Arrow: Draw Back Your Bow
November 20, 2014 12:02 AM - Season 3, Episode 7 - Subscribe

Felicity rediscovers the charms of the Salmon Run. Starling City gets a fresh shipment of tight slinky dresses. Oliver has another disasterous date.

Oliver must stop an Arrow-obsessed serial killer, Carrie Cutter, who is convinced that The Arrow is her one true love and will stop at nothing to get his attention. Unfortunately, her way of getting his attention is to kill people. Meanwhile, Ray asks Felicity to be his date for a work dinner with important clients. Thea auditions new DJs for Verdant and meets Chase, a brash DJ with whom she immediately clashes.

IMDB entry.
AV Club recap.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts (18 comments total)
 


The line about Oliver sticking out like a sore thumb at the pier made me laugh. I'm sure it was a little joke from the writers; after all, he blended in so well in those marketplace scenes.

Felicity being distracted by the dress was weird. If I bought anyone in my workplace any article of clothing, it would mean an instant visit to HR. Then again I don't work in Starling City. Good thing, too. The crime rate is truly spectacular.
posted by Ik ben afgesneden at 6:06 AM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


Felicity being distracted by the dress was weird. If I bought anyone in my workplace any article of clothing, it would mean an instant visit to HR.

I'm pretty sure that in any Fortune 500 company, any complaint by an employee against the CEO up to and including genocide and eating live babies would be utterly ignored by HR. HR exists to protect the company, not the employees.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 3:39 PM on November 20, 2014


at first i didn't like the bit with the dress and necklace, but then i realized that if someone offered to let me wear a million-dollar pair of boots for the night, I'd probably squee, too
posted by rebent at 5:40 PM on November 20, 2014


It's amazing that Felicity's earrings paired so well with a necklace she didn't know she'd be wearing. Personally, I don't get what was so wonderful about the dress. I think it was pretty average, and didn't really stand out as so much more upscale than other outfits she has worn. Plus I really hated her shoes. They chopped up her legs and feet way too much.

Would it be really terrible if I admitted to hoping that Tatsu was going to threaten to put one of those thug's lungs in a bucket? Maybe that degree of reaction will only come about after a certain level of personal tragedy. I also spent too much time speculating about how/if they were going to pull off the inhabited weapon storyline or if that was going to be ignored for not being grounded in reality.

Overall though, I'm having a hard time buying this season's flashback arc. Trapped on an island with no transportation, I could buy that. I'm having a much harder time believing Oliver actually figures himself to be trapped into working for Waller.
posted by sardonyx at 6:20 PM on November 20, 2014


I'm having a much harder time believing Oliver actually figures himself to be trapped into working for Waller.

He has tried to escape several times and Tatsu has beaten him into submission each time. But I admit he's not trying very hard. After Tatsu went missing, he could have walked out at any moment.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:10 PM on November 20, 2014


Here's my question. Why does Waller even want Oliver? The stuff she has him doing isn't that hard. And he isn't doing a great job of it.

Tatsu seems way more competent than Oliver, and proves it by beating down Oliver each time he tries to escape. So why not just get Tatsu to do the assassinations and stuff?

Actually, Waller is awfully written. Why not just shoot China White (gods that is an awful name) with a sniper rifle rather than blow up a plane? I eman, apparently she's just walking around Hong Kong. Plus, Cynthia Addai-Robinson is 29. That means that FlashbackWaller is what, 25? She's 25 and running a gigantic clandestine spy organistion? Was she recruited as a kindergartener? That's just crazy pants.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:17 PM on November 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


Cynthia Addai-Robinson is 29. That means that FlashbackWaller is what, 25? She's 25 and running a gigantic clandestine spy organistion? Was she recruited as a kindergartener?

I really miss comics Waller who was big and middle-aged and not taking any of your shit. Also given all the history between Waller and Ollie, I'm boggled that Ollie just casually handed Cupid to her for the Suicide Squad. At least they acknowledged it was the best of a bad set of options instead of cheering the way they did in the Flash when they put the villain of the week into the cooler.

Also the Ray and Felicity stuff is super-creepy. I get that the show doesn't want to paint Ray as a predator, and I don't worry about Felicity because I know Ray is supposed to be a good guy and the complication, but if I didn't know Ray was a hero, I would assume he was a supervillain in the making because of the manipulative and harassing way he treats her.
posted by immlass at 9:13 AM on November 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


Ray is a good guy?!
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 2:31 PM on November 21, 2014


Ray is a good guy?!

Hard to believe, but if they're making him anything like his comics counterpart, he should turn out to be a good guy.
posted by immlass at 3:26 PM on November 21, 2014


It's not just Waller who is too young, too pouty and too lightweight (as a character). They've treated Tatsu in a similar manner and shaved off at least a decade or so. In her BATO days she was portrayed as a little bit older and more mature--a mother figure to the team, and in particular to Gaby. (Mind you I have no idea what her New 52 characterization happens to be.)

I guess there aren't any middle-aged women allowed in Starling. The only one who fit that description was Moira, and look what happened to her. Maybe it goes against CW's philosophy to have any women even close to their "best-before dates." I mean it's not like there are any on Flash either.
posted by sardonyx at 5:54 PM on November 21, 2014


I know Ray is supposed to be a good guy and the complication, but if I didn't know Ray was a hero, I would assume he was a supervillain in the making because of the manipulative and harassing way he treats her.

Yeah, last week I thought they'd turned a corner and had realized that they needed to dial the "Creepy Ray" factor way back, but this week he's back to "U R SO PRETTY FELICITY I WILL SHOWER YOU WITH EXPENSIVE THINGS." The writers pretty clearly have a big blind spot and are only thinking of Ray as a Complication to the Felicity/Ollie ship, and not really considering his behavior as an actual (human being) character.

Also, the bit where Asshole DJ won't even audition for Thea (who, entirely rightly, tells him to bug off and take his attitude with him), but then goes right in for the kiss after he "saves the day" made me wish Cupid had made a point of targeting egotistical DJ's instead of Ollie.

Maybe it goes against CW's philosophy to have any women even close to their "best-before dates."

I genuinely think this is pretty much how the network approaches things.
posted by soundguy99 at 1:06 PM on November 22, 2014


I can't believe how this show has grown on me and it really is due to Felicity, although I keep wondering if Amell has been steadily improving as an actor, the character really is experiencing observable incremental growth, or mere exposure has done its job.

All I mean to say is I'm surprisingly invested in these two wacky kids getting together. It's one of those comic avenues I know nothing about and I have no idea if there is a stick to canon plan, but unless Laurel is greatly disfigured and recast, Felloliver, or Ollicity, whatever mandatory cutesy portmanteau rises to the top. (Except that probably means they'll kill her off, hmm.) They are selling it, and I can't believe I'm buying it, even though I suspect it's mostly Felicity doing the heavy lifting with two well cast props vying for her attention. Man, Superman is so charming before he goes all evil vegan on us. It's going to be a lot of fun to watch Ollie beat the crap out of him.
posted by provoliminal at 4:28 PM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


I'm definitely not the target audience for the show's romance subplots, since stuff that the show's writers seem to think of as "charming and romantic" read as "controlling" and/or "dickish" to me. I've decided that I'm just going to have to accept soapy moments like a character walking in at just the right moment to see someone kissing and get an inaccurate impression of things, because that's just the way they roll.

I agree that the writing for the Hong Kong stuff, particularly Waller's plans/motivations, is ridiculously dumb.

Cupid fell into the "crazy, love-obsessed female villain" trope which is one of my least favorite things in the world.

So, the bright spots in this episode for me were the laundry subplot and Cutter's snarky therapist. I wouldn't mind seeing the therapist again (because so many of the show's characters are in dire need of it), and hey, it would be a woman over 30 on the show again!
posted by creepygirl at 7:41 PM on November 22, 2014


This was a lot of fun, I thought.

After that salmon ladder/blushing scene I can totally get behind felicity/ray. Honestly I'll get behind anything to stop felicity/oliver from happening. I expect to be disappointed in this hope.

Cutter was a lot of fun, mostly for how much the actress was hamming it up. She was having fun, and it made her fun to watch.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:37 PM on December 8, 2014


And yeah, the therapist!
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:37 PM on December 8, 2014


Does anyone read the posts down here? Hi guys, I'm a year+ late to catching up on Season 3 of Arrow. It's my guilty snack food of a TV show, I love how consistently middlebrow and unironic it is.

Anyway I wanted to point out a neat theme in this episode, which is Inappropriate Romances. You have Cupid running around doing dumb stuff, didn't care for the character or the plot. But she seems to be spreading love all over Starling City. This is the episode where Felicity really falls for Ray, and Ollie has a lot of complex stuff with Felicity, not to mention with Cupid. I think Diggle gets some sweet domestic time in with not-his-wife too. (I was also waiting for Flashback-Ollie to start making moves on Tatsu, but thankfully they didn't go there.) I thought that was a bit clever in the writing.
posted by Nelson at 8:27 AM on February 25, 2016


Nelson, if nobody reads your post they certainly won't read THIS one, five and a half years later. Just caught up to this episode in my attempt to watch all the Arrowverse shows in order. I didn't have high hopes at all for the villain in this episode, because the love-crazed-pyscho-woman is a pretty threadbare trope, and comes with a bunch of narrative pitfalls of exactly the kinds that this show...doesn't always successfully navigate around, to be diplomatic.

But surprisingly enough, it sort of worked here? Or maybe it just seemed more tolerable when seen in contrast to the all the Ray Palmer stuff, because hooooo boy. However much Rickards was getting paid for her work on this show, it wasn't enough, because her charisma is selling a lot of material that would've benefitted from a couple more drafts.
posted by Ipsifendus at 6:34 AM on October 19, 2021


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