statsgirl

Diggle's been pretty protective of Felicity a couple of times, first when she was joining the team if she would be hurt, and later when Oliver was with Sara in front of their noses. I don't want him to be too protective of her though -- if anyone is going to kick Oliver's ass over his treatment of Felicity, it should be Felicity herself,and Diggle can stand back and grin.

I think there is a ton of stuff they could do with Diggle next season if they wanted to do psyche and not just action because he's a pretty deep person. He's a soldier so once he signed on with Oliver, he was focused on the mission, not Oliver's neuroses or b.s. (something I really love about him), although he did try to help Oliver deal with it, soldier to soldier. But now he's got Lyla and a baby on the way. How is he going to deal with Lyla working for ARGUS? And working with Deadshot? Since how will he react to Thea and Malcolm? David Ramsey said that Diggle is five years ahead of Oliver in terms of maturity and where he is in his life. I'd like to see Diggle navigate his own life for a while.

There are a lot of complaints that Laurel is written all over the place, but if you make the assumption that she's basically a shallow person, it all seems to fit together. For Sara, I can see that it might have been that she had a crush on Oliver from way back, from the time Laurel got her grounded so Sara couldn't hook up with him. For all that he was a douche back pre-island, he would have been pretty hard for a 20 year old to say no to, especially given that Laurel was being a pill about Sara's warnings ("Why can't you just be happy for me?"). So she could have justified to herself getting on the boat that she was in love with Oliver, but she still wasn't open about it just it case it was fake. For Oliver, it was like father, like son. Robert gave Isabel promises, or maybe he just let her make assumptions that he had no intention of keeping and when it blew up in his face, the easy way out was to fire her. Laurel was pushing Oliver to commit to something he didn't want to, and he took the easy way out, going with his father and asking Sara on the trip. He probably was attracted to Sara, she was pretty and fun and liked sex, and he didn't bother to think it all the way through. You don't sleep with the other sister unless you're intending to blow up the relationship as Laurel said, but the intention was unconscious.

It's debatable but it seems to me that having a blind spot around someone, whether it's the woman you thought you were in love with, your mother, or the woman you think you can save from herself (Helena), and not seeing them for who they really are means being stupid around them. If Thea comes back with Malcolm and tries to take Oliver down while Oliver keeps insisting that she's just his little sister and harmless, that would make him stupid around her too, and I'd expect Diggle to act accordingly although he might be softer given all Thea's been through.

Long before they knew of Moira's involvement in the Undertaking, Diggle didn't trust her and wanted Oliver to be wary around her. But Oliver kept insisting that she was innocent of any wrongdoing even after she shot him, so Diggle started looking into Moira on is own and Oliver got mad at him for it (which is what I mean by Oliver being stupid about her).

Diggle is opposed to anyone who makes Oliver stupid (Laurel, Helena, Moira). He likes people who care about Oliver, try to do right by him, and puncture his self-importance (Sara, Felicity). The wicked smile Diggle gives Oliver when Oliver tries to physically intimidate Felicity and she walks out on him at the beginning of The Dodger is priceless. At the CW Arrow tumblir there's a good bit of art for Team Arrow with Diggles' section " Ex-soldier; Bodyguard; Black driver; Suicide Squad; Hand-to-hand combat; Having none of your bullshit since '12. Pretty much sums him up.

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled we're finally seeing Felicity's apartment. We got to see Diggle's and Laurel's, and Tommy's yard in s1 and Quentin's house and the Clock Tower where Sara was staying in s3 so I'm very happy we get to see Felicity's now. But it still feels off to me. Felicity is someone who matches her earrings to her nail polish (in State vs Queen) or her belt to her shoes (various episodes). Nothing in that picture seems to match anything else except maybe the vase which is several shades lighter than the throw. Everything else is a mish-mash of colors and styles (even the pages from the Ikea catalogue match more), and it seems a bit fussy with all the vases and four side tables in different styles for someone who made her Arrow lair very stylized and sleek (I'd be knocking that beige vase on the side table over within half an hour). There's no place to read comfortably except lying on the sofa but there's no light there so it would have to be a kindle or tablet. (I know, I'm really picky.) I really like the burgundy settee and the yoga mat in front of it though. Part of me was hoping it would have character like Kate Beckett's place (pictures 2 and 3 or here) who is supposed to be about the same age as Felicity. Not necessarily the complexity of Beckett's place but I was hoping that her bits and pieces would tell me more about who Felicity is as a person. (Beckett again.) Does she like old movies because she has that poster? I expected a bunch of DVDs of old movies because you can't download those easily when you want to. (If it refers to Oliver/the Arrow, it feels like the set designer is saying "Aren't I clever?") Does she have time to read these days? I can see her downloading new things she hasn't read on her tablet but having a bunch of books that are old friends from pre-tablet days. Does she ever invite friends over to watch TV or movies? Her couches are at right angles to the screen. But if I'm the only one who feels that way, that's okay. Maybe I'll think of it differently when I see it on TV.

I agree, but more than that, I don't think Tommy and Laurel could ever have had a trusting relationship again. I don't think Oliver has willingly opened up to anyone yet except possibly Sara. Diggle forced some things out of him because Diggle has been there himself, in a war, and he knows what Oliver is going through. I don't think Oliver has really opened up to Felicity at all, the closest she's got is the anguished cry in the foundry "it was five years where nothing good happened" and her remark about Fantasy Island because of the number of women there shows how little he has told her about what happened there because her world is very different than Lian Yu was. For the same reason, plus Tommy dating Laurel, I don't think he could have opened up to Tommy either. Neither Felicity nor Tommy would be able to understand at all. Oliver may have been afraid of them treating him like a freak if he told anything about what it was like. That's how I see Tommy alive too, a friend to all on the team but not directly involved in the missions except maybe very occasionally as a distraction. Like Oliver, he's too well known to go undercover as Diggle and Felicity have done and he doesn't have any special skills like fighting or tech or tactics. I think 1st Year Island Oliver really did believe he wanted Laurel. She was like a talisman to him, the vision of a better life and he wanted to make up to her everything he had done wrong. 2nd Year Island Oliver was different, He was better able to survive and he had good friends in Slade and Shado (also a sexual relationship) so he didn't need to hold on the Laurel's picture like a lifeline. Also having Sara turn up changed how he thought about her -- she was no longer someone who had died because of his thoughtlessness, she was someone who had been wounded and had suffered like he had, someone who understand all he had gone through better than anyone in Starling City. Sara dead was a wrong he had done and needed to pay for; Sara alive was a comrade he could connect with.

She does a really good job of integrating Tommy into the storyline. I wish he were still around. Yes. :-D ETA: same writer, a different take on Tommy in the present. Only read if you're okay with threesomes. The Curse of Cuervo.

Janina G. and Cynthia A. look different with minimal make-up. Cynthia especially looks much softer. There is color but except for the settee, it's all muted. I understand decorating in neutral tones. I do it myself, keeping walls and major furniture neutral so that I can have some things like a lamp or a cushion that really stand out, and I can switch them around easily when I get bored with them. It's just that I think of Felicity having a strong personality and I don't see that in the apartment. It feels like a jumble someone put together because they thought a young single woman would have that. For example, if the big plant is plastic, as HighHopes suggested, I don't see Felicity as the kind of person who would have a plastic plant because it's fake and just for show (and Felicity herself really isn't), not to mention hard to dust. And I don't know any smart person who has that much room on her shelves, usually they're overflowing with books and DVDs. But I'll wait to see the episode. I hope there's a good story behind the poster because without it, it looks like evidence of Felicity's crush on Oliver. Now if it were Captain Blood....

In the Arrow cave..... I think if KC had played Laurel as appreciating Diggle and Felicity for having Oliver's back when he's the Arrow, and when she asked for a moment alone with him, she didn't stare at them to make sure they left the room, it would have seemed less like Lady Bountiful and more like a team player. replying to the rest on the Relationship thread

Stephen Amell said at the upfronts about a week after the episode aired that what we saw wasn't what they filmed but that the scene worked out better, tighter, this way. Why not include the scene on the DVDs now? It's not like they're going to be putting in on the s3 or 4 cut scenes.

Jason was the first test subject. Peter-whoever-the-hell-he-is must have been done after Stavros since he's still woozy. (Why exactly did we need this storyline?) Either that or he was given an inferior drug before Robin fixed it. Why are they making Maxie as stupid as a brick? Girl deserves better. I love all Obrecht's snarking, from Anna in her ear (I went to medical school, I can learn things) to Victor menacing her. So he could be influenced by Helena, Stavros and Victor? Best thing Obrecht could have done for him. Even Donna Mills is a lot less scary.

I think Katie Cassidy looks her best when she's at rest like an Old World madonna, she's quite beautiful like that. Unfortunately it doesn't translate into ease of being in the scene. Laurel shut down Sara when Sara tried to tell her that Oliver wasn't ready to move in together because he was cheating on her, and she thought that Oliver would be bothered by her moving on with Tommy. Diggle and Felicity worked for Oliver, by Laurel's reckoning, .but she, Laurel, was the love of his life. She even referred to them as 'associates' rather than friends or partners. Felicity is just his EA that he could have fired to give Laurel her job.

So Oliver as a son (we presume) and Diggle has a daughter.... you know Oliver is going to be extra 'you can't get hurt, you have a baby daughter' to Diggle. He can be a douche but he is protective of the women and children. Felicity's house is probably divided into apartments because having a house to live in all by herself would be too much space and too much cleaning. She wasn't daring but she had bright lipstick and clothes and glasses with frames that stood out and and edge-of-fashion nail polish even at work, and she's always been quirky. And she did leave Las Vegas to go to MIT. I like the burgundy settee, it feels like something Felicity would have but the rest of the room is too bland and a mish-mash of styles. She likes distinctive dresses and shoes so even if she didn't have much money, I would think she'd go for interesting second-hand pieces, maybe buying them on-line.

I think some of that could have been averted if they had spent any time exploring Oliver's relationship with Sara in s2. I can buy that they had unfinished business and they were both damaged people who naturally might have sought comfort in each other but that was never explored, nor was it properly explored how their different experiences led them in different directions. There was a tantalizing glimpse of it in Seeing Red when Sara wanted to kill Roy and Oliver said "I'm tired of having this conversation over and over" but we never really saw how they were together other than as fighting partners. Maybe not had a long talk about how Oliver was doing, but some sort of acknowledgement that Felicity had just been willing to tank her whole relationship with Oliver to Do The Right Thing. Diggle's comment about how it must be hard seeing Oliver and Sara together in the next episode was woefully inadequate. And made Oliver look like even more of a jerk. .

Laurel acted entitled all through the scene. And while there is an argument to be made that she's known Oliver the longest, as a member of the audience I have more affiliation with Diggle and Felicity and feel that they have more of a right to be in on any Arrow conversation. Yes, that's it. Maybe Laurel didn't know everything that Diggle and Felicity had done or how close their association with Oliver was but she shouldn't have dismissed them as she did. Like the jacket scene, the problem is the way KC played it and that the director let her.

Is the poster from Errol Flynn's Robin Hood? Wow, that's kind of disappointing. pretty boring for Felicity, who like bright colours and extremes. A beige couch and taupe walls? Maybe if they had made the throw a bright lemon yellow and made the rug and the giant vase brighter colours.... and more books on the bookshelf (because I see her as the kind of person who never has enough bookshelf space), and moved the sofa in to face the TV screen, instead of the two sofas facing each other. Right now, it's set up for parties and conversation rather than an IT girl who lives alone and has a double life. (Is that tropical plant going to get enough light there? I was hoping for something like they did for Beckett on Castle, full of curios and colour and interesting things.

I think building up a relationship and then putting the brakes on it is a pretty SOP for TV. You set up the big romance so that everyone knows, and then you pull back because you've got 23 episodes each season to fill and much of the fun is in the telling of how you get there (as opposed to the 'will they/won't they?' which makes me want to bang my head against a wall). I think putting the OTP together in s2 is too soon. (The end of s3, on the other hand,, feels right.)

I agree that Tommy died to further Oliver's story, just as Moira died for the same reason the next season, and Robert in the pilot episode. Season 2 was about becoming a hero to honour Tommy, it was even in the introduction to the episodes. It's also true that Felicity was the one who was always against him killing if there was another way. Diggle was fine with the killing when the scum deserved it (his military background?), Laurel either hated it or was okay with it depending on her mood, and Sara was trained to accept killing as an option. And Felicity was the one who called him a hero to Quentin in Sacrifice. So in that sense, coming closer to a hero also put him closer to Felicity. I agree that we don't know the endgame relationship yet if the show goes on for a number of seasons. But I don't think the chances of Oliver and Laurel ending up together are good given how people reacted to Oliver/Laurel and Oliver/Felicity. I think it was MG who said in s1 that they had to end Oliver/Laurel/Tommy to be able to explore Oliver/Felicity.

Among the reasons why Oliver didn't tell Laurel he was The Hood, I think guilt would be a bigger factor than love. It's true that he didn't tell anyone he had known before the island but I don't think that's because he only told people he didn't love. When he first came back, Oliver pushed everyone from his past away, not because he loved them but because he couldn't love any more. He pushed Laurel away especially hard , maybe because he felt guilty and maybe partly because he felt he was a monster now and she shouldn't be near him. I miss Tommy too. I don't want to be argumentative but how could Tommy have helped the crusade? Oliver had his list of names and he was taking them down one by one. He brought on Diggle because he needed a partner, Digg had fighting skills and was okay with killing. He brought on Felicity because she had tech skills no one else had and she wanted to find Walter. Not to mention, we saw how horrified Tommy was when he realized Oliver was the Arrow, unlike Diggle who was okay with killing. I can't see how or why Oliver would have told Tommy and asked him to help. Unlike Oliver, Tommy was pretty okay with the 1% and when Oliver returned, he was still a party boy. Thea was 17, and still a child, not only in Oliver's eyes but emotionally as well. To tell her about his crusade, much less recruit her to kill, would have been very wrong, like making his little sister into a child soldier? And just about everyone who found out that he was a killer rejected him. Both Laurel and Tommy rejected him, Tommy as a friend and Laurel as a hero object. Diggle rejected him at first until Oliver convinced him it was the right thing to do and Felicity stayed but kept pushing him not to kill. The only people who seemed okay with it were Moira and Sara, both of whom had got their own hands dirty. Why didn't Oliver tell Moira what he was doing? He thought she was good and innocent, and when he found out she wasn't, he couldn't trust her. It's usually fanwanked that Walter recommended Felicity to Oliver as an IT person who was very good at her job. On the show, Oliver went to Felicity first and presumably when the EPs decided they wanted to keep Felicity on, they started writing her IT things to do for Walter because it's several episodes till Oliver comes back to her again. Good point, Laurel would want to show off her legs. (Which is another reason why she shouldn't be on the team, but that's another issue.) There is being on the team, and there is being a help to the team like Commissioner Gordon or Quentin Lance, someone you can go to when you need their help but who is not involved in the core organization and discussions. I can see why Laurel/KC would want to think of herself as being a partner on the team, that's where the cool kids are, But I really hope she stays on the sidelines instead for a number of reasons For starters, she's sworn to uphold the law, not go around it, and Laurel has trouble with going against her creed unless it's about getting something for herself. Emotionally Laurel is a bad fit on Team Arrow. She's too volatile, it's all love/hate with her, and she's too self-centered and doesn't follow orders. unlike Diggle who will tell Oliver when he disagrees with him but puts it aside to let Oliver lead. She really should be the sort of character who knows about the team, who brings them problems to fix, and who helps them bring down the bad guys by prosecuting them. The only reason for Laurel to be part of the inner circle of the lair is Comics! and that would make for bad storytelling.

I wonder if running the club will be Thea's secret identity while she works with Merlyn. Oliver thinks he's got his kid sister back and safe, and meanwhile she's working against him with Malcolm Merlyn. That makes sense. Why would the new owners of QC want a broken-down foundry in the worst part of town? Even if it has a night club. That sounds interesting... Oliver thinks he can't have a normal life but maybe he can have one vicariously through Diggle and that's another reason for pushing Diggle out of the Team.

I guess they have an idea of who is likely to run out and buy the DVDs as soon as they're released. I wonder if they'll put up one with Oliver fighting next.

I just want to emphasize this. Both Diggle and Felicity had skills sets that Oliver needed. Tommy and Thea didn't. Roy chose to join on his own before he even know who Oliver was. Laurel's skill set, being a lawyer, puts her on the opposite side of The Vigilante. The other big plus that Felicity had was that she believed Oliver was a hero, and Diggle too believed he was doing the right thing and making a difference, which is why he joined him. Laurel kep flip-flopping but much of the time she believed that The Hood/The Arrow was a killer. It's impossible that Oliver could trust her with his secret under those conditions. Now that Moira is gone, I'd love to see Megan Follows do her evil queen on Arrow.

Sing it. I wonder if Sara will be there since CL is recurring and not a regular. Nable may be in the publicity shots but I don't think he'll be in the main picture. My guess is Team Arrow (Oliver, Diggle and Felicity) prominent, Laurel and Quentin in one grouping, Thea and Malcolm in another, Roy somewhere in the middle.