Season 3 is usually when shows get into their darkest period ever, have you felt it within the first 9 episodes of Arrow Season 3?
Andy: Yes and even though most shows do and almost have to do it, let’s examine Arrow‘s two previous seasons: they have all been dark! Something that I will talk more in depth about in the next question is that one of the reasons why I’m enjoying The Flash more is because they embrace how fun a superhero show can be and look. Green Arrow has in many comics been a character with a lot of wit and fun to him, especially his first live-action incarnation with Justin Hartley in Smallville. Look, I’m all for having a gritty and dark comic book show, but season 3 is almost crossing the line of making it too dark. I’m still excited for the second half of the season and hopefully by the end of it, we will start to see some more light and see a brighter season 4 (which will be picked up probably by February)
Blaise: Yes, definitely, we are halfway and everything finished with Oliver being stabbed and killed! What more could people want? The season opens with Sara being killed, Oliver loses Felicity and has to watch her with Ray, and then finds out Merlyn drugged Thea and influenced her to kill Sara, which leads to Oliver being forced into a battle with none other than Ra’s himself. The show is super dark right now and I am loving it!
Chris: I certainly felt more darkness in the midseason finale of the show, but aside from that, I haven’t really noticed anything “darker” about Arrow Season 3. Sara’s death was shocking and sudden, but this series has never shied away from major character deaths and has always had a darker tone since it premiered back in 2012.
How do you think The Flash/Arrow Crossover changed and will change the show?
Andy: It was so enjoyable for several reasons, but something I think they really took away from it as a lesson — and this applies for both shows — were the great character developments. We had so many self-realizations from so many of them that I think it will carry over into future parts of the shows. But in Arrow‘s case, I think it will possibly introduce that more lighthearted theme that Flash has without going full on because I still want some of that dark tone. I could go on for hours about this, but to focus on one thing here: Barry’s speech to Oliver is something that I think can in the longer run (no pun intended) help make Oliver a more layered character (even though he has several layers already), but perhaps finally get that witty side of him that I have seen so much in other Green Arrow versions (comics or TV shows). I think the public “Oliver Queen” will be something that they will explore in the fourth season.
Blaise: This goes back to my point in the first question; it just completely evolves the show to a new level. Blending the two shows really expands everything massively and just opens up the possibilities. What if meta-humans start coming to Starling City? It doesn’t confine either show to one place or one set of characters and going forward makes both Arrow and The Flash much more fun.
Chris: The only ways I really see the crossover changing Arrow is through the connections the episodes created between its and The Flash‘s sets of characters and the effect that Barry’s speech can and will have on Oliver. I thought the interactions between Felicity, Caitlin, Diggle, Roy, and Cisco were great and will hopefully lead to maybe one more “mini-crossover” this season, with one or two of them heading over to Arrow or The Flash. Additionally, I think Barry’s words to Oliver about how he, Oliver Queen, can serve as an inspiration to others, will ultimately impact and affect how Oliver identifies himself by season’s end, as he will realize that he can be both the Arrow and Oliver Queen without having to give up one or the other. The two of them together allow him to be at his strongest.
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Interesting conversation–though most of the points were covered by fans online right after the mid-season finale aired.
IMO, what would have made the conversation more interesting would have been the inclusion of someone who does not come from the perspective of the Arrow comic books as the “Bible” for the show. I, for one, enjoy Arrow most when it does NOT try to fulfill the prophecies of the comics: Felicity, Sara, Diggle are all examples of new, original characters that really made the TV show more enjoyable than what the comics offered.
Plus, I’ll say something that I believe the panel, above, would agree with: Ra’s has yet to knock my socks off! A good question for discussion might have been “Should Arrow have hired Liam Neeson to play Ra’s.” I’ve seen interviews with Liam, before the role was cast, and he said he’d be interested.
Finally, there is the question of The Canary. I’ve been on record so many times before as saying the show, in trying to be cute, actually mis-stepped with the development of this character. [Sidebar: I think the Arrow writers have a MAJOR problem writing for/developing female characters.] I feel that because of her natural physicality, Caity Lotz really embodied The Canary. It will be very hard–probably impossible–for Katie Cassidy to fill the void left by Lotz. IMO, an alternative and more successful casting strategy would have been to cast the less action-oriented performer (Cassidy) as the first embodiment of the Canary, and then introduce Lotz as the final Canary. This way Lotz, through her physical abilities in the role, would have been seen by viewers as “improving, and taking to the next level,” the tough, avenger Canary role. As it stands now, fans are probably in for a let-down when Cassidy puts on the black suit (and, btw, I hate the new Canary mask).
Oh, one more thing: Season 2 was incredible. So, this year, “dark” or “light” the Arrow S3 probably will be viewed as inferior to S2.
Please caity lotz didn’t protrayed black canary right or making a believable black canary and also her scenes accepted her fighting scenes was cringed worthy and also she always looking like Mr.scrounge that pouts . I believe in ms.Cassidy protay of black canary than caity lotz .
I agree that some of the best characters on this show are the original ones — Diggle, Felicity, Sara, and I’d add Thea and Moira. It’s when they try to fit into the mold of the comics that they come up short. I found Slade a much more menacing villain than this version of Ra’s.
I also agree that Caity Lotz was physically The Canary, but more than that, I think she was mentally too, someone who had been hurt herself and was determined that “no woman should be hurt at the hands of a man”. She was a good fit in the Arrowcave, an equal soldier to Diggle, a friend to Felicity and a mentor to Roy.
So far, Laurel seems to just want to take her anger out by beating up other people, whether they killed her sister or not. She has yet to speak to Diggle or Felicity other than to give them orders and she told Oliver she’s not on his team so don’t tell her what to do. I’m really wondering how the show will incorporate her into Team Arrow, between the expectation from the comic books that she will be an equal to Oliver, the attachment of viewers to Diggle and Felicity, and how she’s the least experienced person there. Even Felicity could take down Cooper after being trained by Diggle for two years.
I find it interesting that you see the introduction of more DC characters as one of the good parts of the season, and the lack of focus and wandering from plot point to plot point as the chief problem.
They are two sides of the same coin for me. The show is bringing on so many DC characters (Wilcat, Atom, Black Canary, Ra’s al Ghul) and their origin stories, but there’s no way to focus the show when you’re writing that many stories all at the same time, on top of Sara’s death and whatever Malcolm Merlyn is doing with Thea. It’s like they’ve decided that the season will end with a bunch more superheros on the show (Wildcat, Atom, Arsenal, Black Canary, Speedy) and so they’ve thrown all these plots into the pot and the combination is not nearly what they envisioned.
We’ll see what Merlyn gets in the second half of the season but I feel that he’s not nearly as interesting a character since Moira died. She was the one who fought him on his own twisted plain and now he just walks all over everyone else, from Thea to Oliver to the LoA.
I was also struck by you saying that Laurel has earned the Black Canary role. I’m someone who didn’t come from the comics and I thought Sara was a very believable Canary, going through her own trials, trained by the LoA for five years, emotionally wounded but fighting for others. At this point, Laurel still has for me all the things that don’t make her believable as the Black Canary: she’s judgmental, lacks the empathy for others that Sara had, and she still can’t fight. I think they’ve really botched her arc if she’s going to be the BC because rather than being someone driven to protect the innocent by Sara’s death, she’s taking boxing lessons so she can beat up bad guys, problematic for an ADA and not good enough for a potential superhero. Worse, she hasn’t done a thing to find Sara’s killer, she’s left it all for others to do.
Sara is nothing but a cold blooded killer and she is nothing like black canary and Sara isn’t an amazing character as her fans are claiming and also Sara didn’t train to fight for 5 years with the league of assassins or 4 years . Sara was train by them for 3 or 2 years because she was missing for 6 years and was with doctor ivoy for 1 year and 1 year on the island with Oliver without training and 4 years later she got trapped into the league but she was never with the league for all those four years she was with them for three years because she escape them for 1 year and she wasn’t training when she was running from them. Secondly black canary alter ego identity isn’t Sara it’s laurel .