statsgirl

But would the audience accept Laurel as the Black Canary if Sara were still alive?

Except the pattern of this show has been to have an original character (Yao Fei, Billy Wintergreen) who then gets replaced by the real hero (Oliver, Slade). That's the justification for Laurel becoming the Black Canary now -- it's time for the true superhero to come to fruition, and many people are happy she's finally getting her chance. That's part of the problem, but I think the bigger problem is that Sara/Caity Lotz was just plain better at the job. If Sara had been a half-baked Black Canary, like Yao Fei was for the Hood or Billy Wintergreen for Deathstroke, and Laurel/KC do a superior job, it might have worked. But personally I don't see that happening.

He is so obnoxious. It's great. Good for Grant Gustin, I'd want to kick his ass too. However, we do see it in context -- Oliver wants to keep Barry from getting killed. People who care about you don't give you advice only when you want it -- they give it when they think you need it.

That's just the first page. There's a page 2 as well. I was going to quote it but it's long, long, long, and pretty much the same stuff, basically they're so excited that Katie Cassidy will finally have the decent writing to make Laurel into the Black Canary.

In the season opener of both shows we saw Barry go to Starling City to get advice from Oliver on how to be a hero when he first got his superspeed.

I'm getting really really tired of the writers beating down Oliver so much. Come on, guys, think of something new for those big bucks. No but why should there be? The point of this whole storyling is not to really find Sara's killer but for Laurel to be justified in beating up people, either with a bat or her fists. Because this can't be said enough. And I think that would actually make a better story. No, I think they love the idea of Laurel as the Black Canary too much. What they'll have is Laurel trying and failing, then continue trying and finally succeed and rise to her comic book glory. That way they take care of the complaints that it's happening too fast, and meet the KC fans expectations. For me, the only thing worse than a Laurel/BC origin story from scratch is to have it run on and on and on.

Maybe not bitter but idolizing Batman Begins and (inadvertantly?) reproducing it themselves? She took down Roy. I'll leave it to you to decide if it's impressive.

At this point, I'm trying to be optimistic and say that the Arrow portion of the cross-over is supposed to show Team Flash that their up-to-now light-hearted approach to being vigilantes isn't the reality and things are darker and more violent than they appear. Yeah, I think that's much of the problem this season. Between Laurel's origin story, which cost us Sara, and Ray's origin story, which is affecting Felicity and turning Diggle into Pandarus, and little Diggle, Felicity or Roy on Team Arrow, it's a big problem. I hope Ray gets his suit fast. Or at least we see the evolution on screen. This way is just a mess.

I think that would have been a much better idea. They could have bantered the same, just about work instead, and if the EPs wanted to have a real alternative love interest for Felicity, they completely blew this one because she seemed to go from 0 to -20 to 120 in just a few episodes. I've spent more time trying to fanwank Felicity's mindset in the past 4 episodes than I did in the first two seasons. She's being written to advance the plot rather than give us insight into her character. I agree. But that speech at dinner just seemed to over the top because she doesn't know him well enough to know that everything he does is altruistic. Did he inherit money or make it, because the kind of money he has, you don't get by being altruistic unless your name is Bill Gates and even he didn't at first. She hasn't been asked to put her life on the line for Ray but I wouldn't be surprised if she would now after the Draw Back Your Bow episode. The dinner speech wasn't just a "he's a good businessman and won't cheat you" speech, it was "he's such a great guy, whatever he wants to do with your land you can believe that it's for the best for the world at large.' Even if she has worked closely with him for the past four weeks, even if he did give her lots of time off when she asked, it's impossible that she could believe in him to that extent right now. She's known the guy for less than two months and worked for him just over five weeks. Keith Dutton, a psychologist at Oxford, has rated the jobs psychopaths are most likely to have. #1.... CEO. I want Felicity to be more skeptical about a man she's only know for a few weeks, and one who crosses boundaries whenever he gets an impulse. I understand why she went to the dinner, I understand why she supported her boss but that speech made her seem impossibly naive. I want my old Felicity back.

Felicity saw the good in Oliver, but not right away. She helped him even though she was suspicious of his stories. She agreed to join his mission only as long as it took to find Walter, and then the very next episode she quit on him because she thought he was being too cruel. It took 20 episodes, seven months, from the time she met Oliver to telling Quentin that wanting to help people makes him kind of a hero. Ray Palmer got her hero speech within five weeks, based on what? Telling her he wants to help Star City, talking about giving back free energy and re-naming Queen Consolidated. Hopefully the dress didn't factor into it. I think it's clear now that Ray Palmer isn't a stalker, if he were, he would have made his move by now. But it's not a given that he's not a sociopath; they're charming, give you stuff to get you to do what they want, and it can take years, even decades, before people see them for who they really are. She's not a teenager any more, she's not in a relationship with Ray, and to wholeheartedly be Ray's cheerleader this soon makes her seem , okay, I'll say it, stupid. Because if he were a sociopath, the first two things he would do is something that looks good for the city (e.g. giving energy back) and re-name the company with his own name. She didn't trust Moira from the beginning because the first thing she learned about Moira was that she was not to be trusted. That's different than distrusting someone from the first time you meet them without knowing anything about them. When Moira refused to do anything about Thea's paternity secret, Felicity didn't know what to do. Her plan hadn't gone beyond going to Moira and telling her the secret was out. Even after everything she knew Moira had done and how untrustworthy she was, Felicity still thought that Moira would do the right thing and tell her children. He didn't change though, he just became more of what he was when we saw him at MIT with Felicity. He got her defenses down by telling her he valued her (compare to the VP position and designer dress from Ray), he thought he was right and justified in doing anything he wanted to get his way, and he refused to listen to Felicity when she said what he was doing was wrong and he was going to get caught. Later he took credit for her program, which she interpreted as protecting her but was really taking her glory for his own. Felicity should have learned a hard lesson that what a person appears to be is not necessarily who he really is. And yet two weeks later, she's giving that speech about Ray Palmer when she's only known him for a very short time. My father was a psychotherapist and he had an expression "If you tell me something, I believe you. If I find you you've lied, I'm not surprised." The older I get, the more I realize how true that is. Felicity doesn't have to give up trusting people and believing in them, but as she matures, she needs to realize that people are not always what they seem on the surface, and that they can turn out to be someone completely different. Giving that speech for Ray is either OOC or they are writing her stupid for the plot.

And they did it with Barry already in Three Ghosts when he was disappointed in how not-hero-like Oliver was. I guess the people watching The Flash haven't seen it yet, and Barry hasn't seen it to this extent. But I'm not happy how much of a douche Oliver is this season. I'm hoping Barry doing the salmon ladder ends up looking better than in the clip because right now it makes Sally look tacky. I guess all the cool kids want to be vigilantes this year. I wonder if it's going to translate into real life stuff as well. NCIS did an episode about real people who dress up in costumes to fight crime in their area, apparently it's a thing. I'm okay with seeing the Atom's origin story, but I think they should limit it to one origin story a year, otherwise there isn't enough time to do it properly or Oliver gets pushed aside. There wasn't time to do Roy's with Sara's running at the same time and so Roy ends up being a tack-on. I don't want that to happen with Ray because the emphasis is on Laurel.

This is why Sara will always be a better Black Canary for me.

Co-sign me for the Sonny Corinthos hate, especially if you'll add Jason Morgan (and Shawn, now that the old Jason is gone). But some of the things that made me hate Sonny -- that everyone said how wonderful he is even while the character on my screen was awful; that his pain was greater than anyone else's; that he justified what he did because he was always right; that he never paid the price for what he did wrong; but most of all that the showrunner was in love with him and he got more stories and screentime than he deserved -- is what I don't like about Laurel too. It's true that Laurel isn't the centre of the show though, even though she gets more storylines and islands that I care to watch.

That's funny/interesting because if anyone on the show has the innocence of the unicorn's virgin, it's Felicity. I think that's the problem, that Felicity feels that she has all the answers she needs right now because if she were thinking straight, she'd know that she doesn't. She doesn't know Ray Palmer well enough to know if he's a really a good guy or just putting on a show. He comes in, takes over QC, says he's going to save Starling... er... Star City, buys Tech Village just to have her working for him, jumps her at least four levels ahead in management, gives her mother an expensive prototype wearable tech, and supplies her with an expensive dress and jewels for a business supper. Felicity very much underestimated Moira and just got completey snowed by Cooper. I love Felicity but I'm thinking that they are writing her to have flat learning cutve when it comes to trusting shady people. I just saw a good documentary on psychopaths (followed by one on Jian Ghomeshi), and honestly, I wouldn't rule Ray out. That is, I will because I know the show isn't going there but in real life, I wouldn't. The show wants it both ways -- to make Ray a good guy and to have him shady enough that it keeps the audience guessing. It doesn't work because as Robert Docherty said, "As much as the Hunger Games and Arrow masterminds have still gotten right recently, the crucial things they’ve gotten wrong so far -- and may keep getting wrong for a while yet – have caused too much doubt for even loyal fans to go completely on faith anymore." Oliver's always been a jerk like that, taking it out of Felicity when life doesn't go the way he wants it to go. I don't know if we're supposed to think it romantic, that she's his 'unconditional positive regard' but it's really annoying me this year because she deserves better than the way he treats her. After a point, as a viewer I can't be so much in love with Oliver that I handwave how he treats those who are close to him.

Yeah, the last third of the season is still to be written but I don't think they would change horses unless the Laurel/BC episodes tank, and they won't know that until it's too late to change.

If four episodes of Laurel would guarantee she wouldn't be the Black Canary and in the Arrow lair, I'd take it. It would just mean a 19 episode season for me. However, I think there's no way she's not going to end up as the BC so four episodes of watching her try and fail and try again and then succeed holds a negative interest factor for me. It's not that I hate Laurel, it's that I hate the amount of time her many stories take up when I'd rather be watching any character but her. I don't think it's possible at all. It seems much more likely that this will solidify Laurel as the Black Canary. She's not Sara, she's her own Canary. And speaking of "Canaries", if EBR is in Hawaii right now, it's likely that Felicity won't be in the episode or have a very minor role. Another reason I don't care. I think it's as Matt Roush (TV Guide) said, that most viewers may not like Laurel but they don't hate her enough to stop watching the show itself. Likely the ratings will stay the same and if there is any affect, it will be a gradual loss of viewers. I think that's why they killed Sara, so that there was no other choice but Laurel.

That's why I wish they had made her Manhunter or some other DC character instead. It would upset the smallest group of people compared to the other alternatives. People who like Sara would still have their Black Canary, people who like Laurel/KC would still have her as some kind of superhero vigilante, and those who don't like her wouldn't have to worry that she was going to be a major part of Team Arrow. I think the only people who would really hate it are the comic book purists who think that Laurel Lance must be the Black Canary no matter what, but this show has been messing with comic canon all the time.

Arrow is more like a tragic opera, Oliver burdened like Seigfried, or something more modern by Samuel Barber. (I was traumatized by Vanessa this summer.) Thanks, but no thanks. Although I'd really like to hear Barrowman, Haynes, Rickards and even Amell sing.

I've been hearing "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" in my head for a long time now. Yet another island isn't going to change things unless they change Laurel's personality. What is it they say about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, AK and MG? BunsenBurner, that was a great comparison. Is there a thread that covers talking about characters other than in relationship?

I think they're a lot more complaisant about Arrow now. It's almost sure to get a season 4 pick-up so they don't have to try as hard any more, hence the more spoilers. It's an easy way to get people to watch whereas tiny hints with mystery is more work. The Flash is the show they're putting their efforts into now, plus Berlanti's Mysteries of Laura and putting together a Supergirl show for his DC empire. I also think that AK focusing on The Flash and Belanti on all his projects has left Marc Guggenheim as the one really in charge of Arrow and for overall management, I suspect he's the weakest of the three. For whatever reason, the storylines on Arrow this season have had more holes than every before (it's the Swiss cheese season), Oliver has gone back to being douchey and Felicity and Diggles are being written OOC (just look at the debates as to whether there is justification for Felicity being Ray's prime cheerleader of she's just been blinkered), the much pulbicized Thea/Malcolm story line has been missing for 5 of the 7 episodes, and Who Killed Sara? is one of the worst written mysteries on TV. And then there's Laurel being made Black Canary which I can't see being a plus overall for the show. (Either she's great in the job, in which case a significant' part of the audience rolls their eyes, or she's stumbling, which wouldn't please her fans and is an annoyance for those who aren't.) Even Stephen Amell, who is the show's biggest booster, seems to be discouraged by the audience's reaction and the questions.

replying in Slings and Arrows thread

I understand what Felicity sees in Ray. He's got Oliver's desire to make Starling a better place, he's got her own exuberance and not knowing where the boundaries are, and he seems like a pretty good boss, giving her a position at her worth and time off when she needs it. Also, he's not bad to look at. Or pretty much what apinknightmare said. But..... it's been badly done and too Pretty Woman for me to even enjoy the storyline much less take it seriously. And the speech at dinner felt like something from a Mel Brooks movie. They're trying to get us to accept Ray by having Felicity be his cheerleader and then they want to play with the idea that he's really sinister with that suit and the dwarf star stuff. But they can't play it both ways. Either we take Felicity's speech at face value, or we look at the other stuff and think that Felicity is being played. (That's a big problem with this season, that all of Oliver, Felicity and Diggle are acting stupid to drive the plot.) Laurel didn't question it so much as assume that Tommy's only purpose was to get into her pants, even though he had been there before. Felicity doesn't think she's worth that kind of extravagance and that the man wouldn't do it just for sex with her ... which leads into its own kind of problem in this episode. Agreed that she would not change her moral beliefs, but she's also not the kind of person who would expect these kinds of presents. Even more so because growing up in Vegas, Donna would have taught her that that kind of gift comes with strings attached. Maybe Felicity did think that it was the same thing as Oliver getting her a dress for the Dodger's auction. He wanted her to look good, so he provided the dress. And in Ray's case, a fortune in diamonds. So that leaves us with the options that either Felicity is shallow because an expensive dress and necklace leaves her panting for dressing up and not asking the questions of Ray that she should be (like why did he buy a dress for her specifically when there were a hundred other women who he could have gone to the dinner with), or she's become stupid and doesn't question Ray's actions. Frankly, neither possibility thrills me. I'd be shocked if she had to give the dress back at the end of the night. That was a gift. There are bonuses, and there are bonuses. If he gave her $2500 of tech as a thank you, I'd still think it was overkill and inappropriate. But a $2500 dress? I wish Moira could have a talk with Felicity on trust and boundaries and how men aren't always what you think they are. And so are we, it looks like.

The first set of episodes with the flashing neon triangles lost a lot of my love for this show, and now, even though this episode was better, I still don't really care any more. I thought the Dawn/sperm plot was awful, even if I did end up feeling sorry for Dawn. (Note: yes, get an egg donation. It will be in better shape than yours.) Other than that, the plots were interesting, except for the guy who kept interrupting Charlie, but I don't care about these people any more. The new shrink is super annoying, and Maggie is even more annoying around him. Nice to see Robert Joy though.

I'm going to miss the show. I liked the characters, it was different than the usual cops and bad guys and of the shows currently on TV, this was the best at getting the medicine right. Netflix picked up Longmire; I wish someone would do the same with this show because I like it a whole lot more than Longmire.

It broke my heart the way other fics don't. Very well done.