Also, this was the first episode with both Barrowman and Darvill listed in the credits. Can we PLEASE get a Doctor Who reference after the mid-winter break?

I also love how LoT has become the show where they use all the characters they can't fit into Arrow and Flash anymore. It's become such a great continual excuse to keep all these people - now including Darkhe and Malcolm Merlyn - around and active in Arrowverse. And I love that the show exists if only for that…

I couldn't agree more. The past two weeks in particular have just been embarrassingly great. It is a wonderful time to be a fan of this particular genre.

It helps that John Barrowman and Neil McDonough are both so much more charismatic than Casper Crump.

Sure. But that doesn't change the fact that those are the kind of creative decisions that can often be chalked up to specific and different showrunners.

I wonder if Guggenheim is more involved than he has been in the past couple of years? Since I know he's also been working on LoT. There's just such a noticeable jump in quality - the kind that often means a change in showrunners.

They did this really well with Slade and Oliver - but it's such a great fundamental concept (see also: Xavier/Magneto, Lex/Clark etc.) that I would enjoy seeing it executed again here.

I don't believe Flahspoint would make sense, because then none of the characters would even have memory of Laurel dying. Only Barry would.

Oliver's always had scruff, going back to the pilot. It's the signature look of Dark and Brooding men everywhere.

All right, I missed something - what are the swimming pool jokes in reference to?

I don't know for certain, but I would guess some behind-the-scenes change-up. I suspect at least part of third season and all of fourth were run by Wendy Mericle (while Guggenheim was off getting Flash and then LoT off the ground). But now Guggenheim's back behind the wheel, and he's righted the ship.

I like the idea that they might casually be easing Thea back into the life of Speedy.

I would love to see him in person. Though I doubt it will happen anytime soon since they couldn't even get Colin Donnell for the 100th.

"Curtis is a better vigilante than “Guardian” but that is not something to be proud of."

So true. And few other series in the genre are making similar attempts. Daredevil did, but it didn't always hold out well with them. One reason I prefer Arrow to Daredevil is that it makes these considerations the focal point of storylines and characters across episodes and seasons, and at its best, it plays out in…

We saw in a previous episode that she was looking into Oliver's time in Russia. I have absolutely no doubt she's going to become relevant to one or both time periods (past and present) in some way.

He's consistently my least favorite Flash character, if only for this reason.

Aida has the real Laurel locked in a closet somewhere.

And using them in tandem to see Hood vs Green Arrow stalk the hallways of all those people he killed? That was downright haunting.

I hope not. That would undermine a lot of emotional material they've given to characters like Lance, Diggle, and Sara.