Carrie Ann

Felicity's not the CEO of PT anymore (they fired her toward the end of S4), and she said that the lair's "gas chromatograph" had been destroyed when the rest of the lair got wrecked at the end of S4. She apparently hadn't replaced it because the show needed her boyfriend to run this test for her. ;)

Yes. It was very film-school. Reminded me of McG. Bamford is directorially juvenile, unsurprisingly.

Very true. It's really Barry's responsibility to tell Dig, or offer him the option of knowing. He's the one who fucked it up, he's the one who came and dumped all of this on Felicity, he's the one who didn't fix it. The least he could do is try to make amends by taking responsibility. But, nah, let's put the onus and judgment on Felicity for being the unfortunate receptacle of Barry's guilt.

Not to mention we don't even really have an understanding of when Felicity learned this information or what she plans to do about it. Could have been yesterday, could have been two months ago. We haven't seen her dealing with it at all, and she was hoping Barry was going to do something to fix it, so...maybe she's still waiting for that. Or maybe she knows he can't, and she's waiting for Dig to get home sometime and will tell him then, or give him the option of knowing like Barry "gave" the people in his life. Seems pretty premature to be passing judgment on her in any direction for this when it hasn't been addressed in any fashion on Arrow.

Oh yeah, to me this definitely screamed Marc Guggenheim, because he was also responsible for a) screwing up by casting a white woman as the mother of Oliver's child who clearly would have been Connor if not for the backlash, b) then intro-ing John Jr./Connor in LoT, and c) just being an idiot about race/gender stuff in general. So I blame him first, all of the EPs second. But I "blame" Barry most of all, haha.

Hey, wow, I liked that episode! I don't think I've said that since 420, and I definitely was not expecting to say it tonight after the truly awful marketing. Yikes. @quarks covered pretty much all the things I enjoyed, but I just want to shout out the things that particularly impressed me. First, Ragman was...pretty great. I'm very intrigued by him and loved his scene with Oliver. Second, I thought Paul Blackthorne was outstanding in this episode and I thought Willa really upped her game with him. That last scene of theirs was excellent. It's been a long time since the show gave me anything to care about outside of Olicity/OTA and I am really happy about this. Also I did love all the O/F stuff, and even the Mayo scene because it felt like a role reversal for Felicity from S1. Finally, how many Laurel references does one episode need? Zero, IMO, but there was one that made them all worth it. Oliver told Felicity that he'd had five years of training before he became a vigilante [we'll ignore that stint in Coast City], then said, "you know who didn't have that? Laurel Lance. And now she's dead." Yes. Thank you, Oliver. I agree that she was woefully underprepared and should never have been on the street. Now just...stop talking about her, forever.

I have no clue whether anything more than Baby Sara will be revealed to have been changed by FP, but they definitely left an opening for that. I thought it was clever to have Barry speed-surf the web, because it makes it seem like he could search their lives pretty thoroughly and if they claim that Sara was the only thing that changed, I'm fine with that explanation. OTOH, his searches should theoretically only cover things in their lives that a) Barry knew about and b) were covered in the news or on social media (which, I assume, none of the TA members use super-extensively), which leaves a lot of stuff wide open, given that they live their lives half in secret. So I do think O/F should have been engaged, Felicity should have been paralyzed, etc.--that was covered in the media and Barry should have looked it up to confirm. Beyond that, I think there are a lot of smaller things the shows could reveal have changed over the course of the season(s). Yay! It's so cool not knowing what to rely on from four seasons of canon.

I unfollowed everyone but castmembers in S3, and it was a very good decision. A++, would unfollow again.

I...truly hate to stick up for any part of the Arrow PR team, but if I were in charge, I would probably spread out the tweets, and have a strategy and schedule for when to RT certain types of things in building up toward each new episode. I do expect them to RT that pic today, and IMO that doesn't indicate that they hate Emily/Felicity/Olicity, etc, and in fact it might be the opposite. That they recognize her SM value, and save those moments to post closer to the episode airing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm not saying that's definitely what's going on here or that they consistently do things this way, because they are very inept and I agree there is evidence of a certain bias. I just try to understand what kind of SM strategy might be going on in the background and tend to believe they have one (however clunky) than that they operate based on personal bias or passive-aggression. (That goes for SA too, at least as far as his #Arrow100 posts have gone.)

I think because Arrow (and The Flash) tend to follow real time (in a general sense, not like every episode takes place on a Wednesday and one week passes in between), so I generally date the premiere episode of Arrow to be about the actual real-world date (after that it's a crapshoot unless someone mentions a holiday). I don't think they'll clarify when Barry talked to Felicity, but it makes the most sense to me that he would have shown back up in this timeline about a week ago, taken some time to settle in and figure out the dynamics he described to her, and gradually the freak-out would set in and he would run to talk to someone about it--someone he was hoping was unaffected by FP. It doesn't make sense with him arriving back on the porch he left in May, but...maybe that's just where he went because it's home to him, and for whatever reason the timeline returned him to the same day he left the previous timeline. It still doesn't square with how much time they said had passed in FP, but...these people are bad at math. OTOH, episodes don't always match up on Arrow and The Flash, so I also agree that Flash 302 (and 301) could have been taking place in late summer and gradually the shows will line up again before the crossover. In that case, Felicity knew about Sara/John in the premiere of Arrow. Maybe tonight will clarify (or make it even murkier, in all likelihood).

Haha, I think we're *now* in that timeline, BUT that timeline could still be changed by LoT. I think that's the point of that show, kinda, that the future doesn't have to be as bleak as it became, for the whole world. (Maybe? Honestly I haven't watched the last six episodes of S1 and didn't pay full attention ever, so who knows.)

Guys, this made me laugh really hard. I've never hated Barry more, and that is saying something. So long, Baby Sara. Sorry you were erased so the writers could feel clever for a bit. On the bright side, at least I have CSI Draco to root for this season. I am hoping he plays a Spike role and drives a wedge between Team Flash and Barry.

Oh my God. I skimmed most of his responses because usually the questions and/or answers annoy/embarrass me, so I totally missed this. Hilarious.

Sucks to feel like people are putting words in your mouth, right? Anyway, I don't know about Wild Dog, but I will say that if this girl is "Tina," then I doubt she is intended to be a major character, given her relative lack of experience.

I didn't say anywhere in my post that the *show* needs to be written from an Olicity POV, nor did I say anything about the writers being obligated to do anything, or...basically any of the other things you're suggesting I said? I do think that the show could move from the main ship--they did it, from O/L to O/F and as @dtissagirl pointed out, that was a long and drawn-out process. My *opinion* is that I don't believe that is what they are trying to do here, at this stage of the show, with Oliver + Unknown Quantity as the new central romance.

I really don't think they are trying to drop O/F for good and write a brand-new love story*. I think they are trying to put structures in place for a longer-term ship stall--like, a whole season (based on WM's ill-considered words) plus maybe part of next to actually get them back together? So they insert this out-of-nowhere boyfriend whom no one could be reasonably expected to ever care about, given that we didn't see them get together and we didn't even know him prior to that. Even Ray and Felicity got a romantic storyline arc, no matter how shitty, and they never intended that relationship to last. And next will probably be the ships-passing-in-the-night moment in 505 where Felicity starts to come around, but Oliver turns the other way instead because they don't communicate properly, and then insert LI for him probably. IMO, this could all be over by sometime in 5B, or it could last until almost 6B (whether any of us are still around to see it by that point, who can say). But I highly doubt the writers have much interest in writing a brand new love story with Oliver + an unknown quantity. He's had some chemistry with his other female costars before, but that's no guarantee he'll have any with someone new (regardless of any chemistry testing beforehand, it doesn't always translate), or that viewers will engage with that character at all. *The only way I think they would do this is if Emily wanted out, and that would be disastrous for them.

Ohhhhh that would be WAY better and make way more sense. (but it's also way less scandalous, so now I'm sad)

I don't think he mistyped in his Geoff Johns answer, and I don't think he was being sarcastic. I think he accidentally answered that Ask publicly instead of privately as the Asker kind of instructed.... I do think when he said "they overestimate their influence," he meant the Reddit people, not Geoff Johns, haha. At least, I hope, for him and his continued employment. But he should probably go ahead and delete that one anyway, because it does not look great.

Yeah, I remember WM consistently mentioning that we would get some "clarity" in 505, but never describing it as a "big" Olicity episode. I don't think I ever saw words like that anywhere besides JBA's write-up.

Was there ever another source for that info than jbuffyangel? Because...that whole section (starts with the "Olicity" heading) always read a little funny to me, like...she's leading the witness. And she says HUGE, but it isn't a direct quote, so who knows what MG really said? TBH, I don't think they're getting back together until at least back half of the season. Why they continue to flog this PR line at this point, when they've probably recaptured any of the lost romance-haters they are likely to win back, I do not know. Maybe they want to gender-balance their losses, and drop a bunch more female viewers!

Just to defend the author's honor--she definitely does not ship Felicity and Mayo. The fic was supposed to be mostly about Felicity's evolving mindset and how she could have gotten to the point of dating Mayo and how that reflected on her feelings re: Oliver, but since the author didn't explicitly make it about O/F or get them back together in the end, I think people felt misled. But, uh yeah, she def does not like Mayo or Felicity/Mayo, haha.

I think her words implied that she wasn't trying to find a new love not because she was too busy but because she'd, at some point, determined that Oliver was IT. If her revelation had been more along the lines of "I never found that again," (even given how horrible their relationship had actually been) versus "I will never find that again," it would have improved it for me, slightly anyway. It would have seemed like she wasn't just planning to silently hold a candle for him for the rest of their lives...even possibly hoping that his other relationship(s) would fail. I don't know. It was just not a good look and wholly unnecessary, as @dtissagirl said.

Yeah, these EPs don't seem to put a whole lot of thought into the conception stage with their LI characters, especially in terms of how they relate to the love interests themselves (see Laurel and Ray for other characters whose dynamics with their intended LIs were poorly-thought-out--and not saying that being a love interest is ALL these characters are intended to be, just talking about that aspect in particular). For now, I passively ship Westallen because I love Iris and I resent the EPs for not doing better by her, so I certainly don't want them to continue doing worse by lessening her role and throwing more LIs at Barry. But I do hope their dynamic, once they are together, allows Iris to feel normal human feelings when Barry screws up--and maybe even hold him accountable for his dumbass actions!--because the show really lost me in S1 when she was only allowed to be mad for about 1/3 of an episode after a season's worth of buildup re: the secret. And that's just one instance (it happens with both Barry and Joe, to be clear). Anyway, personally, all of that stuff bugs me more than the brother-sister thing because that's something I can just shake my head and laugh at the EPs about at this point, but I just don't like the unequal dynamic of WA (or Barry/Anyone, to be more accurate).

Possibly! I don't think they mentioned that in the episode, but it's the only way this will make sense--if she's pulling a Roy and won't quit. But I mean, learning about the dangers and gravity of doing this stuff was kind of the whole point of her episode last season...not that the writers care about that, obviously, since they apparently forgot that Oliver accepting that Laurel's death wasn't his fault was kind of an important aspect of that storyline too, and yet here we are.

As of last season, Evelyn was 16. :( I am also uncomfortable with Felicity advocating for a kid to be out fighting on the streets, and with Oliver accepting that as a reasonable plan. I just don't buy it from either of them.