Tag: Green Arrow

DC Comics, Recaps, Television2 Comments

NOC Recaps Arrow: Don’t Stab Yourself in the Foot

Constance Gibbs

“This is Your Sword” was another mixed bag of an episode. It had a lot of great moments, but as I’ve been saying in the recaps recently, the overall stakes don’t make any sense. The audience is steps ahead of the characters, telling them what will happen instead of wondering. We end with a cliffhanger where every member of Team Arrow (save Thea) “dies” from the Alpha/Omega bio-weapon. Yeah, uhm okay. Sure. That totally happened.

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DC Comics, Television6 Comments

Eight Reasons We Love Black Canary

Dennis R. Upkins

Originally posted on Geeks Out

During a recent episode of The Flash that featured folks crossing over from Arrow, I was more than amused to watch Cisco geek out when he met Laurel, aka Black Canary. Because when it comes to the love of all things Black Canary, I can so relate.

And with good reason. At least eight reasons in fact.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television8 Comments

NOC Recaps Arrow: Darth Oliver’s Inferno

Constance Gibbs

I fell upon two possible choices for subtitle this week. The first was “The Portrait of Darth Oliver” (Darth Oliver was going to be used in some form or fashion). This came from the idea that Oliver sold his soul for immortal life. Well, he sold it for Thea, but he gains immortal life and the remnants of his soul: Thea, Felicity, and Diggle, are the “portraits” who age and suffer as Oliver continues to sin and live immorally.

The title I chose comes from the idea that Oliver is now in Hell. The Wiki description of the circles of Hell in Dante’s Inferno says that each ring is a “contrapasso,” a “symbolic instance of poetic justice.” Oliver being charged with the destruction of a city he vowed to protect is the evil version of poetic justice.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television5 Comments

NOC Recaps Arrow: The Weight of Expectation

Constance Gibbs

In which I attempt to be fair, yet critical of this episode of Arrow, while remaining hopeful about the road ahead.

I came away from “The Fallen” feeling conflicted. I spent a week trying to figure out how to discuss my conflictions, but I ran out of time and energy. But I will say that the big theme of this episode (not the plot itself, but watching it) is the weight of expectation. All of the things that happen in this episode were things we knew were going to happen. Either because the episodes prior were driving it there, or because the promos basically told us everything. We came into the episode knowing that Thea would be resurrected, Oliver and Felicity would get together, and Oliver would officially join the League. With these expectations met exactly in the way we imagined, it may have led to disappointment.

So we’ll discuss the plot as usual and we’ll open up the comments for what went right and wrong in this episode and how it might affect the rest of the season.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television4 Comments

NOC Recaps Arrow: Pulling Out the Arsenal

Constance Gibbs

I got several notifications during both the East Coast and West Coast airings of this episode that said, “You were right.” And even though the following act proved me both right and wrong (somehow…), I feel so validated and honored that people listen to me. And that I am right.

If you’re reading this recap, then you’re going to be spoiled for the exit of a major character on Arrow. Continue at your own risk.

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DC Comics, Television43 Comments

White Canary and Arrow’s Habit of Whitewashing

Keith Chow

It’s no secret that we are huge fans of Arrow and the whole universe of DC heroes on The CW. So the idea of the network spinning off yet another show — tentatively titled The Atom, by the way — set in that shared universe has got all of us Nerds salivating with anticipation. Ever since it was announced that Caity Lotz was also going to star in the spin-off, fans have been guessing how she would be brought back and which character she would play since she, you know, died on Arrow. Uh, spoiler?

Over on ComicsAlliance, they’re speculating that Lotz will be brought back as White Canary. Being a big fan of Caity’s, I’m stoked she’s coming back to the universe. The only problem is, despite the character’s name, White Canary ain’t, uh, white.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television4 Comments

NOC Recaps Arrow: Everybody Knows

Constance Gibbs

Sadly, I’ve already used “The One Where Everybody Finds Out” as an subtitle, so I was forced to come up with other options, despite this being the true moment. (Lance is Ross, who finds out last of the last.) So, today’s recap title comes from (in truth, the John Legend song, but more appropriately) the Leonard Cohen song of the same name. Among the lyrics1:

Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

Seems apt.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television14 Comments

NOC Recaps Arrow: Couples’ Therapy

Constance Gibbs

I was going to go with a honeymoon themed subtitle, but it wasn’t working and seemed on the nose, but then I noticed that there were a lot of scenes between duos in this episode (Diggle/Lyla, Diggle/Deadshot, Felicity/Oliver, Felicity/Ray, Oliver/Ray, etc), where each couple sorts out some major problems in their relationships, so I went “Couples’ Therapy” instead.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television5 Comments

NOC Recaps Arrow: Choose Your Path Oliver

Rodrigo Sanchez-Chavarria

After a brief hiatus from our T.V. screens — and a teaser about how the rest of the season may play out — we find Ollie at the hands of Ra’s, perhaps ready to taste metal again until Ra’s, in all evil dude monologues, explains to him that he is not going to kill him. He divulges the secret that there have been other Ra’s Al Ghuls — and as he explain his eternal life source, aka the Lazarus pits, he makes an offer that Ollie will need to consider.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television3 Comments

NOC Recaps Arrow: The Frustration of Justice

Constance Gibbs

Well. That happened. This week’s Arrow threatens to turn the show in a whole new direction. I can’t even begin to guess where they take things next.

Getting to the episode itself, after watching it, I (and trusty Flarrow sidekick Christelle) went back to see a Facebook post Stephen Amell put up earlier in the week to describe the episode.

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Why Suspending Disbelief for Arrow is Becoming an Exercise in Futility

Dennis R. Upkins

It goes without saying but when it comes to most works of fiction, a suspension of disbelief is needed. This is especially true for the superhero genre. In a world where meta-humans, costumed vigilantes, super-powered terrorists, and mystical leagues of assassins are the norm, it’s rare that the words, “unrealistic” or “illogical” are uttered.

However, as entertaining as Arrow is (and personally I love the show), the show has really been testing said suspension, this season more than ever.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television11 Comments

NOC Recaps Arrow: No Longer My Sister’s Keeper

Constance Gibbs

What was immediately fascinating about this episode is how the flashbacks were in Starling City and the present time was on Lian Yu, a cool contrast from seasons 1-2 where it was the reverse. Especially while in the direct middle of the five-year journey. I also noticed that the present and past were a bit more even this episode, as opposed to majority present, minimal past. The focus of both sides of this episode is Oliver’s relationship with his sister. I am so glad that Oliver told Thea the truth once again. As she said, now they truly have no secrets from each other (well, Oliver always has a few up his sleeve).

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DC Comics, Television12 Comments

In Defense of Felicity

Constance Gibbs

Badass Digest recently wrote a piece explaining how Arrow has “failed” Felicity Smoak in its third season. It brings up a lot of great points about the ways in which her character has changed, but I think it unfairly places the blame on the Oliver/Felicity relationship, when I think things are a bit more complicated than that. Sara’s death, pieces of Felicity’s (of the admittedly little) backstory that we know, and the overall darkness of the season all help push Felicity to a darker place this season. And I think that’s okay for the show overall.

The piece, which you should click through to read, explains that once Felicity and Oliver had their failed date and Oliver pumped the breaks on any relationship between them going forward, Felicity became a “woman scorned.”

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television8 Comments

NOC Recaps Arrow: The One Where Everybody Finds Out

Constance Gibbs

Well, almost. But two of the biggest season reveals finally happened in this week’s Arrow: Thea found out Oliver is the Arrow and Captain Lance FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY found out about Sara. There are a few things each character is a bit, ahem, fuzzy on… (how long has Sara been dead? Who killed Sara?), but it will finally be nice to get past both of these distracting omissions. Now, besides the circumstances of Sara’s death, we just need Lance to know Oliver is the Arrow and most of our major secrets will be out in the open!

But first! Our fellow NOC Christelle, who provides those awesomely hilarious Flash recaps got tweeted by William Shatner!

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NOC Recaps Arrow: Weekend at Ollie’s

Constance Gibbs

The subtitle for this recap is two-fold. With Oliver gone, Team Arrow is like kids whose parents went out of town so they have a big party, but everyone breaks things and they have to scramble to fix the house before the parents return. Only Oliver isn’t coming back (yet). On the other and more obvious side of the metaphor, Laurel’s absurd aversion to telling her father the truth gets frustratingly WEIRD.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television17 Comments

NOC Recaps Arrow: A Battle He Was Always Going to Lose

Constance Gibbs

WHAT A (MID-SEASON) FINALE!!

There are definitely some parallels to previous mid-season finales: Malcolm Merlyn, a tense battle, a moment of death for Oliver are all running themes in these fall finale episodes. I can’t say it was my favorite though, for a few reasons: I think I knew too much going in. Everyone knows Oliver can’t take Ra’s Al Ghul! And I think Stephen teased at some point (I’ve watched a lot of Stephen Amell Q&As okay?) that the episode might end over a cliff. Also, the other two major focuses of this episode were Laurel and Ray and if you didn’t know my feelings on them before, you’ll find out now, so that also dulled by excitement. BUT overall I am happy with what this episode means for the journey the rest of the season will take.

I have a lot to say about the end and the journey it will lead to, so I’m going to try keep the actual recap portion as short as I can. This episode is merely transition and shirtless ab fights than anything anyway.

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DC Comics, Movies, Television6 Comments

Warner Brothers, You Have Failed This City

Keith Chow

See, this is why Stephen Amell is my guy.

We make no bones about the fact that we love DC’s CWverse superheroes. Arrow and The Flash have taken up lots of bandwidth on this site, and as each show gets better and better, that isn’t going to change. At the same time, I give a lot of crap to the movie side of DC’s offerings. And that probably isn’t going to change anytime soon either.

Anyway, a shockwave was sent through the interwebs when Oliver Queen himself questioned Warner Brothers’ approach to their DC Cinematic Universe.

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NOC Recaps Arrow: Vigilante Soup

Constance Gibbs

I want to go about recap this a little differently this week. We encountered a lot of vigilantes in tonight’s episode, so I’ll talk about them and their story this episode one by one.

But before I get there, BOXING GLOVE ARROW! Wow, they pulled it off! (I feel like Ted Grant’s character was added into the show just to justify Oliver being around boxing gloves…) I think they figured out how to incorporate that move in a great way that the fans really, really enjoyed and didn’t look overly stupid or forced. Kudos to the writers and production staff for that one!

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NOC Recaps Arrow: The Five Year Hacktivist Reunion

Constance Gibbs

Arrow just keeps knowing it out of the park this season! This is the second Oliver-light episode of the season and it hits just as strong as a typical Ollie-centric episode does. Everyone’s been waiting for more information on everyone’s favorite (and I mean everyone) IT girl and we got loads of it tonight. From the appearance of Mama Smoak to Goth Felicity in the flashbacks (and a tease into her imagination — Dominique Ansel apparently didn’t think of cronuts first), we learned more about Felicity in this episode of Arrow than we have in the past three seasons.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television4 Comments

NOC Recaps Arrow: The Calm Before the Storm

Keith Chow

We are definitely living in a golden age of superhero television. Last year, we dedicated an episode of Hard NOC Life about the topic of comic book adaptations in prime time, but this season has seen a dramatic increase as the first three days of the week are chock full of superheroes — with DC heroes dominating the landscape1. And while Gotham on Fox and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ABC get all the press — because they’re on major broadcast outlets — those two shows should be taking notes from The CW, the network that does superheroes better than anyone.

I’ve already sung the praises of The Flash. Not to be outdone by their newly arrived companion, the third season premiere of Arrow kicked off with one a hell of an episode! Fortunately, Rodrigo was live-tweeting along with all of the other Arrowheads. Warning: there be spoilers ahead!

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Keeping an Eye on Arrow

Rodrigo Sanchez-Chavarria

Almost Human may never come back. Sleepy Hollow is on hiatus. Who knows when Book Three of The Legend of Korra will ever come out? So what’s good and NOC-worthy on TV right now? Well The CW is trying out this show called The 100 that resembles a Hunger Games/Lord of the Flies mashup (s/o Shawn Taylor for the references). It’s a hot mess, but I can see how it might catch on.

But if you’re a NOC and need something to watch between the time you put the kids to bed and when you got to put yourself to bed, I suggest you check out a different show on The CW. What am I talking about? It’s simple. Watch Arrow.

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DC Comics, Hard N.O.C. Life, Television5 Comments

Capes and Quivers: Superheroes on TV

The Nerds of Color

Keith (@the_real_chow) brings on Rodrigo (@rscspokenword) and ODU prof ‘Shawn to talk about superhero televisions shows, specifically the upcoming Iron Fist on Netflix and The CW’s Arrow.

As a special guest, we have Arrow costume concept illustrator Andy Poon to talk about designing the superhero look of the Arrow-verse.

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