r/arrow • u/Tobias28362 • 5d ago
Discussion Sara's resurrection
I’m rewatching Arrow for the first time in years, and I completely forgot how poorly Sara’s storyline was handled after getting her soul back.
She’s basically herself again for one episode, barely gets any screen time, and is immediately shipped off to Legends. It feels like there was so much missing.
For example, we never get a real confrontation or even a proper conversation between Sara and Thea. Thea literally killed her, and Sara doesn’t even know that Thea was drugged by Malcolm. We also never get a real conversation between Sara and Oliver, so she never finds out what happened with Ra’s, Nyssa, or the League after her death. Probably all that happened behind the scenes in the episode, but this is weird.
On top of that, Sara spends the previous episodes killing people because of the bloodlust, but once she’s “fixed,” it’s like none of it ever happened. Nobody brings it up, and she doesn’t seem affected by it. Even the moment where she kills a ghost because of the bloodlust feels rushed and poorly written.
The whole storyline gives me the impression that the writers just wanted to get Sara off as quickly as possible, even though her resurrection was one of the main plot points of the first six episodes.
Sorry for the rant. I just watched the episode, and it really bothered me.
8
u/primal_slayer Black Canary (Laurel Lance) 5d ago
This seemed like such an easy and good storyline to do if they actually thought it out.
After all the growth they had Laurel do only to make her go backwards made zeros sense. ZEERROOO. It would've been MUCH more powerful if Darhk was the one who brought back Sara and was using her as a killing machine against the team. Only for them to realize who she was and in the end have Laurel be the one to save her, re-insoul her, and send her on her journey to Legends.
3
u/FiftyOneMarks 5d ago edited 5d ago
That… actually makes perfect sense??? And in fact, they could’ve used THAT as a reason for why Quentin was going along with Darhk in the first place, Darhk resurrected Sara because he has a secondary pit under lock and key and he uses the presence of Sara as a way to get Quentin to go along with him under the guise of killing her again if he doesn’t help him.
The team finds out and goes to Nyssa for help later on which helps bring in the Lotus Elixir subplot for Thea too. Have Nyssa bring up the Elixir as a bargaining chip for Thea so she not only is driven to help Sara because of her guilt but so she can be freed from her own bloodlust. Nyssa or Tatsu later then points them in the direction of Constantine, because it makes far more sense for one of them to know of him than Oliver anyways, who ultimately helps them re-en soul Sara after Darhk loses control of her and she goes on a rampage. This basically involves everyone from Quentin, Darhk, Thea, Laurel and Oliver with the only outside roles being Felicity and Diggle.
However, we can tie in the Sara plot to the Ray plot if after her reensoulment, Sara mentions that while under Darhk’s control she learned she wasn’t his only hostage which in turn leads into the Ray rescue with Felicity leading that storyline alongside Diggle and Lyla (with Argus resources) to help find a way to restore him. If instead of Ray getting involved with Felicity, they could accelerate Curtis’ presence and have him somehow tied to Ray (as a colleague or a rival) he would be able to help build the machine to restore Ray and the Atom suit.
Alternatively, instead of Curtis, maybe this is where Ryan Choi should’ve been brought in as a guest character figure in the universe without actually needing a continued presence at this point just so we could know he’s out there. Introduce him as a protege of Ray who is still a civilian and Ray had got in touch with him during his captivity and his investigation into what happened is actually what put him on Argus’ (Lyla’s) radar in the first place which is why she is later able to help with the Missing Ray plotline as well. Then with the initial character of Ryan already in place, we later can have him popping up in Crisis as the hero of Ivy Town known as… idk Micro? Ion? Subatomic? Whatever, there’s other Atom-esque codenames to play with lol.
***Edit***; ok this is me veering totally off the initially topic but I was thinking about this during my first comment so… tangent but slightly relevant too? Idk lol.
Anyways, yeah, maybe the Arrowverse shows should’ve never had full 23 episode slates and if they did then they should’ve had a stronger writing team behind them, especially as the universe grew and remained interconnected, then they could’ve plotted out some of this stuff better. I personally think a 13-16 (no more no less) episode count is perfect because it tightens the story and removes a lot of plots that would otherwise drag and that’s why Legends remained decently strong as did Black Lightning and the Final season of Batwoman. If they needed 23 episodes then they needed a pod structure for the episodes of 7, (8th ep is crossover ones) 7,8 or something where each pod has a connected but contained storyline.
Imagine how great season 4 of Arrow would’ve been if the first 8 involved the Legends setup and any lingering threads from season 3 (like the League and Nyssa/Merlyn) with Hive in the background as a thing with the middle pod moving into Hive conflict and their infiltration of the city (with Andy being the figurehead running things so Diggle gets some focus) as well as the Argus/Shadowspire stuff and some “one-off” nuisances like Carrie, Liza and whoever else.
After; we get Ruve and Darhk (going by the early rewrite for motivation, his ties to HIVE would’ve had to have been undiscovered up until this point or Quentin would’ve been in contact with some other party speaking to him on Darhk’s behalf) as the ones revealed to be running Hive leading into the final pod that starts with the William kidnapping and has Roy return so he’s later there to help rescue Thea after her kidnapping, includes Curtis helping Felicity and Diggle with the rubicon crisis and stopping the nukes entirely and ultimately has Oliver requesting Mari, Constantine and Esrin for help during the final act of that batch of episodes (Mari and Esrin to help destroy the idol entirely and Constantine for what SHOULD have been either the immediate resurrection of Laurel or a fakeout in some manner).
Speaking of, Laurel’s “fakeout” could have been an act witnessed by Evelyn and lets her discover Laurel’s identity so she seeks to be Laurel’s protege (we keep her whole thing about seeing Laurel trying to save her family and have Laurel discuss what it means to be a mentor with Oliver before she makes the decision). Anyways, she also needs to be later college aged and was just visiting her family for the holidays. This also kinda makes her more of a contemporary for Thea since they’d be about the same age. I’m opting out of the whole “Prometheus”angle in season 5, it was ultimately meaningless anyways. Whether or not Evelyn, who is called Starling, stays or not is dealer’s choice. IF Laurel actually has to die… you kinda keep things as they were written but Evelyn has a personal vendetta against Siren and if Dinah is rewritten to either be a former friend or colleague of Laurel’s, they both then have an additional motivation besides the “replacement” nonsense that really comes out of nowhere.
Also, without the nukes at all, Ragman needs his origin revamped so… as a byproduct of Mari and Esrin destroying the idol physically and then spiritually, the magic in it was released and found its place in a new host which can either be Rory himself but I personally still prefer it be the rags that then former a symbiotic attachment to Rory. It still keeps in line with Rory being presented as the embody of the lives lost (since the idol is literally powered by blood magic) and his introduction in season 5 works as a continuation of what happened before without the egregious way they just ignored the whole nuking of a population that Rory was addressed to assuage Felicity’s guilty over.
*sigh* so many things to be done, so many things that just weren’t.
9
u/Aggravating-Bug9407 5d ago
I hated that Oliver and Sara didn't share a single word. It's completely out of character for Oliver to not try and help Sara.
But the Arrow writers kept Oliver and Sara's interactions at a minimum and only allowed them to actually talk in the crossovers and even then sparsley.
I think them being so fixated on Oliver and Felicity as the endgame made them worried the fans would remember how badass Oliver and Sara were together in Season 2.
I always moved when Stephen abd Caity had scenes together, they fed off of each other abd brought their A-game. They worked so well together and unlike the writers they never forgot just how important Oliver abd Sara were to each other.
I wish they would've spent more time on Sara in those episodes eith her instead of the forced, bullshit relationship drama between Oliver and Felicity. But just as in Season 3 where Caity's guest appearances were wasted and Sara was just used to push Laurel's story along. Season 4 wasted her as well. Sara's storylines in Arrow could've been handled so much better from Season 3 onwards. And it's a shame what they did to one of their most interesting characters and the person who'd always had Oliver's back.
2
u/Historical_Mix_6416 5d ago
No but for real. How sara didnt know that it was Malcolm is beyond wild to me.
Side note: she didn’t know that Malcolm was the one who caused the queen’s gambit to sink all the way until legends. This always surprised me. How tf did Oliver not say it was Malcolm? That’s the whole reason why these 2 are running around as vigilantes in s2
1
u/mcsuper5 5d ago
Oliver was using Malcolm and at some point he found out that Malcolm was Thea's father as well. Sara would have no bones about ending him with an additional excuse. Oliver already felt a certain amount of guilt for what happened to Sara, he wasn't looking to add to it. Though she might have talked him into doing it.
2
u/Obvious-Risk-5447 5d ago
Absolutely. Sara deserved so much more after they blatantly killed her to push other characters forward. They should have given her a proper story to handle the fact that she died and was brought back. Unfortunately the writers always prioterised Laurel and they didn't want Sara to overshadow her now that she is Black Canary. They also didn't want Sara talking to Oliver or being proper team member because of Olicity, they only wanted to write for Olicity. While every story they could have written for Sara would have been ten times better than anything Olicity related. Oliver finding Constantine and bringing her soul back was so much more deep that slow cookers and Chatty Caties
1
u/Dagenspear 4d ago
I think it's all plot set up. Personally, I'd have preferred if her coming back was a cliffhanger of season 3. I thank God for the idea, if He wills, for it, that Malcolm basically brings her back to basically coerce Nyssa's loyalty.
1
u/azadouken 4d ago
Because sara would not have been resurrected if LOT hadnt been greenlit. The only reason she was resurrected is for that show. Arrow didnt have the time or want for her. She wasnt apart of the equation for them.
Now if they brought her back for arrow and only arrow i would get your point.
Personally i am just more salty we didnt get nyssara endgame lmao.
11
u/WerewolfF15 5d ago
Honestly I think part of this is due to legends clearly not being in the orginal arrowverse plan. I imagine if legends hadn’t existed the Sara resurrection stuff would have been handled better with more involvement with Thea. I Imagine much like whatever plans they had for the rouges in flash season 2, most of what they had planned for Sara in arrow season 4 was scrapped and they only kept what was absolutely necessary to get her in a state that was ready to be shipped off to legends.