Orion

And now I'm totally picturing Laurel riding a black moped with yellow flames behind Roy and Oliver on the big boy bikes.

I knocked Ray for it so I have to knock Oliver for it. You do not tell a woman what she is upset about. Bad Show!!! Roy saying Oliver's failed this city line. Seriously is nothing sacred. Anything else you guys want to steal? The ferns still around isn't it maybe Laurel can grab it on her way out. I was so proud of Felicity at the end. Thank god someone hasn't lost their minds. MM - left 8 year old Tommy on his own to grieve his mother, called his son weak when he got home, killed Oliver/Sara/Robert by blowing up a yacht, and because of that sentences Oliver to 5 years in hell and Sara to god only knows what, killed Frank Chen, and several Unidact employees, leveled half a city -killing 503 people one of which was Tommy, screwed with Thea's mind and made her kill Sara are the show runners out of their minds. Totally redeemable, maybe Oliver can watch football with him on Sunday's. Laurel *sigh* I just can't, this is so beyond idiotic I can't even laugh at it. Really appreciated her telling Felicity that she knows this because, "she's been paying attention" Good job Laurel you managed not to snap at Dig and Felicity for a whole episode. Loved seeing Sin again. Seriously want that actress back on the show. Anyone at this point that can help ground it. I may have finally reached apathy about this show.,

Watch Captain America - The First Avenger (this one takes place before Agent Carter) Captain America - Winter Solider (has a brief scene that takes place in current time featuring a old Peggy, and several scenes where people talk about things Peggy did for the government) Agent Carter One Shot that was on the first Captain America DVD (I think it takes place not long after this show end date- this one you can watch online). http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1viter_marvel-one-shot-agent-carter-2013_shortfilms

Really good episode. I like the change of pace that got the show out of the office set and let Peggy's tactical experience and intelligence shine. Russian code breaker, super awesome agent, marksman, cool under pressure and A+ lipstick game. I really appreciate that none one character has been left to be two dimensional. Bad guys, agents, boss man, Jarvis, Howard, even Dottie. Some other shows haven't managed that level of character development after being on the air for years. I also love that they slow the action down to let characters breathe, react, and grow. Dum Dum talking to the little girl, the one guys Yeti story, and the scientist guy. I had a brief moment where I started yelling stop it when the boss talked about Thompsons crush on Peggy. Missing Jarvis and Angie. Did I miss an explanation for the handcuffs? Set decoration is still amazing. And the Russian boarding school was a very creepy location. I'd trade half the shows on tv to have a Howling Commandos and Agent Carter shows, twice a week of awesome.

This is an interesting list of "6 Insulting Movie Adaptations of Strong Female Characters" especially in light of what I've seen the comic readers on this site say about the Black Canary's origin story. Lots of similar mistakes are made for the characters on this list. http://www.cracked.com/article_22058_6-insulting-movie-adaptations-strong-female-characters.html

I would start preparing myself that The Flash is going to follow Arrow's pattern of being about the show titled hero for the first season and a half and than slowly changing into the Central City justice league. They seem very happy with sidelining their main hero and playing with their new toys, I completely expect that to happen on Flash.

That assignment X interview has one of the most bizarre statements I've ever seen by an EP before, I've never seen an executive refer to "Jumping the Shark" as a good thing. Or that writers that do it should somehow be praised for pressing the envelope, I thought that phrase was commonly applied to a storyline that is so desperate and creatively bankrupt that the audience turns against the show. I'm not sure Guggenheim should be telling people that their goal is to press the "Jump the Shark" line. I'm interested to see at the end of the season which bad guy Oliver teams up with. They seem to be setting up either two situations, he has to fight with Ra's to take down Merlyn; leading to a peace agreement between the LOA and Oliver's group or Oliver teams up with Merlyn to force Ra's to leave Starling city alone. I don't see either of the big bads this year being permanently killed off but I'm curious who will be the lesser of two evils.

Of course she did it on screen and it is therefore canon. However, the level of suspension of belief that I need to have to believe that that character would have done that is beyond what I'm able to have. So yes, she did it. I choose to ignore the hell out of it. And point my finger harder at Laurel for being the cause of this mess. But that's my choice and I understand others that choose not to follow it.

The only answer that makes sense to me about why the show would include Felicity in this idiotic disgusting storyline is because they knew fans were getting pissed about it before they wrote this episode. They knew that everyone wasn't seeing poor tortured Laurel (AK made the comment that they were torturing Laurel with this storyline) the audience was empathizing with Quentin instead of Laurel. But they also weren't willing to let it go. They wanted Laurel to have to dress up as Sara to fool the villains (because even in their minds their was no logical way for them to get from a bad self involved attorney to a hero) and they figured Quentin would see the masked blonde around the city and instead of stopping and thinking about the cruelty that inflicted on a loved character they thought it was another way to make the audience feel sorry for Laurel. When it backfired in episode 2 they didn't want to change so they did their standard answer to all questionable things and threw Felicity at it. Once again assuming if Felicity approved than the audience would back off or at the very least she would share the blame with Laurel. And provide that character cover. From my point of view, I don't blame Felicity because one advantage to having good characterization of her for two years is I will never believe that is how that character would have behaved. I simply don't believe it. In the face of that my anger has only grown towards Laurel. Because while I believe that Felicity would have never, I believe whole heartedly that Laurel would. That's in character for her. She's selfish and doesn't consider anyone else's feelings. So all my rage over that story goes back to her. And I'm doubly angry that they used a character I love to try to sell it. The only OOC character traits I see associated with Ray are Felicity not calling him out on pinging her cell phone the second time. Most of the other Ray stuff doesn't bother me. But the amount of OOC stuff associated with having to prop up and try to humanize Laure I could fill up this page with just from this season everyone has been a victim of it, Diggle, Felicity, Oliver, Quentin. Their grand plan to rehab Laurel is going the other way with me. I didn't like her after season two but I still watched all her scenes, not with interest but with acceptance, now it's over - she's irredeemable.

For me all the problems with relationships on this show begin with how the show is structured. The writers can not tell multiple origins stories with an ensemble cast while the show is structured to be a story about a sole protagonist. Almost every problem we are dealing with from Ray, Laurel, Sara, Slade, Thea, and Malcom all come down to that. If this was an ensemble show: Laurel would have been given flashbacks to her loving Oliver, dealing with the sinking of the Gambit, throwing herself into law school and missing/angry beyond words at Sara. We could have watched her really devote herself to training. We could have seen her finally moving on and falling in love with Tommy. Had a story where she was lost and turn toward alcohol and drugs and really gone down the rabbit hole with her. Developing a real and true bond with Sara where Sara tells her all about what happened to her. How she got her scars. The sisters could have talked about why Sara went with Oliver on Gambit and that's the point that the real healing of their relationship could have begun. Finding self worth in helping the Arrow with his mission. Coming into the Arrow cave like the outsider she should be. Working to earn Felicity and Diggle's friendship and respect. Real training with Ted Grant while she desperately hunts for the person who killed Sara through legal means and faces one road block after another. Watch her be torn apart by the lies she has to tell to everyone including Quentin (because I can't not say it god I hate that story). We could have been introduced to Ray the same way but see him talking to Anna in his mind about how much he misses her in the first episode. It could have cut to a scene where he goes to open their engagement party photo on his computer and finds all of his files replaced by porcupine farts. The dawning horror that the pieces of her he has left, photos, are gone along with all his files on the suit he wants to make all because of Felicity and his determination to track her down any way possible to ask for them back. We could have had a scene where Felicity turns down the job offer and Ray flashes back to that night in the Glades and remembers Anna dying in his arms and then see him pressuring Felicity to work for him by him buying Tech Village. Little scenes with Felicity making him laugh and Ray commenting that he hadn't smiled in a long time. Put the two of them in scenes where he acts like a socially awkward doof and have her call him on it in a friendly joking way. See them hanging out a Big Belly burger verbally sparing back and forth about the latest tech advancement, Felicity's latest babble and Ray's latest boundary issue. I imagine if we had those scenes there would be a lot less complaints about Ray. Slade and Malcom have the same problems. Their stories worked when they were involved in a plot that Oliver was included in. As soon as they needed motivations of their own the writers weren't willing to explore it. So we got WTH Slade loved Shado? Since when? and WTH Malcom wants to destroy an entire part of the city because one guy killed his wife? Thea could have been given some agency. Any ... at all, a crumb even. Sara was the most successful because she came in with an origin story already in place. Then her character got whiplash because she would rather die than kill again and then decided, "Screw it. Kill Roy. And LOA summer camp yay!" It all comes back to the writers wanting all these superheroes but also not wanting to let go of Oliver only writing. The reason why Barry worked on Arrow imo is that his origin story wasn't addressed on Oliver's show. We are given the now standard a female died in my life scene and then some adorkable interaction with Felicity that all helped to move Oliver's plot. Then Barry gets struck by lightening and leaves. Ray is given the same a woman I love scene but now he's has to stick around and try to become his own hero but one that furthers Oliver's storyline. Laurel gets more but basically the same thing. Her story will only go as far as to support a change in Oliver. Thea's only interest in the plot is when Oliver is lying to her or Malcom is using her. It's never going to work. All the supporting characters are fighting it out for agency away from Oliver that they need but that the writers will never let them have. Sara is the example that if the writers are determined to have Justice League show named Arrow they need to follow. Fully formed superheroes show up. We get some filler info on them and they work along side Oliver and grow his story that way and then they move on. They can't have the relationships on this show both ways; either the narrative is Oliver's and everyone else supporting players or it's an ensemble and everyone gets their own story to occupy. As it is it's tearing the story apart and turning all the supporting characters into walking talking plot devices as they try to use them and the audiences affection for them to say. "oh no this makes sense."

there is one more woman that has to die before this can end. ;) Sorry I had too.

That's a really interesting speculation. SA said in his FB Q&A this week when someone asked him if he would ever ask the writers to include "Sinceriously" on the show as an inside joke that, "No because that would come to close to breaking the 4th wall. There was a storyline the writers had in an upcoming episode that was too close to his real life and he had to ask them to change it." (paraphrasing despite quotes) It made me mildly curious as to what that storyline could have been but your speculation could absolutely be it. So if the changed it from breast cancer could Mama Smoak just have a general health scare and Felicity come to see her so Mama Smoak can impart wisdom that life is to short to not risk your heart. Very trope-y but these writers.

Which might even be a tad believable if the group minus Oliver had ANY kind of success without him. But no we've seen them fail so bad that they had to bring Laurel onto the team because they were so desperate. And in the clip from next week the group is again getting their backsides handed to them until the Arrow shows back up. Diggle's special forces training and Felicity's experience of running missions has not been enough to take out a thug from the Glades but Oliver needs to have a seat because things have changed?

Well at least that confirms for me that writers have no interest in receiving feedback on the show - reviewers and viewers have been pointing out how terrible that whole storyline is since episode TWO. Plenty of time that they could have changed that instead of doubling down. We are in episode 11 and the same issues keep getting brought up time and again. How is there no one in the writers room pointing out these problems. They have to pitch these ideas to the network. At no point has ANYONE said, "Stop"

Picture recap for Midnight City - the person who does these used the tags "Sorry this is so short these episodes are so bad" http://prattschris.tumblr.com/post/109457503600

I was watching trends on Twitter all night because A. I wasn't watching and B. I wanted to see if it trended. Red Arrow trended for about 10 minutes Laurel was on and off for about 15 minutes Laurel and Felicity held steady for about 15 minutes Canary was on for about 5 minutes and the justice line trended WW for about 2 minutes.

I didn't watch, I have no intention of ever watching this episode but going by what twitter said happened at the end of this episode with her pretending to be Sara. I am sick and disgusted and angry to the point I want to throw something that this show is treating this character and this choice like it is heroic. Every fiber of being wants to scream out and rage at this story choice. How dare they, how dare they use Felicity to try to justify this horrible lie. I am so disgusted with the writers of this show I don't know if there is a coming back for me.

I thought AK said that the network was mandating a break that they hadn't planned for and they were having to tweak the script to make the timeline up, not that they had to push it back. Did I hear that wrong?

Just to kind of piggy back on a few of the comments on Ms. Frye that are above. Prior to WWII there were very, very few positions available to "respectable" women. It's one of the reason that this era was such a big step for woman's lib. When the men went off to fight the women stepped up into the roles in the work place. But before that a woman that was well raised and needed to earn an income had very few choices. The boardinghouse matron was one way to do that. No only would the women or their parents pay more for homes that were respectable but husbands that were overseas would too. The women could live there protected and safe. The downside to owning one of the boarding house is that your reputation was only as good as the girls living there. If the women that were boarding with you were thought of as loose then the owner received the same reputation. A woman that was earning a good living could suddenly find herself forced to sell and without a job. These homes were often run by women who had little to no family to fall back on if their business went under. While Ms Frye seems over the top and over the line she has a lot riding on enforcing these rules. I can understand her determination to protect herself along with the women there. I wish the show would touch on that just a little because I think it is really interesting.

I still don't care about Ray (broken record over here) but I appreciate that we are basically at the point where dead female love ones are thrown at the plot to give motivations and then forgotten an episode later. Hi Sara, Hi Shado, Hi Moira, Hi Anna. My main issue with that Variety article is that Felicity's storyline is now... who will she love, that's it? What happened to the IT girl who wanted to be more? What happened to this is as much Team Arrow's crusade as it is Oliver's. How did the show go from writing an extremely smart woman that has fears and faces them to help her team and on the side may or may not love the hero to this... Half the times I read spoilers for this show I feel like I'm standing in an empty room and the EPs are telling me how full of diamonds it is. Uh, Fellas one of us is seeing things that aren't here.

Wasn't Laurel the one that wanted to Felicity to Google the phone of the attacker for her? Maybe Ted Grant also offers classes on advanced Tech along with boxing expert in 3 months or less.

Another great episode. This show has spoiled me to the point that I don't think I'll ever be able to watch AOS again. I'll just be bitter that I'm not watching more episodes of Agent Carter. I really enjoy the chemistry Peggy has with both Jarvis and Howard (not romantic chemistry just the chemistry between the actors). A scene as simple as the 3 of them driving through the city was so engaging and fun. I probably in the minority but I didn't like the Dottie reveal. In a show that has, so far, managed to have really grounded and real fight scenes all of sudden having a Ninja was a little off putting. I did love Dottie's line about wanting the gun. Howard Stark room hopping and Peggy just yelling out his name was a riot. Atwell was so good in the scene where Howard and her fight. All the emotions she was able to get across in that scene were spot on. The writing was also fantastic there too. Sousa's a nice guy. It was really nice to see most of the men in Peggy's office get more develop this episode. Thompson, while accurate to his time, is a dick. Loved the fake out cyanide pill that the boss gave the Nazi. I'm getting concerned about his level of determination to pin all bad things on Howard Stark and how that will eventually end for him. There is just so much character work in every scene, not a moment is wasted I continue to be very impressed. The rooming house mother is funny in a infuriating way. There are a few interesting articles on the internet about women who ran boardinghouses in the 1940's and how seriously they took their jobs of protecting young women's reputations and virtue if anyone is interested just search Boardinghouse Matrons. Overall just another excellent episode. Can't wait for next week and the HC and hoping for some more Jarvis.

Just by him saying that something will happen between Oliver and Felicity and that something will make fans mad is enough to get people speculating and tuning in. And for MG's money talking and watching are enough. He doesn't care if the scene actually delivers or if people are angry after seeing it because that just generates more buzz for the show. So even though he's not teasing anything positive it still gets him the results he wants. The one thing he has to prevent is, "Meh, what else is on tonight" and judging by twitter and tumblr people aren't there yet.

How can Ray be SWMing Oliver when he barely knows that Oliver exists? He's not copying Oliver or doing things because that's what Oliver does. Ray has no idea that Oliver is the vigilante or that uses the Salmon Ladder, etc. The writers are taking elements of Oliver for him but that's not on Ray that is on the writers.

For me, yes and no. I'm one of the few on here that doesn't mind Ray. He could show up at Felicity's front door naked with a banana on his head doing the chicken dance and my only interest would be what does this scene tell me about Felicity. She has 2.5 years of experience to believe that Oliver is able to handle a situation and to trust him enough not to get in the way. But even with that trust she has acted to defend herself. Oliver was there when Cooper had a gun to her head, she very easily could have waited for him to have a shot, she didn't. The same with the Dollmaker, Oliver, Diggle and Quentin were there, yet she fought back. The Clock King, Sara was there and better able to fight but Felicity put herself in a position to help. Lyla is a trained agent but Felicity still kept moving toward the Arrow rack to get one of Oliver's arrows so she could help. She has no reason to believe Laurel or Ray could handle a situation on their own. She has seen Laurel be kidnapped repeatedly and unable to save herself. She knows Ray is not a trained fighter. Her past actions imo do not support her hiding behind anything if she feels people are in danger.