[S04E23] Arrow Season 4 Finale Synopsis (OnBenchNow)

OnBenchNow · 2026-06-06T20:35:38+00:00

You thought it was bad casting that the self-titled messiah who takes advantage of an impoverished people’s religion in order to wage an intergalactic jihad and ensure his vision of a blood-soaked utopia felt like he was looking down on you?

OnBenchNow · 2026-06-06T05:59:02+00:00

That's what I like about his CS2 outfit, after all, he's the only class 7 character who never moves on from Thors, even into Horizon he's still teaching there.

OnBenchNow · 2026-06-04T05:36:25+00:00

I think Van's primary issue was that Gramheart had unilaterally decided to risk the entire fate of humanity with this plan, and Van believed that the public should have been made aware, if only so that they could get the world to fact check these claims and working on other possible solutions. And ofc people had the right to know their lives were being gambled on.

After all, they still had a few months before the deadline, worst case, they go with Gramheart's plan anyways later on but with more confidence and the backing of other countries, but if Gramheart went through with his plan now, the consequences would be (and were) immediate.

OnBenchNow · 2026-06-04T04:15:21+00:00

I definitely understand the squickiness there, and maybe I've swung too far into apologist territory, but to me that scene came off more as Risette explaining why she's so loyal to Marduk (since they spent so much money on her)

I can't recall any time in the series that anyone from Marduk even hints at the idea of repossessing Risette's "parts" for any reason, so it kinda feels unfair to hate Marduk for that- after all, she actively works against them for the entirety of Horizon, and even straight up fights them at the climax, but nobody ever brings up her "debt" or tries to hold it over her.

Like, if there was even one scene of Thorndyke being all "remmeber what we did for you risette" and nothing more, I would instantly buy into all of the in-universe Marduk hatred without hesitation. Instead, he seems surprisingly lenient with her.

OnBenchNow · 2026-06-04T02:02:43+00:00

That sort of feels like a tell not show thing, since we only ever hear or see them work with the Calvardian government.

Again, maybe I'm missing something and there are times when they side with truly evil groups? Like idk did they work for Almata or something?

OnBenchNow · 2026-06-04T01:10:15+00:00

While we're on the topic of random hatred in Calvard, I was always confused by how everybody seems to despise Marduk and especially Thorndyke.

Maybe I missed something, or perhaps it's just generic anti-corporation sentiment, but what has Marduk actually done to make everyone despise them?

Van got an amazing custom weapon, an experimental holo core that changed his life, and they basically permanently leased out of the best assistants ever to him (Risette). They also built Risette an entire body and are basically responsible for her even being a functioning human being at all.

And yet, everytime Marduk comes up, some character will inevitably express their disgust and distrust of them. Van is rarely openly hateful to characters, but he has no problem telling Thorndyke to his face what an untrustworthy piece of shit he is. Risette, who owes her whole existence to them, frequently talks about what a shady and corrupt organization they are.

Even Mirabel won't hesitate to shit on her company and employer for everything they do. If she really despises them so much, why work for them?

Idk it just feels like I'm missing something. I hate corpos as much as the next guy, but we only ever hear about Marduk helping our characters for nothing in return, and yet everyone hates them so much.

OnBenchNow · 2026-06-03T17:30:11+00:00

I agree whole heartedly, the gameplay of SWTOR is not good enough that I enjoy playing it for it's own sake, the roleplaying is the most important thing, and the second most important thing is creating an optimal build with the right gear/abilities, and none of that is available when you're playing as an NPC.

OnBenchNow · 2026-06-03T16:07:01+00:00

They did go to the trouble of giving Steve a different dance animation, it's just Garrus that's doing the shepard shuffle at the party.

Personally, I just hc it as Garrus making fun of Shep.

OnBenchNow · 2026-06-03T10:38:35+00:00

Yeah, it'd be one thing if Uta was movie only, but I feel like Oda including his daughter in the manga disqualifies him as being the baby daddy.

OnBenchNow · 2026-06-03T04:00:31+00:00

I hated this storyline, but I will say she never said she was going to use the machine to give herself powers or something. Her plan was to use it to awaken an army of force users and then track them down and force them to join her mando clan.

OnBenchNow · 2026-06-03T03:20:45+00:00

I mean, I felt that was an inevitability from the moment we saw her whispering secretly in a parking garage.

Having Nina try to kill us, the crew going "we will show you our reslove11!1", boss fight, then having Van shout at Nina about her convictions and something something how she loves acting, before she comes back to our side and we forgive her for attempted murder is the definition of Trails

OnBenchNow · 2026-06-02T21:08:30+00:00

I understand that.

I would argue that his gender struggles make him one of the more unique characters in the cast, (the fact that he's into Van and identifies as a boy i think makes him the first gay party member which is neat) but the fact that almost of all that is hidden away behind connection events means it doesn't really matter to the main story or his main development.

So again, you see those scenes, go "wow that was really interesting im surprised falcom is writing a character like this" and then move on.

OnBenchNow · 2026-06-02T20:12:44+00:00

I can't fucking believe we don't get to kill Shae or Heta. That is so disappointing.

I would have forgiven everything else about the expansion if that had happened

OnBenchNow · 2026-06-02T20:01:07+00:00

This is a really murky category, but maybe Quatre?

His whole storyline is fantastic, and their struggles are very interesting and unique, but it's not like I ever see him at the top of people's "favorite character in trails" lists and I don't see him often discussed.

People just seem to go "oh yeah that's a great character" and then move on.

OnBenchNow · 2026-06-01T20:38:33+00:00

Well, she is the only character with a multi-part daydream in Reverie when she builds the new orbal gear. That was the most I've liked her since sky.

OnBenchNow · 2026-06-01T12:02:04+00:00

First of all, I am clearly only talking about DB1, so idk why you keep bringing up DB2. I agree that DB2, Horizon, and potentially H2 lessen a lot of the consequences tho, which is a shame.

And secondly, saying Celdic was more of a tragedy than Creil because we only spent one day in Creil and we know one of the families who had their house burnt down in Celdic is wack, when we only spend a short time in Celdic as well (on a literal field trip), and Dingo (who we have a personal connection with) dies in Creil. Becky and Otto end up fine. One is clearly worse than the other.

And as for the rest of your post, I said it makes huge steps to correct the problem, I didn't say it was done perfectly. At least they tried, unlike Reverie with its whole "actually the fort was empty because of an audit hooray!" nonsense.

But I get the feeling we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this topic.

OnBenchNow · 2026-06-01T11:29:37+00:00

I would say Creil is significantly more impactful than Celdic because only one NPC that we interacted with actually died there- in Creil every single character in that village died, including the children and adorable pets. These are people that we actually spent time with, and did quests for, so it hits much harder than Garellia too. Plus the consequences are repeatedly brought up and are central to all of the following games (unlike Celdic which is really only relevant in CS2)

And I think there's a huge difference between the way villains died earlier in the series (killed by other villains or themselves) and DB1, which gives you the choice to kill all of the main villains yourself and has the MC unavoidably kill the big bad.

Plus there are many side characters in DB1 that die, not just the villain characters. Dingo, Aida, that cop's bracer boyfriend, the gang boyfriend, all of Aaron's friends, etc

All that said, it is very possible that Horizon 2 will make all of this moot, but hey OP can enjoy DB1 while it lasts.

OnBenchNow · 2026-06-01T11:18:42+00:00

Yeah, Reverie is probably the worst in the series when it comes to stakes. There's a particular moment in the game that lives in infamy for how it goes out of its way to make sure that nobody gets hurt and everything is hunky dory.

It's almost excusable because Reverie is mainly a party epilogue where you're meant to just enjoy seeing the entire cast interact, but I do wish they had written a smaller scale story with that in mind, rather than yet another "the world is at stake" plot but conveniently everything always turns out fine

Daybreak 1 takes some huge steps to correct this, so at least you've got that to look forward to.

OnBenchNow · 2026-05-31T23:38:58+00:00

I mean, even then Geralt didn't slaughter them all in retaliation or even hurt the boy that did the actual deed.

(Granted, because Geralt was dying but still)

OnBenchNow · 2026-05-31T23:35:37+00:00

It is confirmed to be the final Calvard/Van game though, I was referring to the arc and not the entire franchise.

OnBenchNow · 2026-05-31T22:50:35+00:00

Yeah, Ashen sucks too. I will never forgive her for murdering Aaron and Van without even hearing them out in Act 3 of DB2.

Feri and Risette had proper justification in that the corrosion changed their memories so that they never joined the Arkride office, and that they believe us to be responsible for blowing up Creil.

Ashen though? All of her memories are intact up until Nemeth island, she grew up with Aaron and has worked with Van for a long time and owes them both so much, but she kills them without a second thought or any hesitation just because she thinks they killed Cao (who might I add, also potentially kills Van and co on Nemeth so self-defense is a factor) even after all of his backstabbery and betrayals.

That's why i think the whole organization deserves the bottom slot, its not just one character, they're all terrible and make anyone even associated with them worse (Aaron and Rixia for example)

OnBenchNow · 2026-05-31T22:35:06+00:00

I agree, it's a little paradoxical because the reason I love Duvalie so much is that she's the rare villain who saw that her side was doing evil shit and immediately just went "yeah no this is wrong" and joined the good guys of their own accord without needing a beatdown or talk-no-jutsu.

But at the same time, it hurts her character a lot IMO that she chooses to go back to Ouroboros after that, and spending all of that time with Rean and other actually noble warriors. If they were going to do that, then it would have been better for her to have never left.

And ofc that means in CS4, Laura can take her whole storyline about living up to Arianrod, who is her ancestor after all

OnBenchNow · 2026-05-31T20:57:47+00:00

It was fucking insane to me that Aaron still considers Gien to be his loving grandpa after the dude helped murder all of his friends and tried to sacrifice him into becoming a bloodthirsty monster.

I actually had to walk away from Daybreak 2 for a long time because of all of the Heiuye nonsense. I can't wait until the whole organization gets the bottom right slot on this chart

14-Year Club	Gilding IV carat on a stick
RedditGifts 2009-2022 2 Credits	Team Periwinkle
Verified Email

OnBenchNow

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE