statsgirl

**fingers in my ears, la, la, la, la,** If Ray has any sensitivity (and I"m not saying he does), Felicity's statement last night about how her friend ("Well, more than a friend... I'm not sure what we were") should tell him not to be going home with her at night. Did EBR really say that Ray goes home with her at night because she has night terrors?

I'm sure you were a complete angel, quarks. I was seventeen when I started (we still had grade 13 here then so one more year of high school) and I'm glad my parents didn't know what I got up to. And going by the SOOFS episode, Felicity was no shrinking violet. I think the producers chose it because it has the reputation of being the top technical university in the country, although being that far from Las Vegas would have been a bonus. There's Stanford, which I think is a bit closer, but all the rest like Harvard and Princeton seem to be more artsy. And that's all she had to go on, even high school guidance counselors don't really know which university is good for which discipline. Listing to Donna say that she was worried that Felicity would leave her, only to realize that she already had, I got the feeling that Donna gave up as Felicity packed up to go to college..

From Left Behind: Diggle: They burned the burners.

It's funny how people want these characters to be perfect. But perfect characters can't have character growth because that comes from the flaws, and no character growth makes for boring TV. I'll look forward to that. And to Lyla thanking Felicity for saving John's life. I just realized that at the beginning of the episode, the bad guy on the ground says to Roy "Who the hell are you?" Roy decks him without a word. At the end, the bad guy asks Laurel "Who the hell are you?" Laurel replies "I'm the justice you can't outrun" and decks him with the staff. Personally speaking, I think it would have worked better without the dialogue -- just Laurel becoming Arsenal while Roy and Diggle are out. The line of dialogue is both ridiculous and makes it about Laurel herself rather than about justice. And was she just going to leave the bad guys there? Or would she have called the police for a clean-up on aisle 5? Malcolm Merlyn went looking for Oliver at night, with a lantern. No wonder he didn't see his body. But why at night carrying a light that would draw attention to himself?

She would also have to make all the arrangements herself at 14/15 because I can't see Donna doing it, plus apply for and get the scholarships. Maybe she could have done her language and social science requirements as an AP course in high school but everything else (e.g. math, science) would have had to have been repeated at MIT at their level. I like it. Even Diggle told Laurel that he didn't know what to do now.

That could be a real problem because if I were Felicity, I don't think I could ever really trust Diggle or Roy again. They may make up later but the relationship would never be the same. Didn't Maseo say in the promo that Oliver should be worrying about what's happening in Starling City while he's gone?

I swallow a lot with this show but I have a hard time with that. Even if she did do a 5 year MIT degree in 4 years, she would have to have been 15 when she started, skipping at least 3 grades in public school. And the idea of a 15 old in a college residence at MIT... (parental shudders)

We were talking about hated characters earlier -- Marley on Glee. I wonder how she'll do here.

I think Felicity invoked Anna's name because she was desperate to get through to Ray. She likes the guy and she doesn't want to see him get killed too. Was it wrong? Technically yes because she didn't know Anna. But I can't see a woman who loves a man being okay with him getting killed like that. Ray of course got angry at Felicity partly because she shouldn't have said that, but mostly I think because his only purpose in life now with Anna dead is to prevent anything like that happening again. That's why he bought QC, for the OMAC plans, why he stalked Felicity so she would work for him and get the info off the busted drive that no one else could, and why he's building the suit. Of course he's going to shut down anyone who says he's not doing the right thing.

True, but at the end of the episode, Diggle said he was right to do that. Will we get Diggle and Roy saying the same to Felicity next episode?

A woman stepping up to take charge of men when the leader is missing? No wonder they're upset. Men admitting they're wrong or can't do something? Not real big in my real world life. I can understand Felicity not getting rid of Sara's stuff (although I would have buried them with her) but she should at least have put them away in a drawer somewhere. Having them on view all the time is just going to keep reinforcing the bad. But then, Ray isn't the most normal of people himself.

Yeah. As ,much as I would have loved those Sara flashbacks if she were still alive, now all I feel is "What's the point?" I also have a feeling that any Nanda Parbat Sara flashbacks aren't going to do Laurel's Canary any favors.

Reading how much the Vulture reviewer knows about the show and the bizarreness of starting to recap mid season 3, I got the feeling that she likes the show and has been watching it for a while, and asked the magazine if she could start recapping it. Nice for the Arrow EPs if it has that much cred.

"No love, quoth he, but vanity sets love a task like that" (Leigh Hunt) I can't imagine someone who loved another person wanting him to go out and fight and maybe get killed. Felicity was coming from just losing Oliver to that battle, but it may be that Ray's whole reason for living now that she's dead is to prevent someone like his Anna from being killed like that again. It's natural that she said it, partly from her grief and partly to keep Ray from dying, but it also makes sense normal that he wouldn't like it and shut her down in the fastest (and cruelest) way he could.

I was surprised at how human Hong Kong Oliver still was. I was expecting more of the guy who appeared in Starling City in the pilot, but I guess we've still got 1 1/2 seasons to get there. I liked how he rescued Tatsu while lying to Amanda. That's the Oliver I've grown to love. Wouldn't there also be a problem with the chain of evidence? It's been in Brick's hands for months, I assume any judge would throw it out. Maybe they're too stupid to know that though. I assumed there would be a switch at the bottom of the stairs too. Oliver slept down there for months, I can't see him stumbling down stairs every night with a flashlight after he'd turned off the lights, and then up again in the morning. Speaking of which, how can Thea not know something is going on when there's a massive electricity bill even when Verdant was supposed to be dark? Yes. Passive aggressive would be saying she's looking for data on the thugs and not really doing it. Been there, done that? Maybe she no longer trusts that Oliver is really really dead. Storywise, I think it's there to show that Laurel has moved beyond being that close to Oliver and she's looking at the bigger picture. In the past 20 months, she's lost both Tommy and Sara. Maybe she's all used up in terms of mourning, or maybe she's not going to believe Oliver's dead unless she sees his body in front of her. Although given what she told Dinah, that she can't bear to lose anyone else again, it does seem like bad writing. Felicity also quit the team, in The Dodger right after she joined because she didn't like Oliver's tactics. He apologized and she came back when he agreed to go after someone not in the book (the Dodger). Interestingly whereas those earlier times people quit Oliver (Diggle because he thought The Hood was a killer, Felicity because he was going to kill the widowed father of a young boy, Roy because Oliver wasn't paying enough attention to him), this is actually the first time someone has quit the Team itself. And Felicity has more than quit the Team, she's quit the idea of vigilantes entirely since she's trying to convince Ray not to do it. (I fully expect she'll be back on board next episode.) I got the feeling that Diggle already thought Oliver was dead even before Malcolm showed up with the sword, and maybe Roy too. It was Felicity who was determined to keep Oliver alive through hope. and Diggle had been talking to her earlier hoping to let her down easy. A final comment on the two turning off scenes -- we the audience know what Felicity's been through, in the last five days and more in the last five months whereas with Laurel, it was the first time we had met the character and hadn't had time to develop much (any?) sympathy for her situation. We know Felicity was barely holding it together; we saw Laurel functioning just fine as a capable lawyer.

Stephen Amell said that there were two episodes where we would see Oliver only in flashbacks. We saw Hong Kong flashbacks but now I'm wondering if the scenes with Maseo and Tatsu weren't flashbacks also, put in through the episode to keep the suspense going as to who was taking him and was he still alive. It makes more sense that Maseo found Oliver as soon as Ra's left than that Oliver was lying in the snow for five days, mortally wounde.. This is the first time we've seen Felicity and Diggle in a scene with Malcollm Merlyn, and Laurel actually interacting with them, as opposed to talking to Oliver while Diggle, Felicity and Roy are in the room. Now that Oliver isn't there, it struck me how much he acts as a barrier between the people in the two different parts of his life, Oliver Queen and The Arrow, getting together. More Felicity confronting Malcolm Merlyn, please. I think she's still awesome and EBR did a really good job of grieving (I was worried about that based on Sara and Cooper's deaths but she stepped up here). Turning off the lights is completely understandable given her post traumatic stress condition, seeing Diggle and Roy in danger of dying on top of Sara and Oliver. I just wish the opportunity for Laurel to dress up hadn't come from Felicity's action. (It didn't really because Diggle could have told Laurel he was going to keep fighting but it looked like it did.) I think most of the problem could be solved by having room on the show for two women in Oliver's life (not including Thea who is his sister), and that's wholly on the writers. There's no excuse for having Oliver, Diggle, Roy and now Ray being guy superheroes but in terms of screen time, it's either Felicity or Laurel.. This is so awesome, it bear repeating. Would people even have remembered that she had been dating Oliver Queen five years earlier? If they mentioned Sara at all, they would have said she was a friend of his who was also on board when the ship went down with the Queens and all the crew. Maybe a TMZ would have dug up that Laurel had dated him too but that looked like an ordinary news station.

I think anyone who isn't going to give Felicity a break for having lost Sara a few months ago, Cooper returning as a villain and now losing Oliver without being able to talk about what they are to each other, isn't going to be swayed. Also, not worth arguing with. MIT actually has a joint bachelors/masters degree in computer science. IIRC, it takes five years but if she's a genius she might have been able to do it in less since there isn't a work placement. Universities are different. In some you have to do a Masters, in others it's straight to a PhD and those who can't finish that graduate with a Masters. Felicity graduated in '09. She's 25 now so she was probably born in '89 (since we're only 3 weeks into 2015) and would have been 20 when she graduated.

I don't like it either but I can understand their logic -- it will serve to equalize the two characters since right now, Felicity is batting way above Laurel. Do we know if Felicity goes back next episode? (Please don't let it be Laurel who brings her back.) She's got to be back by 312 if she's going to argue with Roy and Laurel about Malcolm.

IGN was anti-Felicity last week too. They want her to be the funny sidekick and that's all. IMBD is awful. And in The Climb, the map of Merlyn's flight showed Starling was somewhere around Chicago. ITA. She's good as the lawyer but KC overacted her courtroom scene. Quiet and firm is more impressive. If Oliver had won, the blood debt would have been paid off. He's worried because Oliver isn't back, which means he lost the duel and now Ra's will be coming for him. Time to get out of town, fast. He bought QC because the Applied Sciences division had the OMAC technology that he needed to build the suit. But good point about Ray should be figuring it out.

I like it when actors take charge and provide input on their characters because they can see things a different way than the writers do. But not every suggestion an actor makes is a good one, and someone should have taken a look at this costume and fixed the flaws before it went out to the world to be mocked.

Ra's was already going to kill Malcolm so it wouldn't matter if he connected Malcolm to Sara's murder and Oliver's death unless Ra's is into torture too. If Oliver was lying there in the snow for 5 days, it would take sci fi to make him alive again and the EPs always said the show was grounded in reality. (Well, that's what they say.)

Nice directing on the part of Glen Winter. I think they were going for symbolism with the lights -- Felicity turned on the lights in 2x01 having rebuilt the Arrow cave after it was damaged in The Undertaking; she turned off the lights here because without Oliver, there is no "this". Laurel shut off a TV a bunch of people were watching five years after the Queen's Gambit went down. It was nice that someone remembered Sara. It would have been nicer if they had given Laurel some lines about losing her so recently and now Oliver is missing. I think Malcolm is sorrowful about Oliver dying, just not as sorrowful as he is about the fact that now Ra's is going to come after him since the blood debt is still on. For Malcolm, it's Malcolm first every time. I've love to see Diggle's and Roy's reactions to that when they come down the next morning.

Where can I find me boxing lessons like that? I may need to jump out of a window one day.

Yes. This is how they're going to get us to love Laurel, by making Felicity do the same things she did. At least one difference was that for Felicity, it was five days, not five years. For Felicity, it seems to be a case of "If Oliver couldn't do it, no one can." She shut down the lights on Diggle and Roy, she refused to help Ray when she couldn't talk him out of it. She's trying to keep anyone else from dying on her.

So the Brick trilogy is 310 - 312 and the Laurel trilogy is 311 - 313? Sneaky of the EPs to have Oliver's return in the middle there so we will tune in.