statsgirl

Do I have to like how they get there is more iffy for me because if I dislike it enough, my connection to the show will be weakened. That happened in 2B but the finale was enough to get it back. But I had the spoilers and 2A to count on, so I was thinking 2B was an anomaly. Now I know it's not, because 3A was just like it. So if this is a pattern, that they are some episodes I wish I hadn't seen and then some really good stuff, my intention to come back again after finales, whether they are mid or end of season, gets weakened each time. An equally problematic issue is what it does to the show that the hood can be worn by someone else. I don't mind that happening in the future (I love the Legacy fic by ash818) but I'm not ready for that on the show. To have Diggle wearing the hood, and he, Roy, Laurel and Ray do Oliver's job while he's gone, ending with Oliver specifically not being needed to be the Arrow, weakens the show dreadfully in my opinion. Possibly fatally.

And Oliver said he loved her, but that didn't stop him from walking away and going to fight Ra's al Ghul. That's one of the amazing things about Felicity -- that she's so open and loving even though she keeps losing those she loves. Her father left her when she was a child, she thought that her love (i.e. hacking ability) caused Cooper's death, Sara has just died, and now Oliver is going off the battle Ra's. And yet she keeps loving. (It's an interesting contrast to Laurel, who shuts people out when she gets hurt, for years.) I'm kind of torn on that. I think the writing could have been much smoother, and I don't find Ray nearly as charming as the EPs do, but I do understand Felicity to some extent. For almost two years, she thought she didn't have a shot with Oliver except as a friend, and then suddenly she did, and then almost as soon, he ended it. Then Sara died and he shut down around her. There weren't even the touches on her shoulder any more, or the soft voice. So she concluded, as she told Ray, that Oliver regretted kissing her. And because she's just about the bravest person on the show, instead of shutting down herself, she went forward with life, to a new job, a new challenge, and when Ray kissed her, possibly a new relationship. I think it depends on where they go now whether the Raylicity thing will work for me or not. Oliver's last words before leaving were "I love you". I can perfectly understand Felicity trying to bury her grief in helping Ray with his suit; but to date Ray would be OOC for her IMO.

I think they will try to make her a fully-fledged part of Team Arrow, but unless they change her personality, it won't work. The Laurel who we've known for 2 1/2 seasons isn't going to accept taking third or fourth place on the team (assuming she can dominate Roy or Felicity and take their place), but I don't think the team can function with such neophyte leader, and I think the majority of the audience will have trouble with it too. Should Diggle take orders from Laurel? He accepted them from Sara but Sara was not only an experienced and skilled fighter in her own right, she made friends with Diggle right away by meeting him on common ground. Season 3, and Laurel is still giving him and Felicity orders.. And it's going to be all kinds of awkward with both Laurel "I know you like I know my own name" and Felicity in interactions with Oliver. Laurel Canary can help out while Oliver is gone but when he gets back, I think the show would work best if Laurel is off working her own cases.

I never expected it to be the Green Arrow/Black Canary show because it's called "Arrow". Batman could get away with being called Batman and still having Robin there because Robin is Batman's sidekick, which is not what the Black Canary is to the Green Arrow, but even most of the movies didn't have Robin. Feels like a bait-and-switch, first to have Sara Canary equal to Oliver in 3B, and then to kill her off (why did they spend to much time on her if they were just going to kill her off?) and then so much of 3A devoted to making Laurel into the Black Canary over other characters who actually can fight. Ironic indeed, because of all the women killed (which I hate), Laurel is the one that would have generated the most story for other characters had she been killed, and Moira and Sara the ones who would have generated the most storylines being alive. They've doubly shot themselves in the foot by killing Moira because Malcolm is much less interesting with her gone, so they've lost not only Oliver's mother but a good antagonist for him.

I will be very upset if they kill Quentin off. He and Diggle are the Voice of Reason now that Moira is dead and Walter is gone, If Arrow wants to keep their cross-section of viewers, they have to appeal to more than the CW teen angst. I don't see how they can sell a Ray/Felicity relationship after Oliver's dying thought was of kissing her; I'll have the psych tests ready for them if they attempt to try.

It will be a test if the Mirakuru is really gone because pre-Mirakuru Slade would have respected her for having the guts to do that. It's an interesting set of parallels -- Roy, Slade and Thea all committed atrocities while under the influence of drugs, Roy to a stranger, Slade to someone very important to Thea, and Thea to someone important to herself and Roy -- and it could be a good storyline to see how they and the Team deal with the repercussions. Will we get to see it? I doubt it, there's more work for BC and the ATOM.

MachaSWicket wrote Hanging on a Wall of Stars, about Felicity dealing with what happened to Oliver in The Climb. It's how I hope the show will deal with it. Also Watercolors, where Oliver and Felicity remember Sara. Warning, you may get tears in your eyes.

This show really has problems with balancing character time. I agree that there was a lot of Sara in 2B, sometimes at the cost of other characters (e.g. Roy, Diggle) but she would have made a great recurring character, sometimes as a strong fighter they call upon when Team Arrow is over-matched, sometimes to drop in and bring a different type of storyline. Oliver's journey to being Green Arrow has to end in s5; they should have kept Sara alive to bring them new stories when the journey is done.

No, the LoA knew the terrain and the easy way to get up. Yet another reason why it was unfair, because Oliver would have been exhausted from the climb and Ra's was just up there chillin', I mean relaxing. It's the lack of gloves that bothers me. After climbing up through the snow, Oliver's fingers would have been so cold, it would have made it harder to hold the sword, and that much easier for Ra's to disarm him.

i'd never heard of him before, but he's got my vote. Interesting that he objects to the drinking on the show; pre-island Oliver did a lot but post-island Oliver barely does any.

TV.com ran a poll of which would you rather take to dinner, nerdy Felicity or dressed up Felicity, and nerdy Felicity won 3 to 1. I think they can still do it as long as Felicity doesn't see herself as the prettiest, smartest, sexiest girl in the room. (You just know Laurel does, which is one of the reasons the character doesn't work for me.) It's like the trope of no one recognizing Oliver as the Arrow with the green greasepaint, it's ridiculous but you roll your eyes and accept it..

Considering how they use Felicity to get people to like characters, I wouldn't put it past them to put Felicity in danger so that the Black Canary can save her. (just kidding, I hope) I wonder if it's something to do with Sara, since Caity Lotz will be in ep 313. This is the third episode of sweeps?

I'm afraid that having Laurel fail when she first goes out as the Black Canary is just for the purpose of lampshading that it's too soon for her. And having done that and her three episode fail arc, in 3x13 she's going to have a "come to Sara" moment, aided by the Vertigo vision of Sara, and break through that wall and succeed, so that by 3x14, she's be in full BC mode. The Laurel/BC fans will be happy, and the rest of us will be saying "Thank God that's over." It's a cheat, but I'm afraid that's how they'll do it. It's possible, but I'm less afraid of this happening because while the show tries to see Laurel, Roy and Ray as superheroes, what it has got going for them is the Oliver/Diggle/Felicity Team Arrow. To lose that while trying BC, Arsenal and ATOM would be beyond stupid. (Not saying it's not going to happen, just hoping someone at WB or CW has some sense.)

I'm curious to see whether they will do Quentin/Donna. I think Charlotte Ross said about a month ago that she's going to be back on the show. When the episode aired, I tweeted that I wanted Donna back and dating Quentin. The tweet was favorited by one of the writers so they know the idea is out there in the audience as well as PB's campaign. That would be an amazing story. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit the show's thinking, which is that men have agency and women are expendable..

I agree with every single thing you wrote, but I want to emphasize this especially because it's so true. I like Captain Jack Harkness but Malcolm Merlyn is interesting to me only in so far as he's balanced by another character equally as strong and as good at deception. I wasn't interested in seeing Oliver fight him physically, I was interested in seeing Moira fight him strategically. Then they killed her for more of Oliver's manpain, which left Malcolm just there, an outlier in the equation of the show. That's why I was hoping that Thea would get on her Moira, play Malcolm for a while and then turn the tables on him. The brain-washing plant? The complete opposite of what I was looking for from their interactions.

Wouldn't a Lance Family scene have to involve more than just Laurel and her father? Because we've had a ton of those, especially in the first two seasons, since they're the only Lances who are regulars on the show. The only way I can see it being a Lance Family scene without Dinah or flashbacks is if it's Laurel and Quentin at Sara's graveside. (Still would prefer it if Sara is not really dead thought.) All this sounds very good, and it's beyond time for Thea to have a good arc. The problem is, aside from Oliver because the show is about him, they don't seem to really care about anyone else's inner motivations and redemption arcs other than Laurel, and we've seen what feels like an endless number of those from her. Look at Roy, all the teasing over the summer about Roy finding out he killed a cop and how it was going to affect him, and it was over in one episode, in which he got a total of 6 minutes of screentime (I counted), and it was mostly about Laurel defending Ted Grant. Laurel gets more individual storytime than anyone else, including Diggle and Felicity. I really hope that this shot at becoming Black Canary is their last kick at the can trying to make Laurel happen because everything they have tried up to now has failed and it's taken up storytime that other characters could really have used. So add me in that while I will resent her being InstaCanary, it's better than seeing her train, and try, and fail, and try again, and be inspired by Sara's vision, and try again and succeed. And it would have justified what she was doing as a vigilante, that if she couldn't get them justice in court, she was going to do it outside of it. It would have been a better reason than because she's mad someone killed Sara, especially since Laurel knew Sara was involved in a dangerous crowd. Repeating this because it's exactly how I fell about it. There always seems to be a lot of Laurel in the episodes, but at least before this season, the lair was a Laurel-free zone.

I wouldn't have minded if they had actually explored Oliver's and Sara's relationship when they were with each other. There's huge conflict in their history -- she liked him but Laurel arranged to get there first, he asked her on the boat and she agreed but then she 'died' but really she was tortured, and then they got together briefly but she 'died' again and now that they're both back in Starling City, what exactly are they? Are they a passing fancy? Old friends who had been lovers temporarily? Two ships who should have connected but never had the chance to? There's a ton of unfinished business there but the show was so busy burning through storylines and the Lance Family Drama, we never really got to see what Oliver and Sara were to each other. And now we never will. In 3x02 when Felicity asks Oliver why he's so stoic when Sara "your Sara" is lying there dead, it was the first time I really felt what they could have been to each other. You know how Stephen Amells said at SDCC that Oliver would have only one woman this season because to have the caravan of women through his bedroom would undersell what they do in the season opener? Well IMO that to have Felicity start a relationship with Ray two months after that goodbye scene and Oliver's kiss would completely go against not only the goodbye but all Felicity's emotions we've been shown over the past two seasons. Felicity spent five years being single because of a guy she thought died in jail because of her. It makes no sense at all for her to move on to Ray so fast. (Not to mention, if the fandom turned against Sara for sleeping with Oliver, it's a mere shadow of what they'll do if Ray sleeps with Felicity, and the EPs want people to like Ray.) Wow. Forget the 582 women that Oliver already slept with. If Felicity is superhero catnip, Oliver is poison to any woman who gets seriously involved with him.

Done, good question. (I just hope # 1, 2 and 3 aren't the death of Sara, Laurel becoming the Black Canary and Ray becoming the Atom.)

Austin Butler, who plays Thea's creepy DJ, has been cast as the male lead. I liked Brandon Routh's film that Stephen Amell's creeped me out. For the first half, I thought I was watching a marriage fall apart, and then she started sleepwalking and they both did weird things, and I kept thinking if he loves her so much, why doesn't he get her medical help? I was surprised that it won a number of awards.

At Phoenix comic com, David Ramsey said that the two cities they are not allowed to use on the show are Gotham and Metropolis. He added that every time they want to use a DC comics reference, it comes with a ton of legal paperwork. Others have said that at the planning meetings for the next season, DC tells them which characters they can use, and others they can't. There were a number of references to Ted Kord in the first two seasons but when it came time for season 3, they weren't allowed to use the character and switched to Ray Palmer instead. I get the feeling MG and AK would love to talk about Batman and Superman and everything in the DC universe but they're not allowed to. For me, the romantic beats for Oliver and Felicity started in season 1 (e.g. the elevator shaft swing "in a very platonic way"). Sara was a FWB relationship generally thought put in there to stall Olicity. Sara even told him to get with Felicity, twice.

I don't think Felicity is going to move on permanently because she's getting as much buzz as Stephen/Oliver, but I don't put it past them to move her on temporarily. Didn't MG say the payoff was going to be in 3x13? That makes me think it's just Laurel because there isn't time to set up other payoffs for Thea or Ray, and they don't care enough about Roy. To quote Oliver "that would be my preference." I was going to say, maybe Oliver sees her in the flashback but then I remembered that he thought she was dead. The EPs have made such a hash of Laurel's and Thea's stories this season, that while there is still hope for Thea, I'm much less receptive to Laurel become BC than I was in September. There were a few ways I could have accepted Laurel becoming the Black Canary even though I'm not a fan of the character but starting with Sara's death for plot contrivance purposes and then notdoing the mystery properly, moving into Laurel not telling Quentin and not even looking for her killer but doing a Hulk impersonation ("Smash, Laurel, smash"), and now doing a four episode arc as she gets beat up (ugh) and then recovers, they've blown it more than I thought possible.

I was hoping that ended in the Cupid episode now they would only be working on the ATOM costume. sigh. Add that to MG's statement that he thinks the best romances are star-crossed and they get together, break up , get together again... and it's not the CW we have to worry about, it's Arrow's EPs.

She really does make good points, everyone is still taking away Thea's autonomy, and Sara's death was such a waste of both the character and the story. I can appreciate why she's fed up with the show.

How did the Board of Directors vote to keep in charge a CEO who tanked the stock?

But it's not enough just to have them all on the show -- they have to be fighting together for the big season finale. Otherwise they may as well stick with the two they've got. I think it really speaks to what these spoilers are that I'm mocking the show I couldn't wait to have return in September. Other than seeing how Team Arrow are when they learn Oliver is gone, there are things in the spoilers I'm in different to and things I'll fastforward but nothing that I actually do want to see. They've brought it up but people kind of need to forget it to buy Laurel with Ra's, and it's harder with Katrina Law standing there, a year older than Katie Cassidy. But I think that putting Laurel with an older man who won't put up with her histrionics and controlling would make me like the character more.