Carrie Ann

I'm still torn on what I think Paul is really doing. That last scene in particular made me think that he's actually working for Leekie, not Rachel. Did I read that wrong? He follows Leekie to the meeting with Sarah; Leekie's not surprised Rachel had Paul follow him, then he tells him that what Sarah is going to find should come to him first, and Paul seems to accept that order. As someone who binged the show a couple of months ago, I find this mercenary turn a little sudden and not in line with his development last season, so I tend to believe that he's still trying to help Sarah as he can, from inside the system. On the other hand, I could imagine the writers deciding to just go a different direction with him for plot reason, so I can't full convince myself that he's not just completely out for himself now.

This was a nice episode for Zoe, and it was lovely to see Wade on the receiving end of adoration and declarations of love and faith for once. Wilson Bethel did a nice job showing how amazing that must have felt for Wade who doesn't have a lot of experience in that area. I have high hopes for them for S4. On the other hand, I was so bummed to see Lavon at the port. I loved Lemon/Lavon in Season 1, but once he started dating AB, I was all the way over it. AB is really the best woman in Bluebell and she deserves happiness, and now I'm sad that she's going to have to at least bear witness to this. Booo. Hilarious that Cricket came out at the recommitment ceremony--I called it as soon as AB and Zoe had that little talk with her, but it was still a cute twist. Especially in the non-bigoted Utopia of Bluebell.

No, I agree that she knows who he is. I think she believes she's in control of the situation, when she's not. She's just given him control and she doesn't realize it.

I think Thea thinks she's just going to use Malcolm to get "strong" in whatever way. She thinks she's finally taking back control of her life and has no idea she's just given it over to a dangerous crazy person. I buy that she would do this; I just don't get why the impetus was finding Roy's arrows.

I like Ian, and I think he owns the Damon role completely. I just don't love his choices in highly emotional scenes. That might just be how he thinks Damon would react, but it doesn't play as real to me and takes me out of it. That's just a personal preference, but I know Ian has it in him to play it with more subtlety because he did in earlier seasons. Like, his scenes with Rose when she was dying were perfect. His own near-death scenes that year were great too. Anyway, I loved that last scene with Bonnie so much, and it's an example of him reining it in when he could have gone all bug-eyed WTF OMG instead.

I can't begin to understand the Queens' financial situation, what's happening with QC, but I don't think the writers understand that stuff either, so trying make sense of it in regard to how the real world works might be futile anyway. But in terms of the fallout, if I had to guess, I think that was probably the last we'll see of the mansion. Now that Thea's checked out, I think they'll have Oliver living in a loft or something. And I don't think he and Thea will be roomies ever again. So the mansion is sort of overkill, and from a production perspective, it saves them some money to let go of that location. I don't actually imagine Oliver getting a normal job, so maybe Walter will help him try to get the company back? Maybe they'll go after subsidiaries one at a time.

I love both that slight tweak to the scene, and Danny Franks's suggestion that Laurel could have said the jacket didn't quite fit. Sigh. We could have had it all. I think they wanted the Lance family scene to end on a happy note, so that it was more of a kick to the stomach when Det Lance collapses, but it's just really incongruous with what's actually happening. And it's not a fair ending to Sara's arc this season. I'm perfectly fine with her accepting that she's not ready to let go of her anger at the world, and that the LOA is the place for her right now, but that's not a happy decision. Laurel and her father should have been sad and wistful about sending her off, even as they accepted her decision.

Laurel and Oliver get a few moments in those episodes, and if I were a Laurel/Oliver shipper, I wouldn't be totally unhappy with the end of the season, because I do think the writers tried to put that relationship back on the board. But if you put it up against the Felicity/Oliver arc, it doesn't compare favorably.

SA tweeted something before "Seeing Red" to the effect that the last four episodes were really like one long finale, so maybe I'm obsessed, but last night I watched all the scenes Oliver and Felicity shared to see how that part of the story played out. I'd have to watch all the Laurel/Oliver moments again to compare, which...is not going to happen. But watching the F/O moments, That Scene plays a lot more like honesty disguised as a ruse. The arc has Oliver repeatedly struggling with this burden, and opening up to Felicity about the weight of it. Felicity encouraging him at every dark moment to keep fighting, but not by compromising his own soul. Felicity fighting right by his side, constantly being awesome. Light imagery. Several displays of their unspoken connection (him carrying her twice when Dig could have done it more easily; lot of arm and hand holding; hugs; Looks of Great Significance). It's sort of their arc through the whole season, exemplified by these four episodes. But anyway, this is really about as low as Oliver has ever been on the show. Slade is in complete control, Moira is dead, Thea hates him, everything is chaos, and he is in complete despair for like 90% of these episodes. I think Felicity's unwavering belief in him, her commitment to their work, her pushing him to be better is what gets him through this, and I think he knows it. The last "You are not alone, and I believe in you" scene is where I think that might have really sunk in. So when she told him to let Slade outthink him, I think he considered what he would do next, let those scenarios play out in his head, and then figured out how to trick Slade within those scenarios. What would he have done next? Headed for Slade alone, planning to fight to the death? He wouldn't let Felicity just walk in there with him, so he probably would have tried to find somewhere else for her to be. But she would fight him on that, and how would that conversation go? That's when I think the plan occurred to him. Now, I'm not sure I would say that Slade "took the wrong woman" was 100% accurate--I think Slade did take a woman Oliver loves. Could have been Sara in that place too, because I think Oliver also loves her. And as I said before, I don't think Oliver lets himself look at his feelings enough to be able evaluate who he loves the most. But I do think the "I love you" was real. I'd love to hear Stephen talk about his choices in that scene, because Oliver maintains his control, almost all the way through saying, "So he took the wrong woman." But then his face just softens and opens up, and his facial muscles are moving which is very out of character, and he basically whispers the I love you. I'm not positive Oliver intended to say it, but I think he feels it, and maybe he's not going to be able to deny it to himself anymore.

Yeah, I don't think the show's position is that Stefan and Elena only fell in love because of a spell. The (really weak) twist was that the Travelers' spell didn't actually bond them together, it just drew doppelgangers to each other. The show's position seems to be that Stefan and Human Elena would have gone the distance, but once she became a vampire,she and Damon were a better fit. I'm bummed that the show has no interest in addressing the ways she is a terrible character, but I don't have any interest in Vampire Elena being with Stefan, so I just want them to keep that Stelena coffin nailed shut. But to do that, Stefan does deserve to move on and have a real relationship, and they're going there with Caroline whether people like it or not. I don't like Delena, and that's going to be the focus of the show until the bitter end, so I just FF. They brought Alaric back, those bastards, so now I'm in for at least a few episodes of S6. That being the case, Steroline is one of the only things I'm interested in. They've been playing the slow game with this for several seasons. I mean, you can go all the way back to S1E1 for the origins, but in terms of the romantic relationship development, it's been going on since at least the beginning of Season 4. They've been slowly dismantling every ounce of romantic feeling between Stefan and Elena. They had a whole episode devoted to showing that if they'd been human, they would have had this beautiful life, but that's never going to happen and they need to let it go. And they did. Do I trust the writers to not have Elena get jealous and create drama? No, because she is a terrible, horrible character now and has lost all that selflessness she used to possess, so of course she wouldn't prioritize the happiness of her best friends over her own lingering desire to be #1 in Stefan's life while also being crazy in love with his brother. But who cares? I don't think Stefan's going back there, and I don't think Elena is either. So she can have her impotent jealousy, and Caroline can feel a little insecure, and Stefan can feel a little confused, and they can all feel a little awkward. That's OK. That doesn't doom the Steroline relationship. It's similar to the beats of the Triangle of Doom, only in this case two of the characters are emotionally mature so hopefully it's less painful.

Bonnie: I'm sure there are a million people we'd both rather be with right now, but. Damon: A couple thousand at most. Elena: Hey, did you find a Traveler that is gonna get us out of here? Bonnie: Yep. Learning the spell as we speak. I'd introduce you, but um-- Elena: Thank you, whoever you are! Silas: Oh, just the perfect specimen of man, that's all. Bonnie: Moody old lady, kind of senile.

OMG, your entire post was brill, but this part has had me laughing for the last five minutes and I had to come back just to tell you that. And also to harp on the Roy/Thea thing for a minute. What did Thea think when she saw the archery stuff? They had just addressed the fact that he was sort of doing Baby Vigilante stuff for awhile, and that he was leaving all that behind to be with her after he did this One Last Thing. So I mean, when she found that, why was that such a dealbreaker?

I thought SyFy had their upfronts today, so I figured we'd hear an S5 premiere date, but I can't find anything about their upfronts anywhere, so I must have misunderstood. Also, hi! I just binge-watched this show in the last few weeks and I am super into it now. No idea how it flew under my radar for so long, because I'm an SK fan and into sci-fi stuff in general. I'm guessing SyFy hasn't done a great promotional job with the series?

Hmmm, I don't think Oliver is really convinced that Felicity doesn't have feelings for him. I think he knows there's something there, but he keeps that knowledge in his peripheral vision. He won't let himself look directly at it, for any number of reasons. He's not ready for someone like her, certainly. He probably doesn't feel like he could be with someone as good as she is. He probably thinks it would be best if she found someone else, and doesn't want to hold her back from that. That's why I think he holds back from her, most of the time. Because he doesn't feel like he can give her what she deserves, and he doesn't want to screw anything up. That doesn't mean he sees her feelings for him (or his for her) with complete clarity, because of his refusal to examine them. But I do think he knows there's something there on both sides. Last night, I think he was half-hoping she would take the leap, and half-relieved that she didn't.

I thought that was excellent! I couldn't give a shit about Damon and Elena together, so their scenes were eye-roll-inducing for me, but I loved everything else. I love that Bonnie and Damon are stuck somewhere together, because as Ian just said in an interview, they put the kibosh on their scenes together way back in S2 because they didn't want to go that route and he and Kat have good chemistry, so they just stopped putting them together. It's a disservice to Kat, because she's always been backgrounded since she had no meaningful connection to the Salvatores. Anyway, Damon is way more interesting to me away from Elena, so I'll be glad for a break from that. I would trade 1000 Damons for one Alaric though, so I'm thrilled to have him back. And are all the previously vamped characters now human again, or was it only Tyler that was de-hybridized because he went through the Travelers' spell?

Yeah, this is why I don't think they worked out the plan in advance. He had to hand her that syringe stealthily once in the mansion, so if they'd talked about it beforehand, I think he would have just done it then. On the way to the mansion, he may have said something vague to her like, "I'm letting him outthink me," so that she might have an idea of what he was doing, but I don't think she really knew until he put the syringe in her hand. Then I think she understood completely, but was still thrown from the moment.

Lianne wasn't nearly conciliatory enough for my taste. Like, I get that she was preoccupied with the disappearance of her replacement daughter, but holy crap, lady. You abandoned your actual daughter after stealing thousands of dollars from her, twice (if you count running away from rehab stealing her money, which I do because I hate Lianne). Didn't you go through some sort of program? Shouldn't you make some amends to her and then let it go if that's what she wants? UGH I just can't stand her.

I'm not sure she was aware of his plan beforehand (F and O are both incredible actors in that case) (I expect this will be addressed at cons or in interviews shortly), but I do think he knew how she would respond to him trying to leave her at the mansion, and let the conversation flow from that. I like that he respects that about her and wanted it to be her choice. Slade probably would have grabbed her anyway, just for extra leverage, even if he didn't think she was Oliver's special lady, so I'm not sure he would have risked just leaving her there if she hadn't tried to come after him. My current shipper-induced thought is that he was willing to risk that Felicity might make herself vulnerable (beyond the risking-her-life way) because that would have been OK too. He confesses his love, she responds accordingly, then yay they get to smooch. She says nothing, they get to go on as they have been.

Oh my, I'm actually LOL-ing. So, apparently all you need to do is feel real sorry for yourself for a few months, and boom, superhero-ready? That was the weakest crucible ever.

Nyssa: I am Nyssa, daughter of Ras al Ghul, Heir to the Demon. Felicity: Felicity Smoak, MIT, Class of '09.

Stephen also has to play whatever they give him, and I think there's a certain measure of Stockholm Syndrome when you're trying to understand and play a character. I'm sure he feels some level of comfort in talking to the EPs about the direction of the show, but he doesn't run it. So if they put on the page that Oliver loves Laurel, Stephen will try to understand that and then play it that way. I think successful on-screen romances are a combination of good writing/acting and great chemistry, but the latter is kind of more important than the former, because you just can't create it. It's interesting to look at L/O and F/O, especially in the first season, and see how true that is. Oliver and Felicity weren't written with romantic tension until maybe the tail end of the first season, but they sparked off each other anyway. Oliver and Laurel were written as an epic, tragic love story, but they can't create a spark for anything. Thankfully the writers realized what they had with F/O, but they haven't yet accepted what they don't have with L/O. I wish they'd stop trying to make fetch happen there, because it's never going to happen.

I love that a few of you just realized you shipped Oliver/Felicity in that scene--that makes me really happy, and I think it's a sign of how naturally the show has developed that relationship. I loved that scene, even though I realized in the ensuing commercial break what was really going on. That brought me back down to Earth a bit, but I actually prefer it this way, because it's too soon. Oliver just broke up with Sara, his Mom just died, he's too focused on Slade. I wouldn't fully buy that he had the emotional capacity to also realize he was in love with Felicity in that time. My only question is how much did Felicity know and when did she know it? She was the one who suggested that Oliver let Slade out-think him, and then they take a ride out to the Queen mansion. It seems risky to say anything to her about it anywhere, and I don't think he did, which does make me feel a little sad for her. So she didn't figure it out until he pressed the cure into her hand, right? He was taking a risk that she wouldn't fall for it and return his sentiments, which would be pretty unfair to her. Otherwise, I thought this was an excellent episode, and a fitting capper to a pretty great season of TV. I'm just thrilled that everyone lived. Yes, including Quentin because I won't tolerate any other ideas.

You've Got Mail is a terrible movie that I love/hate so much I have to watch it like every other month. UGH, the way they speak every word they type. Meg Ryan at her Meg Ryanny worst. The fact that the entire movie tsk-tsks about how a big, soulless company like Barnes & Noble (I mean, Fox Books) is killing independent stores and ruining New York, while the characters go to Starbucks like four times in one movie and sing its praises. The utter waste of Dave Chappelle. And yet...it's just really charming anyway.

It's also just that what we DO know of Natasha is that she wants to be better. She wants to help people and be on the "right" side as an attempt to atone for her past actions. We're not at that point in Ward's story yet (assuming we're getting there at all), so it's hard to imagine right now. But Natasha's been working toward her own personal redemption for years, which is part of what makes it believable. I'm just not sure I trust this show to take the necessary time to redeem Ward, frankly. But we'll see.

I'm counting Damon's sign: