms training, you learn failure to stop drills which entail NOT just shooting at the chest. There is no evidence that the soldiers were resistant to high end ammo in their noggin. No head - you stop. Modern rifle rounds would eliminate this level of threat. I was speaking to the lack of competence of the police. Also, the fact that in a TX city for instance, the 50 soldiers would face thousands of high power civilian rifles.

It is typical in movies to shoot the monster in the chest for no effect. That is so monsters that are not clearly bullet proof can get back up. Regular folks have survived multiple chest impacts. Not many survive having their brains blown out. Since the bullets did not bounce off them, their heads would be a preferred shot. Police, veterans, , criminals, competitors practice this all the time.

I guess Slade is lucky that Oliver lives in a anti 2nd Amend. city. For example, the DFW metroplex probably has about 100 gun stores loaded up AR-15s, 30-06s, 338s, etc. Any of these would take you head off. Even common handguns would do the job and there are thousands of these out there. Not to forget the myriad AK-47s.

[David Walton]

Captain Smith, you're right, they wouldn't last long in Texas! Especially not when they advertise themselves with the Deathstroke masks.

One of the biggest problems with this season is how wildly inconsistent Mirakuru's effects are. It basically comes down to "whatever the writers need it to be at the moment," which is a cheat. One minute Roy is the Incredible Hulk and the next he's Captain America. If he can punch holes in concrete, then when he hits a guy, their head should explode like a ripe watermelon.

On average, I take Mirakuru's effects to be a cross between Captain America and Wolverine. Slade is slightly above peak human when it comes to how fast he can run or how hard he can throw a punch, and he can heal quickly but there's still a limit to how much damage he can take (as indicated by his eye).

I'm excited for the finale, but I hope the potential for widespread destruction doesn't overshadow the personal interactions. Honestly, I'd have preferred that Slade had just kept this personal, and left Ollie fighting for his family instead of the entire city. There's only so many times you can go to that well. S

[Punisher007]

That's a problem in comic books as well. Actually, it's even more egregious there. It's a problem in movies to. The simplest explanation that I'm going with is that Mirakure effects different people in different ways. Hence why Slade went completely crazy, Roy just got violently psychotic, but Isabel seems pretty much the same as she was before.

[Punisher007]

Some of you missed my point. If you have modern firearms training, you learn failure to stop drills which entail NOT just shooting at the chest. There is no evidence that the soldiers were resistant to high end ammo in their noggin. No head - you stop. Modern rifle rounds would eliminate this level of threat. I was speaking to the lack of competence of the police. Also, the fact that in a TX city for instance, the 50 soldiers would face thousands of high power civilian rifles.

It is typical in movies to shoot the monster in the chest for no effect. That is so monsters that are not clearly bullet proof can get back up. Regular folks have survived multiple chest impacts. Not many survive having their brains blown out. Since the bullets did not bounce off them, their heads would be a preferred shot. Police, veterans, , criminals, competitors practice this all the time.

I guess Slade is lucky that Oliver lives in a anti 2nd Amend. city. For example, the DFW metroplex probably has about 100 gun stores loaded up AR-15s, 30-06s, 338s, etc. Any of these would take you head off. Even common handguns would do the job and there are thousands of these out there. Not to forget the myriad AK-47s.

They've been got point blank by explosives and it hasn't stopped them. Slade said that he had been such into the ocean and had all of the skin/tissues ripped off of his bones, and he still regenerated. So no, there's no evidence that high-caliber ammo WOULD kill them either. Also, when Diggle pulled out his massive sniper rifle earlier in the season, Sara only said that it MIGHT, MIGHT be enough to put Slade down.

[Captain Smith]

I doubt that Slade would regenerate in real time to his head disappearing. Google what a modern 338 Lapua or 50 BMG does to your head.

The explosives didn't blow them to pieces either, it was just the good ol' throw them up in the air. Typical movie or TV special effect. Modern rifle rounds will go through steel plates. There is NO evidence that Slade's skull if proof to that. Even if he could regenerate, no evidence of Wolverine like quick regeneration. You could put him in the trash compactor at your leisure.

Most folks know little about modern weaponery and the script writers avoid such.

[David Walton]

I don't recall Slade specifically saying that all his skin had been removed from his bones. I thought it was something much more vague than that, basically he supposedly went down with the ship but somehow survived and swam great distances.

And I got the impression that Diggle's killshot would have been a sure thing, given that Slade had Isabel stop him.

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that you have a different recollection of both scenes than me.

As far as wildly varying power levels go, it might be common place, but that doesn't make it any less of a cheat.

[Enigmatic Undead]

Pretty epic season 2 finale.