statsgirl

I was once given a Betty Crocker cookbook from the 60s, which I was really excited about till I read it and realized that every recipe started with Bisquick. I still love my old Joy of Cooking, which I got (stole) from an ex and that it explains how to get the buckshot out before you cook the bird.

I love the idea that Felicity's is working at the Arrow version of Buy More. With Brandon Routh coming on and all. So Chuck. Maybe they're selling BR so hard because a) he's movie star and b) possible recurring or spin-off role. Hopefully he's over whatever that was because... Greg Berlanti, John Barrowman, Colton Haynes. (It still burns me that on a show with three gay men prominent, the only gay characters are played by two heterosexual women.

They rushed making Roy a full member of the team but they didn't rush his motivation. He was saving people in the Glades from early on and since the Hood saved him, he's been trying to make himself like him. Laurel's best motivation was Tommy's death and they blew that. KC could still do it, wanting to become like Sara so that she could not only prosecute criminals, she could wreak havoc on those who get off, but KC would have to play two notes for that. That may be why she wants to play Laurel kick-ass rather than conflicted, nuance prosecuting attorney and old friend of Oliver Queen. It's easier and more in her current skill set. Maybe in terms of becoming the Black Canary but she can't still think she's going to be Oliver's OTP if she's been listening to any of the interviews coming out starting with SDCC. It's Hollywood, it's PR, and if you don't know people lie all the time or spin things and then change their minds, you're going to drown. Because in order for Laurel to become a believable Black Canary, she has to make Laurel the best she can possibly be. And she's not, which is why there is such a problem now that Caity Lotz has done such a good job. I know I've said it before but KC should have started working out when the series was green-lighted so that by season 3 she would physically have been believable as a future BC, and she should have been reading the comics to find out all she could have about how AK and MG saw the BC. If your eye is only on the horizon, you're going to trip over a rock in the road right in front of you.

I get finding a dress that you love and buying it in a second colour. (I've been known to do that with a T-shirt myself.) But the same dress in three different colours? Blue boob dress last season, purple and orange in the promo? Contrary to the fanfic out there, are we going to find out in the premier that Felicity can't have Oliver stay with her now that he's lost the manor because her guest rooms are filled with racks and racks of clothes?

SDCC is the biggest con of all but NYCC is big too. I think the producers would arrange to have SA there just to promote the show. For the other actors, it would be more optional. Maybe they don't need to, they're regulars on the show and they're young so they have lots more chances to get other roles. Someone older like Manu Bennett, on the other hand, doesn't have that many really physical years left and he needs to get roles while he can. (Alan Dale seems to have sewn up all the 'older Australian/Kiwi ones.) Sad but true. Thanks for the link, Lokiberry. Wow, Katrina's hot when she wants to be.

I didn't like the skin tight grey one either. (That's the one with the orange panels, right?) EBR's got a great body but putting her in too-tight clothes does Felicity no favours. I don't mind cut-away dresses, except professionally, but we call it the boob dress for a reason -- because it really really drew attention to her boobs -- and that's also wrong. Maybe Oliver's dressed casually because he's unemployed at the moment and just showed up for Quentin's press conference because Laurel's a friend? On Castle in s2 or 3, there was a long-sleeve t-shirt top that Stana Katic wore and because it looked good on her, the costume people bought about half a dozen of them in various colours. I wouldn't mind if Felicity did the same, it's easier than having to decide what to wear in the morning, if I actually liked the boob dress. (I heard that Obama wanted his suits to be only navy and grey. Since the human brain can only make a certain number of decisions per day, he wanted to save his for the big stuff, like Russia.)

See, Black Canary in her sights already. They're really grasping at straws for her character now. They want her because she's Dinah Laurel Lance, but they can't fit her. Not to mention, the show would be better without her. I remember Willow Smith (Will Smith's daughter) saying in interview a couple of years ago when she'd recorded a song at age 12 that everyone 12 year old should record like that, with no sense that her life is different than all the other 12 year old girls out there. That's what I meant referring to Hollywood royalty, the idea that special things come to you without having to work to get there . Gwyneth Paltrow's parents were established in Hollywood, I think Angelina Jolie made it more on her own efforts than her father's name (although it will be different for her kids) but while David and Shaun Cassidy weren't that big, Jack Cassidy was pretty big and Shirley Jones was huge (Carousel, Oklahoma, Music Man, Elmer Gantry ... she was the go-to for the best roles.) I'm sure Katie Cassidy's lawyers are the best, and I'd guess that she's had opportunities based on her name that another actress of the same calibre wouldn't have. From the spoiler's thread: . That's what I mean, special status. Would anyone else in the cast be written around so she/he could attend N.Y. Fashion Week?

Add me to the Katrina Law love. Hopefully she'll be on enough that we can have a Nyssa thread. Until then, while I couldn't find a vid of her singing (she's very good), here she is doing standup.

Humanizing Oliver is the five year arc of the show (first five years, hopefully). It's what makes the TV show different from the previous comic book shows that failed. As present day Oliver grows more human, past Oliver becomes the cold killer he was in the premier. In terms of the show itself, I think it makes sense to have a team because it's more interesting. Oliver can bounce off of the characters on his team, being serious and learning with Diggle, being light and funny with Felicity, teaching Roy what to do and how to handle it emotionally, as he learned from Diggle. Different interactions with different people, changing things up for the viewers, are what keep a show on the air.

I think Quentin will be more over the first part of the season trying to adapt to administration instead of being out in the field. The others are more adventure/fighting villains. I like that Mama Smoak is in both present day scenes with Oliver and flashbacks to Felicity's old boyfriend -- it's a way to get into the flashbacks rather than having them disjointed or just stuck in there. (I'm looking forward to Felicity's origins episode; I just hope that there isn't so much of her that the audience starts disliking her. It's a fine line to walk when the character isn't Oliver.) Can you imagine Liam Neeson as KC's love interest? ETA: That would be so hilarious!

Watching this episode now, knowing what happens in the next three, really makes a difference as to how I see it. Or maybe it's just that I've recovered from the lack of Team Arrow since ep 2x12. The writers of this episode, Wendy Mericle and Beth Schwartz, really had fun with the one-lines and subtle and not-so-subtle points. But it still doesn't make up for the mess that ToD was. Laurel: I promised Sara I'd help her with her trigonometry Oliver: I don't know what that is Laurel: You are very cute. Seriously Laurel? He says he doesn't know what trigonometry is, something he should have learned about in grade 5, and you think he's cute? This relationshp not ony has no chemistry, it's toxic to both parties. And it's nice to see Moira knows Oliver is upset even if Laurel doesn't. Oliver: Dad's going to kill me [about the pregnancy] He really is as immature as a child, no sense of what he really did. Maybe because Moira and Robert have always cleaned up his messes? Oliver denying that it's Laurel who is pregnant but someone else – Moira's expression is wonderful, like father, like son. Great work from Susanna Thompson all through this episode, past and present. "You're never without me" Moira says to Oliver in the past. Stephen Amell always gives a lot of credit to Susanna Thompson for teaching him a lot about acting, no wonder that scene blurs the lines for him. Raisa mention! Moira to Sandra: "Can I have Raisa get you a drink?" Thea is so obsessed by people lying to her. Over and over, it comes out. Well done, show. Love the fact that random strangers on the street come to save Sin because they think Roy is abusing her. There is still good in the Glades Sin "It made him strong, like comic book strong." nudge, nudge, wink, wink Pre-island Oliver: "One mistake and it seems my entire life is over." Baby, you ain't seen nothin' yet. To kill Slade or not to kill Slade – Oliver's dilemma this episode. Sara says he would kill Slade if he were there in front of him, Oliver is silent. Later he shouts at Slade that he's is going to kill him. Sara walks out to kill Roy, leaving him with Felicity. Class trope but I didn't know then that Sara was going to break up with Oliver Felicity had great expressions when Oliver grabs the bottle of lidocaine, puts it all in the syringe and then injects himself, bash. That's why she's taken over the position of leading lady, because EBR works so hard at making her character good even when she doesn't have dialogue or holds centre stage. "Full moon tonight, really brings out the whack jobs." In college, I had a part-time job in an ER and we were all convinced that the full moon brings out the loonies (moon, lunatic, there's a reason for that). It turns out that it was studied in a paper called "The Moon Was Full And Nothing Happened", but I never did believe that research. Finally, no Laurel in the present. I didn't miss her at all. Hallucinations for sure. (A number of conditions can cause hallucinations, and as can various drugs.)

I wonder if they're not talking about the great chemistry between Laurel and Ted Grant because they're still not sure he's going to be her love interest, although they do want to get her one if Felicity is going to get Oliver. After the anti-chemistry KC had with SA, maybe they're waiting to find out if Laurel/Ted Grant will work before they book him for long term and set up those story lines. Same with Laurel as Black Canary. If they have any sense, they'll wait to see how she works out this season instead of confirming she'll be the new BC. They could do what some other shows do, which is have the start of the first episode immediately after the cliff-hanger and then do a time jump later on ep 1 or before 2. That would be very Oliver. He did kind of the same thing with Barry too. That's what the fast-forward button is for. (And I am very thankful for it.)

Sadly, not just teenagers. I recall a woman in her thirties with children in another fandom who was conviced that she would be the perfect person in real life to marry the hero. The anonymity of the internet helps, enabling people to say things that really should be kept to themselves. My daughter's physics teacher had a saying "there are things that should be said, and things that should only be thought. You need to learn the difference." I hope the EPs are taking into account how hard it is on him because really, he is the show. I'm kind of horrified that he takes supplements IV every couple of weeks. (I also thought that maybe he should get a port-a-cath because it can't be doing the veins in his arms any good. They could hid it like a scar.) After season 1 he was sick for weeks (6?) because of how hard the shooting was on him and then he went right into an international p.r. tour to promote the show. I hope that now that the show is doing well and supporting characters are established that they will spend more time featuring characters like Diggle, Felicity, Saral, Roy, Thea/Malcolm etc. and give SA a break.

Or KC is because Oliver is the hero of the story. I think when Tommy told Laurel that she would love him is she knew he was the Arrow, maybe he had reconciled a bit with Oliver by that point. Or maybe he just knew that Laurel was fickle and would go for the guy with the higher status and the bigger bucks. That's a pretty funny picture of Oliver, Laurel, Felicity and Diggle that accompanies the article. Oliver, Diggle and Laurel are looking off into the city; Felicity is on her mobile doing real work gathering information. Maybe the strength of Laurel's love depends on him being a hero. She certainly was nasty to him when she thought that Oliver was still a douche and the Hood was a killer. I guess that the EPs did talk to KC about Laurel next season if she's suddenly smitten by Sara a month after throwing her glass at the door and kicking Sara out of her apartment. That's kind of a weird thing to say, considering the last scene was pure Olicity on Lian Yu. Maybe she meant Laurel's last scene instead?

She's Hollywood royalty and has an ironclad contract? And AK is determined to keep Dinah Laurel Lance on the show? If they can't make Laurel work this season, I wouldn't be surprised if she's off the show. But I also wouldn't be surprised if they keep her on. There are so many good things about the show, from SA's Oliver to Team Arrow to John Barrowman and Paul Blackthorne that maybe they think it doesn't matter so much.

I think having Felicity suddenly decide she has no feelings for Oliver, especially after the scene on Lian Yu when she practically begged him to say it wasn't all a con, would be a worse ruse than Oliver's in the Mansion. Besides, Guggenheim said and it seems bizarre to spend the comic growing them closer only to have her decide "now that I have Oliver interested in me, I guess I never was serious about my feelings for him." That would so be WTF? It worked after s1 because Oliver was on the island and they were putting together Moira's case in Starling City so the time jumped worked. But there were too many cliff-hangers at the end of s2, not just Olicity but where Oliver was going to live and what he was going to do for money, how was Roy going to handle the awkward fitting-in stage, and what happens to Quentin Lance, that to do a time jump this year means we miss out on a lot of character development that would have been good to see on screen.

He also said something about having to get through 12 pages of dialogue on Foundry Fridays so that they could do the stunts and other big stuff on the other days, so I guess EBR fit in both with getting through all the work they needed to do, and being silly to let off steam. I wonder how the fact that she's a method actor will affect it. (John Barrowman has a story about how he bugs Paul Blackthorne by trying to mess with his Method.)

Thank to everyone who took one for the team and shared the results. I think I'll wait for the print version. I laughed at how prominent the scars are in the cover picture, way, way more than on SA. It seems like the reason for skipping 8 months on the show is a manipulation to get everyone to buy the comics to find out what happens. Good to know there's no Laurel..... yet. This is a spoiler thread? So no need to put things behind spoiler bars? Yeah. That makes no sense. Unless it is just a manipulation to get us to buy comics we wouldn't have otherwise.

He said he likes working with Emily and that Felicity gives him a chance to play a side of Oliver he enjoys after being a broody dick all the time, so I don't think he'll get fed up with Olicity any time soon.

Stan Lee did 3 cons this weekend, FanExpo, Dragon Con and one other. The person who I know who went to see SA's Q&A said that she got the feeling that he was getting tired of being asked about Olicity all the time. Not surprising. It's too bad most of the cons happen during the summer hiatus when there's really not much the actors can say about anything. It's an interesting idea SA talks about, that people were saying that comic book shows don't work but Arrow worked because they moved it from episodic to arcing stories i.e. away from the hard core comic book format into a blend of comic and TV show. I so appreciate the way his socks and shoes match his shirt.

Excellent point. As has been said before, the show's EPs were planning on more Felicity even before the WB exec told them to have more of her. The episodes where she becomes part of Team Arrow were planned and written before the first time the audience got a look at her. Maybe if Lauriver had worked Felicity wouldn't be Oliver's love interest but as soon as it became clear Lauriver was toxic, the EPs had to find someone else. Felicity had a ton of chemistry with Oliver and she was already on the show. Why try to write yet another love interest? Greg Berlanti has survived and thrived in the cut throat business of network TV for almost 20 years. I doubt he's done it by going against what he thinks is good for the show to give the audience what they're asking for.

I'd say season 2 and 3 for starters. Probably also Sara staying on the show. "You have failed this city" for certain. I talked to someone who was there. Getting her to say something specific is like pulling hen's teeth but one of the things she said is that "You have failed this city" is coming back this season. The producers meant it to be only for s1 but the fans told SA they liked it so much, he went to the producers and asked if it could go back in again. So that could be what he's referring to. She also said that even though he lives in LA, he considers Toronto home (he was born there), which the fans liked, and that the LA Kings was his team, which they didn't so much.

That's the sort of stunt that Laurel could do too. She doesn't have to be taking down big bad guys or rolling down a ribbon from the roof.

She handles media quite well. Sort of spoilers but nothing really even though she must know a lot about the coming season, complimentary to the writers, and just comes off as normal and glad to have the gig.

Wouldn't it depend on what the stunts are? In 2x02 last year, Oliver swung Felicity out of QC headquarters on a window shade chain and then back into the building again. (Yeah, like that chain would hold their weights). That would qualify as a stunt along the only thing Felicity (as opposed to EBR) needed to do was hold on.