statsgirl

I think if Oliver knows about his kid, he would have set up a trust fund, or hired someone to watch and make sure the kid is okay, even if Oliver thinks he himself should keep away. We haven't seen any indication of that, and at this point to say "oh, yeah, when he first got to Starling City he met with his lawyers and set up a trust fund for the kid" would have me throwing things at the TV. And since when Oliver first got back, he argued with Diggle that Moira was a trustworthy person before he found out about her involvement with Malcom Merlyn. Wouldn't he have confronted her if he knew the child wasn't dead, or at least not trusted her? Waller might know about the kid, although I doubt it since Oliver wouldn't have been on her intensive radar before Lian Yu, but I doubt Oliver does.

I tend to get into shows through a female character. I like men but I don't find male/male bonding as interesting as when there is a woman in the mix. I got into NCIS only after Ziva arrived (come to think of it, Catelyn seems a lot like Laurel) and wasn't really interested in the Boys Club when she left. (Why is it that on many shows, the male:female ratio is 1:3 or 1:4? Hawaii 5-0, Burn Notice, NCIS... now we're getting that in the Arrow lair with Oliver, Diggle, Roy and then Felicity. Fortunately that's balanced with Sara, Nyssa, Thea and Moira. Okay, and Laurel.) I think that because there aren't enough female characters on shows other than soap (nighttime as well as daytime), we expect a lot from the female characters we get. I remember a lot of female viewers hated Abby, and on House M.D., both Cuddy and Cameron came in for a lot of hate. Ironically, it seemed to me that younger viewers didn't like Cameron because she wasn't good enough and loved Cuddy, while older women with more work experience liked Cameron and not Cuddy. That makes me wonder if sometimes we expect too much from the female characters,, maybe because there are so few of them on TV. That's one of the things that is so good about Felicity, that she crossed those lines and is a general favourite beyond being one of a specific group of viewers. I like Sam, but we named our cat after Vala because she was very loathe to trust (rescue cat) and when she grabbed hold of something, she wouldn't let go. Claudia Black was aware of the dislike of Vala. At the Polaris fan convention a few years ago, she apologized for having been an uppopular character.

Interesting Waller sending Oliver to kill Tommy because she must have known they were best friends. Wow, that is cold. I'm kind of interested now to see how she turns Oliver into the soulless killer we saw in the pilot.

This episode is going to make me so sad that Tommy is dead. Damn you, EPs, you took the wrong person! (but not Felicity or Diggle) If they do that, I promise to never complain about Laurel again. On the other hand, I am ridiculously excited that Matt Ward is going to be Komodo. He plays an awful douche on Remedy but it's my other favourite show so I'm glad to see him on Arrow. If Thea has been skyping with Oliver and texting him that she's okay, I'm not surprised that he wasn't worried up to now. He's the guy who was on an island for five years, and later went back to lick his wounds after Tommy died. She's 19 and it's not unusual for young adults to spend months away from home travelling. He was probably glad she could get away and maybe recover after all the stuff with Slade and her parentage went down. But if he hasn't heard from her at all, that's different. It better not be Walter who is dead. Walter is one of the few sane people ever on this show. (Along with Diggle. Is that racist, because as much as I love Moira and Quentin, Walter and Diggle are more sane.) I wonder if they are going to try to fix her in the first part of the season, and then do her big stuff in the latter half to see if it worked.

Maybe this is what he's thinking, but as long as Robin is being forced to stay away from Patrick and acting so out of character in front of him, it justifies nothing, except what a douche Patrick is.

spoiler-tagged because the new season hasn't started yet. That is something that I would really like to see, Laurel navigating her place on the Team rather than accepting it by divine right. I think it would help me like Laurel more too. Unfortunately, I can't see Diggle making digs. The man is a gentleman and if she were having trouble adjusting, he would probably try to help her rather than snark at her. I'm putting my money on Roy is anyone. (Keeping in mind that they want us to love Laurel so no snarking in place of the audience.)

That does look like an arrow sticking out of body, and it looks like black arrow so quite possibly a message from Malcolm. Felicity looks in horror and fear as well as sadness, but how would they get a body to the lair? Speaking of Felicity, I like how her hair is down and flowing when she meets with Ray, unlike the ponytail she wears with Oliver. Stephen Amell isn't the only one who has trouble differentiating actor from character. I love how he refers to "the island repertory company". They probably don't know yet. If he is, it's going to be later in the season. Manu Bennett has said that he'll be on Arrow if he's available from other acting jobs (because he's not a regular on Arrow any more) so the EPs will have to find a way to work him in if they want him. Sssh! I wonder if they're keeping quiet on Laurel because it seems to be a backlash every time they talk about what Laurel will be doing, although it's strange since they talk about Thea, Malcolm and Roy and their identity crises. But there's no Quentin either so maybe it's just for time. I'm sure she'll be more prominent than I want. Good quality video on the "The Green Archer" site. (linked because I like that picture of the five of them, better than the s3 poster)

Ceylon5, never underestimate the sloppiness of the Arrow writers. (Good points from last July. )

I want Sara, Nyssa and Felicity to have Girls' Night Out up at the bar with Thea. Laurel can come if she behaves nicely to everyone. I want Lyla to be a presence in the lair (from time to time) like Diggle is. As an elder brother and sister, mentoring. I want Roy and later Thea to play pranks on everyone when they get too stuffy. I want Diggle to say to Oliver "See how I felt when you were being a pain?" I wanted Quentin/Felicity scenes but it doesn't make sense any now. Now that Laurel is on the Team, anything he does will be through her. This is also where the confluence of writing and acting messes up Laurel if they want us to believe she's a good-doer and cares about the little people. That's why she was working at CNRI, to help the people who don't have money or importance to be treated with dignity and equality. You can't say that you care about the little people and treat them like they're not there unless they're important to you. If you care aobut people, you care about all people, even the lowly IT girls who are setting up Oliver's router or his EA who screens his calls. It's true that in the writing, Laurel never talked to Felicity, only to Oliver as if Felicity wasn't there but that could have been fixed by acting on KC's part. Laurel was snarky to Thea too, but I think telling Oliver to fire Felicity so she could have her job because she didn't have a job at the time (which would mean that now Felicity, who had never done a thing to Laurel, would be the one without a job), is a whole different level. There needs to be an apology from Laurel to Felicity for that. Yes, she was drunk but intoxication is no defense when you do something wrong. Felicity can accept her because she's Oliver's friend and Sara's sister but I will think less of Felicity if she's more without Laurel showing some amends.

The fiance of a friend of mine was in divinity school and studying the Bible, and told us that when God made Eve to help Adam, in the original language it wasn't 'help' as in a servant but 'help' among equals, as the fellow general of an army. There was an original The Front Page movie and Hawks was doing a remake. The role was originally written for a man but he gets cheers for seeing that it could work for a woman too. I think weak women roles happens today more than it did in those earlier years. In the thirties and forties, there was a string of awesome women in movies. Ginger Rogers won her Oscar for Kitty Foyle, not for being Fred Astaire's dance partner. Bette Davis in Now, Voyager is the definition of inner strength, and Katherine Hepburn is many movies ruled the show. Joan Crawford in just about anything. (Granted, I'm not too fond of Olivia De Havilland's Maid Marian.) Later in the fifties and sixties, woman became 'the little woman' to the extent that when Lucille Ball finally hung up the ditsy red-head role, she became an executive at Paramount who green-lighted the original Star Trek. Back to Felicity ..... I was listening to one of the British interviews she and CH did, and the interviewer said that when she said she was going to interview them and asked on her FB page for questions, what she got was most people saying that Felicity is their favorite character on the show. I haven't done a survey but I think that's very unusual, for women to say that their favourite is a woman. I'm more used to favourites being the men, or if it's a woman, like Ziva on NCIS, equal numbers seem to love and to hate her. Maybe it's because Felicity is so relatable, maybe it's because of the way EBR plays her, I just thought that was an interesting thing.

That's exactly why (said the person reading over my shoulder). If you're only nice to someone because they're high status or can be important to you, you're a different kind of person than someone who is friendly to everyone, bus drivers, the lowly technician in the IT room, or the guy cleaning up the litter on the street. I see Felicity and Sara as being the latter. But hopefully it won't be too unbelievable on screen.

Laurel and Felicity had four scenes together. The first was in The Undertaking when Felicity interrupted Oliver giving Laurel relationship advice and Felicity called Laurel gorgeous and Laurel addressed all her remarks to Oliver. The second was at a party when Felicity figured out that the mysterious woman was following Laurel not Oliver ,and Laurel didn't talk to Felicity, again (what she thought is up to personal interpretation). The third time was the drunk scene when she suggested Oliver fire Felicity and give her (Laurel) her job (okay she was drunk but in vino veritas), and the last time was in the lair when Laurel asked Diggle and Felicity to leave so she could talk to Oliver alone. IIRC, at none of these times did she talk to Felicity directly. The first time Oliver introduced Sara to Diggle and Felicity, at the start of Heir to the Demon before they got into a relationship, Sara said nice things to both of them and made friends. Maybe it's the way KC plays her, maybe it's the lack of dialogue but while I hope Felicity and Laurel get along, I can't see them having lunch dates or even making jokes at Oliver's expense the way Felicity does with Diggle or Sara.

Sorry, I don't have the link for SA saying Oliver would come clean with Thea. I have the vague impression it was at the upfronts but my bad memory... Sara was nice to Felicity from the moment she entered the lair. She was the one who taught Felicity a better way to punch and sewed her up. They were two women against the guys. Laurel's been at best tolerant of Felicity and she strikes me as as a woman who makes friends with men rather than with women, Joanna notwithstanding. It's not because two women who have been in a relationship with the same guy can't be friends, it's because of who Laurel and Felicity are as characters. I can see them being co-workers, but not taking a bottle of wine over to each other's houses and confessing secrets, whereas I could easily have seen that with Felicity and Sara. If Oliver gets hurt and they both worry, I can see a complex episode as they each try to deal with how the other one fits into Oliver's life, but I'd rather see that in fanfic than leave it to these writers. It really does feel like "Felicity likes Laurel so you should too."

I don't know which episode. I just remember he said that. before SDCC I think. When you put it like that, it's almost as icky as sister-swapping.

SA said that there is a scene where Oliver tells Thea everything so presumably it's not too far in the season.

Maybe the because of the life I lead' excuse is not really about Oliver protecting the other person, but Oliver protecting himself from getting caught up and caring about someone else too much.

The juxtaposition of CH talking about what is going to happen when it comes to light that Roy killed two cops with Laurel 'using her smarts' to find out even more information does make it sounds like Laurel will be the one digging that bit up. I can't see either Diggle, Oliver or Felicity wanting to bring it to Roy's attention.

It would make a better story, if they want Laurel to be more integrated into the show. Otherwise leave her on the sidelines like Quentin, to be used only when the plot requires.

Good point. But then let Diggle or Roy. There was some friction when Roy joined the Team. Let's not have a love-fest just because it's Laurel. Diggle wasn't a fan of hers before. Come on, Digg, I'm counting on you.

Arrow is a CW hit, and they want that to translate over for The Flash. I can buy Felicity getting along with Iris before I can buy her getting along with Laurel because Iris, so far as we know, has never been disdainful of Felicity and Felicity knows that Iris is the one Barry really wants. While I understand that they want to rehab Laurel and that includes getting along with Felicity, I think a strained relationship with Felicity might actually make Laurel more likable because it would make her more real instead of the blank-faced perfect Laurel they often want us to buy. Let Laurel work at having to be accepted for a change instead of getting everything handed to her by the proudcers.

SonofaBiscuit, you have good instincts. Ioan Gruffudd played that role on an episode of Castle a couple of seasons ago, a wealthy genius who

Sonny is so vile I turned off the TV Friday. I tried again today but the same luck. I can't stand that they keep spouting how Sonny can't trust Ava and it's okay to kidnap (Shawn, you are vile too) because she killed Connie when Sonny killed AJ. And in what universe is it okay to imprison a pregnant woman and still be considered a good guy? Everything about that storyline is so foul I can't watch it. Including Sam propping Sonny and Jason again. And I don't care about Carly, Franco, Scott, Lucy or Bobbie. Why does Ron think I would?

I'll stick with it too but I'm not thrilled by it. It's moving into the 'too bleak and violent' category for me, like the blood splatter after Gordon saved Oswald's life. I flipped back and forth between it and another show which was probably a mistake. I liked what Jada Pinkett did with the role, not too interested in the character herself Nice to see Sean Pertwee as Alfred. I'd liked him since Cadfael. And the both the kids were good.

I want a slow burn, not on-again/off-again relationship for the two of them because I've had more than enough relationship angst with Oliver already. I disagree with what EBR said, but upon thinking about it, I think she said the right thing. There is enough Olicity push among the audience already, she doesn't need to add more. In fact I like the idea of the actors cooling it down, and leaving it to the producers and media to fuel it. Besides, the alternative is to say, as Katie Cassidy said about Oliver and Laurel "they're made for each other."

The original stage play was called The Front Page, and Hildy Johnson was a man. The movie remade Hildy into a woman and Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant, and changed the title to His Girl Friday. There are two stories about why the role was changed to a woman, either that Howard Hawks was reading the script out loud during a dinner party and asked a female guest to read the role of Hildy, or that a secretary was reading Hildy's lines while auditioning Walter (I think the former is more likely because a number of actresses like Jean Arthur, Carole Lombard and Ginger Rogers were offered the part) and Hawks decided that it sounded better as a woman. I guess after that the term got into popular culture, but Hildy Johnson was no "girl Friday" either, she was a crack shot reporter that editor Walter Burns didn't want to lose either as a reporter or as a wife. So in that way, I guess it mirrors what Felicity does for Oliver. It was voted #10 in the 100 Greatest Movies of all time (2005) and worth seeing. One of the first, if not the first, to use overlapping dialogue which Robert Altman used in so many of his films. I can see Brandon Routh as more the Cary Grant type, and Oliver as Bruce Baldwin, played by Ralph Bellamy, the humorless insurance agent Hildy wants to marry so she can settle down to be a wife and mother.