It's hard to get rid of a fixed point in Time.

I plead dyslexia.

I'm on board with this. That saying something because I always hated the "it's all a dream" trope, going back to when I first saw the Wizard of Oz at 4. But this time? Desperate measures for desperate times.

Some pieces, but not say the chest. Felicity isn't a tiny person, but the guy playing Ray is way taller than average. It would be like Catwoman wearing Batman's gear and no one noticing. (random hypothetical)

This. It isn't the weepiness that's the problem so much as a lack of computer badassery.

That's just the tip of the Ras bipolar/split personality iceberg. When he's not threatening to kill people for leaving him and imagined betrayals, he's blackmailing them to take his place by threatening to kill their friends, then revealing the friends are going to die anyway. This season completely ruined the…

They should have an acting mayor. Someone appointed in the interim.

Would you prefer The Super Friends?
*leaves*

She should have had different dialogue, something like an "If you cut me down now" speech. She just looked too surprised she was going to die imo.

I know, right? Lance should have been on the phone to the Mayor> Governor> National guard> EVACUATION NOW. It would had added dramatic urgency that might have made our hero's actions a little easier to watch.

Thats what would make it trite. It was a staple of genre shows in the bad old days. The idea was fans would loose interest if our hero had a life. Many shows have since proved this wrong. Unfortunately that doesn't include this last Arrow season.
And your mastery of TV tropes don't scare me. ;P

I assume this was a deaf human, not a meta-human? That would be hard to pull off, unless they had something to compensate, like an ESP power.

While Felicity used the One Size Fits all ATOM suit.

Okay, thanks for that reminder. GPS tags would have worked so much better.

Was it her plan all along? I'm not happy with it either, but it looked like she was considering a truce but didn't like the terms. Then there's Raina who can see the future, but apparently not her own future.

I'm always amazed by how Oliver can fight so effectively with NO PERIPHERAL VISION. Go ahead put on a hood, pull it down far enough to "hide" your identity. Then do martial arts with random bad guys. See how that works for you.

An eye patch is slightly better than wearing glasses and slouching. Just saying.

Seriously, it made the "real" SHIELD people sound so much like dicks I was happy Gonzales died, even though we finally knew he was a good guy. But at least SHIELD doesn't write EVERY fracking character with this trait.

But it took soooo long to get there.

That would be the trite solution.
Better if they surprised us and remembered no one "lives happily ever after" and every relationoship has its ups and downs. But that would require better writing than we've seen so far.