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watching-pictures-move · 3 years

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Viddying the Nasties #37 | Possession (Zulawski, 1981)

This review contains spoilers.

Andrzej Zulawski's Possession is a movie I'd somewhat been dreading revisiting. When I'd seen it all those years back (on YouTube, split into two parts if I recall correctly, as the DVD had been hard to come by in those days), despite being greatly moved by the experience, I'd also found it an extremely exhausting film to sit through. It's a tortured divorce melodrama (among other things) that starts at 11 and only goes up from there. Lots of shouting and screaming, physical abuse, kicking around chairs and tables. The movie is not what I'd call an overtly pleasant experience. Watching it now (on a Blu-ray from Mondo Vision, a substantial upgrade from my original format), while I won't characterize my previous impressions as inaccurate, I was able to better appreciate how the movie modulates this tone, acclimatizing us to its fraught emotional space. The movie starts off in the realm of a normal, bitter breakup, with the husband having returned from a work trip only to learn that his wife is leaving him and struggling to make sense of it, his frustration and anger stemming as much from the fact of her dissolving their relationship as his inability to comprehend her motivations. It isn't really until the half hour mark that it asks us to dive off the deep end with it. The husband hits his wife in the middle of a fight, follows her onto the street as she tries to halfheartedly throw herself onto the path of a truck, which then drops its baggage in an almost comical bit of stuntwork, their squabble ended when the husband becomes surrounded by children playing soccer and joins in. Any one of these by itself is nothing out of the ordinary, but Zulawski assembles them into an off-kilter crescendo, and does away with any sense of normalcy for the rest of the runtime.

That this approach works as well as it does is largely thanks to Isabelle Adjani as Anna, the wife, who spends the aforementioned scene looking like a vampire in cat eye sunglasses and blood streaming down her grimacing mouth. She delivers perhaps the most bracingly physical performance I've seen in a movie, but again this is something I'd maybe underappreciated initially in terms of how finely tuned her choices are. An early scene where she fights with her husband has her manically cutting raw meat and shoving it into a grinder, as if to channel her frustrations into acceptable form of violence for women. When she takes an electric knife to her throat, she begins to spasm about like a farm animal during a botched slaughter, providing a further comment on her domestic situation. The film's most famous scene has her freak out in a subway tunnel, thrashing her limbs about chaotically but almost rhythmically, maybe like the contractions when goes into labour. Her character later describes this as a miscarriage, ejecting the side of her which is neat and orderly and "good". Adjani plays this other half as well, with a much more old fashioned hairdo (braided conservatively like a stereotypical schoolmarm), one which provides a much more tender maternal figure to the couple's son. Adjani is also well cast because of her emotive, saucer-like eyes, which she isn't afraid to point at the camera repeatedly, providing a genuine emotional grounding during both the quieter and more hysterical sections of the movie.

Her husband, Mark, is played by Sam Neill, who had been cast after the filmmakers had seen him in Gillian Armstrong's My Brilliant Career. To understand why Neill works so well, it helps to know that Sam Waterston had previously expressed interest in the role. Waterston, while a good actor, would have come off too fogeyish as the husband. Neill brings the appropriate edge and even sex appeal necessary for the material. And like in Jurassic Park, his best known role, he brings an inquisitive quality that keeps him close enough to our vantage point to give the narrative arc some grounding. The other major human character here is Heinz Bennent as Heinrich, a new age guru who happens to be having an affair with the wife. One on hand, this character represents the counterculture from Zulawski's homeland, which he had left after trouble from the authorities when making his last movie. On the other hand, Zulawski was drawing heavily from the bitter divorce he had just gone through, and directs a sizable fraction of the movie's contempt at this character, leading me to believe that his wife in fact left him for some new age buffoon. In one of the movie's funnier scenes, he has Heinrich confront Mark over Anna's disappearance and then go into a dumbassed trance while spouting new age nonsense and basically calling Mark a Nazi. This is the guy his wife left him for? This jackass? Mark sets him up by sending him to Anna, knowing full well he could be killed, but the potency of Mark's rage (and Zulawski's, by extension), as well as the ludicrousness of the Heinrich character, keep us from sympathizing with the latter too much. Zulawski has Heinrich die with his head in a toilet, a final flush by Mark serving as one last hilariously mean-spirited gesture of contempt.

Zulawski originally conceived the movie as having another major character, Anna's ex-husband, to be played by veteran actor and director Bernard Wicki, but after the first day of shooting with Wicki, he decided to drop the character entirely. (I suppose it depends on the personalities, but I wonder how actors react to being let go early from a project. Is it worse if it's on the first day? How about if you lead the filmmakers to realize they should do away with the character altogether? I only hope Wicki got paid.) It's not hard to see what purpose this character would have served, particularly in the way that Anna "upgrades" her lovers, having traded a much older man for the younger, sexier Mark, and then trying to replace him with an evolving monstrous fuck-squid (more on this later) that she was trying to nurture and reshape into the ideal partner. The only remnants of this character in the finished film is his young wife, who appears in the climax and his goaded by the "new" Mark (the final form of the fuck-squid) to shoot into the corpses of the real Mark and Anna. The character's proposed thematic purpose might have spelled out this moment's significance more clearly, but I'm not always convinced thematic clarity is preferable to how things move and feel, and the end product does not feel incomplete or incoherent, or at least not detrimentally so. The emotions make sense, even if the events onscreen are outside the norm. (My condolences to those of you who've been dumped for a monstrous fuck-squid.)

Having been conceived after his last project was quashed by authorities in Poland, there's undeniably a political element here, enhanced by the noticeable presence of the Berlin Wall, near which much of the film is situated. (At one point the camera looks out the window and sees the police from East Berlin staring back.) The realities of the Cold War figure heavily in the characters' lives, as it's suggested that Helen (the other Adjani) is from behind the Iron Curtain (she speak of readily identifiable evil, which could be interpreted as the visible presence of an authoritarian regime) and that Mark's work is in the field of intelligence, maybe even espionage. But the movie is less interested in pointing out political specifics than in the accompanying sense of repression and division, which plays heavily into the visual style. The movie often divides its frames to separate the characters, but rarely with any sense of symmetry, suggesting a sense of emotional chaos enhanced by the bruising mixture of wide angle lenses and handheld camerawork. When we're with Mark, the movie looks overcast, bluish grey, appropriately repressed at first, although Anna's presence throws his neat, fluorescently-lit apartment into disarray. Anna's love nest, situated in the Turkish district right beside the Wall is dilapidated and unkempt, which may have reflected the squalid realities of a hastily rented apartment in what I assume is a poorer part of town, but after having excised the orderly part of herself, it seems like an accurately messy reflection of her headspace.

Now back to the fuck-squid. It's hard to go into Possession this day and age completely blind, and even back when I first saw it, it came on my radar as the movie where "Isabelle Adjani fucks a squid". I have a lot of respect for Zulawski for delivering the goods on this front and for Adjani for throwing herself into this material, not because I'm some kind of sexual deviant who gets off on this stuff (although if you are, I'm not here to judge, it's a free country, just clear your browsing history after), but because modern arthouse cinema often defaults to a mode of cold, downplayed and too afraid to raise the audience's pulse (because apparently it's undignified to force a reaction out of the audience) and it's nice to see a movie serve what it says on the tin (this is one I'd have loved to see with an unsuspecting audience back in the day). Producer Marie Laure-Reyre notes that Zulawski was very hands on with the conception of the monster, drawing inspiration from gargoyles in Polish architecture, as if to further imbue political context into the proceedings. When seeing the end product, I can only assume Zulawski broke up with his wife at a seafood restaurant (I would hope he didn't react like Mark and throw around all the tables and chairs). Of course, the design of the monster means that the movie leans heavily into body horror, and its inclusion on the Video Nasty list in the UK and its release in the US in a heavily-trimmed 81-minute version emphasizing these elements likely contributed to its psychotronic reputation early on. (I am still interested in seeking out this cut, as I can't imagine the loss of 40 whole minutes wouldn't substantially alter the film's character.) It flirts with other genres as well. Certain scenes have a clear slapstick quality. Some of these involve Heinrich, the ever-reliable target of the film's ridicule, but there is also Margit Cartensen, playing Anna's friend and Mark-hater Marge, falling on her ass like a Three Stooges bit. And there's the climax, parodying action movies with its woozy cocktail of car chase, shootout and explosions, which leads a headlong rush into the film's apocalyptic final moments.

#film #viddying the nasties #movie review #possession #andrzej zulawski

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xiaomoxu · 4 years

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MLQC CN Lucien (Xu Mo) Long Day Date Part 1 & 2

SPOILERS AHEAD!!

It's Xu Mo Birthday which has released on CN server. I'm doing translation for personal reason, so I'm sorry if there's some mistranslation. Kindly tell me if you found some :) feel free for read it~ ^^

PART 1

At 4:30 in the morning, I dragged my heavy suitcase out of the customs gate of Heathrow Airport, and couldn't help but yawn.

There was a problem with the ticket before leaving, and I had to change the red-eye flight, but the plane was late.

Although I rest on the plane for a while, my upper and lower eyelids were still fighting constantly at this time.

MC: No... I have to buy a cup of coffee.

The coffee shop at the airport was very empty, and a blonde crew member was drinking coffee in the corner. I walked to the counter sleepily.

Male passersby: Miss, I'm sorry to bother you. Can I buy you a cup of coffee? You look tired.

MC: ...No, no need. I need to spend all the pounds I exchanged...

There was a moment of stagnation on the man's face, and then a familiar chuckle not far away.

MC: .....?!

I followed the laughter and captured the gentle and narrow eyes that I was looking forward to all the way.

Suddenly, I thought I was really dreaming, but the person who approached me step by step seemed extremely real.

MC: Xu.. Xu Mo?!

Xu Mo whispered something in the ear of the man who was talking to me. The expression on the man's face gradually became embarrassed, he turned his face to apologize hastily, and left in a hurry.

Xu Mo: Miss, can you buy me a cup of coffee with your pounds?

MC: You, why are you here...

Xu Mo: Come for coffee.

Xu Mo casually ordered the order to the clerk and said that it would be charged to my account.

I heard the clerk’s laughter, and my cheeks were hot.

MC: Don’t you have an academic conference? How come you run to the airport for coffee in the early morning?

As soon as I finished speaking, I suddenly realized that I accidentally missed my mouth.

Xu Mo seemed to be paying no attention, answering my question.

Xu Mo: This coffee is very good. Suddenly I wanted to drink, so I came over.

MC: ..what?

I took a sip of the coffee that the clerk handed me. It didn't seem to taste anything special.

Xu Mo: How? Is it a little special?

MC: When you say this, well, it seems that you have some taste.

The smile in the corner of Xu Mo's eyes was deeper, and there was a flash of arc in his eyes, which made me react suddenly.

MC: You lied to me again!

I don't know if it was because of his smile or the fresh caffeine that I took in, I instantly became sober. Looking closely at the face of the person in front of me, my heart moved.

MC: Did you guess that I will come, that's why

Xu Mo: Strictly speaking, it is not a guess, but a reasonable guess. As for the basis of the guess, there are at least three things.

MC: Three things?

Xu Mo: First, two weeks ago you asked my new teaching assistant about my schedule for this meeting in the UK.

MC: ....That Assistant actually betrayed me!

Xu Mo: Second, there was a problem with the ticket you booked earlier, and a notification email was sent to my mailbox.

MC: how is this possible?!

Xu Mo: According to the airline’s process design, I’m afraid you listed me as an emergency contact.

Xu Mo looked at me, his lips smiled even more, the color of his eyes was also a bit deeper, and I quickly argued.

MC: Because I don’t know anyone else in the UK...

Xu Mo: But when I received the email, I was very happy.

I suppressed my accelerated heartbeat, coughed, diverged and talked.

MC: So, what is the third basis?

Xu Mo: The 3rd basis.... Do you want to spend this day with me at the airport?

MC: Of course not! No, does this have anything to do with the third basis?

Xu Mo said, holding my hand on the suitcase, and his gentle eyes fell on me.

Xu Mo: Let's change the place, I can slowly tell you the third basis.

Xu Mo: Besides, you also have something to say to me, don't you?

PART 2

MC: Don't you have a meeting today?

The morning mist faintly enveloped the whole city, and I followed Xu Mo to an apartment that looked a bit historical, and couldn't help but ask in the elevator.

Xu Mo: The original arrangement was to visit the local scientific research room, but I took time off.

MC: Asking for leave? Are you sick?

I stretched out my hand nervously and touched his forehead. Xu Mo smiled lightly as he watched me, his eyes lowered a little.

The temperature under the palm was normal and the elevator bell rang. Xu Mo pulled my suitcase, held my palm with one hand, and squeezed it lightly.

Xu Mo: I asked for personal leave.

MC: Huh? What's the matter?

I was led by him and walked out, watching him turn around and smile at me.

Xu Mo: Very important things, I have to deal with them personally.

I looked at the hand clenched by him, my cheeks hot.

Xu Mo: We're here.

There is a fuzzy chalk mark on the house door in front of the room.

MC: What a coincidence! The number of this room is the same as the initials of your last name.

Xu Mo: ...It's a coincidence.

Xu Mo said that as he opened the door with the key, and what I saw were the large French windows and the tulle curtains raised by the wind.

The European-style furnishings in the house are simple and delicate, I can't help but admire

MC: Wow, this room is great! It feels like returning to my own home!

I turned around and found that Xu Mo was still at the door, seeming a little dazed, with a dull and unclear gaze falling on me.

Xu Mo: Why do you say... it's like returning to your own home?

MC: Huh? I, I can't explain it. Maybe the layout here is very special?

MC: A normal hotel will give people a feeling of alienation and leaving at any time...

MC: But this room looks very safe! It makes people feel like they can stay for a long time.

Xu Mo's eyes changed slightly, and his gentle smile quickly returned.

Xu Mo: Is that right?

I didn't think too much and urged Xu Mo to come in. While he was in the hallway to change his coat, I secretly dragged the suitcase to the kitchen.

MC: Can't be discovered so quickly...

I was about to open the suitcase secretly, but Xu Mo's voice came from behind.

Xu Mo: Don’t you take a break first? We still have a whole day. Don't be so hurry.

I turned around vigilantly, looked at the expression on his face, and wanted to see how much he had seen my plan, but failed to read it again.

If you want to keep confidential in front of this person, the requirements for IQ and psychological quality are really too high.

MC: You, you do something else first. Don't look at me all the time!

Xu Mo: What do you want me to do?

MC: Just take a shower, read a book, make a coffee, water the flowers.

MC: Anyway, what do you usually do alone at home, just leave me alone!

Xu Mo: Are you sure I can do the same as when I was at home alone?

MC: Yes! I have no problem!

Xu Moding watched me for a while, and as my eyes turned, a bad premonition flashed in my mind, but I didn't have time to think deeply.

Xu Mo: Okay. Then you... have fun yourself first.

Xu Mo's eyes slid across my suitcase and fell on my guilty face again, as if he chuckled slightly when he turned around.

I panicked. He must have guessed it, no, he has guessed it.

Even so, I waited for him to walk away before opening the box. I was relieved to see the tightly wrapped tools still lying peacefully in the box.

MC: Fortunately, hurry up and start work!

After half an hour, I hummed a song and looked to the kitchen with all kinds of sparkling baking tools ready, and opened the flour bag happily

When I celebrated Xu Mo’s birthday last year, I accidentally broke the pre-prepared cake. I have been sorrowing for a year.

I learned that Xu Mo will be attending an academic conference in the UK for his birthday this year.

I have a brainstorm and plan to refer to the farm to table model of European farms.

Bring all the tools and materials to Xu Mo's side, and make the cake on the spot. There will always be no problems, right?

MC: Um, where did you put the sugar packet just now? I can't fail to bring it...

I quickly searched and opened the cupboard, and found that some materials were originally stored here.

MC: Wow, it turned out to be rice! And tea!

There are not many ingredients, and the seasonings are one of the few. Foods made with these ingredients should be so weak that there is no taste.

MC: Wait a minute, this scent is...

The strong coffee aroma spreads under my nose, I can't help but shrug my nose and follow the aroma out of the kitchen, the next second I was stunned.

Xu Mo: Miss, would you like a cup of coffee?

Xu Mo seemed to have listened to what I said. He really took a shower, made coffee, watered flowers, and even brought a newspaper to his side...

His black shirt was loosely draped in a bathrobe, half lying on the lazy couch, relaxed and lazy.

The morning sun fell on the person in front of me through the French windows and gauze curtains that had just stunning me, making his contours appear softer.

It seemed that every thread on his body was plated with a faint layer of silver, and the slowly rolling water droplets on the spider plant and the heat of the hydrogenated coffee made his face softer.

This picture is a hundred times more stunning than what I saw when I entered the door just now.

MC: you..you...

I bit my tongue for a while, and my breathing became short.

Xu Mo: What's wrong? Isn't this your request? You made me feel like I was at home...

The corners of Xu Mo's lips were curved, and he gently lifted coffee cup on his hands.

Xu Mo: The coffee is ready, don't you plan to try it?

MC: I, I don’t mean that! If you are alone at home, you have to dress well, or you will catch a cold

Feeling my incoherent speech and the knowingly guilty smile on his face, I took the coffee from him in embarrassment and sat down on the other corner of the carpet.

The rich scent slipped into the stomach along the tip of the tongue, and the whole body was warmed up.

I swallowed the coffee silently, almost burying my head in the coffee cup.

It's all because of this person around, there are too many small conspiracies!

Xu Mo: Actually, I wouldn't be like this when I was alone.

Xu Mo's voice sounded from his side. I looked back at him, his face in the morning light seemed to have a different appeal, and I couldn't help but lean towards him.

Xu Mo: You seem... to be dripping here.

MC: Huh? Where?

I quickly looked down at my shirt and unconsciously moved closer to him.

Xu Mo: It's good now.

Xu Mo's fingers gently rubbed my cheeks, and the light in his eyes gradually settled down, and I realized that I had almost half leaned into his arms.

MC: You...

Xu Mo: Lied.

Xu Mo dropped his finger on my lips and made a silent gesture. The curvature of the corners of the lips was clear and moving.

I swallowed my words all at once, looked at his face close at hand, and heard my heart beating faster.

Xu Mo: You come to me today, There is nothing else to say to me?

MC: ....

I moved my lips slightly, and his fingers lightly rubbed my lips like nostalgia, and left.

MC: Xu Mo...

Xu Mo: Well, I'm listening.

MC: ...Happy Birthday.

Tickー

The crumbling drops of water on the spider plant finally landed softly, splashing a small beam of light in the sweet morning light.

-to be continued-

#mlqc lucien #mlqc xu mo #mlqc translation #lucien birthday #xu mo birthday #mlqc cn

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dear-wormwoods · 5 years

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Ch.2 reactions part four

Y’all I have spent all day writing posts about this movie jfc. Anyway, spoilers ahead for everything.

Skateboard Kid & Bill

- I was really surprised by how much I liked Bill in this movie. I really think Andy did Bill more justice than SK ever did because of his choice to focus almost entirely on his guilt over Georgie and downplay the whole... Audra and Bev thing. Bill is at his best when it’s about Georgie and the tunnel vision he gets about that, so watching him project that guilt onto Dean was really, really good.

- Also the kid playing Dean was SO CUTE WTF?? That child’s eyes are half the size of his entire head. And he’s such a good little actor. I still wish he said the iconic “can’t be careful on a skateboard” line, but him being all creeped out by Bill following him around made up for it. Because... yeah he’s not WRONG, it’s super weird for a grown ass man to show up outside your house and then follow you into a carnival ride looking all deranged like that!!

- That being said, the fun house scene was just as heartbreaking as I hoped it would be. “I’m here this time, please just take me” - wow. Just... wow.

- Bill getting tunnel-vision after witnessing that death and going straight to Neibolt like he’s gonna kill Pennywise by himself is so Bill. Classic Bill. There are three words I associate with Bill Denbrough and they are: guilt, vengeance, and tunnel-vision. This movie was overflowing with that.

Henry Bowers

- First of all, Richie fucking peacing out after Ben convinced him to stay was so fucking funny.

- Loved James Ransone in the Henry Bowers scene... he’s such a great comedic actor and he has a special, rare talent for making serious situations have an element of humor without taking away from the seriousness of the situation.

- The Bev-Eddie parallel of him hiding behind the shower curtain to attack Henry!

- He stabbed a guy with a knife he pulled out of his own face! And then fucking roasted him on his way out! Love that about him! (and, again, love the Adrian parallel)

- When he looks at Ben and Bev with blood pouring out of his face hole and just says “Bowers is in my room. :)” That fucking smile killed me, he’s so WEIRD AND CUTE.

- Ben fucking launching into hero mode and running in to Eddie’s room to murder the shit out of Henry. What a man what a man what a mighty good man, he’s a mighty good man.

- I really... really wish that Richie had killed Henry after finding out he stabbed Eddie in the face. I don’t know how that would have worked out? But I still wish it happened that way.

- That being said “That was long overdue. ...Get it? Cause it’s a library?” was SO FUCKING FUNNY.

- Also hilarious was Ben’s “Are you alright?” and Richie’s “NO I’M NOT ALRIGHT I JUST KILLED A GUY!” ..... Ben: “... I was talking to Mike.”

Side Commentary:

- During the bar mitzvah speech, I thought it was really important that the “change is so scary” line was paired with the image of Eddie returning to Neibolt for his fannypack. Because change IS scary, and that’s one of the most important parts of Eddie’s entire character arc. So I really liked that editing choice, and it was very intentional.

- At first I was really pissed that they seemed to be turning Mike’s parents into “crackheads”, so I was VERY HAPPY when at the end of the movie he looks at the same newspaper clipping and the article’s title is very different. Like thank God it was just Pennywise being a bitch and Will and Jess still have their integrity.

Neibolt House:

- Loved revisiting Bill’s speech after they all rush to catch up to him at Neibolt. I love... parallels... and the IT franchise is just overflowing with them, everywhere you look there are parallels and cycles and history repeating... I think that’s half the reason I love it so much.

- More parallels: Beverly saving Ben’s life using the same spear she later gives to Eddie, which he then uses to save Richie’s life... wow. The Benverly/Reddie parallels... so good. That spear saves lives.

- Stan’s head was creepy, but I’m still partial to miniseries!Stan-head sjfksghs.

- Richie immediately running over to Eddie and asking if he’s okay. Continuously putting Eddie’s safety before his own!

- I actually kind of liked Eddie freezing up in this moment. It took some reflection to come to terms with Eddie taking so long to summon his courage, but here’s the take I settled on: in the novel, Eddie IS paralyzed by fear a couple of times because of his mother’s voice in his head telling him to run. As a kid, he manages to push his fear aside and helps his friends, but he grapples with it at first. As an adult, he grapples with it longer and it’s only when Richie’s voice enters his mind asking for help that he jumps into action. So in the movie, it makes sense that Eddie would freeze for such a long time as an adult, after he’s spent a lifetime steeped in fear of literally everything. Of course he wouldn’t leap into action as quickly as he did at age 13.

- Eddie’s “Please don’t be mad, Bill... I was just scared” was fucking HEARTBREAKING and he genuinely sounded like a frightened child who just gravely disappointed his dad. Wow. James Ransone... wow.

- Ben fucking stabbed the shit out of that head, though. Jesus Christ.

Next: final battle and ending thoughts.

#it 2019 #it reacts #stephen king's it #eddie kaspbrak #richie tozier #ben hanscom #beverly marsh #mike hanlon #bill denbrough #henry bowers #initial ch2 thoughts #losers club #i've since retracted some of these opinions

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hellyeahomeland · 4 years

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“Chalk One Up” | Directed by Seith Mann, Cinematography by David Klein

The episode opens with Carrie arriving from a long night out doing… God knows what with God knows who. We love the starkness of this close-up on the exterminated motorcycle light. According to Lesli Linka Glatter, this mode of transport is based on a real life story:

“The scene where she gets out of the embassy was based on the real agent who Carrie is based on. She was based in Iraq at the time and that’s how she got out: by dressing as a man and traveling on a motorcycle. So, we used that for this. Also, you can’t leave in Kabul without an armored vehicle.”

...as the camera slowly pans up to reveal it’s Carrie underneath that (gigantor) motorcycle helmet, the question becomes clear: where the fuck was she?

Sara loved these scenes between Samira and her friend. Homeland has depicted several cities in the Middle East over the years but has rarely given us glimpses into the world outside the walls of a hotel or CIA station, especially without our main characters. The market that Samira and her friend walk through is vibrant and filled with color, as are their outfits. It’s a stark contrast to the interiors of the CIA station. And Samira’s line that the Taliban didn’t go away but were no longer hiding proves remarkably predictive of the rest of the episode’s events.

The real highlight of the scene is the selfie, of course. We love the detail of the man on the far, far left being cut out. Samira’s friend is the master of the one-arm selfie!

This shot of the various players at the Kabul station looking outward at Carrie is striking. It’s almost a reverse fish bowl. Carrie remains on the outside but everyone’s looks are in her direction. Jenna standing at the front of the room further suggests she was never “stuck in the starting gate.” She’s in the same position of power in that room as the Chief of Station and the commanding military officer at right. From afar, the dynamics are almost similar to early season one, Carrie running an ops meeting with Saul by her side. All of which is to say… is Jenna the Carrie to Mike’s Saul?

Dog.

This was such a specific detail that we thought it required pointing out, but 27 is not a significant number on this show (at least that we can remember), so we’re not sure why they bothered to show this.

...unless it’s a reference to the general ominousness of the 27 Club and a hint that Carrie (who, to be fair, is far past the age of 27) is going to die.

This week the show confirmed that Tasneem is the Director of the ISI. Which means that (after President Elizabeth Keane) she’s the second most powerful woman ever depicted on this show. And boy does she dress the part!

Tasneem’s all-white ensemble is attention-grabbing and distinctive (the other women in this frame are dressed in dark clothes). It’s also visually similar--especially with her long, black hair peeking through the sheer fabric of her headscarf--to the dress worn by several other men at the reception.

Homeland has told lots of stories over the years--whether intentional or otherwise--about the challenges women face living in a patriarchal, misogynist society. Whether it’s Martha losing her career because her loser husband couldn’t stand having a wife who was more powerful and smarter than he…. Or Allison dying in the back of a car near the Russian border in an act of scorned lover revenge. Or Carrie, screaming and crying at the end of “The Vest”... but being right the whole time.

Or, as Abigail Nussbaum said more elegantly than we ever could:

“Carrie is, in many ways, a boogeyman; she is what professional women, and particularly ones in male-dominated professions, have been taught never to become - emotional, hysterical, crazy. Emotion is how women who want to be taken seriously are undermined and dismissed. Even if you’re perfectly sane, being emotional - and most especially, being angry - devalues you and your professional contribution. A woman can be called crazy simply for behaving like a normal human being rather than a robot (and of course, if she behaves robotically and unemotionally, she’s a cold bitch). But Carrie isn’t simply emotional (though she is that too, and worst of all, she allows her feelings for a man to cloud her judgment) - she actually is crazy and hysterical, in the proper clinical sense rather than the exaggerated one which attaches to any feminine display of emotion, and profoundly pathetic and unattractive in that state. And she’s completely right, the only person who figures out Brody and Abu Nazir’s plans and motivations, and the person who saves the day by being hysterical, infecting Brody’s daughter with enough of that hysteria that she calls her father and convinces him not to blow himself up.

It’s certainly possible to read this arc as purely tragic, Carrie’s self-destruction being the cost of saving the world (though this is a character arc that is applied to men as often as women, for example in Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon), but to my mind its effect is more complex. It makes a crazy, hysterical woman into a hero without in any way mitigating her craziness or hysteria, and thus defangs the argument that emotion in women is a weakness. It’s the rational, sane men around Carrie, who turn away from her unattractive mania with distaste and embarrassment, who are blind and incompetent, and it’s that same inability to look past surfaces that leads them to put their trust, wrongfully, in Brody - just as Carrie performs hysterical femininity, Brody performs stalwart masculinity. Both are misleading.”

All of which is to say, we’re really fucking pumped to see how Tasneem’s role expands for the rest of the season, and we think the array of women in Tasneem, Carrie, and Jenna and their varying degrees of power is going to be really interesting to see unfold.

Sara is obsessed with this shot. She’s obsessed with the set design of Samira’s apartment. She’s obsessed with this moody lighting. She’s basically just obsessed.

Last week we had a slow pan around Jalal to reveal Tasneem. This week we have a similar slow pan around Carrie to reveal Jenna. This definitely means that Sara’s theory that Jenna will “single white female” Carrie is right on track.

Also, Gail hereby declares Carrie’s delicate silver jewelry her “FULL circle earrings,” because everything is coming full circle this episode, including accessories.

That said, we can’t deny the power of this shot. First, we have to note what’s going on in the background (which is actually in focus). President Beau has just arrived off Air Force One and immediately stops for a photo op with the Afghan president. From the beginning, the show is clear this is an optics-based trip.

But we really love this image of Carrie and Jenna (out of focus, but in the foreground) side by side. Again, they mirror each other, but in opposite ways (“So they’re mirror opposites?” --Sara’s brain). Carrie’s light hair versus Jenna’s dark hair. Jenna’s light jacket versus Carrie’s dark one. It’s eerie.

On the podcast we talked at length about the scene between Beau and Carrie. It’s genuinely moving. The staging of it is unique as well. The camera shoots them both at the same height. They stand close together. Ironically, the power dynamic seems almost equal. He’s one of the few people who’s ever acknowledged the sacrifices she’s made in service of her country.

Their twin smiles here are all the more tragic following the sequence of events that closes the episode. They all sincerely want peace. So many characters smile real, genuine smiles this week. That’s not a normal Homeland occurrence!

And they all legitimately believe in what they’re doing. They believe they’re doing the right thing. Maybe they are. But partly out of necessity, and partly out of more selfish desires (Hayes later says it’s all about getting a second term), they get caught up in the theater of it all. They make poor decisions. They take the wrong risks.

Every so often in this series we have to abandon screenshots in favor of gifs in order to truly capture ~the moment~ and this is one of those times! The way Claire plays Carrie’s reaction here is so specific, so nuanced and strange and wonderful. These “lived in” moments are something we’ll really miss when the show is over.

IJLTP.

We’ve all been there, Carrie.

This is another interesting shot choice. We’re not sure what its purpose is, other than to add interest to a fairly run-of-the-mill scene. But still, the set design! *heart eyes*

Sara’s note for this shot was “Saul is so extra.” We talked about genuine and sincere smiles above and Saul’s here does qualify… sort of. This is halfway between genuine and self-aggrandizing. AKA “where Saul lives 100% of the time.” He looks like a director about to screen his short film at Sundance. The red curtains parting slowly behind him are Too Much.

Tasneem and G’ulom are the kids in the back of the classroom who are so fucking done with this shit but can’t leave because they’ll get detention. We will continue to stan.

It’s a classic Homeland device to show a significant moment from a variety of perspectives, especially if those perspectives involve screens. The multitude of angles on Beau’s speech here reminded us a lot of Keane’s resignation speech in the Oval Office in “Paean to the People.” Coincidentally, that was her last hurrah as president too.

(P.S. Another Saul over-the-shoulder shot!)

Two selfies in one episode!

We loved the payoff to Max’s subplot. For once this season the weird LA filter actually looks nice! These are beautiful shots and the reflection in Max’s glasses is especially striking.

The skull and crossbones on the barracks is an ominious detail. As is the rock labeled “Boredom Rock.” Death and boredom really have been the two extremes of Max’s stint at the combat outpost.

We’re still divided on the merits of the “Carrie has to save Samira” storyline, but the camerawork here, with Carrie’s armed hands appearing out of nowhere, was pretty cool.

This RPG shot was one of the cooler special effects the show has done in a while. The entire sequence of Chalk One looking for Chalk Two was tense and thrilling and extremely well-executed.

Bringing us back to the ops room, the “LOSS OF SIGNAL” projected now for both helicopters is pretty chilling.

This is now Sara’s favorite shot of the entire series and we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that it’s another over-the-shoulder Saul shot. This time he observes one of the crowning achievements of his long career literally blowing up in his face.

Visually, this shot anchors the viewer back to the Carrie/Saul relationship, the central one of the show. The black blankness--and the failure it represents--engulfs the frame.

We love the choice to end the episode on Carrie alone. It refocuses the event back to her. The horror in her eyes, welling up with tears, is palpable. How does Carrie feel? Alex Gansa explained that the writers wanted to create a new 9/11 with this maybe-assassination of the president. And it’s a fitting bookend for the show in many ways. In Homeland’s pilot, Carrie says she “missed something that day,” misdirecting blame to herself for not preventing 9/11. Now, in the final season, the show seems poised to tell a story in which Carrie is blamed for the “new 9/11.”

Strap in, folks. It’s gonna be a rough ride.

#homeland #homelandedit #in the director's chair #chalk one up #seith mann #*#by: sara #by: gail

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jbuffyangel · 5 years

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The North Star: Arrow 7x08 Review (Unmasked)

Well I wasn’t expecting this that’s for sure. I’m not listening to reviewers with screeners anymore. Their descriptions of the episode are almost identical, but inevitably whatever episode they watched is not the one I watched. I’m starting to wonder if reviewers are paid for writing agreed upon talking points. Then again I might just be moody.

“Unmasked” has a lot of good stuff. It also has a lot of bad stuff. And then there’s the WTF stuff.

Let’s dig in…

Olicity

Before I dive into our faves, I wanted to clarify a few things. I’ve been noticing some push back online about the phrase “dark spiral” in terms of discussing Felicity’s current arc. The general complaint seems to be when Oliver does whatever it takes to protect his family he is called a hero, but when Felicity does the same thing it’s called a dark spiral. Therefore, there are some misogynistic connotations using this term regarding Felicity’s arc. Since I am someone who frequently uses dark and light terminology to describe our characters I thought I should address this.

Dark spiral does not mean evil to me. It means a moral crisis. Every hero, at one point or another, goes through a moral crisis where they reexamine how they look at the world. This is typically brought on by trauma, loss, anger, grief, etc. This means the hero is not in the best emotional place to be making moral judgments.

Please note I am using the word hero. A character does not stop being a hero simply because they are going through a dark spiral. The hero doesn’t suddenly become a villain because they are crossing some lines to get the job done.

Light and dark are terms to represent the best part of ourselves and the worst. We all have light and dark in us. We all have the ability to make wonderful, righteous, selfless and virtuous choices. This is the light. We all have the ability to make bad, questionable, uncompassionate and immoral choices. This is the dark.

It doesn’t matter if you are male or female; we all have these opposing sides in us. We all have the space between light and dark, the shadows, or white and black, the grey, where our morality and choices are not clear cut. This is what it means to be human.

I don’t describe what villains do as darkness either. Damien Darhk, Ra’s Al Ghul and Diaz are evil. Can our darkness lead to evil? Yes, this is why we must be vigilant about it. However, Oliver Queen, Felicity Smoak and John Diggle aren’t going to become the villains in this story. They are the heroes who will sometimes experience a moral crisis and make questionable choices.

Oliver Queen is a character who consistently makes questionable choices and whenever he does I call it darkness. It doesn’t mean Oliver stopped being a hero. More often than not, his intentions are very good and he has a moral justification for his decisions. The problem is we can justify just about anything, which is why it is important to have some kind of moral code. This isn’t a standard I merely hold fictional superheroes to. It is one I hold myself to.

Arrow is being extremely sloppy about the kinds of situations they are putting their characters in, particularly Felicity. They are conflating very different scenarios into the same scenario and then saying it requires same response. This could not be further from the truth.

There is a very big difference between self defense and murder. If Felicity had to kill Diaz after he broke into her apartment, while in witness protection, then it would be self defense. It would be a completely necessary and reasonable decision. Felicity absolutely has the right to protect herself and her child.

However, killing Diaz when he’s unarmed, handcuffed, and in protective custody is not okay with me. That wasn’t about self defense. That was about retribution. Felicity wanted to take Diaz’s life because he took hers. That is murder.

I apply the same morality with Oliver Queen. Oliver had to kill Ra’s Al Ghul when they fought on the mountain. He couldn’t work out an agreement over Sarah’s death over tea with Ra’s Al Ghul. However, I had an issue with Oliver killing a de-magicked Damien Darhk. Yes, I know he killed thousands with a nuke. Yes, I know he was only de-magicked because the city imbued Oliver with hope and he was able to repel Damien’s powers.

However, there’s the rub. There was another way to stop Damien short of killing him. Would Oliver have to think outside the box a bit? Yes, but my frustration with Arrow is they never allow Oliver those types of outs, even though Barry Allen is given multiple options to avoid killing the villain. It’s always about killing or not killing with Oliver. He couldn’t even use the friggin underground prison he had on Lian Yu. This is one of the reasons I am very excited about Arrow giving Oliver the option of the justice system.

Every Big Bad deserves to die. They are all horrible, evil people, who murder innocents, have unstoppable ninja skills, magic, super strength, armies, a city under their control, and the ability to escape from prison. So why does Slade Wilson get to live? Why does Malcolm Merlyn? Oliver is making emotional decisions when he’s choosing whether or not to end someone’s life. This is why he picks up and sets down his no killing vow as it suits him. That’s not having a moral code. I’m not losing sleep over any of these bad guys dying, but it doesn’t mean I agree with the decisions. Nor does it mean I believe this is the kind of hero Oliver Queen should be.

There have been several times Felicity Smoak is acting in self defense and that is perfectly acceptable. There are other times she is making the same moral judgments I disagreed with Oliver over and I’m going to call her on it even though it is Felicity. Am I saying I don’t like Felicity or believe she’s a bad person who has gone all evil? No, absolutely not.

This is part of the hero evolution process and Felicity Smoak is as much of a hero as Oliver Queen. This is why exploring a darker arc is vitally important. Is Felicity morally justified in some of these more questionable choices? Yes, but simply because you can morally justify a choice doesn’t automatically make the choice morally right. I also hold Oliver, Felicity and Diggle to a higher standard than I do a regular Joe because they are heroes.

I also recognize killing a villain is not the same as killing an innocent person. Let’s say Felicity killed Diaz while he was in police custody. This is not the same as Bl*ck S*ren murdering a bunch of innocent people. If a hero kills a villain it doesn’t automatically make the hero a villain. If I believed Oliver Queen was a bad person because he killed bad people then I wouldn’t have watched the show. I recognize Oliver’s heroism when he’s making decisions nobody is willing to make and accepting the responsibility for those choices.

However, I don’t believe killing is right. There are very few circumstances where I believe killing is justified. This is just my personal morality. It doesn’t have to be yours. However, I am applying the same morality to Felicity I apply to Oliver. I am going to keep describing it in the same terminology as well. So, I hope this clears up any confusion regarding my meaning behind dark, light, dark spiral and my general view on morality in regards to Arrow.

Okay. Enough of this. Let’s talk about the sex.

To be honest, it was a letdown.

We started out so good.

We were micro inches away from shower sex y’all! But Oliver goes into full prison PTSD mode.

Source: oliverfelicitygifs

He pulls the shower curtain back to reveal a startled, but silky robe clad Felicity Smoak. She was about to hop in the shower with him. Nobody can tell me different. I know my truth.

Oliver is available to zip up her dress though. ( I want you to zip it down you big pine tree. We really should be united on this. I am shocked I have to explain it to you.)

Felicity leans into his touch as he slowly zips the dress up.

She rests her head back against his chest and broad shoulders and feels the warmth of his breath as he whispers in her ear.

This is what she missed. Not simply having someone around to help with her dress, but the physical reassurance she is not alone.

Felicity can finally lean against the man she loves, take comfort in the strength of his arms, and find reassurance in his soft, gentle voice. The voice meant only for her.

There’s no more glass separating them. Felicity can touch Oliver again. He’s real. Her husband is home.

Source: oliverfelicitygifs

Oliver tries to wiggle out of going to the fundraiser being held in his honor.

He’s clearly nervous about seeing his friends and citizens of Star City post prison. Oliver is quieter, softer, reserved and more withdrawn after his violent life at Slabslide. He’s gingerly dipping his toe back into the water, unsure of his next steps, like a child walking into the ocean for the first time. Oliver has returned from yet another island. After seven months, everything that was once familiar is now unrecognizable.

Source: andjustforthismoment

Everything except Felicity… or so he thinks. She still believes in him, even if Oliver is uncertain. He knows the people of Star City are angry with him. He feels apprehensive because Oliver also understands they have a right to be.

Star City citizen’s can clock a 2 on an angry scale of 1-10, due to the inordinate amount of times Oliver Queen/Green Arrow saved them from mass destruction and certain death. Not to be a stickler on the maths, but facts are facts. At least the ungrateful twats are publicly recognizing Oliver as a hero. I’m still waiting on the key to the city though (side eyes B*rry All*n bitterly).

However, Felicity explains this is finally Oliver’s opportunity to show Star City who he truly is without a mask. Oliver may be apprehensive, but Felicity knows once the city sees Oliver for the hero he is they will fall in love with him just like she did.

Source: oliverfelicitygifs

This is what he missed. Not simply the softness of her skin or the way she looks in that dress, but Felicity’s unwavering unconditional love and belief.

Oliver could feel it while he was in prison, but it’s very different when she’s kneeling before him and he can stare into her big, blue eyes while holding her hand. There’s no more glass separating them. Oliver can touch Felicity again. She’s real. He is home.

Oliver runs his fingers over her wedding band, the infinite loop reminding him of the promises they made each other one year ago today. Remembering the anniversary is Husband 101, but Felicity is trying to give Oliver time and understanding as he eases his way back into everyday life. So, Felicity is thrilled when Oliver repeats a line from his vows.

Girl, he’s been separated from you for months and you are the literal air he breathes. Anniversary also equals guaranteed sex and it’s been seven months. Oliver ain’t forgettin’ it.

We start out with so much promise.

Source: oliverxfelicity

Stephen Amell and Emily Bett Rickards should teach a course on how to kiss on camera. We shall call this course “How to Be Hot 400.” Yes, it’s an upperclassmen course. Sorry freshmen.

Source: whoeveryoulovethemost

Oliver takes off his shirt (no invitation needed - thatta boy) and Felicity runs her hands over his chest.

Source: oliverxfelicity

Oliver lifts her up into his arms and they fall back onto the bed. Yes, yes… go on.

AND THEN THE CAMERA CUTS AWAY.

We didn’t even get that great of a shot in the mirror’s reflection.

Source: oliverxfelicity

I’ll take a lower half shot if Oliver is getting handsy, but there’s no handsy. WHERE’S THE HANDSY? It’s been seven months. He should be migrating to the glorious Felicity Smoak arse in record time. The dress should be off by now. I should see it fly across the room in the mirrored reflection as Oliver moves other… places. I won’t get into too much detail. I’m a lady.

Listen, I’m a nice person. I deserve nice things. We waited a year and a half for a shirtless 15 second make out session???

We didn’t get post nuptial sex and now they shorted us on anniversary sex.

I demand angry sex as recompense.

At least they had the common sense to include some dirty innuendo.

Source: oliverfelicitygifs

Hehehe. Oh, we all know your first meal, big fella. Say no more. Wait, isn’t a double double four? WELL DONE SIR.

Felicity, girl you deserve it.

Every time Oliver returns home from an island there is the inevitable mob of aggressive reporters and cameras. One of the loneliest scenes in Season 1 is watching Oliver fight through it on his own.

Source: hollandrooden

Now Oliver has Felicity and she not only holds his hand through it, but is his friggin bodyguard to boot. (Yeah, I said what I said Diggle.)

Ugh, Max Fuller. This douche bag again. Weirdly has not aged a day, so he may be a vampire.

Source: oliverfelicitygifs

At least his asshole comments provide an opportunity for Felicity to mark her territory and that never gets old.

Source: felicitysmoakgifs

No, Oliver was not the marrying type until he met this genius, funny, warm, insightful, bullshit detecting, red pen-chewing, blonde sunshine and then all he wanted was to have lots of sex and babies with her. Catch up Fuller.

Bl*ck S*ren swings by to keep up appearances and Lyla asks in a not so hushed tone, “Are we friends with her now?”

This cracks me up any time any character says it. I’m comfortable with the classification of frenemy. Bl*ck S*ren is the Cordelia Chase of Team Arrow. You know, if Cordelia was a murderer. Scratch that. Bl*ck S*ren is the Spike.

Felicity reminds everyone the only person who actually helped her get Oliver out of prison was BS.

Oliver for his part tries to be gracious and thank her.

Bl*ck S*ren’s response is a back handed compliment, but it reveals an uneasiness between Oliver and Felicity not even four orgasms can fix.

Source: katie-mcgraths

Worth a shot though.

Olicity has the fight we’ve been waiting for after Max Fuller sends one of his goons after Oliver. First, we need to talk about Felicity’s state of mind. She is clearly traumatized from her experiences with Diaz and as a result is obsessed with security.

When Curtis asks Felicity what is next she tells everyone she’s building a new security system. It’s her Spidey sense tingling, and not Oliver’s, when she realizes the security system she installed didn’t go off when Oliver entered the apartment. Then, Felicity hides behind her chain linked curtains, which can stop arrows, when the goon breaks into the apartment. And finally, she goes for her gun.

So, clearly Felicity is experiencing PTSD no different from what we witnessed with Oliver in the shower earlier.

Oliver is handling the situation with the Fuller goon. It’s one guy. Arrow has finally remembered Oliver Queen can take down ten without breaking a sweat. This will not be a problem. Is it taking a minute? Yes, but he’s still Oliver. He dove over counter tops and furniture to throw his body in front of arrows to protect Felicity. He’s got this.

Oliver throws the goon into a wall and he’s essentially down. He begins to question said goon in his big, scary, lower octave, Green Arrow rumble when Felicity joins in with her gun.

I agree with Oliver’s reaction which is, “What the fuck are you doing?”

This distracts Oliver for a microsecond and the goon gets up.

Prosecutable in a court of law? No, the goon broke in. Technically it is self defense, but also whoa babe! Stop shooting suspects!!!

Let’s holster the happy trigger finger.

Source: oliverfelicitygifs

Do I feel the use of the gun is necessary in this circumstance? No, Felicity is married to The Terminator. He’s home now and perfectly capable of protecting her from one guy.

However, this break in is clearly meant to echo the one we saw in the premiere with Diaz. Her security system failed then too. Only she was home alone with a 12 year old boy and Diaz was the one with a gun. All Felicity had to defend herself was a pot of coffee and a poker stick.

She is literally reliving Diaz’s attack, so Felicity responds to this goon with what she wished she had back then – a gun. It doesn’t matter Oliver is there now because her trauma is triggering this response.

It’s no different than Oliver with the shower curtain.

Do I think it is madness for Felicity to carry a gun? NO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oliver’s response to it drove me nuts. He’s more concerned she has a gun than with how she’s using it. This is missing the forest through the trees.

I don’t have any problem with Felicity carrying a gun. I’ve had a general annoyance with Oliver and Diggle for the past seven years regarding Felicity’s training. They’ve trained her to defend herself somewhat. Is she as physically proficient at self defense as everyone else on Team Arrow? No. Not even close, which I find grossly irresponsible on Oliver’s part.

While we’re training L*urel, Rene, Dinah and Curtis to be ninjas, Felicity is just sitting at the computer typing. We can’t toss the girl a staff and go a few rounds? Instead, they send her out into the field in high heels and a mini skirt as she uses a stick, laptop, or whatever she can find to defend herself. Give me a break.

Diggle warned Oliver about this when Felicity joined the team. Oliver’s entire defense strategy for Felicity was HIM.

She didn’t need to know how to fight back the same way other team members did because Oliver always planned on fighting for her.

He would throw himself in front of any bullet or arrow before he let it touch her.

It’s romantic, but not very practical. Oliver also never planned on Felicity going into the field as much as she has. As soon as she did he had a responsibility to train her more and he didn’t.

Generally speaking, Oliver has does an extremely good job protecting Felicity.

He is true to his word. Oliver always uses his body to shield Felicity from anything coming her way.

Oliver did teach Felicity to defend herself too.

We’ve seen her defend herself time after time.

By no means am I saying Felicity Smoak is a damsel in distress.

She was not, however, capable of defeating someone like Ricardo Diaz. Felicity Smoak is the wife of the Green Arrow. The minute Oliver made that announcement to the world he put a target on her back and then disappeared into his island.

The only defense Felicity has against someone like Diaz, or anyone else with a fighting capability beyond her own, is Oliver. But he was gone. She was alone to defend herself and their son.

The security system Felicity had in witness protection was A.R.G.U.S. and they were completely worthless. What does A.R.G.U.S. do besides screw up? Their big plan was to watch Felicity and William, which equated to a failed security system and taking five minutes to respond when she’s under attack. News flash: it doesn’t actually take that long to kill someone.

It is irresponsible for Felicity not to have some kind of weapon to defend herself with. Oliver, Diggle, Dinah, Rene and L*urel all carried guns, but the minute Felicity does it’s, “GASP. OH NO! SHE’S EVIL.” Talk about your Madonna/Whore complex. She has a gun so she’s a whore! Unbelievable.

I have a problem with how Felicity used the gun. I have no problem with Felicity having a gun. It is just smart. In the immortal words of Frank Castle, “You still got that hand canon?” Start packing baby girl. Go with God.

But we’re not dealing with Frank Castle. Unfortunately, we’re dealing with Oliver Queen. Who has apparently forgotten all the bullets and arrows he’s pumped into suspects the last decade, because he’s super judgey.

Oliver: Where’d you even get a gun? You’re new best friend Laurel?

Felicity: Of course not. I got it from your ex-best friend Anatoly.

Oliver: You what? I’ve barely been gone seven months and you’ve aligned yourself with two of the most immoral people we know?

Listen, pretty boy. I am glad you’ve found moral enlightenment and are now walking the higher plane, but you’ve been there for all of five minutes.

Let’s not forget you’ve made an entire career of aligning yourself with the most immoral people on the planet. In fact, you worked with Talia and Turner inside of prison!!! Neither one is exactly a Care Bear. Turner may have some good in him, but he’s also a murderer. So, dial down the moral condemnation.

Thank goodness Felicity is not taking any of Oliver’s crap.

Felicity: Oliver, you don’t get to judge me.

Oliver: You just shot a man in our living room.

Felicity: Something you’ve done a million times.

What’s frustrating is Oliver isn’t asking the right questions.

Source: felicitysmoakgifs

He’s not focusing on the clear trauma Felicity has suffered. He’s not asking why she feels unsafe, what her fears are or how he can help her. It’s all about who Felicity has been working with, which is again, missing the forest through the trees.

I have a real beef with Oliver’s remark, “This isn’t you.” Felicity is going through a dark spiral and is reexamining her morality. However, this concept Felicity is this lily white Virgin Mary character is baffling to me.

Felicity was already breaking the law as a hacker before she even met Oliver. Then, she signed up with a guy who was dropping bodies regularly and fell in love with him. We aren’t dealing with Rainbow Brite! Felicity’s morality was light years ahead of Oliver’s, but she could reconcile murder and breaking the law for the greater good. That’s a darker skew on morality.

And apparently Oliver has just erased all of Season 5 because he clearly has no recollection of Helix. Maybe one of his head wounds is more serious than I thought and he’s experiencing amnesia.

Felicity showed she would do whatever was necessary to avenge her boyfriend of five minutes. What did Oliver think she was going to do when her husband and child were threatened? She wasn’t going to Pottery Barn to pick out fabric swatches for the new apartment, Oliver.

Arrow is really focused on Oliver putting people in boxes because he has to learn not to. I get it. However, it’s resulting in some sloppy writing because he’s blatantly ignoring Felicity’s history to keep her on this pedestal. Oliver needs to realize his wife is human. I thought he already realized this in Season 5, but I guess we’re repeating it in Season 7. It’s fine. Hopefully they do a deeper dive on it than they did in Season 5.

Source: felicitysmoakgifs

“This is me because of you,” is the line I’ve been waiting seven months to hear Felicity say. We had a little taste of it when she visited Oliver in prison, but she couldn’t unleash her anger full force because he was in prison.

Oliver is home now though and it’s time to deal with this.

Felicity reminds Oliver he destroyed their lives. He left his wife and child to the wolves without even discussing it with her Felicity. I mean, sweet mother of Moses, what did he expect?

Source: felicitysmoakgifs

Oliver’s response to Felicity’s completely warranted anger pissed me off too. He’s very, “How many more times do I have to apologize for this?” MORE THAN ONCE ASSHOLE.

But Felicity isn’t looking for an apology anymore. What good is an apology at this point? What’s done is done.

Source: felicitysmoakgifs

Oliver’s actions have consequences. He continually lies and believes an apology will somehow be a magic wand erasing all the damage he’s done. Marriage doesn’t work like that. Life doesn’t work like that.

I just had this fight with my husband, which is why I respond so much to Felicity in “Unmasked.” She is saying very similar things I said to my husband. Believing you are not going to impact each other’s personalities over the years is naive. You can’t continue the same hurtful behavior and expect it not to change who your partner is.

Felicity has told Oliver several times she feels abandoned when he makes decisions without her. This behavior hits Felicity where it hurts. This is her greatest fear. Her pain is raw and exposed. Yet, Oliver continues to make decisions without consulting her. I don’t even think he checked with her before going back out into the field as Green Arrow. I hope to God he did, but if not this is exactly what she’s talking about.

Felicity is required to make changes inside of herself due to the impact of Oliver’s decisions. Oliver abandoned her. He left her alone, with a child and defenseless. As did their “friends.”

So, Felicity had to learn how to defend herself. She had to learn how to survive.

Oliver Queen wasn’t the only one on an island. Felicity is on one too, but her island was made by her husband. Oliver may be home, but Felicity is not.

Felicity is still on that island, fighting alone every day to survive, because she can’t trust Oliver won’t make another decision without her. Felicity doesn’t trust Oliver won’t abandon her all over again.

Felicity is making decisions for herself that, yeah Oliver, maybe aren’t typical to the woman you knew seventh months ago. His behavior in this marriage is impacting the decisions Felicity makes and those decisions are changing who she is. It is cause and effect.

Oliver can say he’s sorry all he wants, but it doesn’t erase the trauma Felicity is dealing with now. Oliver needs to walk through these consequences with his wife and understand the impact he’s made. There’s no magic wand.

I understand Oliver is dealing with trauma too and acclimating himself to life outside of Slabside. He’s missed a lot and needs a moment to catch up. We are dealing with two traumatized people. However, Felicity has always treated a traumatized Oliver with compassion. One of my main frustrations with Oliver in “Unmasked” is he’s coming to this fight with a lot of moral condemnation.

We’ve been down many dark spirals with Oliver Queen. He is constantly reexamining his morality. Oliver is constantly pick up and putting down his “no killing” vow. He expects everyone to get on board with whatever he decides whenever he decides it. Felicity has never approached Oliver’s darkness with moral condemnation. If anything she treated him with kid cloves.

Felicity harnesses Oliver’s light with cups of coffee, reassurance, forgiveness, belief and unconditional love.

Oliver’s response to Felicity’s dark spiral in “Unmasked” is, “Who the hell having you been working with?”

Oliver realizing criminals are human too does not make him morally superior to everyone else. Felicity has been arguing this kind of morality for the last seven years. I’m happy Oliver has finally gotten on board, but he’s not suddenly Jesus.

That said, Oliver’s experience in Slabside, and his new found moral code, will make him into the superhero Felicity Smoak needs right now. He is absolutely capable of harnessing her light, but unfortunately we did not see much of that hero in this fight.

There is a glimpse of that hero though. We get a clear view of the deep hole Felicity is in when she tells Oliver the person she was before was weak.

Oliver is just completely dumbfounded by this. How can Felicity believe she is anything, but the strongest person Oliver knows?

Source: whoeveryoulovethemost

I shared Oliver’s shock because I too cannot fathom Felicity ever viewing herself as weak. The line really bothered me, but it’s supposed to. This is another manifestation of Felicity’s trauma. She’s viewing herself as weak both physically and emotionally. The person she was couldn’t physically protect herself. The gun and new security measures are all coping mechanisms for Felicity’s deep rooted fear.

Felicity can feel her fear inside and she views that as weakness too. She never wants to feel afraid like this again. So, she’s reviewing her morality. The woman who was not willing to do whatever it takes was weak.

This is a very Oliver Queen Season 1-3 attitude. Oliver always believed his humanity was a weakness.

Now Felicity is viewing her humanity as a weakness, which is so heartbreaking.

Oliver is shocked and saddened by Felicity’s remark because her humanity inspired his humanity.

Source: whoeveryoulovethemost

It’s why Oliver believes Felicity is the best part of him. Anything to the contrary is unfathomable. Felicity needs to see herself through Oliver’s eyes, just as Oliver saw himself through Felicity’s eyes. He needs to be a hero to Felicity like she was to him. That’s the love, the light, which will illuminate the path out of the dark.

However, there’s another reason Oliver repeated those vows. “You’re the very best part of me” assigns an ownership and responsibility to Felicity over her husband’s soul that is unfair. It’s something Felicity touched on when she tells Oliver ultimately who she is, and the decisions she makes, aren’t on him. Those decisions are on her.

Source: oliverfelicitygifs

The same goes for Oliver. Felicity can’t be responsible for harnessing Oliver’s light all the time. He has to inspire himself. Oliver has to harness his light on his own. He did a good job in Slabside, but now that he’s home he can’t fall back to relying on Diggle and Felicity to be his cheerleading squad. Oliver has to be a good person all by himself without someone holding his hand.

This pushes both Oliver and Felicity in new and important directions. This dark spiral gives Felicity’s character a freedom she’s never had before. Oliver’s enlightenment gives him a new sense of accountability.

Source: olivergifs

We finally achieve a moment that has been a long time coming in Oliver Queen’s journey toward becoming a fully realized superhero. Oliver lied to the people of Star City and understands the only way to gain their trust is by being honest (*cough*apply this to your marriage Oliver*cough*). He decides to go out into the field as Green Arrow with his hood down and without a mask.

Source: olivergifs

For the first time, Oliver is merging both personas. He realizes part of being a hero is being accountable for his actions. He doesn’t remain in the shadows, but steps into the light as Green Arrow for the entire world to see.

Source: whoeveryoulovethemost

This is a moment I’ve written about for years and it fills me with a lot of joy watching Oliver finally putting the pieces together.

While their argument is necessary, it also feels mishandled by the Arrow writers because Oliver and Felicity are acting so extreme. Oliver’s reaction to the gun is extreme. How Felicity uses the gun is extreme. They cram a discussion we’ve waited seven months for into two little scenes. There’s way too much other nonsense going on. The Olicity scenes don’t get the time and attention they deserve. It feels sloppy as a result.

Source: oliverfelicitygifs

The two circle back to one another at the end of the episode to find some way to merge their diverting paths. This time Oliver tries the softer and gentler coffee approach. See? He’s learning!

Source: oliverfelicitygifs

The last seven months has impacted each of them in permanent ways. Felicity is right. Oliver simply can’t talk her down to the old Felicity chewing the red pen.

Life changes us, but I don’t believe this is about getting the old Felicity back. Oliver’s journey was never about restoring an old version of him. It was about finding the new person, the new hero, he had become. It was about learning to balance the light and dark.

Oliver may not be able to talk Felicity into her old self, but maybe he can inspire the new hero she wants to be. Someone who has light and dark. Someone who is impacted by their trauma, but not ruled by it. Someone who makes choices not out of anger, fear or pain, but from compassion. This is the hero Felicity inspired Oliver to be. So, now it’s his time to return the favor.

I am not remotely concerned about Olicity. There is no shortage of love between these too. They didn’t spend seven months fighting to be together just to separate.

Source: oliverfelicitygifs

I know they are on different paths right now, but they will find their way back to one another. This happens in marriage. Learning how to repair broken bridges is a large part of being married. My sincerest hope is they continue with Felicity’s moral crisis and keep examining the kind of hero she wants to be.

She’s going through the same trajectory Oliver went through. It’s a mini trajectory. It won’t take Felicity seven years to get there, primarily because she’s smarter than Oliver, but I do hope the writers give the character the freedom she’s earned. I certainly was patient with Oliver crossing lines, so I have to give her character the same in turn.

That said, Felicity Smoak is always a person who valued human life. So, the moments she’s not are when I am questioning her moral justifications. She admits to Oliver she would have killed Diaz and I don’t mind Oliver being shocked by her actions. Killing an unarmed man in police custody is A-typical Felicity Smoak behavior and Oliver has a right to be concerned.

What drives me nuts about this final scene is when Felicity says this:

Source: oliverfelicitygifs

The idea that Felicity’s darkness is incompatible with their relationship makes me want to pull my hair out.

I realize Felicity is channeling Season 1 – Season 3 Oliver and he always used his darkness as a reason why they couldn’t be together. However, they weren’t married at the time. Yeah, that’s right kids. You signed the paperwork. You are legally required to wake up next to each other. Felicity doesn’t need to be sunshine and rainbows all the time for their marriage to function. It’s okay if Felicity gets lost. Oliver needs to put on his big boy pants anyways. This gives him a perfect opportunity to do so.

The line doesn’t even really make all that much sense given the context of their conversation.

To be honest, it feels like the toss away divorce line. NO I AM NOT SAYING THEY ARE NOT GETTING A DIVORCE. In fact, that’s why I’m annoyed with the line because I know they aren’t getting a divorce. Arrow isn’t even considering divorcing Olicity. It’s just relying on a tired, old television trope to bring viewers back after winter hiatus. “Oh no! I better tune in January to see if Oliver and Felicity get a divorce!” This is spectacularly lazy writing.

If Arrow is incapable of drumming up drama in Olicity’s marriage without threatening divorce every time there’s a bump in the road then they are just crappy writers. Plain and simple. Dig deeper, Arrow. There’s plenty to mine in Olicity’s relationship without fake threats of legal proceedings.

I’m not ending on cranky though because I found some additional hope, should you need it, in the flash forwards. Yes I found hope in the flash forwards. It’s a friggin miracle.

Dinah shows William a tattoo on her wrist.

Source: mei-pellegrino

It’s called the Mark of Four and is something Oliver came up with. It represents the four pillars of heroism: courage, compassion, selflessness, and loyalty. It’s the reason Roy came back to Star City with William.

Dinah: We all got them as a reminder that no matter what happened if one of us was in trouble the other ones would be there.

The tattoo is shaped like a compass. Three of the marks have arrows as end points, but the one at the top faces north with a star end point. Oliver’s legacy, the kind of hero he inspires, is one who embraces courage, compassion, selflessness and loyalty. If they follow the four pillars like the North Star then they’ll never become lost in the dark. Everyone on the team has the tattoo. Everyone decided this was the kind of hero they wanted to be.

We can look at symbolism multiple ways to find more than one meaning, which is the fun. This tattoo also tells us everything we need to know about Felicity’s trajectory. Dinah began at the star when she listed the four pillars. She started with courage. Courage is the North Star and Oliver always says Felicity Smoak is the strongest person he knows.

Her strength has never been physical to Oliver Queen. She may not be able to take down Ra’s Al Ghul in a sword fight, but Oliver believes Felicity is stronger than him. Why? Felicity embraces her humanity even when the world has given her every reason to shut off her heart. For Oliver Queen, this is the most courageous thing a person can do. This is why she has always pointed the way for him.

We know Felicity has the Mark of Four tattoo because she inspired it. Courage, compassion, selflessness and loyalty are the very best parts of Oliver Queen. The Green Arrow encapsulates the four pillars because of the light Felicity harnessed in Oliver. When Oliver became lost in the dark he looked to Felicity for his way out. She was the North Star for Oliver, so he could become the North Star for everyone else.

Felicity is on the same path. She is not only Oliver’s great love, but his equal in every way. They are becoming full realized superheroes together. Oliver will remind Felicity her humanity is the very best part of her. We all become lost in the dark at some point, but Felicity will find her way again. She simply needs to find the North Star inside herself again. Felicity inspired the four pillars because she is the four pillars. The Mark of Four is the kind of hero Felicity will become because it’s the hero she’s always been.

Flash Forwards

Maya is Blackstar. (Waves excitedly at Katherine McNamara).

Source: Source:veronica-lodge

Well done fandom.

However, William, Dinah and Zoe don't know who Blackstar is.

Does this mean she is not Olicity’s daughter and William’s sister? No. I still believe she is for reasons I’ll get into in a minute. I genuinely wasn’t expecting any kind of confirmation from William or even a hint she may be his sister because it blows the lid off Beth’s big surprise. If Felicity is pregnant at the end of the season then it’s Arrow’s big May sweeps shocker.

So, they aren’t going to confirm anything in the mid season finale. In fact, the smart thing to do is to cast a lot of doubt she has any connection to William.

However, there are signs she does. Arrow made a really big show of Oliver drinking scotch this week. Max Fuller breaks out an expensive bottle and Oliver sits down for a drink.

Source: whoeveryoulovethemost

Oliver ordered scotch on his first date with Felicity.

It was his drink of choice while drowning his sorrows in the Arrow bunker in 5x19

Scotch is Oliver’s drink.

He only switches to vodka when he’s drinking with Diggle.

William asks for Blackstars’ help at the bar while she’s drinking, you got it, scotch.

Source: veronica-lodge

She’s cage fighting in Max Fuller’s old club. It doesn’t hurt Katherine McNamara tweeted about the booze.

What’s the reason for making such a big deal out of such a small detail?

The second big hint Blackstar is Oliver Queen’s daughter is her fighting style.

Source: veronica-lodge

The cage fight is very similar to the Oliver’s fights we’ve seen this season. She’s obviously been trained by Oliver Queen or at least by someone who knows Oliver Queen. Not to mention her whole attitude and vibe felt very Oliver Queen.

Source: veronica-lodge

Why does it matter if she is similar to Oliver Queen? Well, Arrow has spent a lot of time showing how similar William is to Felicity. Their connection may not be biological, but it is familial.

I think they are doing the same thing with Blackstar only she is her father’s daughter.

There are still more clues:

She has a Queen Bee tattoo on her back shoulder – the same place Oliver once had his tattoo.

Her code name Blackstar could be a reference to the Mark of Four. As I explained earlier, the first pillar has a black star as an endpoint and it faces north. Blackstar seems to be a particularly on the nose code name for someone who doesn’t have any relationship to Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak, the people who inspired the Mark of Four.

The camera transitioned from the Olicity love scene directly to William looking for Blackstar during her cage fight. These transitions are extremely important to pay attention to because they connect the dots.

Blackstar is protective of Felicity Smoak as well. At first, she pretends not to know her, but when William informs Blackstar Felicity is dead she immediately looks upset.

Source: veronica-lodge

Blackstar confirms she worked as a broker for Felicity to obtain trigger mechanisms for a bomb. But her warnings sound more like a threat.

Source: dctvladies

Sort of like, “I’ll slit your throat if you mess with my Mama.”

Did you notice how quickly Blackstar changed the subject when William said she has a lot in common with Felicity? Maybe they are not only working together, but are mother and daughter.

Finally, the characters went to great pains to avoid calling Blackstar by her real name or even asking what it is. She didn’t even use the name Maya, which I still maintain is an Arrow code name to avoid spoiling the surprise. There’s something about Blackstar’s name which gives away her identity. Could her name be Moira? Methinks yes.

Could Blackstar be Arrow’s version of Mia Dearden, Oliver Queen’s ward? No, I don’t think so. Marc Guggenheim said many times in early interviews Thea Queen was Arrow’s version of Mia Dearden. Thea’s middle name is Dearden and she used the code name Mia Dearden while living in Corto Maltese with Malcolm Merlyn.

Technically, Roy was Oliver’s ward. Roy was essentially homeless and Oliver took him in. It is Roy who ultimately inspired Thea’s superhero identity – Speedy. Mia Dearden is Speedy in the comics. There are too many Mia Dearden threads in Thea’s character. They’ve already been there and done that.

Is it possible they are repeating the character because Thea is off the show? No, because they already have replacement sister waiting in the wings with Emiko Queen. If there’s a character who is trying to fill Thea’s role on the show then it’s Emiko, not Blackstar.

Source: arrowdaily

Stephen welcomed Katherine McNamara to the show by tweeting, “Welcome to the family.” This is also what he tweeted to Sea Shimooka and Ben Lewis when they joined the show and they are playing Oliver’s blood relatives.

“But Jen these are such minuscule details! They don’t meaning anything!” We’ll have to agree to disagree these subtle not so subtle hints don’t mean anything. I think they do. This is how it starts. We often have very little evidence of the direction Arrow is going in the beginning of these mysteries/surprises.

The bouquet was the first hint for the wedding.

In the beginning of Season 4, we had very little hints as to who was in the grave. K*tie C*ssidy’s lack of storyline discussion at SDCC was honestly the biggest clue.

These minuscule clues Arrow offers via symbolism or imagery are often all we have to go on.

As the season progresses there will be more clues. Once the big surprise is revealed everyone will look back at the earlier scenes and realize the signs were there all along. So, yeah I’m going all in on scotch.

If Blackstar is William’s sister then it’s heartbreaking to realize he doesn’t know or recognize her. This means William has been separated from his family for much longer than we thought.

If Olicity gets pregnant this year, then William will be at least 12 years older than his sibling. He’ll be leaving for college in about six years. Maybe whatever happens to break the family apart happens after William leaves home. It is possible he wouldn’t recognize his sister if the last time he saw her was around age 5 or 6. Or maybe William doesn’t recognize his sister because he believes she’s dead.

There are tons of plot holes right now because we don’t have all the information. However, there are many plausible explanations for William and Blackstars’ separation. It echoes Oliver and Thea’s separation in the beginning of the series only on a much larger scale. If Arrow’s goal is to expand the show, and William and Blackstar are brother and sister, then this gives the writers tons of story potential to build the relationship going forward.

So, either Felicity or Oliver don’t have any more children other than William, which makes me sad or William has been separated from his family even longer than we anticipated. This also makes me sad. Neither option is great. Fingers crossed William is just pretending not to know Blackstar to keep her cover (but I doubt it).

The essential problem with the flash forwards is there’s just bad news on top of bad new week after week. I know Arrow is a dark show and I like that it is because it means there are consequences. However, Arrow isn’t only dark. There’s a lot of hope too.

Unfortunately, we aren’t getting a lot of hope in the flash forwards and it’s casting a shadow over any happiness in present day. This is why we’re not supposed to know the future. Not that there’s much happiness in present day because the writers are trying so hard to sell Felicity is becoming evil. I know the flash backs were dark too, but the present day scenes countered it because we knew Oliver was moving towards a happier place, even when things weren’t going well. Unfortunately, we don’t have that balance this season.

It’s making me very concerned about a tone shift. I know I said the minute the flash backs were introduced the writers expanded the story and they needed a Lian Yu level event to kick it off. However, I understand the frustration and sadness. Oliver either never saves the city or his happy life with Felicity is destroyed in a relatively short amount of time. It’s difficult to get hammered with despair on top of despair every week. Oliver needs a win at some point.

Stray Thoughts

Emiko Queen is the new Green Arrow. Oliver has another sister. We been knew.

Oliver is now a Green Arrow consultant for the Star City police department. He’s a legal vigilante. Uhhh... okay?

Dinah has her own Canary network and Blackstar hates vigilantes. So who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?

Diggle and Lyla are the stupidest to ever stupid by going to Diaz for help. They could have talked to Oliver and Felicity about it beforehand, but noooo. Can the whole “Diggle only gives a crap about himself” storyline end now?

I’m extremely irritated Diaz is back on my television screen, but if Arrow kills Curtis that’ll make it up to me.

I wrote a scene in The Gift where Oliver helps Felicity by zipping her dress down, so dreams come true.

Seriously Oliver you’ve been in prison. We couldn’t break William out of boarding school for a long weekend?

I love crab cakes.

Isn’t Max Fuller a character on Fuller House? Hahaha. That’s funny to me.

I like WASP-y sweater Oliver. Feels very S1. We could throw in a leather jacket again though.

“We didn’t get this treatment when we put Diaz behind bars.” Rene, you’ve been released from time out on account of good behavior, but if you keep saying narcissistic and arrogant crap like this I’m going to throw you back with Dinah, Curtis and Diggle.

“If anyone in here actually gave a crap they’d use that money to help people in hard up neighborhoods who end up in the system because they don’t have anything else.” This sounds very similar to the anger rumbling around The Glades in the city hall meeting. It also sounds very similar to the “Defend the Glades ” attitude in the flash forwards. Calling it now. Given Dinah’s remark about running for office, Rene is the mayor of Star City in the future. Yeesh.

I looooved Bl*ck S*ren’s sparkly jacket and wanted to purchase it for myself, but it was $1700 on sale. I think not.

Oliver catching the arrow with his bare hand was sweet. And hot.

Curtis had one line. This is the way it should always be.

Stop wasting my time with all the Newbie crap. I swear, this show is tone deaf to what an audience is interested in. I also need about 50% less Dinah.

Arrow took 2 ½ minutes to replay the same crossover set up scene they showed on Supergirl the night before. There could have easily included this scene once at the beginning of the crossover during the, “Previously on Arrow/Supergirl and The Flash.” There’s no reason to cut into my show and steal minutes which could have been used for sex.

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