Well this is the first episode I enjoyed in a long time, for this season anyway. Other than the episode before "Invasion" which I kind of consider separate among between these two episodes. I think it would have been much better to have the 100th episode be a standalone rather than also include a crossover.
Aliens in Arrow--it was just kind of weird, as interesting as it was, it felt so out of context and it was more like a fantasy show. With the episode focusing on the other DC characters and all--not that I didn't like it, or the crossovers--but I think the 100th episode deserved a better treatment and should have been standalone.
Apart from tonight’s episode and episode 7, the season 5 premiere was good enough, but you can usually expect that from a season premiere anyways, but I was still affected by how badly season 4 effed things up. After the death of Laurel, Ollie and Felicity’s break up, honestly, there was no way to resurrect the show. It was permanent. It was that bad. That’s why I wasn’t able to enjoy season 5 and the premiere episode as much I used to.
Unless *Laurel* turns out to be alive in this episode, that might reshape the way things were in Arrow.
Okay...one question, speaking of Laurel...I mean...do we know what exactly happened to Laurel when she died? She was going to heal from the stab Damien Darhk gave her. They never explained what happened. Laurel just said, "If you really love me, I need you to do this for me."
Most of us assumed she asked Oliver to kill her or maybe she didn’t die at all, that would really make that a good twist from season 4...I wonder why they never addressed the controversy following that episode. What exactly happened in that hospital room Oliver and Laurel were in?
And thinking that Oliver keeping a big secret yet again, worst of all, from Felicity. Did Oliver kill Laurel? I'd say that would be crossing the line. With season 4, I felt like the writers had no limits with how bad they wanted to make things with the series because it is a soap opera.
Back to the midseason finale, I would have been able to tolerate the wait, unlike last year's mid-season finale, with the shooting. Felicity was going to survive though. I wasn't too worried.
But as for this cliffhanger, if Laurel just turns out to be yet another hallucination, that will be extremely disappointing. Unless Ollie's girlfriend put something in his drink to cause him to hallucinate, it might help, but still be disappointing.
Once the episode got to the scene where Oliver visited Susan, I started believing that Susan might actually be Prometheus. Two episodes ago though when they were starting to date, I was thinking, well if she is Prometheus…this will be like season 2 again.
I did think before that Billy might have been Prometheus. Since the character was kind of boring and useless. How does Felicity go from dating two superheroes to this random dude? But in the end, the result turned out to be interesting.
My other money was on Oliver's assistant...but that would have been redundant, like season 2 again.
Evelyn betrayed Oliver. I kind of like that because I never liked Evelyn in the first place or most of the new Team Arrow members except Mr. Terrific. I've been slowly warming up to Wild Dog though, but I still don't like Ragman. (Oh! I finally remembered his name!)
Oliver killed Felicity's boyfriend...damn. Drama series are supposed to have conflicts and I like that, otherwise it wouldn't be entertaining to say the least. But it's when the writers go too far with the conflicts and make it too depressing to the point where I just can't tolerate it.
But I liked the conflict this episode with Oliver killing Billy thinking it was Prometheus. It didn't take itself too far. Felicity doesn't seem to hate Oliver yet. Maybe she won’t.
This either means Oliver and Felicity will get back together again or...Oliver and Laurel will. Strangely, only until now have I wanted to see Oliver and Felicity get back together. In spite of what they went through together last season which had no way of fixing. Fault on the writers...when they take things too far, you can't fix it. They made Felicity hate Oliver too much last season. But if Laurel turns out to be alive, then maybe it should be her that hooks up with Oliver.
It seems to me that Susan could be Prometheus. She arrived at the Christmas party late...she could just be manipulating Oliver, especially in the last scene before Oliver saw Laurel.
If she is Clayborne's daughter, that might make sense. When Ollie goes to visit her after what had happened, and explains to her that Prometheus told him that everyone he loves will be destroyed, she tells to keep fighting, probably so she can continue to make him suffer. Maybe. She looked confident. An entertainment TV news girl…seems like a good disguise no one would ever suspect of.
Something about The Flash last season bothered me, with the whole Zoom twist, because it felt forced and it was the same plot twist as season 1.
This twist in Arrow though might actually work, I mean if Susan turns out to be Prometheus. Forget that Prometheus sounds like a man. Susan does get a fairly good amount of focus this season, maybe it's for a reason.
Solid mid-season finale. I enjoyed the season 1 flashbacks. Were all of them "new" season 1 scenes that were shot for this episode, or were any of those scenes from season 1? Because I forgot. Not sure if I remembered a scene where Arrow walked and fought men up the escalator.
I miss it when the show had flashbacks with a twist that played a role into the present, unfortunately it doesn't look like they can go beyond Deathstroke.
9/10.
