statsgirl

As much as I didn't want the time spent on a Ray Palmer backdoor pilot (which is what I think will happen since there wasn't the excitement for him there was for Barry Allen) I will take anything that gets the focus off of Laurel, and Felicity propping her. While I think people will tweet in more about what they don't like than what they do, any storyline that is so disliked that 95% of mail is about hating it, suggests that the whole writers room became brain dead or pod people.

So they know that the hardcore fans will spend real money for Olicity and Team Arrow ... that rather puts paid to the argument that it's the comics fans who want all the costumed superheroes and that's why they had to move beyond the O/D/F Team Arrow, to keep them watching. As for non-comics fans, I'm pretty sure they'd be happier with Team Arrow and Olicity back rather than Laurel and Ray and Ra's, who the show is doing a terrible job of.

Now that's a question for MG's tumblr.

Because she has a costume and a mask. Having a costume and a mask is a "come back" card. Yep, Helena will be coming back to tell Laurel the darkness is gone and how did she do it because she wants to get rid of the darkness herself. I fear you're right. I'm already dreading seeing in her every lair scene now that it seems to have become her sole job. I can think of more stories for Laurel as a lawyer than I can for her as a vigilante. I'm sure they will give Laurel her own nemesis, while Felicity has to go over to The Flash for hers. I feel like I should just buy the comics and give up on the show itself. All the good stuff seems to be happening in the comics.

Good or bad, I think they won't have any ideas on what to do with Barrowman next season. He can't mentor Oliver because Oliver will have out-grown him, and he can't be the Big Bad two seasons on a row unless he defeats Ra's and he's not going to do that because of comics!. But then, I also think Ray can't be fulltime on the show next season either. Watch them prove me wrong.

Put her in a coma or have her disappear off-screen for year the way that did with Malcolm Merlyn. Have her in jail or lost on her own island. Or have her stick around but hobble her somehow. She doesn't know where Malcolm is, and Thea refuses to talk to her. She argues with Oliver not to believe MM (because someone has to and they're not letting Felicity or Diggle do it) but he goes anyway and it backfires. Great scenes between Oliver and Moira. Malcolm has been a huge disappointment as a villain this season because he just does what he wants and no one stands up to him. It's like doing wall push-ups, you can stand there in the middle of the room and just move your arms back and forth (Merlyn with no opponent) and get a little exercise, or you can go stand against a wall and push back against it (Moira) and really develop the muscles. The season, the Malcolm storyline, from the moment Oliver decided to protect him from the LoA, has been flabby.

For the same reason you'd want your gloves to be fingerless. It's how KC wants it. Every time I look at how they're handling Laurel/KC, I'm reminded of the line from Sabrina: "Do I look stupid? I never thought I was but maybe I'm wrong."

He also said earlier that he thought the Olicity in 3x14 would break twitter. It's interesting how he's pulling back farther and farther on how positive he thinks the fan reaction will be. Hopefully the last three episodes have been a reality check for him, from the 'Laurel pretending to be Sara' in 311 to the Laurel/Felicity scene in 313 that we were all going to love.

You're right, she didn't wait patiently. She stopped doing Arrow pr when she wasn't getting the character or screen time she wanted. But I was talking about the tweets from people like MG and James Bamford this season. I'm sure they told KC she was getting to be the Black Canary and even with that she wasn't being a team player. I'm beginning to think that they feel they need to appease her for some reason because they certainly don't do that for Caity Lotz, Manu Bennett or Susanna Thompson, all of whom are better actors. MG said both KC and WH were getting good stuff this season because they've been so patient last season but only KC is really getting it.

IMO it would have gone very well if they had got rid of Laurel, or at least kept her as a crusading lawyer. Sometimes you need to be wiling to change the game plan when a better play comes along. Sara as recurring, Felicity on Team Arrow and Laurel doing legal duty would have covered all the bases. They're going to have to figure out something to do with Brandon Routh next season if he doesn't get his own show because leaving him on the show, would end up with the same problem it had with Sara/Laurel where the newbie (Palmer) overshadows the original. I think Adrianne Palicki is a good addition because Skye wasn't cutting it as a kickass fighter. Now they can more Skye into something that fits the character and the actress better. (Arrow EPs, are you paying attention?_

I don't think they understood how unlikable and selfish they were making Laurel, and how much Sara would be taken to viewers' hearts. They wanted to write a kickass character and they did it in Sara, not realizing the overall effect until ti was too late. Sara and Felicity were beloved partly because of the character and the actors but also because they were the anti-Laurel. They were probably always planning to get rid of Sara to make Laurel BC (I hate the "KC is so wonderful because she waited patiently) but they were hoist by their own petard in CL and the writing for Sara. Literally and figuratively, because CL/Sara was a bomb (in a good way).

This is what I was really hoping for when they announced Manu Bennett was coming back, plus I'd like to see a Slade/Diggle fight now. Slade on Lian Yu with only Oliver, Thea and Malcolm sounds boring. Possibly Slade will make a remark about Sara and Felicity to Oliver but that's the show doing 'tell not show 'again.

Oliver came back with his excuse all ready -- I didn't let you know I was alive because I was at a place with no cell reception -- which sounds like he's feeling defensive to letting them think he's dead for so long. Which really, he should be because he should have called as soon as he got to a place with cell reception, instead of going out to save Merlyn's soul and grandstanding with the speech, then going to Thea's place to make his deal with the devil. He put Team Arrow way down on the list of priorities and he know it. So that would probably play into why she's so fed up with him now, it's not the the Merlyn thing, it's the orders and seeming not to care about them now that he's back. You know, for reasons. You know what makes bad soap opera? It's when everything is so ridiculously contrived and you know that if the two people just sat down and had a conversation it would all work out. ('Why are you cheating on me with John? I'm breaking up with you now' 'I wasn't cheating, I was working on a secret surprise party for you' Oh, okay, let's not break up then'.) From the time Oliver put Malcolm under his protection from the crime of killing 503+ people, none of this made sense. Now Diggle is staying in the lair, and Felicity is telling Laurel she has the light Sara doesn't. Welcome to bad soap opera, Arrow.

I like it, especially Laurel going off to Nanda Parbat, but what doesn't make sense to me is why she would. She's there to "save" Starling City so to go off to Nanda Parbat for months would leave the city defenseless without her. (I don't think she cares about her day job any more so I'm not going to bring that in to the argument.) Any other person would say "I just got beat up twice, I need to learn more" but that's never been Laurel. She's always been the bestest and right away.

But aren't we supposed to be on the Malcolm redemption arc now? This season has been a complete mess. That sounds more like a reaction to Thea defeating Slade in a fight. Yeah, right. However since ep 15 is Nanda Parbat, the LoA taking Malcolm is probably right. It's one of the few things that is for me because she's swinging wildly and he's blocking her. What I find less believable is the idea that knowing how Slade feels about him, Oliver would let him out of the cell, especially with Thea there who he's all crazy about protecting. And then there's Malcolm saying "You have to go to the island to get back your killer instinct" and the shot of Oliver saying "You're not a killer, Thea". Make up your mind, dumbass (which is what they're reduced Oliver to this season). Either you took her to the island to teach her to be a killer, or you don't want her to be a killer. It can't be both. If "Sara" was "a love letter to Sara", and this one is "a love letter to fans" I'm beginning to think that MG saying "love letter" is code for "avoid this episode if you don't want your blood pressure to go through the roof".

The thing is, it could all have been avoided so easily if Felicity had said "You have a different light than Sara, Laurel. You don't need to be her to be a hero." Kind to Laurel + no trashing of Sara = Felicity in character and a happy audience. I'm dissapointed that Slade will only be interacting with Oliver, Thea and Malcolm because I'd really live to see him up against Diggle and Felicity now. I wonder if he will mention Diggle and Felicity, or if he'll only talk about Laurel since that seems all the show is concerned with these days.

The thing is, it could all have been avoided so easily if Felicity had said "You have a different light than Sara, Laurel. You don't need to be her to be a hero." Kind to Laurel + no trashing of Sara = Felicity in character and a happy audience.

The show isn't fun any more. They took what made it good -- the O/D/F Team Arrow, Felicity's humor, Diggle's strength, Oliver's hotness, Sara's strength and vulnerability Moira's scheming and greyness -- and dumped it to write they're SuperHeroes R Us starring InstaCanary and Who is that character with no boundaries? At this point, all I want is for Ray to get his own show and to take Laurel with him permanently. And if the EPs intend to have Thea suit up with a mask, they can take her too. Ordinarily, I'd say yes, she doesn't need a parental figure. Oliver's been without one since he was 22, Sara since she was 20. But at the moment, uch of the timeThea is acting like a 6 year old 'you don't get to be the boss of me' except when she's banging her DJ on the couch of the apartment her brother and father walk in and out of. Bitter about Thea's storyline this season; it could have been so good.

Oliver was very hostile towards Walter in the Return Dinner scene, as if he didn't know that Moira had married him. I think Colin Salmon said he was shooting on Arrow earlier so maybe we'll see a Walter scene if not a Moira one. (Please come back, Colin, Thea needs Walter!) The sleep attack on Walter I thought was to show how much Oliver had become like a wild animal, with lightning fast reflexes in case someone/thing attacked him in his sleep rather than an unconscious anger at Moira.

This is an interesting idea, a spin-off pairing The Atom (Ray Palmer) and Firestorm (Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein). Five Arrow and Flash Spin-Off Miniseries We Want to See: The Atom and Firestorm

Liam MacIntyre won the role of Spartacus that he and SA were competing for. It would be a little too meta to have him turn up on Arrow as Oliver's doppelganger. I love your whole post. The show hit gold in Felicity and the SA/EBR chemistry. They're not going to tank it on purpose but they have been doing it inadvertently with bad writing and trying to delay them getting together. It's been made much worse by 1. rushing through the emotional beats to get more masked superheroes and 2. MG thinking that he can use Felicity to prop Ray and Laurel even when it's ridiculous and people will still love her. Robert Dougherty has been writing about how an alternative approach would have been avoided many of these problems. It's well worth the read. He's been breaking her heart for more than a year now, from telling her he can't be with someone he really cares about and hooking up with Sara shortly after, to not being honest and telling her he loved her back on Lian Yu in Unthinkable (gaslighting her because she has to have some sense he cares for her), to not giving her a say in the break-up, to the "and you know how I feel about her" but not doing anything, to telling Carrie he couldn't be with anyone when he knew Felicity was listening in, to telling her again he loves her and walking away and then rejecting her as soon as he got back by working with MM. I love the guy, and I know what he's thinking. If I didn't I'd be telling Felicity to run fast and run far because he's a manipulator.

Good points. I wish she had included Sin too. I could even see Moira doing if better if she were 30 years younger. That would be one really complex Black Canary.

This is why the rush to make Laurel BC and Ray The Atom is spoiling what was good about the show in previous seasons. Oliver taking Laurel with him to fight instead of Diggle, so that at the end of the episode he can tell her she's earned the right to fight with the team (next episode -- she gets her own mannikin for her costume so she doesn't have to carry it back and forth), and not bothering to check in with the Team as a human being rather than The Boss is creating all sorts of problems that didn't need to be there. I really think that MG thought that Felicity's light speech would make the viewers love her and Laurel even more, and it did for many people, yay, girl bonding! and he was surprised by the reaction of those who thought it was disrespectful to both Sara and Felicity. I have decided to fast forward through Laurel scenes from here on in, especially if Felicity is in them. I can't take any more what they're doing to Felicity to prop Laurel. Maybe they have to have him getting closer to someone since the divide between him and Felicity is getting so wide and except for 312, he's the one who looks dickish for it. I wonder if the show will have Thea working with Malcolm after all (if you thought it hurt to have Felicity reject him, stay tuned) and then he gives up on being close to anyone and goes full on Arrow. I still don't think the division between the Arrow and Oliver Queen, which is supposed to be his story for this season, is well done because half his brain, the one that thinks about beyond and their feelings rather than thinking as if they are machines, seems to have been left behind in Oliver Queen's persona.

I'm sure the bank would have given him an advance even if it takes months to do the paperwork. He's a Queen, he'd be good for it. I think what happened is that they started with Broke Oliver in 3x01 where Felicity bought the bed and he couldn't afford a present for the baby, and then they realized they didn't want to keep writing it so by the time SDCC came around, they'd come up with the insurance policy explanation.

From the Felicity thread: I still think that the line about Laurel having a light is about the writing trying to say that Laurel is superior to Sara. But .... I think that the demons that Sara had to fight made her a better vigilante than Laurel is. What's driving Laurel right now is anger and it makes her feel better to beat up people, and a sense that this will make her a hero, if she takes over Sara's mantle of the Canary. Both of those are selfish reasons, and not the best motivator for a vigilante. She also didn't go through the fire that Sara and Oliver did so as a blade, she's weaker. I have no doubt that by the end of the season, Laurel will be retconned into the bestest vigialnte ever but they're still not doing it the right way for me to believe it.