statsgirl

It's too bad they didn't run with Isabel being in the book -- maybe Oliver slept with her to find out more information or to lull her into complaisance or maybe she did have some dark secret that Robert and Malcolm could blackmail her for. That would have been gold, to have her compare Robert to Oliver. Oliver could have used being taken down a few pegs. Trying to justify sleeping with Sara after that line to Felicity gave SA quite a few problems in later interviews. (He said Oliver could have a relationship with Sara because she could take care of herself in a fight whereas Felicity would be in danger.) I wonder if he went to the EPs to complain that it didn't make sense. She would have, but Oliver had pretty low standards when it came to sleeping with a woman, both in terms of his playboy days and post-island when he was a cold killer. I'd like to think Felicity would be better than that.

Sometimes I think KC is her own worst enemy. If she had looked like she does in this picture 18 months ago, and knew basic screen fighting and stunt skills (so they didn't have to throw in a stunt double for something as basic as taking down Max), I wonder if the EPs wouldn't have made Sara Ravager and progressed KC into the role of Black Canary at the start of season 2. Because with the way she looked in early s2 and her lack of stunt skills, most people would have had trouble seeing her as the future BC. It might even have helped KC's media missteps, or at least not made them appear so glaring. I think her expectation that it would all just be handed to her made problems for both herself and the writers.

KC looks very fit and she should be proud of all the work she's done. I would feel better if that picture hadn't been taken at a moment to maximize the muscle detail. She looks great and I don't think could do a pull-up like that but the purpose of that photo is p.r. to show that yes, now she can be the Black Canary. It makes me feel kind of sad. I agree. Everyone from the comics has been burdened by destiny, but with Roy, Slade, Tommy and Thea/Mia, they had enough wiggle room to adapt the characters to fit into the context of the show. With Laurel, the burden was too great. She was going to be Oliver's love interest and the BC, but the show is called Arrow and so Laurel had to be adapted to fit Oliver's story. But, and there's a but, they could have done a better job with her story than they did. Laurel fighting in Max's club didn't have to be so badly done, (And KC should have been working out all along instead of just starting at the end of s2.) When Tommy died, it would have been a wonderful prompt to set her on a vigilante path, or even any time she couldn't get justice for someone at CNRI. They could have had her get in the way of a mugging and realize she needed more fighting skills, and then move her to teaching self-defense classes for women and girls because she is a good-doer and sees the need in the dangerous place that is the Glades. It's a combination of burden, which they couldn't do much about, and lost opportunities, which they could.

Poetgirl925 is there too. I've been reading through them and just found Blackout, and loved it (good Team adventure and Felicity is a great cyber goth), but it it stopped after three chapters, so if you're reading this, please finish it for Hallowe'en.

I wonder if part of Oliver isn't looking for a way not to be in a relationship. It's easier just being the Arrow, than balancing Arrow, Oliver and relationship. Maybe Oliver acquiring QC back is stalled and Ray comes with a great longterm job offer, like re-organizing the Applied Sciences Division (and eventually working on his Atom suit although Felicity doesn't know that yet). Maybe she takes it so that she can go undercover to spy on Palmer but I hope not. I want the job to be about Felicity, and not Oliver again. Looks like we're introduced to Manhunter in 303. eta: That makes sense. Oliver being an idiot about relationships is one thing they've kept consistent.

I think that Felicity's boo-boo in episode 301 will be from Oliver's hallucination. What was Felicity wearing in the scene with Roy and the black arrow? Could this be later when they're dealing with whatever the bad guy is? In picture #7, is that Oliver dressed in a LoA outfit? http://www.greenarrowtv.com/wp-content/gallery/sara/AR302b_0114b.jpg Roy's glass case is very cool. I want some for my special outfits. Speaking of manpain, in picture 4, Oliver's jaw is clenched so tight, it looks like he's going to break his teeth. http://www.greenarrowtv.com/wp-content/gallery/sara/AR302b_0343b.jpg eta: I think this will be a separate conversation. in 301, it will be about their relationship. I'm thinking that the one in 302 will be the follow-up to whoever dies as a "Don't go, Big Oliver, don't go" (tm Wayne & Shuster) while Oliver is all "A vigilante's gotta do what a vigilante's gotta do".

That's a cute interview. It's interesting that EBR wants to do comedy, I can't remember who here suggested it but she'd be great for romcoms. Caity Lotz switches between serious and fun really fast. Tarot cards is impressive. All I could do at 23 was the I Ching. I don't think this is trolling, except maybe for pulling a personal question back to the show. Batman and Superman each have their own strengths and their own fanbases, as do Laurel and Felicity. It feels like a pretty diplomatic answer to me. As an actor, he may well prefer Olicity to Lauriver because it's a most complex story to act. But I don't think that particular tweet was taking sides.

That art has such a 40's feel to it. Very cool. I wonder what the Arrow's greatest fear is. Not being able to be a vigilante? So is she on Team Arrow or isn't she? Because it really matters to me. IIRC, the only secret Laurel has uncovered on her own was about Blood. Everything else has been handed to her.

Here is the interview: It looks it was Susanna Thompson who admired Felicity rather than Moira. Doesn't look like there were any scenes cut, just not enough time for Moira and Felicity to share a scene again, since Slade showed up and there was more of Laurel's drama. There are a couple of parallel discussions going on right now, here as to whether it was okay for Laurel to treat Felicity as she did because she didn't think Felicity was important, and on the Keep Your Enemies closer episode thread, whether Isabel treated Felicity badly dismissing her as a secretary who slept her way into her job. I think it's worth mentioning that Felicity was not the only woman treated this way by Isabel and Laurel. Isabel treated Moira with the same disdain (it's just that Moira was better equipped to claw back), and Laurel dismissed Sara both in flashbacks and when she first got back to town because she considered Oliver her property.. It can be argued that Isabel resented Moira because Robert stayed with her, and Laurel had a lot of sister history with Sara, but I don't think the point with how they treated Felicity is Felicity herself, but how they treat other women in general. Two points do make a line.

I think the parallel was that Deadshot was Diggle's enemy but he helped Diggle out, Oliver didn't consider Isabel an enemy but that's what it ended up as. When they were having drinks in Russia? I saw that as an exchange rather rather than bonding. What did Oliver know of Isabel? That her specialty was taking over companies and gutting them, and she wanted to do the same to QC. After Walter stepped in to help save the company, Isabel stayed around but it was never clear if she really wanted to save QC or if she she was biding her time. She treated Oliver like a spoiled child, and she showed up on the tarmac to accompany Oliver to Russia without prior notice and only because she thought, so she said, that Oliver was going to take his secretary away for a sex trip. That should have set up red flags for Oliver. She was also on The List, you know, The List that Oliver knows everyone on it has failed the city and he wants everyone to pay. Isabel also bad-mouthed Felicity and treated her like a bimbo who was only in her job because she was sleeping with Oliver. (It's impossible that she didn't know how efficient Felicity really was because she'd been working with Oliver and Felicity for two months by that point. You can't work with Felicity for five minutes before realizing how organized and how good she is.) Walking out of Oliver's hotel room with her dress unzipped and telling him to give Felicity the night off because his sexual needs were already met was foul. A decent person never, ever treats someone else like that, especially someone who is an underling and has never done them any harm. Oliver was a complete douche to let her get away with that. In The Scientist, Isabel treated Moira pretty badly so presumably she did the same before Russia too. So whether Oliver knew Isabel was an enemy or not, there were plenty of indications by that point that he shouldn't trust her. Maybe it was an itch he was scratching, maybe he was trying to distract Isabel, maybe he thought he didn't deserve better than a woman who treated other people the way Isabel did. For whatever reason, he's not James Bond and he was an idiot to sleep with her.

This is the crux of it for me. Felicity sees Isabel as a manipulative, untrustworthy woman and she thinks Oliver deserves better in a relationship. She's not jealous, any more than she's jealous of Sara, it's just that she sees Oliver's blindness or self-hate making this choice and because she is his friend, she thinks he deserves better. There are a lot of secrets in this show that get people into trouble, and one of the secrets Moira kept was about Isabel and Robert. If she had told Oliver, he might not have slept with Isabel and he probably wouldn't have signed over QC to her later. With Felicity and Isabel, it's like season 1 when Diggle warned Oliver that sleeping with Helena was only going to turn out badly, and Oliver didn't listen to him. Later Diggle tried to warn him that having Laurel as his blind spot was going to turn out badly, and Oliver didn't listen at first either. For me, it works out to the same thing, that both Diggle and Felicity are Oliver's friends, and when they see him making a bad relationship or sleeping companion choice, they tell him. Oliver was consistently bad at relationships until he got together with Sara.

Laurel has a big reason not to like Felicity -- Felicity has been in the know about Oliver being the Arrow for more than a year before Laurel knew, and Oliver was the one voluntarily who told her, not Slade. Given how possessive Laurel has been about Oliver (starting back from from Sara had a crush on him) and how convinced she is that no one knows Oliver as well as she does, that's not going to endear Felicity to her. I think Laurel was rude to Felicity every time Felicity addressed her and Laurel refused to acknowledge her, from their first meeting when Felicity was friendly and all Laurel said to her was "Who are you?" (she could have said "Nice to meet you" instead of addressing all her further remarks to Oliver) to the party scene where Felicity as Oliver's EA asked to speak to him privately (Laurel had no lines butshe could still have smiled at her and nodded) to the scene in the lair where Laurel as good as told Diggle and Felicity to leave without even a 'please' even though it was their home ground and not Laurel's. Rudeness doesn't only mean what you say to someone, it also encompasses how you treat them in general. To me, Laurel's behaviour towards Felicity and Diggle has been the very definition of rude every time they met. But another reason is that there are two kinds of people in the world, those who are pleasant and caring about everyone just because they are people, and those who are only considerate if they deem the other person to be important. (There are other kinds too but I'm keeping it simple for our purposes.) Felicity is someone who cares about everyone, and Laurel cares about people only if they are important or useful to her. That's why I can't see them every being real friends, they're too different. I have a friend who has to walk with a wheelie cart because of a disability and every time someone does something nice for her, like hold a door open, she tells them "Has anyone told you today that you're wonderful?" She's limited in her ability to do things but this is something that she can do, make a complete stranger's day better, and so she does and it gives her pleasure. That's something I can see Felicity doing, wanting to make a stranger's day better just because she can be nice to someone else. As you have argued, Laurel wouldn't because she feel like she has to people unless they're important or she can use them in some way. (That's a big part of why I don't like the character.) If not for the artificial constraint of them both being on Team Arrow, I can't see Felicity and Laurel ever being friends, and if the show does try to push it, it's going to end up being fake and not true to either person's character.

Didn't she at some point tell Sara that her life stopped when the boat went down? (She forgot about law school and CNRI and her relationship with Tommy, I guess.) I agree that emotionally Laurel never seemed to move on. As soon as Oliver returned to Starling City, Laurel was right back in the midst of the hurt and anger issues, and she never really let go of them until late in the season. She always seemed to be Ollie's first and Tommy's second, after crying all night and then determining she was going to fight for Tommy, she was sleeping with Oliver in the next episode. (It makes me wonder if the crying was about being dumped rather than about Tommy himself.) Then she says that she and Oliver are over forever as a relationship, and four episodes later she's expecting Oliver to sleep with her when he walks her to her door. Fourteen episodes after that, she's telling Oliver that no one knows him like she does, even though she barely knows him since his return from the island, and several times she's told him he's worthless or she hates him. It's interesting that in an early episode Thea told Oliver that people have moved on with their lives while he's been away, but it seems that Laurel never did emotionally.

I don't think Malcolm would make Thea kill Walter, she's not as badly traumatized as Oliver was in Hong Kong when Amanda Waller probably did order him to kill Tommy, and she wouldn't do it. However, I wouldn't put it past Malcolm to kill Walter when Thea disobeys him, to bring her back in line. John Barrowman has said that Malcolm wants to control Thea emotionally but he may have his reasoning all screwed up and just as he cut Tommy off financially, he may think that cutting off Thea emotionally from everyone she loves is going to help her control him.

I can fanwank that it was confronting Moira that finally turned Moira around with respect to Felicity. Until then, Felicity was just IT girl who had a crush on Oliver, like just about every other young woman who worked at QC, and which Oliver used to his advantage when he made her his EA. Moira is a very controlled and calculating woman and not the type to be enchanted by Felicity's babbling. I always thought that Moira liked Laurel because she saw Laurel as someone she could mold into what she wanted her to be.

I think Oliver/Sara do count as a friendship because Sara is the only one who really understood what Oliver went through. FWB for a while but it seems like that has ended and now they're just friends. Laurel already hates Felicity, when she deigns to notice her. Isn't that enough? While I don't want there to be a catfight in the lair, I really can't buy Laurel and Felicity being friends. Too different, too much water under the bridge. It makes more sense for Sara to be friends with Felicity. If Sara weren't Laurel's sister, I'd have a hard time buying them as friends too. Thea has been okay with Roy having outside female friendships. since she doesn't hate Sin for it, why would she hate Felicity? From the Felicity thread: Yes, that's what I meant. I think if they had left Oliver/Felicity as purely friendship, as Diggle/Felicity is, or Beckett/Esposito/Ryan on Castle, or Tony/Abby on NCIS, it could have gone on indefinitely, never moving anywhere, nothing ever there but friendship. But it's too late now for Oliver and Felicity because they've teased that they are more to each other than purely platonic friends, and they've been doing it for 43 episodes. It's impossible to pull back on them now to being "just friends" and banter that doesn't have a second meaning. If they don't move them forward, the Oliver/Felicity banter is going to get as flat as Tony/Ziva on the latter seasons of NCIS. I think it's worth noting that Felicity has always done double entendres about Oliver that were somewhat sexual in nature, about his body and his sexuality, and he was the one she spent her time looking at, not Diggle. She even saved Sally because she liked seeing Oliver do her. So Oliver and Felicity were never "just friends", it was always heading towards something more, even if only the way Garcia crushes on Derek (which I have always hated since it was so obvious it was never going anywhere since he was a hot guy and she was comic relief). The other problem is the chemistry that Amell and Rickards have with each other. Even if the producers could permanently friend-zone Oliver and Felicity, both character would be spoiled for future relationships with other characters because a sizable portion of the audience would always be thinking "If only they had put Oliver and Felicity together, now that would have been amazing." I think they have to try Olicity within the next two seasons or have it hanging over the show as a huge black hole. That was from an interview Susanna Thompson gave after Heir to the Demon but we never actually saw it on the show. I don't think Moira and Felicity shared a scene after Heir, and before that, in The Undertaking and The Scientist, Moira didn't look like she appreciated Felicity's babbling faux pas although her real hatred was justifiably reserved for Isabel. Isabel really hated Felicity. I always thought it would have been a nice touch if she did because she was Felicity as Oliver's Moira, Moira being the woman she lost Robert to.

I don't think the writers would deliberately mess up Felicity. But .... The problem is that it will go away anyway if they don't put them together. From Bones to Castle to NCIS, the TV landscape is littered with couples that lost their spark because they were kept apart for too long. For some, like Bones and Castle, they recovered. Others didn't and what was great about them withered and died, especially if either or both of the couple got other love interests. For me, the question is whether the EPs recognize what makes Felicity and Olicity work. Given their inability to understand what the problems with Laurel are and why the addiction arc wasn't a huge success for the character, and MG's reference to the Moonlighting Curse (like Genki, I hate it and what it has done to a number of TV shows), I don't think they do get it. One of the reasons I think Felicity has worked is because they often use her as a grace note, either humorously or to motivate Oliver. Put the spotlight on her, and it gets harder. However, I will remain hopeful unless I see it tank.

Yes, I agree. The producers seem to have a real fondness for Felicity themselves (it helps that she is their creation) so hopefully that also will protect her. (On the other hand, Andrew Marlowe's fondness for Beckett and Castle didn't prevent him from messing them up for three seasons so my fingers are still crossed.)

Given these EPs and their delusion of the great love that was Oliver/Laurel, the opportunity to screw this up is huge. When I remember MG talking about how they want Oliver and Laurel to get together and than apart and then together because of the Moonlighting Curse, and think of them applying that to Oliver/Felicity, I get nightmares. I think that along with EBR's willingness to fight for her character, the thing that may save Felicity is that she is a fan favourite and a reason for many to watch the show, and Team Arrow (O/D/F) is an even bigger reason. It would be shooting themselves in the foot to ruin with that.

To me, most of what happened from Heir to The Demon to Seeing Red was filler. But I have a feeling that the EPs didn't see it that way, they thought of the episodes as stories they really wanted to tell and tell in depth. Stephen Amell was so hyped up for The Promise as the best episode they'd done up to then and I can see his point -- it was full of action and must have been a good challenge to shoot. But for me, as a viewer, it was 45 minutes spent on something I could have have done with in 15. Or maybe 5. I wonder how much the perception of filler for other people, like Sepinwall, has to do with the O/D/F Team Arrow combo, and especially Diggle and Felicity, pretty much dropping out of the picture for 8 episodes and the stories focusing on Slade and the Lance Family Drama (the latter coming from an attempt to make Laurel relevant to the show). For Birds of Prey, I already didn't care much about Helena (she won the Worst Character in s1;s Green Arrow fansite poll), I didn't care about Laurel, and between the flashbacks and current Slade story where she was the only one who Oliver could talk to, I already had enough of Sara. An episode focusing on Helena, Laurel and Sara was pretty much all filler for me. If this was an attempt to get a BoP spin-off, their timing was awful. It would have been better placed amongst a series of O/D/F Team Arrow episodes where we could appreciate the break for another storyline.

I was talking to someone about the scene in s1 where Laurel and Felicity first meet, and the other person talked about Laurel's "Caroline Bingley smile", and I thought, that's it. She's the person who takes prior claim to Oliver/Mr. Darcy, doesn't think anyone else is as good as she is, and treats Felicity like a servant. I didn't come to the show from the section of the comics that had GA/BC married to each other (I had read earlier comics though) so I have no investment in either Laurel being with Oliver or in being BC. And I would gladly have sacrificed her for Oliver's growth than Tommy or Moira. I have two main problems with Laurel: how KC plays her; and how the writers push her into the show when she doesn't need to be there and takes time away from characters I do like. I don't think anything can make KC's acting in line with Laurel Lance unless the producers finally let her become less-than-perfect and acknowledge that she acts entitled, and become Blackmail Canary. I almost stopped watching last season because Felicity and Diggle got lost and I was prepared to give up on the show altogether this season but they pulled it together in the last bunch of episodes. Thinking back, if only they had dropped the Laurel storylines except for finding out about Blood and taking it to Oliver, without the "I know you like I know my morning cereal" stuff, then I would have liked s2b much more. So really, what it's going to take to get me to accept Laurel is writing more in line with KC's abilities, and keeping her role small, like helping out occasionally but not being a full fledged member of Team Arrow. I have much more interest in Thea/Merlyn, or Diggle's family, or Sara and Nyssa, or Roy's growth or even Quentin dealing with a desk job than I have in seeing Laurel fighting with the Team.

I was never that enthralled by the Nolan Batman movies and I'm not that thrilled with Gotham either. All the actors do good work but it's overly violent for me and the only character I care about and want to see what happens to her is Catween. Even young Bruce Wayne is a budding psychopath with the burning so harden himself. (Does he grow up to be Gordon Liddy?) They need a new name for their narcotic drug. ATP is adenosinetriphosphate, which fuels mitochondria and lets RNA reproduce and everytime they said ATP, all I could think about was my grade 12 biology class. Thank you for that, I would have been lost in yesterday's OUaT episode without it. (I still don't see the point of including Frozen though, it's kind of a dead storyline.)

In one of the promo reels, they have a bit of Ray in front of a picture of a billboard, wanting to re-brand Starling into Star City. I can't see that going over well with the residents.

I loved all of those. I even quit watching when Ethan/Kristina and Jax/V came to nothing. Right now, I'm only hanging in for Alexis/Julian and the reveal of AJ's murder but sometimes I wonder if they will ever happen. I like Ned/Olivia because it's pleasant and while it's not Julexis fire, at least I'm getting it. And please, can Jason go defrost-roid-ragey and take out Sonny and Shawn? That would help my viewing a lot. I loved all of those. I even quit watching when Ethan/Kristina and Jax/V came to nothing. Right now, I'm only hanging in for Alexis/Julian and the reveal of AJ's murder but sometimes I wonder if they will ever happen. I like Ned/Olivia because it's pleasant and while it's not Julexis fire, at least I'm getting it. And please, can Jason go defrost-roid-ragey and take out Sonny and Shawn? That would help my viewing a lot.