statsgirl

I'm pretty sure Ray is going to be in on the secret by early winter. They were careful to show multiple shots of his interested face when Oliver and Roy were fighting Komodo. Also, there was weapons stuff on that drive Felicity recovered, he's going to go looking how that got there. But she's not doing EA stuff (scheduling appointments, admin work) and she's got her own EA. I guess we'll see what he has her doing longterm now that she's retried the information he wanted but it looks like she'll still be in tech.

To put Laurel into the A plot, they essentially made the A plot about her -- Who killed Sara? and How does Laurel extract revenge and reach her destiny of Black Canary? She still doesn't fit into the show as a whole, although she will when (if, please!) she become the Black Canary because presumably she'll take Sara's place fighting at Oliver side. The problem is I don't think it will ever be organic because the role KC plays best is not the role the show intended for her. I think they should have left her for a season working the legal aspect for Team Arrow so that she really does prove part of the A plot and then have her grow into BC Doing it now is what leads to the speculation that being BC is in Cassidy's contract. I agree it would have been much better if the actresses had swapped roles. But Katie Cassidy was hired first specifically to play the role of Dinah Laurel Lance who becomes the Black Canary (possibly even before Stephen Amell if you believe her interviews). My best guess is that the EPs realized that Laurel wasn't ready to be the Black Canary in season 2 and made Sara the Canary to stall for a year, and the way Caity Lotz took that role and made it shine surprised them.

It really hurt both Oliver and Laurel because it made them out to be completely self-centered. They didn't care who they hurt as long as they got what they wanted. Poor Tommy. Felicity will have had sex with her old boyfriend so hopefully that will be enough to cover that beat. Maybe I'm old-fashioned (or just old) but having sex ups the emotional connection hugely. It makes them a part of your past and I'd rather Felicity not have that connection to Ray, especially if he stays in the Arrow-verse. Ray 1. appreciates her brains in more than a cursory way and gives her a job appropriate with what she can do and 2. is emotionally supportive of her when she's going through stuff. He's also a man whereas I think of Barry as a boy. Felicity seems to grow 5 years younger when she's with him. I don't think it would hurt her at QC if she were to date Ray because she's already at the boardroom level now. She wasn't with Oliver. I hate romantic triangles too. I'm really really hoping that when Oliver realizes he might lose Felicity, she's not already in a relationship with Ray. Seeing him as a possible alternative, but not in a real relationship with him. I went through that on Castle and Bones and it does a show no credit.

They may have made it all action-y so that the male demo would still be excited for the episode and want to tune in.

Being around Laurel makes Oliver stupid. They've always been 100% consistent with that. Malcolm Merlyn was all over the news as a rich guy even before he tried to blow up the city and killed 500 people. It doesn't make sense that he could hide in plain sight. The longer she doesn't tell him, the more it's going to hurt him. It's been three? weeks now, she's going to have to tell him sometime because she can't keep lying to him forever. Speaking as a parent and a daughter whose parents have been far more ill than Quentin, it's the wrong thing to do, and at this point, it's bone-headed..

The ArrowWritersRoom tweeted "What are you doing Arrow50th?" I'm bitter that the 50th episode is a big Laurel one.

Sorkin had long left TWW when John Wells promised Josh/Donna shippers would be happy, and then completely screwed them over by spending the last season concentrating on the new president, with lots of time dealing with his relationship with his wife, and giving Josh and Donna a brief moment in the second last episode where they finally got together. It's about what you promise vs what you deliver. The EPs spend the summer playing up Oliver having real feelings for Felicity, and then as soon as they showed, Oliver shut down again. No wonder EBR is talking about Felicity's feelings for Ray because he is someone who can support her when she needs it.

From the bitterness thread: EBR on Ray: I think this is where Ray has the edge on Oliver. We understand where Oliver is coming from, all his manpain and shutting himself off, but Felicity is going through pain too and she really needs someone who can support her. Someone who gives rather than always takes. Maybe Oliver will come around in the end, or maybe it will be took late when he finally does.

Oliver and Laurel interact At least Oliver isn't giving in.

If she was willing to work at Tech Village as a salesperson because they had medical and dental, at least IT girl at QC is several steps up from that. I think she took the job on the spur of the moment, wanting to not to sit waiting in the lair for Oliver to die, and she didn't have any idea of the job entailed, only that she wanted more out of life. Then she showed up next morning, still not knowing exactly what it was that she had signed up for.

I have no idea why they are making Laurel such an idiot about everything, from finding Sara's killer to her own training. If they are trying to get us to like her, it's having the completely opposite effect for me. I'm bitter because I'm glad I have theatre tickets tonight so I don't have to watch this episode live. That's a huge change in my perception of Arrow. (Also, Nicholas Lea is in the play (Moira's campaign manager) and I'd rather see him than Laurel any day.)

And yet, even when they got rid of Mandy, the show still managed to screw up Josh/Donna. It's interesting that Sepinwall is reviewing The Flash regularly and Arrow only occasionally.

After seeing who Felicity is on the Flash and what she can do, I think Arrow definitely suffers by not giving Felicity and Diggle enough time to be real characters instead of just supports for Team Arrow as they're usually relegated to. It's almost like we have to fight to interpret what Diggle and Felicity are going through from facial expressions (Diggle) and extrapolating Oliver..

But it wasn't a comm, it was his personal phone, the one he was trying to reach Thea on. I hope Felicity isn't listening in on all his personal phone calls, that would really be some boundary issues. And if it was the comm in his Arrow suit (seriously, why did he have to change, couldn't he have talked to Barry in his Oliver Queen clothes?), why would she have gone back to the lair to listen in when he was having a conversation with Barry? It's a guy asking for Oliver's advice, not a potential villain. I think it could have been handled better and more easily by having Felicity say that Oliver had told her, rather than saying that she overheard his conversation with Barry. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. I figured that after they saved the bad guys at the arena, Roy went home and Oliver went to the hospital to see the Digglet. Then they all went home to sleep and got together in the morning at Verdant. Going back to Verdant that night doesn't make sense to me since they had got the bad guys and things were presumably quiet.

I really liked this episode. It was a lot of fun, and an interesting villain. I don't get why Cisco didn't disable the gun as soon as he found out Barry was a good guy though. I liked what Joe said about viewing Eddie differently as his partner now that he's dating Iris. It seemed true to life, and I wish they had carried it on rather than resolving it this episode. And speaking of Iris, I'm still shipping her with Eddie rather than Barry. Barry seems better with Caitlin, or Felicity, or another female character. I get it that he thinks he has a crush on Iris but they're really too much like siblings. I think they didn't need Felicity, The Flash is doing fine on it's own, but I liked having her come over. I liked that finally someone asked about Barry's emotional health after being the Flash (and Wells didn't give it the attention it deserved but that's Wells). I think Felicity was more fun on this show because she was released from the burden of being The Arrow's Felicity Smoak. On Arrow, Felicity has a very specific, defined role to play where everything revolves around Oliver. Here she got to be a part of the team (I wish she could spend more time with Caitlin, that would be fun girl scientist time and I think she could get Caitlin to loosen up). That was one think I though the writers did really well, integrating Felicity into the whole Team Flash rather than just being a part of Barry from another world. Yes The more I watch this show, the more I think Iris should stay with Eddie. There isn't enough special about her and Barry to make me ship them. I liked most of Felicity's clothes here, except for the leather dress and she did say she was over-dressed. (Why would she even pack a dress like that? and how many suitcases did she bring with her for all those clothes?) I thought she dressed better here than the sexy cut-away and boob dresses she wears on Arrow. I'm torn about the way Caitlin dresses. I think women scientists should dress for comfort because their minds should be on their work, not how tight their skirt is are or how hard it is to walk in high heels. At least we're freed from the three piece suits (jacket, skirt, vest) women had to wear when they first started entering the board room but it still seems like women have to be more careful of how they dress, and more uncomfortably. * I wish shows would let women wear things like Felicity's panda flats of Arrow s1 rather than her Jimmy Choos of this season. *My mother was a doctor at a time when there weren't many women doctors and she had two sets of clothes to go out for medical dinners, one that she wore when it was doctors only, and another she wore when there were doctors' wives included. Women doctors dressed for comfort, doctors' wives dress like Caitlyn does. better

I think it was because she was released from the burden of being The Arrow's Felicity Smoak. On this show, everything revolves around Oliver and Felicity has a very specific, defined role to play, and if she deviates from it, people get upset (fanboys because there's not enough action and Diggle, comic canon and Laurel lovers because Oliver is supposed to be with Laurel/BC), not to mention she has to fight for space with Oliver. Roy, Diggle, Laurel, Quentin, Malcolm, Thea and the villains. On the Flash, she was freed from the burden of that and got to created a grace note for the show instead of having to play the regular motif.

Of course Felicity said it on The Flash. Because if she had said it on Arrow, it would have been Arrow canon. Now it doesn't really count. <eyeroll> Apparently that's how you write romance.

From the spoilers thread: Did she have to clean up the concrete where Sara fell too cuz there was a lot of blood there and she never called the police. (bitter) I'm also bitter that Oliver never bothered to tell Felicity that Barry had woken up and had super powers, she found out by listening in on his phone call. Given all that time Felicity spent by his bedside, all those visits Oliver resented, I would have thought that at least Oliver would tell Felicity Barry had woken up. Especially since he'd just dumped her.

Remember a year ago when they wanted to introduce Barry and said he was perfect for Felicity because he's as smart as she is and they talk the same language? And now we have Ray, who is perfect for Felicity because he's "the smartest person in the room" (I'm not buying that right now) and perfect for Felicity because they have the same banter? Yawn, I'm getting tired of the over-promoting of her with anyone who is not Oliver. I think that is the point where I thought 'yeah, maybe he does love her' because he trusted her to be brave and be willing to risk her life in order to take down Slade because it was so important all things he expected from Sara but never from Laurel. he previous year he told her to get out of the foundry when the earthquake machine was going to do its work and when she refused, he was 'okay, I gotta run and save the city.'. But in Unthinkable, Felicity was an equal partner even though she couldn't fight like Sara and Roy, or hold up Amanda Waller like Diggle. Oliver had faith in her to be a real partner. That's real love, to me. And then he turned into a douche 20 minutes into this season..

It felt to me like 3x03 was the show rather than still setting up. Laurel comfortable in the lair and starting her physical training to be a vigilante (hopefully it takes more than a couple of episodes, the new Team Arrow of Oliver/Diggle/Roy figthing together and Felicity trying to balance working at QC with working for Team Arrow still. EBR said in an interview that Felicity was going to have trouble balancing her work life with her Arrow life, which I now take to mean Corto Maltese. She also said that Mama Smoak comes at a bad time, which presumably when they are trying to catch Malcolm Merlyn who is back in Starling City.

Do they have any other? Traumatize Oliver so that he wants to honor his father? Have Robert blow out his brains while sitting right beside Oliver. (Image the trauma of having bits of Robert's skull and grey matter all over him. Want to turn Oliver into an archer? Have Fyers shoot Yao Fei in front of him. Want to motivate Slade to revenge and Oliver to putting on the hood? Have Ivo shoot Shado. Want to turn Olvier from a killer to a hero? Kill Tommy. Want to motivate Oliver to giving up to Slade? Kill Moira. Want to end Olicity before it began? Kill the people in the restaurant. Want to motivate Laurel to becoming the Black Canary? Kill Sara. Felicity is lucky, her motivation came from Walter's kidnapping. For Oliver, every motivation comes from death.

And since Nina Dobrev was on the CW international tour with CH and EBR, it seems strange Lainey never heard of her. From the Access Hollywood interview: It always makes me laugh when actresses take off their very fashionable shoes when the camera is not on their feet because the shoes are just so darn uncomfortable. Some day, we will evolve to the point where women can were comfortable shoes like men do, and not be considered unsexy, I hope. And when Christian Loubouton says that he doesn't care how uncomfortable his shoes are because they look good (as he did interviewed last spring), he will be pelted with flip flops.

I love that Harrison Wells knows who she is and is expecting big things from her. Finally, Felicity gets appreciated for her brain this season. In the deleted scene with Sara after Slade invades the lair, Felicity says to Sara "It's the first place in the world where I really felt that I was home. He took that." So it sounds as if the home she grew up in really didn't feel like home to her, which seems to say something about her relationship with her mother. It was the 'if I had been content to stay in Las Vegas and be a cocktail waitress like my mother' line that made me think that Mama Smoak didn't have ambitions for her daughter. If you listen to people like Michael Jordan who made it really big out of the environment where they grew up, they talk about how their parents encouraged them to reach for the stars. If Felicity's mother had been encouraging her to dream big and spread her wings, why would Felicity have said that to Oliver?

I'm glad Felicity is dressed wrong. She's socially awkward, but not that socially awkward. I'm so excited for the Flash tonight. I've been wondering where exactly Oliver and Diggle are going to meet Felicity's mother. The lair is out, Oliver and Diggle are no longer at QC, and Felicity doesn't seem like the type to throw a party at her apartment for family to meet friends. That makes sense, but it doesn't fit in with the "my mother is... my mother", which gives the impression her mother is someone she can't emotionally connect with and who discouraged her from going to MIT. If her mother was warm and loving, even if she didn't understand Felicity's brain (and IQ is passed along on the X gene), Felicity wouldn't have felt so family-less so as to cling to her new family in the lair. Same here. I'm afraid my love for Nyssa will be taxed if she's actually impressed by Laurel after being with Sara.

In drama and TV, opposites create interest. Think Castle and Beckett, two mostly complete opposites. Ichabod and Abbie, Elizabeth Bennett and Darcy. Like Barry, I think Ray is too close to a perfect match for Felicity to be able to generate interesting storylines. This show should either give up on trying to write relationships (although Diggle/Lyla is great) or assign them to one person who is good at it. That's why I want Oliver and Felicity to be together at the end of s3, and then Leave. Them. Alone. and concentrate on the action and villains.