Arrow How should Olie have recovered from The Climb?

[godisawesome]

This ain't a complete season critique. This is just a challenge on the users of this forum to resolve the cliffhanger from Season 3 in a manner that either leaves them happier, or an analysis of what we got and why you like it.

To me, the excellent ending of the Climb begged for an escalation of Ollie's storyline. While I like the Starling Plotline, Ollie's recovery was ultimately a pathetic waste of time. His injuries and defeat were brushed aside in a manner that ruined the buildup and execution, and his plotline went into remission for far too long. Instead, to accomplish their goals of having Ollie seemingly turn later in the season and preserve the impact from the Climb on him, here's how I'd handle it:

Option One: Oliver is resurrected by Merlyn using the Lazarus Pit, with Merlyn also seeking a way to control Ollie. Merlyn's part this season was a convoluted mess of contradictions and neglected potential. This method would allow his still illogical, selfish, and stupid use of Thea to kill Sara to be redeemed by casting him as still a spiteful villain, and one engaged in a war against Ra's for survival. If Ollie couldn't defeat Ra's, okay, Merlyn wasn't sure either of them could, but it wasn't his hide he was risking anyways, it was Ollie's and he should still show that willingness to blame others for his own mistake. If he blames Ollie and the gang for Tommy's death, then changing Ollie into a weapon he can use to try and assassinate his enemies would be karmic justice in his eyes. So have him use the Lazarus Pit, it's resulting instability, and the drugs he used on Thea, to brainwash Ollie into serving him. And maybe Ra's frees Ollie from Merlyn's control, and believes he can use that as leverage to make Oliver his servant.

Option Two: Ra's impressed by Oliver's bravery and not believing he killed Sara, has Oliver resurrected and starts trying to turn him then. With one move, the script could show what makes Ra's a terrifying opponent. Even in death, he can still make you do what he wants. Ra's could spend the entire latte right all of the season trying to control Oliver by holding his city hostage with that plague canister, maybe even reveal he's tailored it to target the Merlyn bloodline (it's comics, it could work.) Imagine Oliver being flung back into life in Nanda Parbat, and Ra's going full Sith Lord to try and get him on his side. The challenge for Oliver now is to make contact with his team and figure out a way to turn the tables on Ra's.

Bonus Edition: Either villain frees Slade from the Island, and challenges Oliver to get revenge on him via trying to kill Joey Wilson. We now get a full reversal of Season Two, with Slade perhaps begging the Team to help save his boy and thus revealing Oliver's recovery to them, and Slade experiences what it's like to have a madman trying to get revenge on you. The catch? Oliver fully intends to rescue Joey, and when Slade realizes that, it's the deepest immediate wound Oliver can inflict. The two part on frayed terms, not allies, but no longer enemies, and Deathstroke enters the world once more.

 

[Primal Slayer]

Nuff said really. But they should've just had Ra's bring him back, have Ollie be dazed and confused, Ra's takes advantage of that and Al Sha-Him is born.

 

[mr. peasant]

Option Two: Ra's impressed by Oliver's bravery and not believing he killed Sara, has Oliver resurrected and starts trying to turn him then. With one move, the script could show what makes Ra's a terrifying opponent. Even in death, he can still make you do what he wants. Ra's could spend the entire latte right all of the season trying to control Oliver by holding his city hostage with that plague canister, maybe even reveal he's tailored it to target the Merlyn bloodline (it's comics, it could work.) Imagine Oliver being flung back into life in Nanda Parbat, and Ra's going full Sith Lord to try and get him on his side. The challenge for Oliver now is to make contact with his team and figure out a way to turn the tables on Ra's.

It needn't even involve the Lazarus Pit and be healed through more mundane means. For instance, they could have Oliver waking up in the clutches of the Assassins all bandaged up, unable to move and wondering what happened; with Ras in the same room listing how Oliver had had something like 10 broken bones and ribs, 15 units of blood and 20 hours of surgery.

This would have firmly established Ras as a threat by showing that Oliver got absolutely wrecked fighting him.

Obviously, this would have drastically changed the direction of the story by moving it to the "Ras controlling Oliver" subplot from the end of the season much earlier; which would give it more time to develop and be explored.

 

[ThePreface]

He was in Nanda Parbat. Katana was the one nursing him back to health. The could've done anything from falling into a pool of Lazarus water to Japanese Shinto magic. Anything would have been better than... "I got better". And penicillin tea.

 

[dude stannis]

Katana should've dragged his mangled corpse into the pit.

 

[kguillou]

Whats baffling is you just KNOW that the writers had the Lazarus Pits in mind when they initially wrote Oliver's "death." I mean its so obvious and a no brainer, I feel like there is a very deliberate, behind-the-scenes perhaps network mandated reason why they had to deviate from having Ollie ressurected this way. There is absolutely no way that they did not originally intend to use the pits for Ollie.

 

[metaphysician]

I'll go with "body retrieved by Ra's, so he could be stuck in the Lazarus Pit, revived, and then brainwashed", myself. It would be a much better way to set up "evil brainwashed Ollie" than what they did.

 

[Boy Scout]

He should've recovered in a way that wasn't ****ing stupid.

The Lazarus Pit was an option.

Slowly was an option.

Not having him fall so far and sustain such relatively minor injuries in the first place was an option.

 

[Shikamaru]

Lazarus Pit. If not, then I would have at least settled for the Soultaker Sword.

What they did was insultingly stupid.

 

[mr. peasant]

Still don't get the obsession over the need of having a supernatural solution when a more mundane one would suffice....

 

[metaphysician]

Mostly because, with the way the fight was set up, a supernatural solution was necessary, barring somebody pulling a super science robotic operating theater out of their ass. When you stab somebody straight through the chest, then throw them off the top of a 100+ foot cliff, "mundane means" do not help with the severe case of the deads.

 

[WeatherWizard99]

I would like oliver to be resurected in the lazarus by... Tommy... the new dark archer, who was also resurected by lazarus

 

[metaphysician]

Eh, I think turning Tommy into a villain would have been a *terrible* idea. It was the cliche the first season did good to avoid.

 

[Shikamaru]

Mostly because, with the way the fight was set up, a supernatural solution was necessary, barring somebody pulling a super science robotic operating theater out of their ass. When you stab somebody straight through the chest, then throw them off the top of a 100+ foot cliff, "mundane means" do not help with the severe case of the deads.

They made it crystal clear he was dead. Suspension of disbelief or not, there is no way he should have been alive. This is the same universe where Roy broke Oliver's leg and he spent an entire episode limping. The logic simply doesn't add up.

 

[JC00]

Problem was they had that episode and picked up right in the next episode after the holiday hiatus. Should have picked up a few days after Oliver had left and then had Merlyn show up with the sword, cut to the Arrow title screen and then the next scene a subtitle would have said "3 weeks later" Then had the Brick arc take place over a three week period.

Meanwhile during that time Maseo would have poured a liquid substance (Lazarus Pit water) on the stab wound. Then Oliver would have been in a near like coma state for 4 of the 6 weeks and the last 2 weeks would have been him finally awake and trying to get back to Star City.


.

 

[ThePreface]

When you stab somebody straight through the chest, then throw them off the top of a 100+ foot cliff, "mundane means" do not help with the severe case of the deads.

Not even video game characters survive that.

 

[luis4u]

Good writing.

 

[Crimz]

Lazarus pit.

A lot of horrible episodes would of been gone, as he would of been recruited by Ra's straight away. The rest of the season would of been about trying to get Oliver back to his senses. The pit would have changed him and make him unwillingly go back on his no killing rule, Oliver needing rescuing also would of provided reason for Thea to get involved in the crime fighting. And there would be a great reason as to why he feels like he needs to change to Green Arrow, a better reason as to why he needs to be better.

Basically, the Lazarus pit was the best option and could of gotten rid of some of the crap in season 3.

 

[metaphysician]

Hmm. I wonder if this might be another "screwed by last minute rewrites" plot point? Maybe the plan *was* for the 'Brainwashed Ollie' arc to occur right after the mid-season cliffhanger. They just shunted it to the end as part of desperately writing out Waller and the Squad from the second half of the season. After all, "final battle with the League" is logical climax material, and if your planned climax is impossible ( because it was "Ollie and company go to war with ARGUS" ). . .

 

[Boy Scout]

I can't imagine a Waller/Suicide embargo would've interfered that much with the writing in the present day. Not as you've described, anyway.

 

[metaphysician]

I can't imagine a Waller/Suicide embargo would've interfered that much with the writing in the present day. Not as you've described, anyway.

It would if the original plan was "Waller was behind Sara's murder," as part of a ( possibly ill-conceived ) plan to trigger a war between Ollie and the League, or as a way to kill a League operative while dumping the aggro on Ollie. Either way, a huge amount of the back half would have involved ARGUS and the Suicide Squad.

 

[mr. peasant]

They made it crystal clear he was dead. Suspension of disbelief or not, there is no way he should have been alive. This is the same universe where Roy broke Oliver's leg and he spent an entire episode limping. The logic simply doesn't add up.

How so? Short of decapitation or removal of the heart, there are very few ways to instantly kill a person with absolute certainty.

The main injuries Oliver would have suffered from the duel would've been massive blood loss secondary to a lacerated/perforated liver from the stab wound and multiple fractures from the fall with/out subsequent soft tissue/internal organ damage. All of which have high mortality rates, true. However, all of which are also potentially survivable. Especially within the context of Fiction-land where Oliver has stabbed himself through the chest before in order to take out Malcolm Merlyn only to then immediately get back up and running around the city without so much as a cough.

 

[DCnightwing23]

Re-watching S3 on Netflix. The lazarus pit makes the most sense. What they ended up going with was a stretch. Plus, if they wanted to go with the evil Oliver storyline (which i really enjoyed but ended up being poorly executed) they could have had Oliver been truly "changed" by the pit and thus making him more susceptible to the brainwashing he experiences. We should have had a larger chunk of the season with no oliver/ evil oliver. Oh well, the writers are idiots.

 

[Loki882]

Either:

-Dump him in the Lazarus Pits. Maybe Nyssa sympathizes with him enough that she does it out of respect (or simple pity), or because she knows that Sara also cared deeply about Oliver. Plus playing around with Oliver suffering from it's "side-effects" could have been really interesting (especially since he had to deal with Roy going crazy on Mirakuru in S2).

-Do something like mr. peasant suggested. Ra's is impressed enough by Oliver's bravery and skill that he has his LOA doctors (I presume that he has some, or can hire/threaten some into doing things for him at least) to work on Oliver. They save his life, but he's still badly hurt and cannot even really move. And now Ra's has LOTS of time to try and convert Oliver to his way of thinking, with Oliver being almost completely unable to do anything about it.

-The Soultaker Sword. You already have Katana, and your already bringing in "immortal" Ra's, a very comic accurate take on the Lazarus Pits, and heck even this season Damien Darhk seems to be flat-out magical/mystical. So I'm not seeing why the Soultaker Sword would be undoable given all of that.

Also, this plot should have been much longer, they couldn't even go ONE episode without showing Oliver being alive. This arc should have been like 5, 6, maybe even 7 episodes (long enough for the audience and characters in-universe to really feel his absence). And he shouldn't have been involved in the Brick arc AT ALL (because he'd still be recovering from his wounds).

 

[DCnightwing23]

Either:

-The Soultaker Sword. You already have Katana, and your already bringing in "immortal" Ra's, a very comic accurate take on the Lazarus Pits, and heck even this season Damien Darhk seems to be flat-out magical/mystical. So I'm not seeing why the Soultaker Sword would be undoable given all of that.

Also, this plot should have been much longer, they couldn't even go ONE episode without showing Oliver being alive. This arc should have been like 5, 6, maybe even 7 episodes (long enough for the audience and characters in-universe to really feel his absence). And he shouldn't have been involved in the Brick arc AT ALL (because he'd still be recovering from his wounds).

Agree 100% about these suggestions. If you're gonna bring back Katana and now with S4 you want to introduce mysticism, it would have been the perfect opportunity to bring in the Soultaker Sword.

Also agree that Oliver should have been gone and unheard of a while. I also would have loved to see him actually succumb to Ras and actually turned evil, especially in his weak state. Him lying to Ras just didn't sit well with me, Ras isn't that dumb. And have him be evil for a long arc as well, till around the season finale. W/ scattered small moments he shares with his team where he starts to remember them. (I'm thinking something along the lines of the Winter Soldier, if he starts to remember they fry his brain)