statsgirl

Good on whoever figured out that it would not look good on Oliver and Sara to be having sex at the place Felicity thought of as home. On the other hand, it would have emphasized Laurel's behaviour when she asked Felicity and Diggle to leave so she could talk to Oliver alone.

He's in episodes 7 and 8,along with CUPID. I wonder if tht is where Lyla loses command of ARGUS. http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/09/16/arrow-spartacus-captain-boomerang/ Between Nable and the cast of Spartacus, I'm starting to wonder if they have casting director Down Under.

Oh, if it was from The Man Under The Hood, I can understand why they cut it. That was a really busy episode. Also it wasn't a scene about Oliver.

I think there are two main problems: that the Black Canary is linked with Green Arrow; and that AK wrote the GA/BC comics. The first means that now that that Dinah Laurel Lance has been on the show from the beginning, there are going to be viewers who won't like it when she leaves because she's an iconic comic character. The second means that AK and MG, who are the comic fanboys, are going to want to keep her. Not everyone has trouble ditching something they've created when it's not working but for other people it can be a big problem (me!) and I get the feeling that AK is in that group. And given that sometimes both AK and MG show a superficial understanding of what is working and what isn't (KC Emmy-worthy scene), they may be scratching their heads as to why Laurel isn't working. I think it's easier with CH because his character isn't as big in the GA comics are BC is, and CH's ego isn't as big as KC's. I wish they felt they could write to KC's acting strengths but they don't seem to want to go there with Laurel.

The Quentin/Sara one was sweet. The Sara/Felicity was too but it also might have changed the tone of the episode a bit. That one was from Time of Death, wasn't it? That was the episode that Felicity was supposed to be (not) jealous of Oliver and Sara hooking up together, and having Sara comfort her, especially physically could have put a different dynamic on it. On the other hand, there is already a ton of Oliver/Sara/Felicity fanfic so maybe it really wasn't needed.

I liked Lois and Clark too. I thought they had a nice rhythm, and hey, it's okay to have your superhero in a real relationship. Me too, but it was such a hit that it seems like they're trying to reproduce it. I watched a few episodes but ended up bored. David Tennant's accent was a big plus but he's doing Gracepoint with an American accent. The Red Band Society is on tonight. I was going to skip it because it seemed like it was going to drag but I saw a screening of the pilot and it's actually quite good.

I think that kiss in the promo will be about the most we get with Oliver and Felicity till late in the season since everything goes bad 20 minutes into the episode. Given what the EPs have been saying, that seems to be the intention with Ray, to provide Felicity with a serious alternative so that she can choose Oliver rather than being with him by default. It's pretty ambitious, Ray will be Oliver's business rival, proto-vigilante and show what kind of relationship a guy can have with Felicity and they don't always hit the mark they think they are so we'll see. Quentin will be on desk duty/administration because of his wounds, which according to Paul Blackthorne will be hard on him since he's always been a blue-collar 'out in the field' guy. Nyssa is back, so if Sara is not back with her, she will be soon. Not to mention, they need to separate her from Oliver as a love interest.

Somehow I get the feeling the people asking the question were hoping she was going to die. She did a huge whiteboard, confirmed what Slade had said, and didn't turn Oliver in to save her father. Not that anyone else who found out about him was going to turn him in either, not Diggle or Felicity or Tommy or Moira or Sara or Roy, but apparently Laurel not doing it makes her a hero. Did they really think we expected her to turn Oliver in to get her father out of jail? After her father asked her not to? Well, maybe I did but that's because I have no respect her. They love her, they really, really love her. Remember when AK thought the reason people were unhappy with Laurel's story was because she hadn't put on the fishnets yet? There are also some fans who really love her and MG and AK probably pay more attention to those tweets.

And now I'm imagining Laurel running around introducing herself to strangers ... "Hi, I'm Dinah Laurel Lance, always trying to save the world."

Doesn't Laurel get kidnapped or have her life put in danger at least 3 times a season? Will 'more danger' be kidnapped every four episodes?

Or they're desperate to do anything with Laurel that will save the character. But going back to the pilot and trying to start all over again, that's funny.

Okay, but when Tommy said it in the pilot, we hadn't had a chance to see what Laurel was like yet so it was easier to buy.

That was fun. I totally froze on . Poor Stephen Amell, no wonder he wants a break from working so much. Not surprised that And since this is the bitterness thread, I still think Laurel's addiction arc was a complete waste of time that could have been better spent on other characters.

The Arrow is the controlled part, the part he can trust to do what needs to be done, and Oliver is the part that he can't control, the wildcard that could ruin everything the Arrow is working for. That makes a lot of sense. If that's the scenario, I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out over the season.

It's Spain, land of love and bullfights. It's a pretty good promo -- lots of action and characters (no Diggle or Thea though) and a mention of Ra's al Ghul but jeez Slade running the CGI sword through Moira looks so fake now that I see it with better light.

I think Felicity got more actual lines because she babbles and because she's on the computer speaking into the others' ears so that even if the focus is not on her, she still has lines to say. (Except in episodes like The Promise where she had only two lines, one deeply cringe-worthy.) Diggle had two episodes about his adventures, Keep Your Enemies Close and Suicide Squad. And his facial expressions are worth more than words. As Oliver matures and mentor Roy in his turn, Diggle is less needed to be Oliver's mentor so I'm hoping for new directions for Diggle next year.

I thought he was going to decide that he could only be the Arrow and not Oliver Queen. But if Oliver Queen beats up the Arrow, wouldn't that suggest he can be Oliver and still the Arrow because Oliver is still strong enough to survive? Or does being Oliver mean he can't be focused enough to be the Arrow? (Have I just been reading too many books on dream analysis?)

When Oliver went out fighting crime in 2b, he often went out with just Sara and left Diggle in the lair with Felicity (e.g. ToD). That's not on Felicity at all. I agree that not every story has to be about Oliver but since he is the star of the show, most stories eventually come back round to him, including Walter's friction with Moira and his kidnapping, Moira's secrets, Roy being mirakuru'ed and Thea's conflicts and kidnapping, and those stories usually lead to some sort of growth or development for Oliver. Diggle's time with the Suicide Squad didn't but that was only one episode and I expect it will cause friction with Oliver next season. Laurel's addiction arc was about Laurel and Laurel and slightly about Quentin. But if they are going to write stories that are not Oliver-centric, whether I think the time spent on it is worth it depends on how much I enjoy the story. Looking back over season 2, I think Laurel addiction arc was a huge waste of time because it didn't advance any character, including Laurel who ended up pretty much where she started, and it was badly written and poorly acted when we couldn't tell if she was supposed to be sober or drunk. Like Isabel's episodes, it ended up being a big nothing, but it took up lots more time. That time that could have been spent showing Oliver trying to mentor Roy (who got mirakuru'ed and then disappeared for 2 episodes, back for one and then gone again) or anything to do with Moira who I find fascinating as a character and played by a very good actress. But there was no time spend on stories for Moira or Roy or Thea. That's the problem as I see it too, and so did a number of reviewers like Mo Ryan and Alan Sepinwall. I think eventually MG and AK got the message. Occasionally this show gets meta, but never more than Oliver's line in City of Blood "This started with the three of us. It's time we got back to that." And then they promptly had Laurel follow him.

I don't mind a parachute arrow, I can take that more easily than Oliver fixing his own dislocated arm when Diggle is standing right beside him and Felicity is freaking out at the sight of blood instead of helping. (There's already going to be an excess of testosterone in the lair, this fiction is too much.) Diggle's comment about Lyla's pregnancy sounds like the panel was written by a man. Usually the first trimester is throwing up, the their is "I'm a beached whale and I hate that I can't see my feet" but the second trimester is the full-of-energy-nesting one.

Diggle was there in the scene in 2.21 when both Diggle and Felicity tried to keep Oliver from sacrificing himself. And Laurel had the big speech to save Oliver at the end of that episode. Kreisburg even said that at his lowest point, Laurel brings him back up. Because Felicity had been background scenery for most of 2b (even Diggle got his own Suicide Squad episode), they had to have Felicity affect Oliver in 2.22 in order to buy the ruse in 2.23. If they hadn't, few people in the audience would have been pulled in by the "I love you". Just think how much more time there would have been for Diggle... and Moira, and Thea and Roy... if they had dropped Laurel's addiction arc. That storyline contributed nothing to Oliver's growth (unlike the scenes with Felicity) and little to the show overall.

I think Bletchley Circle got cancelled and so did Longmire. And Sherlock won't be back till 2016. Sorry. However Downton Abby is sure to be back. I'm leery of new shows because a lot of the time I think they're good and they turn out not to be or I fall in love with them and they get cancelled after a few episodes. (New Amersterdam, I'm looking at you.) I'll try NCIS:NO because I like Scott Bakula and CCH Pounder, and I'll try the comic book shows to see which ones I like. Beyond that, I'm keeping an open mind. Returning shows: Arrow, Castle, OUaT. Murdoch Mysteries, Perception (the most realistic of psychopath shows), Remedy, Sleepy Hollow, Strike Back, Suits, Orphan Black and Dr. Who. I would have added Death in Paradise but they killed the old lead off and I don't like the new one nearly as much.

True that he was injured because of Oliver's actions. But Oliver only gave him the mirakuru to try to save him. If the mirakuru hadn't been twisting Slade's mind by then, he should have got that. The only reason Oliver left him to die (thinking he had killed him with an arrow through his eye) was because Slade was already crazy.

I'm holding on to Stephen Amell having a good idea of what works and what doesn't, and what the fans of the show want. AK and MG may be married men but they seem to have no idea how to write a good relationship. It didn't need to float away or fall out of his pocket? Oliver noticed that there was a very attractive woman on the island, and Laurel was history. Every time they try to tell us some more about Oliver/Laurel in the past, what they end up doing is showing us just how shallow that relationship was. Didn't Slade have a son and a family back home? That's the only explanation I can think of for picking Oliver over him. YES! I've seen it defended as wanting to distract Isabel from Felicity but all it showed was that Oliver will sleep with any female at the drop of a hat so yes, the chances are almost certain he's sleeping with Felicity too. I've been ranting about how his lack of protecting Felicity from Isabel completely undermines the idea that he cares for Felicity since the episode aired. So much for his promise in 1x14 to protect her, or don't office politics and bitchy remarks from the joint Big Boss count? I would have liked it better if Isabel associated Felicity with Moira (blonde hair, consort of the CEO) and played out her twisted fantasy for ruining Robert (Oliver) and Moira (Felicity) for what they had done to her in the past. I like Oliver's horror that he had banged his father's mistress, it reinforced that yes, he was like his father, and that he had got so obsessed with Slade that he "was so distracted that he failed to notice that the real danger is right in front of him" (quote from Unthinkable). It helped him go down further into the depths so that he could rise again. I don't think that they wrote him as having a romantic interest in her but they were building a substantive friendship. When she left that team at the start of The Dodger, he went after her, apologized, and agreed to try things her way. For the blinkered Oliver Queen who never apologized except for pre-island stuff, that was pretty big. (Diggle also got sort of an apology at the end of the season and it was well deserved.) The theme of Oliver listening to Felicity and taking her advice continued the rest of the season. Diggle had repeatedly warned him against working with Helena; in the Huntress Returns, he finally stops her not after she hurts Tommy but after she uses and ties up Felicity. One of the biggest changes in their relationship was at the end of Salvation when Oliver doesn't want "to be on an island any more". He approached Laurel, she says "sure, let's get coffee sometime" and then goes after Tommy, whereupon Oliver went to Felicity and told her she could talk to him and she accepts. Very trope. In s1 Oliver still believed that Laurel was the love of his life but he was more honest with Felicity and steadily growing closer to her as a friend and someone he relied on. There is a lot of honesty there, unlike his relationship with Laurel.

Laurel wanted to be mad at the Vigilante for Tommy's death. Any hints that she got that Oliver was The Hood/Arrow, she would have forcibly ignored, just as she ignored that he was cheating on her in the past.

Having the fall-out be over Shado is the sloppiest writing. Apparently guys are always bros unless a woman gets in the way. AK said in that infamous interview that Oliver and Laurel will always be important to each other because of what they've shared. I don't get that at all. If anything, they are like Capek's Romeo and Juliet, two children in love with love and the idea that they are being adults, with no real sense of who the other person is. Most of the time it seems they were either lying to each other or to themselves. If "always being in each other's life because of what they've shared" applies to anyone, it's Oliver and Sara. They both started out as selfish children, went through some horrific times both separately and together, and came out of them determined to right the wrongs that are done to people who can't defend themselves. Laurel says she's a good-doer but I've never felt she connected to the Arrow over wanting to do good, not like Sara did wanting to protect women and just generally stop bad guys. While Oliver and Sara argued about killing, Laurel's "I looked into his eyes and he's a killer" just served put her an ocean away from Oliver.