lemotomato

E! is taking nominations for favorite TV actresses. EBR still qualifies because the eligibility window extends to August 2018.

Another good timewaster: Here's my bracket:

SA talked to Kat McNamara on his IG live session today. They have a pretty good rapport; I hope we'll get to see them at a con together eventually.

I did not. But today I found it at an Asian grocery store. Also stocked up on snacks, which earned me a side-eye from the cashier, who probably thought I was being silly, standing in line for 45 minutes for chips. My excuse is that I don't want to have to go to the store any more than I need to, since I'll be working from home for the next month, and the city declared that we need to shelter-in-place for 3 weeks,

I've been putting off shopping for as long as possible, but finally had to go to the neighborhood grocery store tonight for perishables. Unsurprisingly, all shelves of dry goods (pasta, flour, beans, rice) were empty. But in my search for condensed milk, I noticed that most of the pancake/maple syrup was gone too. Are people going to breakfast their way through the pandemic?

Paigeota's gifs of the episode. First proto-OTA scene and sweaty Oliver/Diggle workout. (I'm pretty sure if Felicity hadn't been introduced, the show would've gotten very slashy very quickly)

Nice sentiment, Beth. Too bad what we actually saw in 809 was E2 LL tearing Mia down and calling her a useless waste of space. It was as uplifting as the "hashtag feminism" Flash episode.

I’m not sure where Andy expected their relationship to go after she dies. And according to Andy, Oliver tolerating BS’s presence was “better” than Oliver’s relationship with his sister? Yikes.

I love that even panels at cons can inspire fan art:

The whole panel got posted: And a clip of them answering the question of “when would Oliver have told Felicity he loved her if he could have done it earlier?” I was at the con, and there was definitely a goofy, carefree vibe with both SA and EBR the whole time.

That's because you genuinely like Felicity and see her as a main character in her own right. Unlike Andy, who hates Felicity (he's called her a mass murderer because of Havenrock), and wrote a half-assed list for clickbait. I think his list is terrible because the items were mostly Felicity playing a supporting role, being used to prop other characters (embracing Laurel, meeting Barry), or just plain random (attending her husband's funeral? what?) I'm not surprised he thinks she's at her best when she's being a sidekick.

PaigeOTA on twitter has been posting episode gifs for the last couple of seasons, but since the show ended she's gone back to cover old episodes. Today was 103:

Felicity was mentioned in Supergirl: The Secret Files of Kara Danvers

I don’t think anyone associated with the show has said they were dead dead. But given Andy’s biases, I’m sure he wants to think they are. I’ve watched some of the more popular reaction videos (Blindwave, etc) and all of them presumed that Oliver was still the Spectre and Olicity were living in a different dimension he created.

Thanks for keeping track of the ratings over the years, @Starfish35!

With so many of the deleted scenes being Laurel or L/O-centric starting in this episode and beyond, I wonder if a) the showrunners had originally planned to bring Laurel in on Oliver's secret earlier but changed their minds (all the references to her knowing Oliver better than anyone else seem pretty meaningless considering she doesn't find out he's GA until the end of season 2) and/or b) the showrunners realized as early as 102 that Laurel was not going to work out as Oliver's love interest and started deprioritizing their scenes together.

I can verify this. I wasn't watching Arrow when 122 aired, but I used drop by the TwoP and other TV discussion boards just to peek at what was going on. I remember it seemed like the majority of the reactions to the sex scene was anger at Oliver and Laurel on Tommy's behalf. I don't think the forums were archived, but here's the except from the twop recap (http://www.brilliantbutcancelled.com/show/arrow/darkness-on-the-edge-of-town-1/8/):

Oliver was already retired and living off the grid with his wife and baby, planning on getting custody of his son. He didn’t “learn to too late”, he was basically dragged away because he was told the whole universe was going to end if he didn’t help and that he was going to die anyway. The way the Flash writers treat Arrow characters is ridiculous and disrespectful and I hope they never get to borrow or mention them again.

Gif-posting is not usually my territory, but the Olicity scene at the end was staged and filmed in such a lovely way I had to post it. The show put more time and effort into letting these kinds of scenes breathe in the early seasons.

As much as I would’ve liked a Dark Knight Rises ending, the show already did a version of that in season 3, with GA presumed dead and Oliver driving away with Felicity to travel the world. The more I’ve thought about it, the more it seems like the “Oliver is (mostly) dead or otherwise really not available” ending was inevitable for production reasons. The rest of the Arrowverse needs to continue for years without always addressing why Oliver won’t show up to help in the next big crisis. It’s not in his nature to sit back and not help, unlike the Legends. I think the only way Oliver could’ve retired off screen would’ve been if Arrow had ended at the same time as most of the other shows.

Something that I haven't really seen addressed anywhere: since 809 showed a future that will happen because of the new universe Spectre!Oliver created, can we assume the season 7 flashforwards happened after another version of Crisis, but one where Oliver died the way the Monitor had foreseen-- helping the other heroes win but not as the hero. The multiverse didn't get wiped out, Oliver didn't need to become Spectre, he didn't reset everything, and life went on in the same trajectory as the end of season 7 implied, with Crisis as just another once-a-year crossover big battle?

If Earth [blank] Beth thought she was still Earth [blank] Beth but displaced on Earth Prime, then following that logic, Earth 2 Laurel would still think she was Earth 2 Laurel, just displaced on Earth Prime.

Considering who wrote this, that last part is really ironic. 😏

The finale made it clear she wasn't Laurel Prime. She didn't seem to know Tommy and he had to tell her that he used to be married to Laurel Prime.

Why would she think she was Laurel Prime? She would only get her Black Siren memories restored because that's who she was before Crisis.