Warning: spoilers ahead for last night's Arrow midseason finale.
Arrow rarely holds back when it comes to premieres and finales, and last night's midseason finale was filled with all kinds of craziness. Oliver and Prometheus had their most brutal showdown to date. Diggle was finally caught by authorities. Felicity lost her boyfriend. Oliver hooked up with Susan and discovered a living version of Laurel. Two twists in particular had fans taking to Twitter: the return of Laurel and the treatment of Felicity. In honor of the end of Arrow for 2016, we've picked some of the best examples of fans freaking out on Twitter in the wake of the Season 5 midseason finale. Let's start with the good.
The death of Laurel Lance in Season 4 came as a big shock to those who counted her as their favorite character from the very first season. After all, Laurel was the Arrow version of the Black Canary of DC Comics fame; she seemed safe by virtue of her comic counterpart. So, to those who felt that her death left a hole in the series that couldn't be filled by any of the newbies that piled into the Arrow Bunker at the beginning of Season 5, her return was cause for celebration.
In fact, the news of Laurel's return was so fun for a good chunk of fans, and it was enough to win back a viewer who stopped watching in the wake of her death. Sure, nobody knows just yet if the Laurel who turned up in the midseason finale was Original Recipe Laurel or Flashpoint Laurel or an alternate Earth Laurel, but she's back in some way and she could be around for a while.
Stephen Amell was chatting with viewers on Facebook right after the episode ended, and what he had to say worked Laurel fans up into even more of a happy tizzy. His teases about Black Canary in Season 5 combined with Laurel's smiling appearance in the Arrow Bunker already has folks speculating about what's to come.
All in all, the Season 5 midseason finale was a winner for viewers who have been waiting for a return to some of the biggest elements of Season 2. Laurel was an important part of Oliver's non-vigilante life back in the earlier seasons of the show. Her surprise appearance in the Bunker could mean that the show will embrace other elements of days gone by in the rest of Season 5. The theme this year is "legacy," after all.
Sadly, the Arrow midseason finale didn't work for everybody, and the Laurel cliffhanger didn't do anything to redeem the episode to those who didn't enjoy everything that happened before. Felicity had a rough time in the episode, especially after Prometheus tricked Oliver into killing her boyfriend. Team Arrow was appropriately sad at the news of Billy's death, but most of the sympathy was directed at Oliver, and the last image of Felicity in the hour was of her crying alone in her apartment. Many viewers hit Twitter to share their feelings about what happened to Felicity in the midseason finale.
Original Team Arrow has been one of the most important dynamics of the series to date, but Season 5 hasn't done much with the bonds between Oliver, Diggle, and especially Felicity. When Diggle went to comfort Oliver for killing Billy instead of comforting Felicity for the death of her boyfriend, it didn't go over well with fans of the original trio.
At least one Felicity fan has come up with a list of people who have treated Felicity well in Season 5. It's not a long list, but it's a list all the same.
While plenty of people were happy that elements of the midseason finale felt like they were pulled straight from the early seasons, others were distinctly displeased at what seems like regression for the show and Oliver's character.
Arrow's Season 5 midseason finale clearly had fans freaking out--although not all for good reasons--and fans now have a while to wait to see what comes next. The show is officially finished for 2016 and won't be back until February 2017. The CW has done some schedule shuffling for the new year, so be sure to check out our midseason TV premiere schedule to see when your favorite shows will be back.
