statsgirl

You missed the big explanation (retcon) over the summer. Moira had $3 or $4 million in insurance policies so Oliver is working his way through that money to fund the crusade. As Greg Berlanti said, they didn't want to write Oliver Queen: The Poverty Years. No idea if he's still paying Diggle. He's not paying Felicity and Roy has a part-time job working for Thea. No idea why Felicity had to buy him a bed, and now I've even lost hope of it being Chechov's bed since he's living with Thea on MM's money. Why Moira would have a life insurance policy that big is something you might be able to figure out. I never could.

Some funny and off the wall guesses as to what the big gamechanger will be Colton Haynes says that Arrow is about the change forever

Ray suits up in 3x15 but there are still problems so Felicity takes him to Cisco in The Flash 1x17, and things blow up there. Then 3x18 seems like a mess, with Felicity in hospital, Oliver in jail and who knows where everyone else is. Malcolm was supposed to be captured and taken to Ra's in 3x15 and Oliver has to decide whether to save him. What happened with that?

The 'least favorite character' poll is just the people who go to Spoiler TV. The People's Choice one, while not really worth anything because it and $2 will get you a cup of coffee, is better known and according to them had over 150,000 votes cast. They beat Jamie and Claire of the Outlander which is one of those cable network shows prized by the snobby set.

She's ostensibly angry because Malcolm lied to her. That was her big thing at the end of last season when she went off with him, he may have been a mass murdered and a psychopath but at least he never lied to her. Now that she found out he did, that he knew Oliver was The Arrow, she's back to being mad at him again. Wait till she finds out everyone is lying to her about killing Sara. Me, I think she and Malcolm are playing a long con together, and this play-acting was part of it.

I think the fallacy is more Tu Quoque don't you think? http://www.logicalfallacies.info/presumption/tu-quoque/ Or a naturalistic fallacy? 1. EBR does not sign up for cons and thus does not disappoint her fans 2. KC should not sign up for cons because when she cancels, she disappoints her fans. (I miss debating.)

Thank you, yes, it was Diggle, Felicity and Roy, and Laurel, who had to "grow up" and make their own decisions because Oliver was gone. And now that they have, things can't go back to the old ways. Freedom and autonomy are heady things, and in this case they're also necessary since the team can't be dependent on Oliver making good and healthy decisions. I think that's the point MG was trying to make, but it got lost in the action and the hallucinations and the DJ and the Merlynness of it. Part of the show is that Oliver isn't always right; he makes mistakes and he learns from them. Until now, Diggle and Felicity have had to say their side and hope Oliver agreed. Now they have more force in their arguments (e.g. Roy was completely right, there was no reason to keep Thea from seeing Laurel). There should be a leader who has the final say but it can't any more be 'my way or the highway'. There are benefits to the new order that Oliver can't see right now. For one thing, it's not all on his shoulders now, and that's been a heavy burden to bear. (Chances are it's going to play into the rest of the season, all there many costumed heroes can't be for nothing.) It also means that maybe he can have a life beyond being the Arrow, once that little problem with Ra's is solved. Maybe a night off for dinner and dancing because Roy, Diggle and Laurel can take over keeping the city safe. At the least, it let's him go off to Lian Yu to train with Merlyn (idiotic as the idea is) if he wants.

This is where rushing through storylines so fast hurts the show. Yes, there is a team and Oliver is the leader, and the funder. But he's always been "My way or the highway", he unilaterally benched Diggle because he was about to become a father, and he's made all the decisions in the relationship between himself and Felicity, which is to tell her he loves her and then cut her off completely. Yes, he almost died but he came back prioritizing his new association with MM instead of his team, working on his plan with Malcolm instead of telling Diggle, Felicity & Roy what had happened to him while he was away. One comment I read complained that Felicity was heartless because she hugged him so hard when she first saw him she hurt him where he was stabbed. How was she supposed to know he was wounded there? He didn't say, he didn't show, he didn't tell her that he had changed her/their game plan yet again. Her life, her choice except that he's not wiling to give it to her. Tracking Laurel is a grey area because she's not ready to fight much less alone but he won't help her or take her with them. But when Thea came down to talk to him and he said right away "Get out of here right now" as if she was 7 and not 20, that was completely wrong. That was Roy's point and when Oliver shut him down, Felicity's and later Diggle's. There is no reason Thea shouldn't have seen a bloody Laurel and every reason why she should since she's getting in the fighting way herself. The closest analogy I can come up with is when a parent sends a kid away to an overnight camp for two or four weeks. The kid comes back having grown up by a year or two because of the independence and the necessity. It's then the parent's job to adjust to that, not to put the kid back into the bottle. While Oliver was gone, his Team grew up and made their own choices why they were going to stay and fight. It was a crappy way to tell Oliver, yes, but Oliver needs to adapt to who they are now, not who he left. Good for Diggle for sitting him down and explaining, and maybe one day Oliver will be mature enough to be able to have talked to Diggle, Felicity and Roy first, instead of barking orders and expecting everyone to say "How high?" without question. (Why couldn't the show have said this?)

Felicity with Ray doesn't sound like good TV at all. Drama is in the conflict, which is why Oliver/Felicity and the hero struggle struck a chord for so many people. It depends at what level they want to do the show. Do they want it to be a complex psychological study with action, or do they want a remake of Adam West's Batman series? They may decide to go for the latter now, but if that's what the show had been like in seasons 1 and 2, how many of us would be here now?

The show burns through storylines so fast, it's like they think if it lingers it's going to flat. It really hurts the show. I would like Ray so much more if I didn't have the dread of Raylicity hanging over me. As it is, in their scenes I put my hands over my eyes and wince. I'd love it if that happened. It might actually save Ray for me. But I think it's way too mature and adult for this show.

The question of whether Oliver has a right or a responsibility to put a tracker on Laurel could actually be an interesting moral question if the writing didn't rush through everything. Oliver doesn't think that Laurel is a good enough fighter to be out on her own. He's right, but he's not the boss of her. She's an adult competent to make her own decisions, and he has no legal right to stop her. Does he have a moral right? Or is he overstepping his bounds and making his own life more difficult in the process. Should he have the right to put a tracker on her? Is it his responsibility to save her if something bad happens? Discuss.

Does anything think it was strange that when Thea went downstairs to talk to Oliver and saw a figure in black leather and blonde hair lying on the table but was blocked from seeing her face, she jumped very quickly to the conclusion that it was Laurel (i.e. she already knew)? Or does she think that Oliver's social circle is so limited nowadays that if there is a female on the table, it must be Laurel? Yes, that's her powerful look. It's the same posture she has in the courtroom. She does have decent scenes, I liked her in the courtroom at the start of 3x10, but that's rather damning with faint praise. I don't know what you didn't like about her after Sara's death because I thought she showed how much she was mourning Sara but I think the writing for Felicity sucked here sky high. I don't remember the convo about Laurel doing something reckless and Felicity supporting her but every person is supporting Laurel being in the field except Oliver. and every person is also saying that Oliver has to stop bossing them around. Roy started telling Oliver he can't tell them what to do any more. Why is Felicity getting the shade? Because she's the woman? MG apparently thinks that because Felicity/EBR is so popular he can do anything with the character and she will still be loved. This episode proves him wrong.

I wondered about that tool Spell-check Is Your Friend. Well they've been selling us all season that Ra's is the Big Bad. Personally I think the 'gamechanger' (I can't keep track of them all) is going to end up with it being Malcolm But that we still don't know going in to 3x14 shows how sucky the planning for the season has been. There are other ways on other shows. This one is pretty much a one trick pony. For the last two season, it's been exclusively females deaths too.

It was the bringing up the lowest point for each of them that makes it seem toxic. There are courses in how to fight fair, which you're going to have to do if you want to stay together as a couple. When Felicity and Oliver fight, they fight fair. When Laurel and Oliver do, they don't.

Even less time to keep an eye on what's happening on Arrow. ($%#(@) I really miss Political Animals. Loved that show.

If it keeps Felicity out of his bed, I say, Bring it on! My guess, and my fear is that we are going to have Ray/Felicity sexy times. Your scenario, as creepy as the kiss might be, is better.

She's too busy, she and Michelle Fazekas, her producing partner, just got a two year production deal to develop new shows, on top of Resurrection which they're already working on. She's like the Greg Berlanti of the marriage.

Laurel is currently at 53% of the votes, more than the other 9 characters put together. Yeah , the Laurel-becomes-BC arc really worked for her. At the least, I hope it stops MG from trashing Olicity. Now that Laurel is out there fighting by Oliver's side, it's going to be hard to keep from following the comics if Laurel is where your interest lies

Diggle hasn't been hit as much as Felicity but they've both been suffering as characters this season. I guess the assumption is that people like them therefore they're Teflon to say ridiculous things for other characters. That's a good point. And one of the real problems with Laurel is that she never grows, never really has to pay for what she does wrong (shooting the cop last season; hissy fit when Sara returned). She would be easier to like if she atoned for her sins and grew as a person. You know who faces her fears and conquers them? Felicity, but the show never acknowledges that. It stuns me that on Agent Carter, bob length Peggy ties her hair back when she goes into a fight but the Canary hair is always in full swing. Tara, sit your husband down and have a talk with him.

Felicity is probably standing up to Maseo since Karl Yune and EBR are filming together. The "you won't believe..." probably refers to Felicity actually having scenes with Maseo.

The promo has MM saying to Oliver "You need to regain that killer instinct" We had 2 seasons of Felicity encouraging Oliver not to be a killer. You know what would be good? Felicity vs Malcolm in a battle for Oliver's soul. Not going to happen as long as the EPs are obsessed with the costumes rather than the characters. That would seriously be the death of Felicity as we knew her, and probably my love for her. No step is too low for MG to do for his Laurel. That's the problem with Ray staying on Arrow, and knowing about Oliver isn't going to make any difference. It's like when the said that if Laurel knows the secret, she'll be relevant and redeemed. Well now she knows the secret and I dislike her even more. I hope Felicity is doing some weight training in the lair. All that heavy lifting propping Laurel and Ray must be exhausting.

Really Marc? Is that why you block people who don't agree with you instead of just ignoring them?

It feels like we've had the internet for so long (20 years?) that it's easy to forget that social media is still a new phenomenon and it's going to take time to learn how to deal with it. I can't believe that after Amanda Todd and other young girls who committed suicide after being shamed on social media that girls are still doing those kinds of posts but they are. It's also really hard to know what to keep private and what to make public. Sometimes I'm stunned by the personal things I read on twitter, sent out to the world. SA does seem to love his mom a lot and did the F&CK Cancer sticker for her (I wonder how he felt about his parents splitting up since his dad lives in Edmonton but that's none of my business), and he seems to idolize his daughter (one reporter said that the desktop of his computer in the trailer is rotating pictures of her) so that puts him miles ahead of Alec Baldwin in my book. Sometimes he screws up, and this was one of those, but overall he's in my 'plus' column. Guggenheim is such a troll. Guess he finally figured out people were upset about Felicity and he's trying to do damage control

Sadly, no. I think Felicity is so far out of this storyline that she might as well be in Central City with Ray. Oh, wait, she will be. It was the "blink and you missed it" joyous return of Oliver scene, you know, the one where the Team all celebrates how happy they are that he's back? Yeah, I missed it too. When he walked into the lair, he said "sorry I was gone for so long, I almost died" and then Felicity launched herself at him, he hugged back for a brief moment before disengaging and walking over to Diggle and Roy to thank them for saving the city. Then the Malcolm crap began.

He completely over-reacted. Hopefully by the time Mavi is 12 he'll figure things out. But i think it's sweet that he's so protective as a father. I know a young woman who would love to have her father care that much about her, intimidate her boyfriends and look out for her but he's off doing his own thing and she's left dreaming. Conclusion: Fatherhood is a learning curve. Don't post about it on Facebook.