TanyaKay

Tbh, they never showed Oliver shown doing CEO things (whatever they are) but hey, we accept it because he is a man and even if he is a college drop out, let's believe it. Felicity despite being the smartest person on both the shows cannot do it because we have not seen. So much internalized misogyny .... This is my last comment on the topic because this discussion is getting ridiculous. I should not have responded because certain comments are just posted to goad other commenters into reacting and I am ashamed that I took the bait. I normally avoid it.

Lolz, they never showed anyone take a bath except Oliver Queen, does that mean everyone is filthy in Starling City and stinks like hell?

Both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were college drop outs and extremely successful CEOs of multi billion dollar tech companies. In a show where we got an insta canary who excelled in hand to hand combat after weeks of training as a boxer, a magical hot tub with powers of resurrection and a city of blind people where no one recognizes Malcolm Merlyn, a genius with two degrees running a company is the most believable thing. I would not only buy that, I would eat it with a spoon.

She changes her statement so very often, I don't know what to believe... She has said previously that she did not even read any comics before she became Black Canary because she did not want her performance of Laurel the lawyer be affected by that. How can she be training for her role since season 1 when she even refused to read the original source material? Considering the onslaught of duck faced gym selfies we have had since summer last year, I refuse to believe that she was working out since season 1 for her role. If that had been true, we would have seen those gym selfies since then.

So this is what an attendee reported from Katie Cassidy’s panel in Philly. Not very flattering I am afraid

I am #TeamAllenThawne all the way. I think Eddie and Barry have more chemistry than they have with any of the girls. Barry's awkward faces when he saw the ring in Eddie's hands could very easily be mistaken for something else. I could not figure out why Iris was angry with Cisco & Caitlin for coming up with instant tech. I mean they have been at it for far longer and are super smart people, surely they knew what they were doing. Her attitude was reminiscent of Laurel Lance and her dismissal of Felicity & Diggle as help in season 2 of Arrow. Iris was still far more polite than Laurel Lance ever was to anyone including her dad and boyfriends.

Both Tatsu/Katana and Lyla are 50 times more badass than Buckle Canary.

For me, the Olicity scenes that were not there to serve the contrived plot were the highlight of the season. In Secret Origins of Felicity Smoak where Oliver was so supportive of her crisis, both the Flarrow episodes, episode 3x16 where she helped him make the decision about not taking Ra'as' offer and again in all their scenes in 3x19 they worked beautifully together and in my opinion, were the best part of the season. What I find weird is that they are creating this rift between Oliver and Diggle over Lyla's kidnapping which is overblown in my opinion. That was the most benign kidnapping in the history of all kidnappings and Oliver knew that Lyla was NOT a soft target and was as capable a fighter as Diggle - after all they fought the wars together. Kidnapping her to keep his LoA cover was a tough thing to do but not something that is unforgiven in the circumstances. Diggle himself said it in last episode that it is not Oliver but someone else and now he is super angry with him. This just does not make any sense to me. Like at all.

I hated Laurel's presence in that scene. I mean last week, she was willing to let Lyla stay kidnapped with LoA/Al Sah-him in order to save her 3 weeks old BFF Nyssa and this week she is judging Felicity for still having faith in a man she loves and who has done so much for everyone, esp Laurel herself. What a really horrible person. For most times, I switch my brains off when they put Laurel in a scene and I do not notice much but I absolutely loathe it when she had the gall to mock Felicity for her faith in Oliver. Someone needs to tell Laurel that people who actually love are like that. Not that she would not know what it is considering she never really loved anyone. Neither Tommy or Oliver or even her sister. Everything always had to be about her.

I think the interviewer had all the ship questions on her list that she just had to tick. She first gushed over Olicity, then brought Loliver and ended with Ray & Felicity. What made this run of the mill interview a gem is Stephen's reaction to all of it. Added bonus was the fact that he refused to acknowledge having worked with KC as BC and then talked about the dress designer for next 90 seconds. In that interview, Stephen Amell was the gift that kept on giving. I laughed so much.

Don't worry, we still have tomorrow, chances are, they could still spoil something in next 40 plus hours.

I think the show has established that Team Arrow could operate without Diggle when he was missing from the Rescue Walter mission in 2x21 - handled extremely well by Oliver and Felicity (Felicity's first solo mission when she infiltrated the underground casino). The show has tried to show that a rag tag Team could work (barely) with out Oliver multiple times this season, but the writers and producers never even attempted to show that the team can function without Felicity. In 3x03, Diggle and Laurel called her separately during her office hours at Palmer Tech to seek her help to do their vigilante work. Oliver expressed his anger/frustration when Felicity was visiting Barry in Central City in 2x10 and was at work dinner with Ray Palmer in 3x07 and she had to cut them both short and come back to help Team Arrow catch the bad guy/girl of the week. Felicity Smoak is irreplaceable in Team Arrow as voiced by both Diggle & Oliver (his exact words were ... "we need Felicity here" in both the aforementioned episodes). Anyone who thinks she is a supporting character in Team Arrow or serves the big almighty boss Oliver Queen needs to rewatch every Team Arrow interaction from season 1 to the last episode aired. Heck, at this point in the show, she probably has more money in her back account than Oliver Queen. If anyone is a prized catch, it is Felicity Smoak, not Oliver Queen.

While we are at this instant bond between Laurel and Nyssa, please do not forget that in addition to kidnapping her mother, Nyssa also poisoned Laurel with Tibetean pit viper snake which landed her in the hospital in 2x13. She also threw a glass at Sara for bringing Nyssa to their lives which lead to that famous lunge at the end of episode. It is ironic indeed that after all that, Laurel had the nerve to question Diggle's anger with Nyssa - who despite being super cool badass is a cold ruthless murderer - because he was concerned for the safety of his wife and mother of his child. Funnily enough, Nyssa was cool with handing herself over but Laurel made that about herself - like everything else. She was also not concerned at all about Oliver and in fact asked Diggle to let her deal with Oliver because Diggle was too close to him, hinting that Laurel is NOT at all close to Oliver. She was also delusional enough to think that she could actually take on Oliver Queen who has been trained by the likes of Yao Fei, Slade Wilson, Maseo Yamashiro in the past and the Demon's Head himself in current day!

I think he is faking it because the show has established him to be a very strong man who has resisted various drugs, have beaten the lie detector and suffered torture for s long, three weeks in Nanda Parbat boot camp are nothing in comparison. I think he is faking it because the show has established him to be a very strong man who has resisted various drugs, have beaten the lie detector and suffered torture for s long, three weeks in Nanda Parbat boot camp are nothing in comparison.

Does it not look like that Felicity is trying really hard to appeal to Oliver's good nature but he is in his Al Sah-him mode?

So first they chained up Diggle & Oliver in Nanda Parbat and that scene turned out to be one of the biggest bromantic moment of the season. I wonder who is gonna develop their bromance in chains this time around? Laurel & Felicity or Malcolm & Diggle or Ray & Katana?

Someone made this Queen family portrait on tumblr ... RUDE

It only took three seasons for Felicity and Thea to share a dialogue. Granted that Felicity only asked her if she was okay when they were running in the catacombs but still, its a start. Hopefully, there will be more meaningful conversation in next episode.

I do agree with everything you said about Stephen/Oliver barely tolerating the character - he cannot even praise it in interviews, when asked about BC during TCA, he chose to talk about the dress designer who designed the costume and refused to say anything about KC/LL. It was kind of hard to miss. At the same time, I am not sure about any possibility of writing her off. They killed Tommy in S1 even though Colin Donnell had the same 6 yr contract that Stephen has. They killed off Moira, another regular with at least 3 yr long contract, in S2. They could've killed her off in S1, chose not to. They could've written her off in S3, they can and should do it in S3 but knowing the hard on the writers have for Black Canary, chances of that happening are very slim.

Lolz, how can anyone trust or show respect to a character who has lied to her own father for months and then impersonated her dead sister further deceiving her only living relative who actually gave a damn about her?

It is so hot, I felt like a perv watching two people in their privacy from a window or a closet!

Laurel may wear leather and run around with the boys but Team Arrow never really considered her part of the team like they did with Sara last year and then later with Roy. Even in this season, they hid many things from her. First, they did not tell her that Malcolm was alive, she was later than everyone else. Then the whole Thea being drugged while she killed Sara plot was hidden from her. Thea told her out of guilt, but Team Arrow never said a word to her even when she was in the lair with them. Then there is whole Ray/Atom thing. I don't think she is in on the secret that there is a new player in town who wears a suit and flies and is the same guy Felicity brought as her plus one to Diggle's wedding. The whole plot of Roy's fake death was kept away from Laurel and so was the real story about Thea being stabbed to death by Ra's and going to Nanda Parbat for coming back from an almost death. The point is Laurel is NOT part of the Team Arrow and has not really been accepted by either Oliver or the rest of his partners. And if we go with this theme, then the last scene where Felicity went to tell her about Oliver's decision seems a little out of place and does seem like a way to insert her in the episode because of contractual obligations.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ta9MqigIZFE This is the sex scene without the background score and it is way hotter without music.

I really like the director of this episode for being so forthcoming and sharing little nuggets about what went behind the scenes, his very crude story board sketches and the contributions of the actors to their scenes. I enjoyed knowing that they discussed Indy during pre production meetings, that the goodbye scene was shot at 2:00 am, that it was Stephen's idea that Oliver should remove Felicity's glasses and that the stunts during that flashback car chase scene were all done by Stephen himself. These things add a little something more to the viewing pleasure of audience who are interested in knowing the BTS stories. I really wish he would direct more episodes in future.

Before the episode aired, Blake Neely said that the musical score during the sex scene would be a variation of their old theme which they used in the mansion I love you scene last season finale & the hospital kiss scene earlier this season. The musical score remained the same during earlier kissing and disrobing but as soon as they were on the bed, a haunting lilting chant in a woman's voice was added which made it a thousand times more intense and romantic. A two minute clip of that musical piece is available on YouTube and I have listened to it so many times and that melodious addition of that woman's voice just made it all the more beautiful. While I loved all the interactions between Oliver and Felicity this episode, the goodbye scene remained my favourite. It was gut wrenching and heart breaking to see them say good bye while still trying to be hopeful by not actually saying the words. The way he looked at her when she was walking away, you actually felt his pain. Stephen Amell really brought his A game for this episode.