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Old 04-07-2018, 08:18 AM
  #5
Regan
Part-Time Fan
 
Joined: Mar 2016
Posts: 144
I truly don't know what the writers were going for with Oliver and Diggle's argument.

Some of it felt as if they thought that they had let fault for the rift between the original team and the new team become too unbalanced, with the latter bearing the lion's share of the blame, and that they were using Diggle to try to pretend that the Outsiders were more justified than they were in a clumsy attempt to balance the scales.

Diggle is too intelligent for some of the "points" he made.

What was Oliver supposed to do once he was made aware of the fact that one of the team members was going to testify against him? Ignore it, despite the threat posed to him and to the loyal members of the team, any or all of whom could have been targeted next? Gather the team together, and trust that the traitor would own up if he asked nicely? Pretend that he didn't trust Felicity and Diggle for fear of the others taking offence? Diggle's point might have made a smidge of sense if it had turned out that there was no traitor at all, but Oliver's suspicion that one of the three most recent additions to the team was testifying against him proved to be completely justified.

Are we supposed to pretend that Oliver didn't save Vigilante because he didn't feel like it? To forget about the bomb? Is Diggle really suggesting that, had he been in charge at the time, he'd have said "to Hell with the thousands of innocent people who could be killed by this bomb", and prioritised saving Vigilante? If so, does he honestly think that that would make him a better choice than Oliver to call the shots?

If anything, Dinah, Rene and Curtis' decision to try to save Vigilante rather than helping Oliver and Diggle deal with the bomb threat first, before they all went to help Vigilante, sealed his fate. Cayden James activated Vigilante's comms to lure them in, and didn't have Black Siren kill him until Dinah was there to watch. Had they dealt with the bomb first, who's to say that having Oliver and Diggle there too wouldn't have made a difference?

How has Rene suddenly become some sort of innocent, helpless victim brutalised by Big Bad Oliver?

He chose to be a vigilante. He chose to join the team. He chose to testify against Oliver. He chose not to let anybody on the team know that he was being pressured to testify against Oliver. He chose to join Dinah's anti-Black Siren crusade. He chose to engage Oliver, after he chose to shoot at Quentin, Thea and Felicity. He chose not to stand down when he was given the opportunity to do so. Neither he, nor anybody else, had any possible right to expect Oliver not to defend himself against a man attacking him with an ax. Rene is suffering from the consequences of his own choices.

I also don't get why Diggle is so attached to being the Green Arrow. He has never struck me as somebody who wanted the spotlight, nor does he have any particular affinity for archery. Oliver made it clear that it was not a case of him not trusting Diggle with the role, it was that he couldn't let it go.

That being said, I was glad that the episode ended with the idea of Diggle working with Lyla in ARGUS, not running off to join the Outsiders.
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