Arrow, season 1
Oct. 1st, 2013 07:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI just finished watching the first season of Arrow.
... I sure know how to pick favourite characters. *sigh*
Okay, so, if I was going to have coherent thoughts on the season up to the final episode I'd have needed to have them before watching the final episode. There were stories and lots of fighting and stuff happened and then...
Stuff I continue to dislike: any time they use DC character names. Give up on that and I'd be happier with the whole thing. Yes I'm aware of the problem with that attitude.
Depiction of women: ... okay, so, I really really miss Black Canary. And do you know why? Because there's a big gendered passive/active split, where guys do fighting and women do inspiring or guiding or the complicated thinking parts. Except for if they're evil. Or Shado. Except I'm epic bored of the island stuff and it didn't get any more interesting by the end so I keep forgetting her.
I just... Laurel's mom turns up and mostly does being very wrong and crying and blaming herself for Sara's death. Okay, reasonable story. Except they've used the names of DC characters here, so she's Black Canary the first, and she should be so inspiringly epic awesome that she establishes a legacy. But no, no fighting for her, just crying. That was beyond disappointing.
Moira was the most interesting character because she seemed to be having plans of her own, but then it turned out everything really was just being manipulated by men and trying to protect her children, so that got boring.
Thea just... decided to make Roy her fixer upper? I don't know. Of a sudden she's all about him and he's all about the vigilante. Why not the other way around? The vigilante saves her boyfriend so she wants to be just like him so she doesn't have to feel all crying next time and can do the saving herself. That's a good story, right? And then her boyfriend can decide to help her and try and protect her but they're both as newb as each other so it don't really work out that way, yet sets up possibilities for the future.
... but no. Roy wants to be the vigilante and Thea wants Roy so ... blah.
... I still really hate what they named him when there's n o t h i n g in common.
They could have called him Jason and had some overlap, but Roy? Not unless DCnU had already eviscerated his character. which is very possible.
Felicity rocks, in her way, but I got bored of her worst way of saying things brain because plausibility went bye bye early. But other than that, and the seen her before feeling, she's great tech support and got to do some cool things as the season went on. Nice enough. Not her own agenda, all about a guy, but in a doing heroics way not a romantics way so okay.
Laurel: I like Laurel when she's being lawyer lady and helping people. She's smart and strong and effective, except for the way that always involves asking her dad or Oliver or Tommy or all of them for help. ... okay, so, I try to like Laurel when she's being lawyer lady. But the ways I like her are exactly why I loathe Laurel/Oliver. I've been trying to figure why, and it's because they've never shown us why those two were in love, or what's to fall for about Oliver from her point of view. I mean, from the audience point of view he kicks a lot of arse, but for her? What, he runs a nightclub now? That's... helpful? And he's all starry eyed at her because she knows him better than anyone! What, is Tommy chopped liver now? Or is 'know' in the biblical sense here? But she knew who he was inside before even Oliver knew! Wow! ... except no, he's totally got a relationship he wrote in his head for five years, and they do not make sense. So if she's going to get back with him? ... why? They never show us them being in love in the first place, they show us plenty of ways Oliver used to be a dick, he cheated on her with her sister, there's an extreme shortage of stuff to love. So making her fall for him just makes her so empty and pushed around by the guys' feelings.
Oliver might say that she's no trophy but the story and the guys basically treat her that way. Consolation prize to you!
And then in the last episode, I really honestly couldn't figure out, what the hell was she doing in danger in the first place? Everyone converged on teh danger zone instead of running away because apparently their loved ones are so incompetent they can't evacuate without someone physically towing them. Say what? Makes little enough sense with teenage Thea and Roy. But Laurel? Why was she even in the office? Why the hell was anyone in the office? If an area gets evacuated, and has enough time for people outside to get in hence has enough time for those inside to get out, why are sensible lawyer people still there? They didn't sell that, so the only reason left is she's there to damsel.
And that just leaves me annoyed at what they did to Tommy. It was tragic in story, heroic and all that, but the amount of writerly contrivance required to get him in that room in the first place was ridiculous and I refuse to be yanked when I can see them tie on the puppet strings.
Really, her dad, her boyfriend, and her ex boyfriend all turn up to try and rescue her. How do they know she needs rescuing? Why didn't she just evacuate? What kind of idiot is she meant to be?
And there were aspects that were so promising. The whole season built up to a teamwork required ending where Oliver got his people together. Yaay! only, oops, the writers didn't follow through. Oliver didn't need Diggle there to fight Merlyn, he just needed to be bugfuck enough to run himself through in order to kill him, and then improbably badass enough to ignore the injury. So, teamwork, yaay! ... except it either isn't necessary or doesn't work. oops? blergh.
... I'm talking around and/or leading up to what I've spent most time thinking about.
Because Tommy was a great character.
... I have such deja vu on falling for a character who ends up past tense.
It's such a waste though. He barely had time to react to his dad's plan. And by the time he was let in it was epic mode evil. It would have been so much more interesting if he found his father was a vigilante and then had more time to compare/contrast and get drawn in and maybe start to agree before boom, epic going too far.
Also a waste, his father never got to react to Tommy being part of the price. He was too far into evil LOLs by then. We got more of a reaction to Oliver being Green Arrow, and that reaction made no sense to me at all. "Oh no" and not killing him? Why? If there was meant to be some fondness there it wasn't well demonstrated. But then when Tommy stands up to his father the guy is just cold and knocks him out. I wondered if his father was going to kill him directly, like shooting him either on purpose or on accident, but no, he knocked his kid out and then went to get into costume and wait in his super secret base until his enemy turned up. That made even less sense than usual. Why did he need an audience? Why didn't he stop to be slightly concerned that his son was hurt?
Actually that was part of the compare/contrast, that Moira was doing bad to protect her kids but Malcolm was so lost in it he just wanted to avenge his wife, he barely saw his kid. So continuing to ignore him fit, it just feels weird.
Tommy, very drunk, hears his father is evil, ignores the hell out of it, goes to have more alcohols and tell his dad the latest stupid rumour. Gets told actually yes is big evil.
I actually liked that whole scene, because Tommy was looking just as gut punch horrified as seemed appropriate. His father got out that recording, and, just, worlds of no, why would you ever do that to your kid? How messed up in the head was he to decide that was right to do? So, horror.
Then police come in and there's ultra violence. And Tommy's response is to grab a gun and aim it at his father.
Tommy has consistently been the most interesting guy. He didn't have an island moment, he just decided the party was getting old and what he wanted from life was changing, so he started making changes. And then his father took all the money so change accelerated. He worked hard, he made the club work, he has an interestingly flexible attitude to the law while protecting his friend's interests, but he at least sometimes had a reasonable and repeated ethical problem with the whole serial killer thing. Also, he did not appreciate his hard work being treated as a cover story. I like when he quit Verdant, saying he had a little more self respect than that. Then, working for his father, he had opportunity to find out about what the man was really like. ... except the story didn't go that way. And I don't know why.
... i'm kind of resenting the island story more now, because I didn't care about that one and now I feel it cut chunks out of the more interesting stuff.
We kept being shown Oliver being a dick. Lies to his family and all. He's a very effective vigilante, and he's a better person at the end of the season than the beginning, but he's not easy to like anywhen.
Tommy though? He's caring, he shelves his discussions when something more important comes up (saving the drawer conversation for a less tragic day), he's a lot more emotionally available than the other guy characters on the show, he's good with kids and willing to open up just to help a stranger (telling the kid about his mom) (and yes, I kind of wanted to keep him quite a lot around then). And then when the physical badness happens, he doesn't have the badass training, but he does his best and doesn't flinch. He protected that little kid as best he could. And then when he knew he couldn't he asked for help, which is another cardinal virtue in TV guys. The series gave us so many reasons to like Tommy a whole lot. And even the annoying stuff like the jealousy and the trying to decide for Laurel (where he probably thought he was being self sacrificing but no it's just annoying to decide to step aside for another guy, what, women can't dump you if they actually want to? :eyeroll:) ... thread lost... oh, even the annoying stuff? It's all about caring too much, and responding to it in ways that do not involve serial murder.
... you know, listed like that, he's a character from another genre. I should be watching a different show to find people like that, right? *big sigh*
I liked him best and then they just killed him at the end and I don't see why. How does that fit a theme or do anything interesting? I mean, if they're going to fridge someone, then fathers and best friend guys are a change from the usual, but I don't see why they needed to.
And I still can't get over how bloody useless it was that Laurel needed saving, let alone so many guys trying to do it. What were they even doing running towards the bomb when there shouldn't be anyone still there after the warning?
Other characters:
Walter turned out to be all about Moira, and I'm really glad he decided to divorce her because some things are just a bit much.
Dig very nearly almost has his own agenda but then ignores it again and then does the vengeance thing and then goes back to backup. He makes sense but he gets pushed around a lot. I don't feel we know more about him at the end of the season than the start. But he's still a good bloke.
... I cannot get invested in his relationship though. Dating his nephew's mom? That's... not weird?
All the people on the island I continue to feel nothing for even after the acquired names and stayed in lots of episodes. They're just so one note. All Oliver did on the island is survive? That's in the opening credits, and then that's pretty much what happened. And then the other people he meets are mostly surviving except when they're backstabbing. And I was just bored. Very bored. Very very bored.
Also, even when it seemed like he'd made a hard choice, the story later proved him to be unambiguously right. Does he ever have to deal with mistakes? Does he shoot a single person who just happened to get in the way of an arrow? Does he ever stop to think about the minions? No, and thanks to balaclavas neither do we have to! Blah. Stupids.
I like it while it's arguing about where the ethical line is, I get annoyed once it decides the line is right here. That's... that's really helpful. *sigh*
So... Arrow was mostly fun to watch and didn't be major ugly. A little annoying in who got to be active/passive and the moral alignment and fate of emotional or violent people of particular genders, but, not hugely evil. And it made me care about some characters.
It just made me care about some characters I'm not so much going to see more of later.
It got rid of stuff I thought was interesting and annoyed me with stuff it thought was interesting.
And the island stuff is deeply and epically boring and half the stupid show.
I am not sold on watching the next season.
But I am glad I watched this season.
It gives me interesting characters to rescue and keep and send swimming in rivers.
... I sure know how to pick favourite characters. *sigh*
Okay, so, if I was going to have coherent thoughts on the season up to the final episode I'd have needed to have them before watching the final episode. There were stories and lots of fighting and stuff happened and then...
Stuff I continue to dislike: any time they use DC character names. Give up on that and I'd be happier with the whole thing. Yes I'm aware of the problem with that attitude.
Depiction of women: ... okay, so, I really really miss Black Canary. And do you know why? Because there's a big gendered passive/active split, where guys do fighting and women do inspiring or guiding or the complicated thinking parts. Except for if they're evil. Or Shado. Except I'm epic bored of the island stuff and it didn't get any more interesting by the end so I keep forgetting her.
I just... Laurel's mom turns up and mostly does being very wrong and crying and blaming herself for Sara's death. Okay, reasonable story. Except they've used the names of DC characters here, so she's Black Canary the first, and she should be so inspiringly epic awesome that she establishes a legacy. But no, no fighting for her, just crying. That was beyond disappointing.
Moira was the most interesting character because she seemed to be having plans of her own, but then it turned out everything really was just being manipulated by men and trying to protect her children, so that got boring.
Thea just... decided to make Roy her fixer upper? I don't know. Of a sudden she's all about him and he's all about the vigilante. Why not the other way around? The vigilante saves her boyfriend so she wants to be just like him so she doesn't have to feel all crying next time and can do the saving herself. That's a good story, right? And then her boyfriend can decide to help her and try and protect her but they're both as newb as each other so it don't really work out that way, yet sets up possibilities for the future.
... but no. Roy wants to be the vigilante and Thea wants Roy so ... blah.
... I still really hate what they named him when there's n o t h i n g in common.
They could have called him Jason and had some overlap, but Roy? Not unless DCnU had already eviscerated his character. which is very possible.
Felicity rocks, in her way, but I got bored of her worst way of saying things brain because plausibility went bye bye early. But other than that, and the seen her before feeling, she's great tech support and got to do some cool things as the season went on. Nice enough. Not her own agenda, all about a guy, but in a doing heroics way not a romantics way so okay.
Laurel: I like Laurel when she's being lawyer lady and helping people. She's smart and strong and effective, except for the way that always involves asking her dad or Oliver or Tommy or all of them for help. ... okay, so, I try to like Laurel when she's being lawyer lady. But the ways I like her are exactly why I loathe Laurel/Oliver. I've been trying to figure why, and it's because they've never shown us why those two were in love, or what's to fall for about Oliver from her point of view. I mean, from the audience point of view he kicks a lot of arse, but for her? What, he runs a nightclub now? That's... helpful? And he's all starry eyed at her because she knows him better than anyone! What, is Tommy chopped liver now? Or is 'know' in the biblical sense here? But she knew who he was inside before even Oliver knew! Wow! ... except no, he's totally got a relationship he wrote in his head for five years, and they do not make sense. So if she's going to get back with him? ... why? They never show us them being in love in the first place, they show us plenty of ways Oliver used to be a dick, he cheated on her with her sister, there's an extreme shortage of stuff to love. So making her fall for him just makes her so empty and pushed around by the guys' feelings.
Oliver might say that she's no trophy but the story and the guys basically treat her that way. Consolation prize to you!
And then in the last episode, I really honestly couldn't figure out, what the hell was she doing in danger in the first place? Everyone converged on teh danger zone instead of running away because apparently their loved ones are so incompetent they can't evacuate without someone physically towing them. Say what? Makes little enough sense with teenage Thea and Roy. But Laurel? Why was she even in the office? Why the hell was anyone in the office? If an area gets evacuated, and has enough time for people outside to get in hence has enough time for those inside to get out, why are sensible lawyer people still there? They didn't sell that, so the only reason left is she's there to damsel.
And that just leaves me annoyed at what they did to Tommy. It was tragic in story, heroic and all that, but the amount of writerly contrivance required to get him in that room in the first place was ridiculous and I refuse to be yanked when I can see them tie on the puppet strings.
Really, her dad, her boyfriend, and her ex boyfriend all turn up to try and rescue her. How do they know she needs rescuing? Why didn't she just evacuate? What kind of idiot is she meant to be?
And there were aspects that were so promising. The whole season built up to a teamwork required ending where Oliver got his people together. Yaay! only, oops, the writers didn't follow through. Oliver didn't need Diggle there to fight Merlyn, he just needed to be bugfuck enough to run himself through in order to kill him, and then improbably badass enough to ignore the injury. So, teamwork, yaay! ... except it either isn't necessary or doesn't work. oops? blergh.
... I'm talking around and/or leading up to what I've spent most time thinking about.
Because Tommy was a great character.
... I have such deja vu on falling for a character who ends up past tense.
It's such a waste though. He barely had time to react to his dad's plan. And by the time he was let in it was epic mode evil. It would have been so much more interesting if he found his father was a vigilante and then had more time to compare/contrast and get drawn in and maybe start to agree before boom, epic going too far.
Also a waste, his father never got to react to Tommy being part of the price. He was too far into evil LOLs by then. We got more of a reaction to Oliver being Green Arrow, and that reaction made no sense to me at all. "Oh no" and not killing him? Why? If there was meant to be some fondness there it wasn't well demonstrated. But then when Tommy stands up to his father the guy is just cold and knocks him out. I wondered if his father was going to kill him directly, like shooting him either on purpose or on accident, but no, he knocked his kid out and then went to get into costume and wait in his super secret base until his enemy turned up. That made even less sense than usual. Why did he need an audience? Why didn't he stop to be slightly concerned that his son was hurt?
Actually that was part of the compare/contrast, that Moira was doing bad to protect her kids but Malcolm was so lost in it he just wanted to avenge his wife, he barely saw his kid. So continuing to ignore him fit, it just feels weird.
Tommy, very drunk, hears his father is evil, ignores the hell out of it, goes to have more alcohols and tell his dad the latest stupid rumour. Gets told actually yes is big evil.
I actually liked that whole scene, because Tommy was looking just as gut punch horrified as seemed appropriate. His father got out that recording, and, just, worlds of no, why would you ever do that to your kid? How messed up in the head was he to decide that was right to do? So, horror.
Then police come in and there's ultra violence. And Tommy's response is to grab a gun and aim it at his father.
Tommy has consistently been the most interesting guy. He didn't have an island moment, he just decided the party was getting old and what he wanted from life was changing, so he started making changes. And then his father took all the money so change accelerated. He worked hard, he made the club work, he has an interestingly flexible attitude to the law while protecting his friend's interests, but he at least sometimes had a reasonable and repeated ethical problem with the whole serial killer thing. Also, he did not appreciate his hard work being treated as a cover story. I like when he quit Verdant, saying he had a little more self respect than that. Then, working for his father, he had opportunity to find out about what the man was really like. ... except the story didn't go that way. And I don't know why.
... i'm kind of resenting the island story more now, because I didn't care about that one and now I feel it cut chunks out of the more interesting stuff.
We kept being shown Oliver being a dick. Lies to his family and all. He's a very effective vigilante, and he's a better person at the end of the season than the beginning, but he's not easy to like anywhen.
Tommy though? He's caring, he shelves his discussions when something more important comes up (saving the drawer conversation for a less tragic day), he's a lot more emotionally available than the other guy characters on the show, he's good with kids and willing to open up just to help a stranger (telling the kid about his mom) (and yes, I kind of wanted to keep him quite a lot around then). And then when the physical badness happens, he doesn't have the badass training, but he does his best and doesn't flinch. He protected that little kid as best he could. And then when he knew he couldn't he asked for help, which is another cardinal virtue in TV guys. The series gave us so many reasons to like Tommy a whole lot. And even the annoying stuff like the jealousy and the trying to decide for Laurel (where he probably thought he was being self sacrificing but no it's just annoying to decide to step aside for another guy, what, women can't dump you if they actually want to? :eyeroll:) ... thread lost... oh, even the annoying stuff? It's all about caring too much, and responding to it in ways that do not involve serial murder.
... you know, listed like that, he's a character from another genre. I should be watching a different show to find people like that, right? *big sigh*
I liked him best and then they just killed him at the end and I don't see why. How does that fit a theme or do anything interesting? I mean, if they're going to fridge someone, then fathers and best friend guys are a change from the usual, but I don't see why they needed to.
And I still can't get over how bloody useless it was that Laurel needed saving, let alone so many guys trying to do it. What were they even doing running towards the bomb when there shouldn't be anyone still there after the warning?
Other characters:
Walter turned out to be all about Moira, and I'm really glad he decided to divorce her because some things are just a bit much.
Dig very nearly almost has his own agenda but then ignores it again and then does the vengeance thing and then goes back to backup. He makes sense but he gets pushed around a lot. I don't feel we know more about him at the end of the season than the start. But he's still a good bloke.
... I cannot get invested in his relationship though. Dating his nephew's mom? That's... not weird?
All the people on the island I continue to feel nothing for even after the acquired names and stayed in lots of episodes. They're just so one note. All Oliver did on the island is survive? That's in the opening credits, and then that's pretty much what happened. And then the other people he meets are mostly surviving except when they're backstabbing. And I was just bored. Very bored. Very very bored.
Also, even when it seemed like he'd made a hard choice, the story later proved him to be unambiguously right. Does he ever have to deal with mistakes? Does he shoot a single person who just happened to get in the way of an arrow? Does he ever stop to think about the minions? No, and thanks to balaclavas neither do we have to! Blah. Stupids.
I like it while it's arguing about where the ethical line is, I get annoyed once it decides the line is right here. That's... that's really helpful. *sigh*
So... Arrow was mostly fun to watch and didn't be major ugly. A little annoying in who got to be active/passive and the moral alignment and fate of emotional or violent people of particular genders, but, not hugely evil. And it made me care about some characters.
It just made me care about some characters I'm not so much going to see more of later.
It got rid of stuff I thought was interesting and annoyed me with stuff it thought was interesting.
And the island stuff is deeply and epically boring and half the stupid show.
I am not sold on watching the next season.
But I am glad I watched this season.
It gives me interesting characters to rescue and keep and send swimming in rivers.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-03 07:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-03 08:45 pm (UTC)Tommy was my favorite too. I'm still bitter. :( I feel like his role as the only uncorrupted moral centre of the show could have continued into season 2 and it would've been good.
I try really hard to like Laurel as well, and sometimes I do! And other times I just facepalm a lot. Whether or not she can punch people in the face or has a shotgun seems to vary from episode to episode which is a little annoying.
I like Felicity and Diggle, but I feel that they could smack Oliver upside the head more.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 02:43 pm (UTC)Laurel is a lawyer. Most of the records in that office are going to be irreplaceable hard copies of subpoenaed medical records and discovery responses for civil and criminal cases for people who are too poor to afford lawyers otherwise. Most lawyers, even the young ones, do not store their information online or on cloud servers, both for security issues and because most court systems still require everything in hard copy. What are the chances of them actually getting that information again? Yes, she could go to court and subpoena the information and re-submit discovery, but their personal office documents would be lost forever, and that would severely damage the lawsuits and the cases they were handling.
So, yeah, it wasn't the safest move for her to go into danger. Except that she was protecting the clients she had in lawsuits that were being brought against the city's corporate folks by the people who had no one else on their side and willing to fight for them. She risked herself for the people whom she was representing.
That's not a flat-out dumb move. Nor is it passive. That's pretty heroic of her and of everyone else who was there. The fact of the matter is that Laurel has always taken action, including physical self-defense, when she has needed to in order to protect herself and other people. I don't see her as being passive due to her gender at all. She knew there was a risk there (we haven't seen her acting like an idiot on the series, she knows what's dangerous) and she took it.
That said, Tommy was way better for Laurel than Oliver ever was. And I'm frustrated that they killed off someone who was a genuinely good person, but, to be fair, Tommy actually has the role usually given to a woman - he was killed off to motivate Oliver and Laurel both. So the series does flip the script on gender at times too.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 05:16 pm (UTC)so, okay, she had a reason. I just couldn't think of it.
also am not understanding it being more important than lives. Like the rule to not stop and get bags when the fire alarm goes off, evacuation means no stoppings.
but she was doing her job at risk of her life. okays. that's brave.
I meant passive as in women do the think work, not the muscle work. Laurel does physical fightings like twice? but mostly she's think work.
she has her own agenda though, decides what needs doing and cares not for permission. that's not passive at all.
Tommy was good. and yeah, fridged, better him than a her, but best nobody. *sighs*
no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 05:18 pm (UTC)on the plus side, I can think of a bazillion ways to bring dead characters back, with DC precedent.
uncorrupted moral centre in a vigilante show... would be good, yeah.
and *nods* some more.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-11 01:43 pm (UTC)*I keep wondering what if, after telling Tommy to be with Laurel, Ollie hadn't then made out with Laurel in front of the goddamn windows. If Tommy and Laurel were then still together and he'd been with her when the evacuation order came in and refused to let her go to work...