While it’s obviously a blow to the JSA to lose Wildcat, for Yolanda’s sake, it does seem like the right move to take a break from all of this and focus on getting better. This collapse has been a long time coming, and it just doesn’t seem like there’s any way for her to balance school, work, JSA stuff and whatever free time she has afterwards in the midst of dealing w/ this trauma. Whether it really is Brainwave having left a psychic implant in her mind, Eclipso’s manipulations, her PTSD or some combination of those, it’s clear that she needs a lot of time to heal. My hope w/ the way she goes about it is just that she doesn’t stop talking to the team. I’d hate to think that she’d only have her excessively judgmental family to lean on at this point, but Courtney, Rick, Beth, Pat, etc. will all still be there for her in a much healthier way
That said, I still fully expect her to be in the final fight against Eclipso in the finale. He’s too big a threat to not have all hands on deck, and it’d just feel wrong to not have her in the fold. Though I don’t agree w/ her that she needs to be the 1 to kill Eclipso. True, she may be the only killer in the JSA, but Eclipso’s also not human, so really anyone can kill him and still say they’re not really a murderer. One other thing I’m hoping for w/ Yolanda in the near future is that we’ll actually get to see her healing process. It’d suck to have that all happen off-screen where the next time we see her is the big fight. It already sucks that that seems to be what they’re doing w/ Jade, but it’d be even worse to sideline 1 of the main characters for a while in terms of screentime
At first I was upset that Beth didn’t follow Rick in being fully supportive of her teammate, but the more I think about it, Beth’s hesitancy actually does seem to fit her character pretty well. She’s easily the most innocent and good-natured member of the JSA, and so of course she’d be conflicted about something as dark as killing someone else. It’s not that she has no experience w/ murders, but I imagine she’s had a more black-and-white view of their situation where the killers are automatically the bad guys. Of course she wants to support her friend and teammate, but this seems to really challenge her more straightforward views on morality. On the other hand, Rick knows what it’s like to want to kill someone after his murderous rage toward Grundy last season, so it also makes sense that he’d be much more understanding. While I think this makes it less likely that Yolanda will seek out support from Beth specifically while she hangs up the Wildcat mantle, I also feel like Beth will ultimately come around, realizing that Yolanda did what she had to in that moment
It’s frustrating because we’ll only get 8 more episodes of her as a costumed hero, but considering the circumstances, she was absolutely amazing! I really feel like this did a lot more to justify her decision to take up the mantle beyond just the Arrowverse’s desire to make superheroes out of as many characters as possible. Seeing her struggles with desperately trying to get help for the people in the Heights who were hurting but making very little progress was certainly painful, but still done in an effective way. It was really convincing in being the final push Kelly needed to be this new kind of hero more focused on standing up for the people instead of always trying to stop the big, world-ending threats. And while we’ve obviously known what her costume was gonna look like for a while now, I still liked seeing her be the one to decide on the visibility aspects of it. I figured that was why the costume showed some of her face and hair, but it’s nice to get the confirmation that Kelly made the specific decision to make sure everyone knows that the new Guardian is a Black woman. And it’s just nice to have a gold Guardian costume, as it’s closer to the blue and gold color scheme usually seen in the comics
While I doubt it’d work out well to have someone as both a main actor on a show and a regular writer in these kinds of shows, I absolutely support more actors taking a turn like this to help write even just 1 episode. Similar to how a handful of actors have also taken to directing an episode or 2 of their shows, it makes sense that these talented people would wanna expand their reach and get into the writing side of things, whether they have prior experience or it’s really their 1st time. And while I know the actors are obviously hired for a specific talent, I think it also makes sense to invite them into the writers’ room, at least occasionally. After they’ve gotten to play their character for multiple seasons, they’re really gonna have a good handle on what makes them tick and what would be good ways to develop them further. So having them involved in the writing process and getting their unique input makes a lot of sense, especially when you have an episode like this focusing on a side character. Azie Tesfai did an absolutely amazing job on both fronts this week, and it gives me hope that this won’t be the last time we see actors branching out in this kind of way on other shows
It was definitely confusing to hear him tell Kelly about how becoming this “special kind of hero” would’ve taken him away from his family but then he dropped the “worlds await” line in his last scene. The former would suggest that he turned down the job, but the latter seems to suggest that he accepted. I guess it’s not fully decided yet, but I kinda feel like this is ultimately an indication that he did in fact accept the “job.” Now that doesn’t make his reluctance to leave his family any less real, as it absolutely would’ve been his main point of contention in deciding whether or not to accept the ring. It’s something he would’ve grappled w/ for a while, which is completely understandable. Not only does he have 2 small kids to look after, but he can remember a timeline where 1 of them didn’t exist, and so that’d give him even more reason to spend as much time w/ little Sara as possible, along w/ JJ. But I’m sure he’d also recognize just how huge this responsibility would be and just how many lives he could save on a scale he never dreamed was possible. Choosing to be a Lantern wouldn’t invalidate the logic of his line to Kelly about her being a different kind of hero, as that line of thinking was still something that’s been weighing on him for a while now and made for good advice in her situation. Plus it’s not like dropping the whole GL thing on someone he just met would make much sense, especially since I’m sure even Dig doesn’t fully understand it himself at this point
But ultimately, my main argument for him becoming a Lantern is that it just makes no sense to me that they’d introduce this mysterious green box as a giant cliffhanger in the Arrow finale only to do practically nothing w/ it. It’d be 1 thing if Arrow ended prematurely, but they went into season 8 knowing it’d be the last one, so that was a fully premeditated move. We don’t necessarily have to see much of him in action as a GL, especially since I’d be weary of how well the CW would be able to pull off a bunch of scenes like that on their budget, but it’d also be pretty anti-climactic to build this huge thing up and then just kill it. Now that we know this wasn’t Dig’s last Arrowverse appearance, I’m still holding out hope that we can finally fulfill this promise later on. I just really want the 1st explicit mention of “Green Lantern” in the Arrowverse to John reciting the oath 
