statsgirl

I'd love it if Tara Butters explained all that to her husband. But I think it would be better for their marriage and their kids if she just kept quiet. Is Enver Gjokaj supposed to become Carter's love interest? I like him and I think he's a very good actor but the way they are writing the story Jarvis has a ton more chemistry with her, in the "the person you can be honest with and who stitches you up is your soulmate" kind of way.

It's funny how an actor can be good on one show and not another, depending on whether the role is right for them or not. Katheryn Winnick, who is very good on Vikings, was pretty bad awful on the House episode One Day, One Room. I think LOL. I didn't think she was so bad in the first season she was on when she was playing opposite Eric La Salle. But then he wanted his character to be in a relationship with an African-American woman (leading to the awful Cleo-bot) and when the actor playing Mark wanted his character to be married again before he left the show, the only unattached heterosexual woman left was Elizabeth. Not only did they have anti-chemistry, as bad as SA and KC, but AK got pregnant in real life which they wrote into the show and in the relationship turned her into a shrew and him into a louse. I still want to knock their heads together.

What should have been done for Laurel. Speaking of Ming Na Wen, I remember when she played Deb Chen on ER (was everyone on ER?). She was the only person I shipped with Carter because I thought she could really handle him but the show never put them together for what I thought were racial reasons more than anything else. (Wells later gave Carter Thandie Newton as a love interest but she was a big movie star already.) I'm glad she's got a good role on AoS now.

Rich people have all sorts of consultants and advisers to help them through their day. (Even middle-class people like me have a financial adviser so we have enough money to retire.) Oliver still had money, three or four million according to SA, given his lack of business qualifications he needs a financial adviser to help him decide what funds to put the bulk in because he wouldn't have spent it all on Arrow stuff at once. Felicity was his former EA, it would have made sense for him to hire her to help him as he was doing the work to get back QC. Maybe the IRS would have looked at it askance if he had hired her as a media consultant (and he really should have hired one to get QC back since he had the money) or personal shopper but as an assistant and for general IT work, why not hire Felicity, just as he probably kept Diggle on salary as his bodyguard.

They had some pretty smoking chemistry at times on ER even though Blackthorne's character was a real douche, and I was hoping for some good stuff when they cast Alex Kingston as Dinah. Another reason it was so disappointing what Arrow did to her.

The international affiliates don't air the episodes yet, do they? If they air them at the same time as in the US, the only feedback is from people at the station and I doubt they send it to the CW. The EPs seem to rather like boxing themselves in (e.g. killing Sara blue dead rather than just having her kidnapped) so probably the finale episodes are already set and unlikely to be changed no matter what the feedback on the January/February episodes. More likely whether of not Ray Palmer/Atom gets picked up for a spin-off is going to affect the course of the show more.

Was Oliver paying Diggle a salary, or was he living off of Lyla? I wonder what she had to say about that. Felicity wasn't taking money for doing Team Arrow work in seasons 1 and 2 because she had a job she earned money at. After Oliver got booted out of QC, that ended. Maybe it's because I'm used to consulting work but I can see Felicity taking a consultant's fee while she's doing Team Arrow IT work and preparing Oliver to get QC back because it's real work and she doesn't have another source of income. But the writers wanted to have her working at a retail job so she could meet Ray Palmer (ha, ha) so they gave her a low level job at Tech Village. It's something else that doesn't quite line up with the comics because if she had worked consulting for Kord Industries, then she would have had enough money that she didn't need to work at Tech Village.

i can understand that but I do resent it when things get dropped in the show (e.g. the bottle of wine Oliver promised Felicity) and MG just handwaves it with "I'll put it in the comics". I know they want to burn through stories on the show but they often end up doing a half-assed job because they think they can finish it in the comics. I think we're also supposed to get the impression that he is so dedicated to his cause that he's discarded all creature comforts. Still, there should have been enough to pay Felicity a salary so she didn't have to work at Tech Village.

That's just stupid. I had to watch twice to even see Diggle there in the shadows. Good promo for the CW, bad move to push it as an Arrow heroes promo.

I keep tuning in to Downton Abbey hoping Edith will catch a break but she never does. I think Fellowes must enjoy torturing her, if it wasn't bad enough being left at the altar for no good reason at all (her line "Spinsters get up for breakfast" the next day while Mary was lounging in bed was so sad) to finally falling in love with a man only to have him married to a woman in an asylum, and then vanish in Germany when he tries to get a divorce, and then find herself pregnant and have to give up the baby while she watches her sisters' babies grow up. Stay tuned to see her catch an almost fatal and highly communicable disease. I honestly can't stand Mary and the spoilers for the coming season are such a turn-off. Just give me five minutes with her to tell her what I think of her behaviour. For me, it makes her less impressive or admirable because she knows she's in the wrong but she's going to keep doing it anyway. I think there's nothing wrong in having an illness or a mistaken belief; what I have a hard time forgiving is when you know it but you don't try to get better.

Didn't Roy have Thea hit him to deal with... something, I forget what. Hitting/boxing seems to be the EPs go to way to deal with loss and anger. I saw this on imdb. It feels like a fake to me so I didn't want to put it in the spoiler thread but I just thought I'd put it out here.

If his mom had that much insurance, why was Oliver sleeping on the floor of the foundry (and why couldn't he buy his own bed)? He didn't get to keep the backers' money, did he? Once Ray won control of QC, the backers would have kept their money. i

And then, in spite of his better judgement, Diggle is going to let her play with Team Arrow because that way at least he'd be able to watch out for her and keep her from getting hurt or killed? I can't wait. or what 10Eleven12 just said. We know there are better ways to write Laurel. Why aren't they doing it?

I just can't wrap my mind around how they could write these "epic" moments. If Laurel would talk to Felicity about how she felt when Tommy died, as opposed to how she felt when Oliver 'died' on the Queen's Gambit, it might be okay but I can't see how Laurel would know about Oliver's feelings for Felicity, much less accept that another woman had replaced her as the woman Oliver loves. But if Diggle talked to her about her reckless behavior, how do they get from there to Laurel, virtually unskilled, going out in the field to fight criminals along with Team Arrow? Diggle's going to say "Laurel, you're being too reckless because you don't know how to fight yet" and "Oliver didn't want you in danger", and Laurel's going to go right back out there to fight.

They could write to KC's acting strengths. There is nothing sweet or fluffy about Regina on OUaT or Anneliese Keating on How To Get Away With Murder and yet both those women are badasses and leading ladies on their shows, and we know AK can write a Mrs. Frederic (CCH Pounder) on Warehouse 13 because he already has. If Laurel isn't going to be Oliver's love interest, make her the Melinda May (personality-wise) of Arrow.

Maybe they really do have no clue what to do with her and that's why all her milestones are coming in a four episode trilogy. (Oh, MG and AK, can't even get that one right.) They're hoping this will take and people will like her as the Black Canary and want her back, but just in case viewers don't like her, they're getting it all wrapped up in one swoop? I'm still baffled why they didn't write Laurel's journey to Black Canary better. It's true the chemistry with Oliver was awful and Laurier didn't fly but the Black Canary stuff could easily have been written much better. There is no way she's going to not be the Black Canary permanently but I can see this happening. Yet another character, this time Sara metaphorically, thrown under the bus for Laurel. Freud would have had a field day with this. "You know, there was this one time when I was meeting Tommy, and there was a guy with a really really bad haircut and he was there with a Japanese guy in a suit and I just couldn't stop thinking of Oliver." The writers will conveniently forget how furious Laurel was at Oliver for cheating on her with Sara and just have her remembering being sad. If they equate Tommy/Laurel to Oliver/Felicity, I might be able to take it.

I thought that was interesting. The director gets the script one or two weeks before they start shooting, so it sounds like they start writing the script about 6 weeks before they do the actual shooting, and shoot a month to three (in the summer) before it's aired. Kind of confirms that there's no time to make any real changes this season in response to feedback for the Oliver-less episodes, although they could do some tweaking.

Another problem is that an "epic" scene between Diggle and Laurel is totally unearned because she's yet to notice his existence. I understand that he's trying to get people excited for the Laurelness of the episodes but using "epic" like that just weakens his whole campaign.

That's actually pretty funny. Always good to know how they're thinking. I found the comparison of writing for film, TV and comics interesting.

Jullian Fellowes based Mary on his wife, who I guess he loves because she always gets the best. (I think he must have based Edith on someone he hated.) I was afraid to watch The Good Wife last night in case something bad happened to Cary. Glad to know it's safe.

I can understand to some extent why they thought that they had to have Oliver gone to have Black Canary and Arsenal come into their own. I just don't understand why they aren't doing it better. For Roy, yeah, it makes sense. Oliver has been training him for a year now and they botched it last season with cutting his scenes and putting too much emphasis on Sara and Slade and the Land Family Drama (the scene with Roy fighting Nyssa for get Dinah back is great) so it makes sense that he steps up when Oliver is gone because if Oliver is there, there really isn't much need for him to take a pivotal role. But it's way too soon for Laurel to become the Black Canary, both in fighting skills and because there's been zero development in her to get the empathy and altruism that a superhero needs She's still out there because she wants to beat someone up because of Sara, and as MG said, she's still so unskilled that she's going to get beaten up herself. Do they think that we will feel sympathy for Laurel when she gets beaten up? Cuz it doesn't really work like that, you have to like the person to start with to feel sympathetic when they get hurt. It would have been so easy to make Laurel a real part of Team Arrow while Oliver is gone. Start with keeping her a lawyer who helps the Team, all of the Team not just Oliver (and who invited Diggle and Felicity to the press conference too). Then have her being nice to the team even though she's frantic to find Sara's killer. Have her ask, not tell, Felicity if she could run the check on girlfriend-beater, and thank her afterwards with a gift or some small token acknowledging that yes, Felicity did do her a favor. Have Laurel interact more with the Team instead of only speaking to them when she wants something, and when Oliver disappears, she offers her help, any help she can provide it's their to ask for. It's not hard to write. Unless they really do want Laurel not to fit in with Team Arrow and have all that resentment (theirs and mine) around. But I really can't think why the EPs would think that's a better story.

Me too on Downton Abbey. I liked it the first season but since then it's been a victim of it's own success. Mary is the Laurel Lance of the show, a very high opinion of herself and jealous of anyone else getting attention, mean to her younger sister, and much more beloved by the writer than by me. I wish the Emmys and other awards were so snobby. ("Prestige = snobby" in my book). Some of the best and most important stories aren't the snobby ones. If Gillian's Island can teach you not to give up and to make alliances with people far different from you, isn't that just as important as the production values of Boardwalk Empire? If Agent Carter does well, I wonder if that will reflect back on Arrow since MG's wife is one of the producers of that show.

I can't decide if I want Felicity to be angry at Thea at first and then decide she needs saving from Malcolm, or just go straight into talking Diggle into bringing her into the Arrow Family. partly to protect her from Merlyn and partly because that's what Oliver would have wanted. I imagine Roy would want her to know -- at least he'd have an excuse for not telling her last season. The idea of Felicity and Diggle feeling they need to protect Thea, and Thea angry and resisting and going to Malcolm, could be some good TV. Felicity and the rest of Team Arrow interacting with Thea over Oliver's death is making me excited for the episode again. Yeah, I'm betting that this is going to be it, that Laurel is going to call on Felicity for help and Felicity will talk Diggle and Roy into helping her, and that's how we get to BC and Arsenal working together. I'd love that too. We know Felicity is going to end up helping Laurel because that's how she's written, but I hope she gets to go ragey on Laurel first. And her scenes with Palmer? Only about making his new suit, please.

It worked for me on my desktop. I agree with some of what she says but I think that she overstates the good Laurel of season 1, which would make her disillusionment of season 2 and 3 greater. And I disagree that Laurel is a reactive character -- in s2 she was active in her addictions and her rejection of Dinah and Sara.

I was dissapointed in Galavant overall (and I couldn't tell the two women apart) but Omundson and his henchman (is that Jones?) are great. Basically, Sleepy Hollow is throwing away their Oliver/Felicity pairing which everyone loved about the show, and shoving their Oliver back with his initial true love Laurel/Katrina even though their relationship was and is dysfunctional. It's like watching a trainwreck. Helix is the show I love to hate, because it's so very very bad. I watch it in order to snark.