SonofaBiscuit

I'm hoping for a nice (on the lips) kiss during their reunion before things proceed to fall apart. I'm wondering how this is going to go down because Oliver thinks that Felicity is involved with Ray. Will he bring that up and she'll set him straight, or is he basically going to say fuck it and go for it even though he thinks Felicity is with Ray? Hmmm. Maybe the event will be the Diggle/Lyla wedding.

From Guggenheim's tumblr Q&A, I get the sense that we'll be seeing Diggle's brother in a flashback. With this show, though, who knows, maybe Andy isn't actually dead and he'll show up in present day. Not looking forward to more Felicity/Laurel scenes. I'm hoping Guggenheim really means "Laurel stands in the background like a powered-down robot while Team Arrow holds a meeting" or something similar.

Maybe they just tell Laurel that Oliver's backpacking in the Andes.

They could put Laurel in a romantic relationship with Ray, thus keeping those two completely off to the side in their own little story that could conveniently be fast-forwarded through entirely.

No, there's never been confirmation, only speculation. And for as much as they must pay KC, I will forever not understand the speculation that the EPs actually dislike Laurel or want to get rid of her because a contract doesn't mean that your character can't be killed off. If the EPs didn't like her, wouldn't they just kill Laurel off (or send her away) and be done with it? Anyways, I won't rehash this discussion since we've talked about it numerous times, but I think that she's here to stay even if she has a three year contract (hope I'm wrong though). I think that Maseo has to be the one to retrieve Oliver's body, and obviously someone will be helping him with the whole thing since we see Maseo (or whomever) knocking on a door. I'm guessing it's going to be Tatsu (I think she's still alive at this point? I admit that I tune out during the HK flashbacks). I've been wondering how they will do the Team Arrow reunion scene. Will Oliver just show up? "Surprise, I'm not dead!" Will he go to the foundry, or will he head straight for Felicity's apartment? Will he call first to tell everyone that he's alive? So many questions.

From the Kreisberg TVLine stuff in the Spoiler thread, I think that people are correct and Felicity will be shutting Oliver down at the end of episode 12. He'll spend all of his recovery thinking about her, and maybe he'll come back wanting to be with her, but she'll say no because of the way his latest "death" has shaken her. I'll be very happy if she stays far far away from a romantic relationship with Ray because I want to see good Olicity moments, and it might look kind of bad if Oliver is making moves on her while she's with Crazy Eyes.

I wish that they had completely eliminated the Russia stuff at the beginning and end of the episode. Right as the episode ended, I was left wondering if Tony had gone off the deep end, or if he had really found Oliver who was somehow alive. I thought that maybe the second season would show how Oliver was even still alive and how he ended up in Russia. But then the ad for season 2 mentioned a brand new case, so I guess Tony just went a bit mad after learning the truth. I'm hoping that Julien can come out of retirement to be involved in the next case, I thought that he was wonderful.

The house pretty much looks like one of those that you would see on Property Brothers. SA should try to get on one of those shows so they can pay to remodel the entire thing.

I realize that I've been overly negative for a while now, and I want to explain where all this bitterness is coming from. For me, the show started to go downhill during season 2B. During the hiatus between season 2 and season 3, I actually became hopeful again as the EPs talked about fixing the mistakes that they had made during the second season. The Olicity stuff looked promising and I was willing to give Brandon Routh a chance even though I wasn't a huge fan. For being a good sport, Willa was promised an interesting story, and I was looking forward to that. The writers talked about all of these episodes that Caity was a part of, so I was happy that she was going to be around occasionally. Now we cut to the reality of the third season. Instead of Ray being a legitimate romantic choice for Felicity, they give up a crazy eyed creepster who does some seriously questionable things. Instead of Thea having an interesting storyline, she's a brainwashed murderer. And instead of showing up from time to time to be her awesome BC self, Sara was shot full of arrows, thrown in the garbage, and stuffed in a freezer. Part of the problem is that yes, Guggenheim is a troll. But a lot of the time, I actually think that he believes the information that he doles out. I really do think that Guggenheim is confident that Ray has been presented as a perfectly suitable alternative to Oliver, and those of us who dislike him must feel that way because we're unwilling to accept Felicity with anyone except Oliver. I'm sure there have been many bits of Guggenheim misinformation throughout season 3, but the most recent that comes to mind is what he said about episode 9, The Climb. We were told that The Climb featured one of the most epic fight scenes Arrow had ever done. In reality, the fight scene was...not great. You could clearly see the stunt double's face several times and poor SA was a popsicle. I kinda think that the whole point of the fight was to show how easily Ra's could beat Oliver, so mission accomplished there. Hardly epic. Then we were told that The Climb was one of the most epic episodes that they had ever done. In reality, I thought that the episode was a mess. The pacing was all over the place, the inclusion of Ray and Laurel seemed absolutely uneccesary, and the reveal that Thea was a brainwashed murderer was a major letdown. Finally, we were told that the Oliver/Felicity scene was a 9, but not a 10 since there was no sex. I know that some were pleased with what we got, but if a 10 is sex, then what got was most definitely not a 9 in my book. So looking back and realizing that nothing is ever as good as Guggenheim promises, I'm not too optimistic about what awaits me in season 3B.

History has shown that Guggenheim never accurately represents anything, so I'm going to go with "no." :)

I like how he tries to push the BC (non) trilogy off on Diggle/Felicity fans. No thanks.

Yeah, I'm wondering if he'll talk about Arrow and what he can possibly say since he's still maintaining that he's dead. I can definitely relate to having issues with other forums. I had a really bad experience in another forum where there were a few majorly rude people, and I was probably overemotional because of a death in my family, but it upset me so much that I never went back there again (who knows, maybe it was the same forum you went to). People here are generally pretty nice, so this is basically the only forum that I check obsessively.

Ooh, flashbacks to the five months of flirting that we never saw would be pretty awesome. So, probably not going to happen :(

Won't that be awful if we have to look to Oliver's "death" hallucinations to get our Olicity moments in the next few episodes? I mean, I'll take whatever I can get but that's kind of sad.

I thought it looked like he was stretching his hand out like a handshake (for when Felicity joined the team or whatever), but yeah, the kiss face-holding makes more sense. Maybe Oliver's not 100% dead because his hand is not in the same position in those two photos.

If the writers won't put Oliver and Felicity together as soon as he returns, I think that the best bet for me would be for Oliver to pursue Felicity and want to be with her, but Felicity would be hesitant about losing him again since she was utterly destroyed by his most recent "death." Then we could get back to the shoulder touches, hugs, eye sex, etc. Maybe Oliver can even show up to Felicity's apartment to comfort her when needed. Really ramp things up until they decide to make a go of it for real like 5 or 6 episodes before the finale. Because as everyone else has mentioned, if the EPs put them together right before the summer hiatus, I will have to cut a bitch.

I hope the writers remember how well that worked out for Sara. People lost their shit when the lunge happened. Ray is already on sketchy ground with a lot of people because of his highly questionable creeptastic behavior. If they want to keep him as a regular or spin him off into his own show, they'd be best not to turn any more people against him by making him an obstacle to Olicity happening.

Just a reminder that the Hallmark movie with Dylan Bruce and Amy Acker is on tomorrow (Saturday) night. There was a cute one on last Saturday called Surprised by Love. No Arrow stars in that one, but I liked it (but it did have Hilarie Burton in it, and she's a bit annoying).

You mean a supermodel with a face scar isn't beastly enough for you? :) And now he's just a beastly supermodel...no scar anymore. Yes, it's ridiculous but Jay Ryan and Kristen Kreuk do have amazing chemistry. I'm sad that Max Brown is no longer a part of the show, but I saw him over on Sleepy Hollow this week. He's so pretty! I'm glad to hear that the writers plan on going back to what worked in the first season because season 2 was awful!

Regarding these journalists who will be present at the TCAs, will they be shown any of the upcoming episodes? Or are they just going to be asking questions without really knowing too much about what it coming in the next few episodes?

Hey, maybe the EPs are actually very aware of how terribly Laurel is received if they are clearing the field of all other females to ensure that somebody, anybody, asks about her upcoming storyline trilogy. Not sure why Amell is going to be there. Oliver is dead, and this show is bigger than just one character, right? Let everyone else have their moment to shine. This probably belongs in the bitterness thread...

I know that when we notice these things, we get accused of reading too much into it, but all of these small things added up kinda start to paint a clearer picture of what is happening here. But I'm probably just being paranoid, right?

I would love to believe that this is the last ditch attempt to make Laurel relevant, but damn I was burned last season. For me, several signs were pointing to them getting rid of Laurel during season 2, but we ended up doubling down instead. Ugh! She's probably here to stay even if she's an EPIC fail.

Holy hell, I'm going through the Spoilers thread, and Guggenheim uses the word "epic" a lot! The Climb was the most epic episode they've ever done, The Climb featured one of the most epic fights they've ever done, Felicity's reaction when she finds out Oliver's dead is epic, Slade's return in 14 makes the episode feel epic, and the Diggle/Laurel scene in episode 10 is epic. Please learn some new adjectives.

We're discussing Downton Abbey, and I mentioned that I marathoned Black Sails a few days ago. I recently found out that Toby Stephens (Captain Flint on Black Sails, Mr. Rochester on the Ruth Wilson version of Jane Eyre) is the son of Maggie Smith (the Dowager Countess over on Downton Abbey). Ha! Never knew that.