Due Process: Arrow 706 Review

      This will be shorter since  today is Thanksgiving and tomorrow I  have a full day.   I hope you won't end up saying, "Tune in With Turner, you  have failed this review!"  This one has been difficult since  I think the story is  confusing on many  levels.  Here are my thoughts:

Oliver: Oliver progressing to become a  true hero in the light.  He has faced his many demons, the Island, Deathstroke, Chase, and not so much  Diaz  as  Dr. Parker. He has realized  who he is and what he is.  He is a  fighter  for justice who is unwilling to kill for the sake  of killing to scratch a  name or a villain off his list.  Prison has caused  him to face the last aspect he had to face: will he be the same kind father to William as his  father was to him?  Will he continue to  make decisions for everyone  he loves without consulting them?  That's what his father had  done. This will somehow play into the flash-forward future events.

Oliver trusted Stanley. I  had  suspected him of  being the Demon, but I think he is far worse than Dr. Parker.  Brendan  Fletcher played his character well. We,  like Oliver, liked him and trusted him thinking perhaps he  had been unfairly  treated.  Certainly the guards were  less than honorable.  The Oliver that emerged from Level  Two, trusted Stanley completely, and the  look on his face at  the end  when it was clear that Stanley knew something he could  not have known  or found out in isolation, showed that he  was  angry that he  had been used  by Stanley.  What will be ahead when Diaz appears?

Oliver E2 Laurel:  Oliver can't believe that Felicity would trust BS let alone ask  her for help.  He's angry  with BS and  rightly so, for if  she  had  not interfered perhaps his family would be together.  He  doesn't want her  help, and honestly when he told her that he she was no lawyer, the viewer chuckled. 

Oliver has  made strong enemies  of  Brick and Turner,  how will he help  them and give justice to Stanley?

Felicity:  Felicity  walks the  line between  light and dark.  She's not totally in the light as  she was in season  6, but she's not totally given over to the darkness now.  The flash-forward  would have us believe that Felicity has given herself sot totally over to the darkness that she has  just been murdered.
You can see this light/dark struggle in the clothes she wears.  When she's in the dress in Laurel's office, she's quick with  her wit and  tongue, like  always.  However, when she's in the  street clothes they have a  rougher looks to them.  Even more dark than when she was in jeans and tennis shoes looking  for Oliver to tell him she  was "glue, baby".  This difference in dress highlights that struggle that's going on  within her.  Even Anatoly tells her both things.  When Felicity threatens Anatoly with homeland security, he says, "You're not the Felicity Smoak I remember."  She replays, that one couldn't stop Diaz, maybe  this one can."  Later, when she sees him in the  hospital to apologize he tells her that she  is the Felicity Smoak he  remembers.  I'm struggling with the  writers here.  I do believe that if she lost both William and  Oliver forever, I could  see  her going  rogue. I don't want her to go in that direction, and most viewers don't want to see that. 

Felicity's relationship with BS, is interesting.  I wouldn't say they are friends yet. Perhaps they become friends, but right now they need each other.  Felicity needs Laurel on two fronts.  Even though BS is not a real lawyer,  everyone believes she  is and  she can work  the legal angle and get Oliver out that way. She also needs BS for her canary  cry  to  stop Diaz  when they find  him.

Felicity and Diggle:  I  miss the John Diggle that loved Felicity and Oliver and  would do anything for her to  encourage her and help her.  This John Diggle of  season 7 is barely recognizable. When he said, "you pushed me  away," I became unglued. Say what? Who pushed  whom away?  Who told Felicity that if she didn't do  things his way, she had no place  with him?  Did he offer her a place to stay?  No, that role belonged to Rene.  The one thing I  was glad  he said to her, was not lose the kind person she has always  been.  He helped Oliver through his struggle between light and darkness, but he  hasn't done that for Felicity, because he isn't around her.  He has changed much since Oliver's been in prison.  I  would love for Oliver to  face John about not taking care of his family.

A reader of this blog,  Emma, brought up something I had  forgotten and it is worth mentioning.  Do  you remember when Felicity left Oliver  because she was "losing herself in him," as she phrased it.  Look at what she's done to save the man she  loves, her husband, and bring  him home. 

BS/E2 Laurel:  I can't believe I'm  writing this, but I am  beginning to tolerate this person.  She's struggling with goodness herself.  She could at any moment turn on anyone.  She wanted to kill the judge over a wrong decision, but Dinah stopped her.  Dinah is beginning to form a relationship with Laurel.  Honestly what she told Oliver was true that she isn't really E1  Laurel, nor E2 Laurel. She was a  different version of both; perhaps a combination of  both.  She may always  walk the line  between  the light and the darkness, and that certainly  makes her  more interesting and more believable.  I  know some are  worried  that she and Oliver will somehow get together. I don't think  they  will  go that way at all.

Diaz:  Diaz  is an enigma.  How could  he orchestrate this whole getting arrested?  It's all  a part of his plan?  He's  going into  prison to kill  Oliver himself?  I can't wait for this Dragon to go down.

Diggle:  Okay, so  he shot nearly  everyone trying to rescue  Anatoly, and yet he misses the shot with Diaz?  That was just dumb.  Sorry, that's my opinion.

Flash-forwards:  Kudos to William  who defended Felicity.  He can't believe she became a villain. The viewer stands with William.  Do I believe Felicity is  dead? No.  My question is why is no one  mentioning Oliver? William's asked about Felicity but not Oliver.  Isn't that strange?  Roy doesn't ask, and Dinah never brings him up. What's up with that.  I think they want us to believe Oliver is dead and that's what pushed  Felicity over the edge,  but we all know Oliver is not dead.

What we now can affect events in the future. Decisions we make today have a lasting  effect.  It's sort of like It's a Wonderful Life.  What decisions  do Oliver and Felicity make that will bring about the Star City twenty years  from now?  As Clarence came to tell George Bailey  that his  life had meaning, this reviewer needs a  Clarence  to  explain all  this to me. lol  I have hope that both Oliver and  Felicity will both be alive.  There was a fern  in that room.  Felicity brought Oliver one, and later, he gives Felicity a fern.  I  am thinking they  are together.

Final  Thoughts:

• Arrow has always been about the light and the darkness struggle.  This struggle continues pretty  much in each character to a small extent, but it's a major theme  with Oliver and now Felicity.  I  am  thinking that Oliver will need  to become Felicity's  light and bring her out of  that darkness that wants to engulf her.
• Arrow has also been about being "something else" and becoming "someone else".  We watch Oliver become someone else, and now the writers want us to believe that Felicity will  be become someone else
• Someone please send  Curtis away. He's annoying.  Even Felicity got annoyed with him.
• I'm extremely  tired of the prison scenes.  We had  Oliver in prison for 1/3 of the season. That's far to long.  It's makes anxiety rise.  If  that's what the writers wanted, they succeeded.
• This season is filled  with darkness, but folks, the light will  come!
• Sorry for so few pictures.  They take time, and I wanted to get the review out before the next episode, and so I had to time for pictures.
• Sorry also this was rushed.  
• Please leave your comments below. They  are highly values.