Ranting: Arrow 7x13
Ok, this was one hell of a ride!
I love the episode. Truly. The newbies didn't annoy me, Digg didn't annoy me (much) and Stan The Fan is one hell of a bad guy!!
William, Oliver and Felicity:
The first scene was funny, with Felicity telling Oliver he shouldn't give pancakes to Will until they talked...Oliver's little "after pancakes or..." yes, I laughed the three times I watched the scene. It's just hilarious, and pretty much confirmation that Felicity is the boss of those boys. Second part, the whole conversation...it was heartbreaking. You can see the toll it took on William what Oliver's decision did. He is lost, angry and hurt. He needs some stability, and he is not getting it with Oliver and Felicity. Him calling his grandparents was his way of having some control over the situation, and basically asking for help to the people he sees the most stable and safe in all this mess...
The dinner...you could feel the tension there, and Felicity trying to diffuse the situation. Oliver of course, can resist his wife, because that little smile here?
Man, even when you are hurting you can't help but smile when your wife says something cute or funny.
I'm gonna be honest: I don't like that he left. At all. I felt like once again, the writers are losing an opportunity to solve this conflict in an organic, real way ...shipping him off to his grandparents (even if he wanted to go), it feels like the easiest solution.
It gave us some really great father-son scenes...Jack has grown up so much, and improve his acting skills a lot, to the point where he played his scenes with Stephen beautifully. It made me teared up everytime they fought, and that final scene? it killed me.
Little bit about the grandparents: You do not have the right to throw in Oliver's face how he was absent for most of Will's life, when it was your daughter the one who decided to tell him she had lost the baby. You don't. Your daughter took the chance of being a present father for him for too long. So now that he is struggling, you don't get to judge him.
I'm really hoping we see William again.
Stan The Fan:
MY GOD STAN, YOU AWESOME LIL' PSYCHO.
I love him, seriously. He is everything a good villain should be: terrifying, cunning, crazy, sneaky and intelligent. The best villain we have had since Adrian Chase. I bet he could have killed Diaz in 0,00001 seconds.
He was scary, and the scene in the house? oh my, yes! writers, you did good with all the creepiness and anticipation. That was some grade A writing. Usually is so difficult to write horror, but here? yes, yes, good shit, good shit. I love terror movies/shows/books, but most of what's out there is pretty meh. This was not.
How Dinah got her scar surprised me. I was expecting it to be the anti vigilante task force in the future to give it to her, so it was an "Oohhhh" moment whe Stan came out of nowhere and almost killed her.
The last scene with The Smoak-Queens and Stan. WOW. I watched the episode twice and still it gave me the chills!. He was absolutely nuts, and I feared he could hurt Felicity at any given moment. To his bad luck Smoak-Queens are baddasses that work together even when paralized. Great team work!
Curtis:
Gotta say, I was expecting him to die. I wouldn't be sad about it...because everytime he was on my screen I was rolling my eyes or yelling at him for being a self-righteous idiot. But finally the writers did him some good: I empathize with him, and he was damn right in how he viewed A.R.G.U.S. Sorry Digg, but you are delusional if you think A.R.G.U.S. is doing good. You are seeing what you want to see, not what the agency really is.
I think it was a good solution to send him away, without killing him off (the favorite solution from the writers to get rid of characters). And he'll go to do some good. It was a great goodbye.
BTW writers: saying a character gay is not enough. That the love interest says they will go on a date, is not enough. Them sharing a fucking scene in 13 episodes, IS NOT ENOUGH. Not knowing what happened with that relationship, after you send the character away, IF FUCKING AWFUL.
That's not representation. That's you preaching about it, without investing time and effort on it.
Flashforwards:
Ok, confirmation of what we already knew. Love Will's face when Mia told him if he had a romance with Felicity XDDD. And when he said she was his mom? I LOST IT. I made an oinsssssss noise that lasted longer than necessary XDDD.
Mia's anger against the vigilantes...does that means the team once again abandoned Felicity? I'm starting to think they did.
Love JJ here. Although he shouldn't have left Roy and Dinah alone.
Olicity:
They have scenes together YAY!!! the conversation in the kitchen...it was painful. And necessary. Felicity was right: they needed to think about what Will needed, even if it broke their hearts...
Now, Oliver. Look at your wife goddammit. This is lasting too long. Seriously.
And...Olicity baby! who was surprised? not me XDD. I think the only thing it actually surprise me, was the time. I was kinda expecting this was announced at the end of the season, not now. But still. We knew there was going to be a baby at some point, and it seems it arrived. It's a good moment? I don't think so, but that's just me.
I have to be honest: I was pretty...what's the word? neutral about the baby. I didn't care if they had children, or if they never had. It's not something I worried about, or demanded. For me, a family doesn't need a child to be a family. It kinda bothers me when people feel that they aren't complete if they don't have kids, and in fiction, a lot of times it feels like they have kids to fulfill this fantasy: the family with 2.5 kids, a dog and a white picket-fence house. And...no. There's different realities, different families. I think it's time to accept that.
That's it. I love the episode. I can't believe we'll have to wait three weeks for the next one. WTH.
