statsgirl

This speculating is full of all the tropes I most hate about TV show relationships. I don't see why Felicity can't resolve her feelings about Ray before the winter hiatus. Since we're going to be finding out about his true agenda, she can help him with that, with the tech and whatever else he needs. And when she's found out that he's a good guy, she can let him in on some Team Arrow doings. Oliver may be furious at her when he gets back but honestly I'd rather see Ray Palmer down in the lair than Laurel there. (Also, I see Palmer as more of a team player than Laurel is.) I would really rather prefer Ray to have a platonic connection with Felicity as she helps him become a superhero. We've been talking about Ugly Betty in the Quiver thread and I remember that the revolving door of love interests for both Daniel and Betty was why i stopped watching the show. I agree that the scene between Oliver and Felicity will most likely be Felicity asking him not to go and Oliver saying he has to, and that it will be "voluntary" in exchange for Thea's life or to train for some reason, that's a classic movie trope. However, I agree with Limbo that Felicity has never been selfish so she'll be worried for his safety rather than angry at him for going. She's disappointed in him for ending their relationship before it began for his emotional cowardice but she's always seen him as a hero and that is part of what a hero does. I think the only thing that could turn me off Felicity is for her to date Palmer while Oliver is missing and they're all worried about him. Either she loves him or she doesn't, and if she does, she shouldn't be dating someone else while he's missing. When he's home and healthy and refusing to be with her, sure. But not when he's in danger. One of the reasons I got into Arrow was because they didn't always do the expected or what everyone else is doing. I'd be so disappointed if they did it now.

How long I want Arrow to last depends on whether it's going to be 2A or 2B. After everyone has got their superhero costume, what will the show do then? My Oliciity wish is pretty simple: at the end of 307, I want a quiet moment between Oliver and Felicity acknowledging that even if they can't be together right not (for reasons), there is no one else for either of them. With possibly a handtouch. Other than that,I'd like to see Diggle get a good storyline rather than one with the Suicide Squad or propping up everyone else's stories, and a good one for Thea too that's about her rather than being Malcolm's puppet or something half-assed like Roy is getting. And they could throw Roy something more than a bone too.

I think it was AK who talked about Felicity needing an actual alternative so that she could make a choice and Oliver wouldn't be the one she got by default. If that's the case, they need to show more than they have shown so far, and possibly more than the 'business' date in the next episode. It would make sense to have Oliver fighting for her in a real fight later in the season, but the way they burn through ideas on this show, it may be that it all gets settled in Draw Back Your Bow. Every time Felicity wears a blue dress in a scene with Ray, like the blue dress he got her for 3x07, and I think about the red dress she wore in The Undertaking and in The Calm, I wonder if they really are doing the red pill/blue pill analogy on purpose,

Loved Emma/Elsa scenes. But poor Emma, she can only have one good relationship per season. For the first two it was Snow, then last season it was Hook, and now since she has Elsa, Hook is keeping things from her. Didn't Elsa and Hans find the urn while Anna was missing and release Ingrid? I think Hook's heart was red because he's not as black as he's painted. For a pirate, he's been pretty noble and unselfish.

I think it's speculation because they were promoting Ray as Felicity's new love interest like crazy over the summer and there's been so little indication of it as yet. I think the only real spoilers we have are 1. We will get a hint of Ray's plan at the end of 3x07; 2. Laurel will get her BC costume in 3x10; 3. Oliver will appear only in flashbacks in some episodes 3x10 +; 4. JJ Ramirez got the script for 3x12 so Ted Grant is in that episode. Matt Mitovich at TV line said he has more spoilers for Arrow, and if anyone has questions (i.e. spoiler questions he has the answers to), email them to him at insideline@tvline.com

BR was contracted for 16 episodes (although it may be 18, I can't quite remember and I don't think MG could either). He wasn't in 3x04 or 3x06 so he's got at least 12 more to go which takes him to 3x18, 3x19 if he's not in the Flash crossover one either. They're going to have to up his storyline to justify all those episodes and how much the actor must cost. I hope Diggle talks to Oliver about the idea that Felicity is moving on. Boy needs a slap upside the head if he thinks she should wait to see if he ever is available for her. I hope Diggle doesn't talk about it to Felicity though. It has to be on Oliver to decide what he wants and to make a move. If Oliver and Felicity have a touching scene in 3x09, I don't want her to start a relationship with Ray while he's gone and she's worrying about him. Although if the scene in 3x09 is Oliver telling her to move on with her life and date Ray, I will throw things at the TV. It would be great if Felicity could develop some wearable tech for Oliver during her job.

I like Anthfan's shorter fic. In the longer ones, I think Felicity gets too weepy. Going to an author's bookmarks works on fanfiction.net too if you go to their page and look for authors they like. It's often how I find new authors. Doesn't always work but most if the time it's very good. At this point, I don't care. I like how regular and in-character her characters are. I'm especially appreciative this season because I know when the on-screen Arrow episode sucks, I can wait a day for her fic and all's right in the Arrow universe.

LOL. It looks like Ray is making an announcement at the podium and Felicity is beside him. It's possible the necklace is a bonus for her work and in Ray's weird way, jewelry is an acceptable bonus for an attractive woman. Especially if it's wearable tech, which would be perfect for Felicity. On the other hand, a necklace to spy on what she does in her complicated life would be fun too.

That would be proof that the writers are watching General Hospital since they just did that storyline. Although I have to say, I've been waiting and waiting for a wearable that would replace having to carry my mobile phone around, Giving me access to the internet would be a bonus. I think Brandon Routh said that Ray went after Felicity for her tech expertise and then when he met her, he found her more "fetching" than he had imagined. One big advantage Ray has over Oliver is that he's according Felicity her due in terms of her brains, unlike Oliver who made her his EA. I wonder if they're going to do Ray/Felicity half-assed because they don't want to upset the fandom too much just when they're going to make Laurel the Black Canary? ETA: so it looks like Ted Grant will be back in Uprising ep 3x12. Just in time for Oliver's return.

I think many shows do that to themselves, tank the show because they're so afraid to put the couple together. Including Arrow, it looks like. I gave up on Ugly Betty watching Daniel and Betty go from partner to partner. I came back when the cancellation was announced to see if they would finally get together.

I'd take that scene over Oliver telling Felicity that since he can't be with her, he's glad she's found someone else who will be good to her.

it's what should happen though. If Oliver and Felicity are still at odds when he goes missing, it's not as strong a story. Barry is the perfect nerd match for Felicity but he's not the perfect billionaire CEO match, that's why they had to ramp it up for Ray. I think we'll have a better sense of the direction of the show after the next episode. They spent the first part of the season putting the players in place, now it's time to get them moving. MG said that we would know more about why Ray is in Starling City and what he wants at the end of the 3x07 episode; presumably we'll have a better sense of Felicity's relationship with Ray when we find out about the dinner and the dress, and what sort of a conduit Cupid is for Oliver and Felicity i.e. whether she brings them together to resolve some issues or whether Oliver gives up on Felicity and lets her move on to Ray. And then there's also Thea's new DJ and whether Malcolm Merlyn cares.

I thought Mabius was very good too. But they only hinted at putting them together when the show got cancelled. Without that, like without Emily Deschanel's pregnancy, the couples might still be dancing around each other. Oh I gave on being a fangirl of the show during the Julia/Darcy years too, just as years 3 and 4 of Castle were painful. But once the characters stopped being stupid and the couples moved together, I thought both shows got better. And the Murdoch wedding was really well done.

Ugly Betty was a show I gave up on because it was taking too long to put the couple together and they were acting too stupid along the way but I liked the ending. I was watching Murdoch Mysteries, who went through it's own time of stupidity by the leads, but they finally got married in the 100th episode and it was the perfect way for two detectives to get married (they even asked the priest to rush through the ceremony so they could go catch the bad guys). Then they prevented another crime on their honeymoon. So it can be done, putting the couple together on an active/mystery show and still have it interesting.

I think they have to do this because if Oliver and Felicity are still as far apart as they are now and Oliver goes missing and it's all Laurel and Ray in January, I think a number of viewers won't be watching. I'm still looking for a reason to watch then. Ray could be giving her the dress because he needs her at a work dinner and she doesn't have anything with her.

I thought that was a really good article that focussed on what the writers were probably thinking they were doing for Roy's story. It's the first one I've read that saw this as an episode about Roy rather than a Laurel one, and what he lays out would have been good storytelling,. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to pull that off in less than 6 minutes of actual screentime.

I agree. But I don't think that's the message the EPs are getting. A lot of people are happy that Laurel is becoming the Black Canary and not questioning that her story looks more like Malcolm Merlyn's than it does Oliver's or Sara's. As long as people accept Laurel as the BC, that's all the producers want.

I liked Sara, As a person, she was someone I could see spending time with and I liked her friendship with Felicity. There aren't enough (not any now) female friendships on the show and those two were believable But the biggest reason I miss her is that as long as Sara was around being awesome, there was hope that Laurel would remain a lawyer and become another character like Manhunter.

Guilty was supposed to be Roy's big episode with the cop-killing reveal and Oliver not abandoning him. What it worked out to was just over two minutes with Felicity and three plus with Oliver, half of which was the candle scene, because the episode ended up being all about Laurel. A total of less than six minutes in an episode that was supposed to be about his growth. Roy's story had even less time in Corto Maltese because that was about Laurel's AA boyfriend battering along with Thea and Malcolm. The B plot in Guilty and not even the C plot in Corto Maltese. Roy isn't a favorite of mine but I'm really bitter on his behalf. It could have been a good story. If they're going to do Laurel becoming the BC, I wish they would have episodes about her and separately episodes about Team Arrow so I could skip the Laurel ones entirely, and the other characters would have enough time for their stories. Of course, they're not going to do it precisely for that reason -- that even if only a fraction of viewers skipped the Laurel episodes, the ratings would still go down and they don't want that.

LOL, if only that were the case. I wonder if Ray is SWMing Oliver, taking over QC, doing the salmon ladder, going after his love interest? It would be a good parallel, Cupid in a red dress because Felicity wore one and Ray doing the salmon ladder because it's Oliver's. I think I'd enjoy that more than what's probably going to happen, which is Ray is a good guy, albeit weird, and he's going to join Oliver's crusade to clean up Starling... er I mean Star City. But what if it doesn't work and there is no BoP spin-off? We're left with Laurel being a costumed vigilante and working with Team Arrow in the lair because there's no way to put that genie back in the bottle. If the original intention had been to put Oliver's and Laurel's stories side by side, maybe I would still be watching the show but this way with KC playing Laurel. As it is, I thought Roy got really short-changed on his big mirakuru cop-killing story line because the episode was given to Laurel.

If I recall correctly, every time Oliver had a 'morning after' scene, it was interrupted by Felicity calling him to do Arrow things. (The one exception was with Helena who got up herself to go kill.) I think it would be fitting to have Oliver be there for Felicity when she wakes up.

One thing I think the writers do well is to write to the strengths of the actor. I think when Susanna Thompson got some of her season 1 scripts, she must have gone 'WTH?' but because she's a good actor, she put all sorts of shades of grey into it and made Moira into an even more complex character, although the start of it was there in the pilot when she had Oliver kidnapped. David Ramsey was found to be really good at understated comedy and so Diggle became funnier and more sarcastic (much like Worf did when he moved from ST:TNG to Deep Space Nine). EBR made Felicity funny from her first episodes so she got comedy too, and I like that this season they've found CH's strengths and are writing to them. I think the problem with Laurel is that KCs strength is playing entitled and bitchy and that didn't fit the plan they had for Laurel. This season, they're writing more to that and it's making Laurel a more believable character. From the spoiler thread I'm answering this here because it's about the planning and the writing for the show. I thought "Guilty" didn't work nearly as well as it should have and it was because they tried to shoehorn in both Laurel's origin story and Oliver's mentoring of Roy, which is Oliver's origin story. But then I remembered that Sara's origin story worked alongside Oliver's, and so did Slade's and Roy's but Laurel's doesn't, and I think the reason is that Sara and Roy and Slade's stories were like Oliver's -- big and comic-booky and ridiculous but because they were all the same, they fit together. Laurel's origin story, like Laurel's addiction arc last season, is from another CW show. There is nothing wrong with Laurel seeing her sister killed and deciding to take up boxing lessons because her life as an ADA isn't enough. But it doesn't fit with Oliver's shipwreck and five years tortured, Sara on the Amazo and with the LoA, and Slade and Roy's mirakuru powers. It's apples and oranges and I don't think that even with another actress Laurel's realistic transformation would have worked with Oliver's grand island experience. Certainly with Laurel starting training 7 years later than Oliver she couldn't become his equal or superior in fighting without some mirakuru-like transformation. What you end up with is a tortured soul donning a hood to honor a promise, and a realistic ordinary person dressing up in black leather because other people are doing it. If the original plan was to call it Starling and have Oliver and Laurel equal stories, I'm glad wiser heads prevailed.

I like Iris too, and I like her interactions with Barry. Personally I think Laurel's reactions to Oliver, her parents, Tommy and Sara had more to do with why people didn't like her character than the fact that she was out of the loop. Tommy didn't find out till nearly the end of the season but he was a favorite long before that.

I took it to mean "you're not the boss of me and I don't have to listen to you" which is something she pulled on Quentin in season 1 when he tried to provide police protection for her and her client. And then of course they attacked her. I see it as consistent with them showing that she's not very smart or self-aware (as others have said), in contrast to on-screen characters saying how smart she is. Especially now when she's only reacting to the immediate stimulus instead of thinking ahead. But if Laurel prefers to not be a part of Oliver's Team and out of the lair, that works for me. (Of course, I don't think that will last past ep 3x09.) But she knows now, she's known since ep 2x18 and she's still out of the loop in terms of the stories. Either they write a completely Laurel-centric A story, as Guilty was, or they're still trying to shoehorn her into the main Arrow story as they did having her call out the riot squad in Secret Origins. My best guess is that the original plan for Laurel failed in s1 and they still haven't got a Plan B, or C, that functions. Part of the problem is that the Black Canary of the comic books was the Green Arrow's equal or superior in vigilante-ism and that's not going to work on this show given she's 8 years behind Oliver in learning the skills. Nor does it seem that making her his sidekick is going to work either. So she's still left out of the main Arrow storyline and I don't see how they can get her in.

I think he's working very hard to make it the best show he can and he really believes that it is a great show. To be honest, it has made superhero shows acceptable, there are a number of good actors and the stunts are amazing. I think he gets discouraged when fans get upset, like over the poster and now about Laurel's storylines, and it's especially bad when he gets too tired. He was still selling the January stuff pretty heavily but who knows what he really thinks of it? I have to disagree with this. I think Willa Holland is getting the worst storylines and what Susanna Thompson got in the first season was no picnic. Compared to what other people get on this show Laurel has got storyline after storyline and I think it's on KC that she can't sell either a romance with Oliver or an addiction arc. I really believe that this is as good as she's going to get in terms of being a leading lady on a TV show because she's now tagged as miscast and the weakest link on the show. At best after this, IMO she'll get supporting roles as the bitchy best friend.