Saturday Morning Musings (#10)... on a Sunday

Good morning! So, today's post will be going up on a Sunday because I had a crazy Saturday yesterday with SAT tests, a Communion party, and also my friend's birthday party. Between all of that, I had no time to sit down and write up a post for the day. Instead, I figured I'd do it today since there are some Arrow-related things I want to talk about before the next episode shows on Wednesday. Let's get into today's topics. (This post does contain spoilers for Arrow) 

Arrow. Last week, we met Oliver Queen as Al Sah-Him. In my recap, I was very between it being Oliver pretending or Oliver having actually changed through brainwashing. Now that I've had a few days to let the episode soak in and after seeing the promo, I'm going to stick to that gut feeling that he's pretending. Now, I may be completely wrong, but that's why these sorts of things are simply called theories. So what makes me get this feeling? As some prior information, I'll be using 'Darth Oliver' to recognize the actions he takes that are done in order to pretend, and 'Oliver' to recognize the actions he would have taken as himself.

Let's start with the scene where Lyla was being traded back to Team Arrow in return for Nyssa. Darth Oliver had each of them searched by Maseo. However, when he got to Felicity, she firmly commanded him not to touch her. Maseo looked to Darth Oliver for what to do, and Oliver simply nodded his head, signaling him to respect her wishes. If Darth Oliver was really who Oliver was, he wouldn't of cared about Felicity's wishes. Oliver does. Important to notice that Felicity was betting on him respecting her wishes because she holds what sets off this particular fight scene that Lyla will eventually use: the gun. During this fight scene, Darth Oliver is facing Diggle. Yes, he does fight him, but he doesn't hurt him to an extreme. Darth Oliver wouldn't care about how he hurt Diggle. He would go after him and hurt him a lot worse than he did. This is another clue to me that this is Oliver pretending because even though he did have his sword raised at the end of it, there's no indication that he would have actually brought it down on him. Oliver needs to make this look real, believable, but he can do that, while not physically injuring the people he cares about to an extreme. I have to admit, Thea showing up and shooting an arrow through his wrist, which he didn't even flinch at, was badass. It's because of her showing up that we don't get a chance to see what he would have done with Diggle, but I don't think he was going to kill him.

That was the one scene that really stood out to me, but there were other minor moments that merely his expression didn't seem like one Darth Oliver would wear, such as his very minor facial reaction to Ra's saying he would marry Nyssa. I think this will have certain limits between the two of them, especially since Nyssa likes the female gender and Oliver is in love with Felicity. I don't think it's going to be a binding agreement in either of their eyes.

The promo holds the other important scene that we will see on Wednesday that for me, really told me Oliver was himself. There's a very small moment where he looks at Felicity the way Oliver looks at Felicity. The look on his face is identical to that way he's looked at her in the past. Another thing would be that yes, he does put his friends in a prison cell, but it seems that he doesn't hurt them. Putting them in the cell would keep them safe, but also allow them to be there when he plans to make his big escape.

Now, the opposing argument would say, "But Oliver killed that guy in the beginning when it appeared to him as Diggle." Yes, he did. I think at this point Oliver knew that it wasn't actually him. He's been with Ra's for a few weeks and knows what he's trying to do. Regarding Oliver killing someone, I think there is a very small number of things that he won't do to continue his game of pretend. He kidnapped Lyla, but he didn't harm her or even baby Sara. I'm sure he was fully aware that Diggle would be pissed at him for that. The important thing was that he didn't harm her. And there are many ways the argument could go, but like I said, there are very few things Oliver would not do, and at this point, he's trying to get himself away from this life Ra's has planned for him and to get back to his friends.

Stephen Amell said Oliver ends the season running and I have the feeling he'll finally be making his escape in the finale. This is my theory, but I'm also not opposed to the theory that something will snap him out of it if he's in a brainwashed state. We'll see how things go this week and if we get any more clues as to if he really is Darth Oliver or Oliver playing games with Ra's al Ghul.

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ICYMI: I posted my review of The Avengers: Age of Ultron