statsgirl

Sounds like a crack at EBR because Felicity is light and funny. It's worth noting that TV Line gave her runner-up Performer of the Week (to Peter Dinklage, I believe) for her "You're not done fighting" scenes. I haven't seen her in anything else but I'm looking forward to what she can do opposite John Barrowman next season.

True, I hadn't thought about re-selling. In a previous fandom of mine (The Lost World), the number of fans was small enough that there wasn't a chance of re-selling and we bought scripts and memorabilia of those episodes we really liked.

I think the question for me would be whether CL (or someone else) could make me sympathetic to Laurel and understand why she threw the glass even though she shouldn't have. On paper, Laurel is in a really bad place. She never completely got over what happened 6 years ago and it caused her parents to break up and her father to hit the bottle. When Oliver returned, it brought it all back again, along with her confused feelings about him. Then Tommy died, and CNRI closed and she started drinking and taking drugs to cope and she loses her job with the DA's office, and she's alone and more isolated than before. She could really use someone she knows is on her side unconditionally (and not just to get her into AA). She's accepted Sara dying and then Sara shows up and her parents are all Sara! Sara! and when at her apartment when she's expected to act like it's all okay, it's just too much for her. An actress who could make me feel Laurel's pain and understand why she acted like that could have pulled that scene off. Instead, it was like Laurel was upset because she wasn't the centre of everyone's attention. It's the biggest acting requirement of the scene to play because obviously Quentin and Dinah are so happy, and we understand Sara's mixed feelings but we have to understand all the feelings Laurel is going through while seeing how she's falling apart. Think about what Paul Blackthorne did during the dinner scene when Dinah said she wasn't coming back. In a sense, I feel for the writers because it could have been a really powerful scene. But KC isn't Meryl Streep, she isn't even Mamie Gummer, and I wish they would stop writing scenes for Laurel that KC can't pull off because it just brings more attention to the flaws in the show.

The current bids on Stephen Amell's signed scripts on e-bay is interesting. The season opener is up to $1,600. Then it goes down, bottoming at $710 for 2x06 (Keep Your Enemies Close,r) surprisingly, and doesn't get over $1,000 again till 2x08 and 2x09, the Barry Allen episodes. I wonder if the EPs would consider the amounts a reflection of how much people liked the episodes.

I think the EPs thought they were doing a good Felicity episode but it seems like few people like it, or even her role in it because it just didn't work. Maybe because there wasn't enough time to spend on her story because the Lance Family Drama was also taking place, maybe just because it was badly written. The 'scar in her mouth' scene still makes me cringe even though EBR acting the hell out of it.. And someone needs to give the costume person a reprimand for putting her in those old lady clothes in ep 15. Maybe they wanted her badass and finally on the Team but what it did was show why she shouldn't be there. As a team member, it's sometimes a good thing if you argue a different point of view with the leader but in the end, there has to be a leader and everyone else has to follow his/her orders or it all falls apart. Laurel didn't and all she ended up doing was demonstrating that she didn't deserve a place on the Team. That said, it was combination of writing and acting that blew it because if KC had played Laurel less entitled and more genuinely willing to do whatever was needed even it it was menial, it would have played differently.

For me, her back story and karmic payment matters less than that when I see Caity Lotz act, I see vulnerability. I see how she accepts the blame for the bad that she's done (and more than just what she's done which is something she has in common with Oliver) and I can see her trying to make things right. I see how unsure of herself she is around people, not just the ones she's hurt like Laurel and her parents but also around Diggle and Felicity because she feels she's too broken to accept friendship. I don't get any vulnerability from Laurel except how it concerns her and how other people have hurt her. She's rarely unsure of herself and I never see her realizing how she's hurt other people (and she has during the episodes the show has been on). Even the fight with Tommy when she assumed he had asked Oliver for a job and he hadn't and it made everyone uncomfortable, Tommy was the one who ended up apologizing to her, not Laurel for realizing she was pushing him too hard. Even when she's helping people at CNRI, I get the impression that it's more about glorifying Laurel than actually wanting to help other. I don't know what went wrong, why they consistently write her as someone who should elicit sympathy from me but she never does. (although I do think a lot of that is on KC' shoulders). Look at Moira, who did a lot of bad things and continued to do bad things (e.g. threaten Felicity instead of tell the truth) but we understand her and I do sympathize with her because she was put in an impossible situation. I think the only solution is to stop trying to make Laurel vulnerable because it's not working, and just play straight-out 'tough broad' like Jessica on Suits or Gates on Castle. One of the ways they got me to like Oliver was in his interactions with Diggle, who smacked him down when he needed it but also understands what he's going through, with Felicity who stands up to him when he is less than he could be, with Tommy because I could see how much he was hurting, and even with Thea when she needs help and he thinks he can't. They cracked the shell and let some of the real man inside bleed out at times. ETA: The person reading over my shoulder just commented that Sara projects vulnerability and Laurel projects entitlement. Even the question of being on the team now that she knows Oliver's the Arrow, Laurel went to the cave and insisted that she was going out with them even after Oliver told her 'no'. "Why do they get to go and I don't?" It's partly the writing, but it's also the acting too.

We've never heard Felicity mention that she doesn't have siblings, only that all she has now is her mom. So they could add a brother or two (a much older one as the King) if they wanted to play with it.

I think one of the good things about this show is how many people close to Oliver do oppose him. Not just Moira, who is a grey character, and Thea, who is often bratty but from time to time hits home with one of her jabs against him but almost everyone close to him, From his first episode Diggle opposed him, to the extent of quitting when he thought he didn't get enough respect from Oliver. Felicity also quit because he was killing, and continues to opposed him when she thinks he's wrong. Sara fought him a number of times, form her right to leave to whether they should kill Roy. Roy has been scathing in his contempt for Oliver. I agree that a female protagonist can be unpopular with some of the audience when she opposes the male protagonist (Ziva on NCIS and Abby on ER come to mind and Cameron on House got smashed for it) but I think there's more than that in Laurel's case. I just watched The Undertaking and once again, when Oliver gets around Laurel, he becomes a more unpleasant and less root-able person.

I agree that comic book fans would want to expand the team to include Arsenal but I think the show has gone beyond comic book fans and into a life of its own. The EPs are using that by putting Diggle and TV's Felicity Smoak into the comics to pick up on the new fans, but these are the people who don't want to see the Team diluted. I've also seen reviewers like Alan Sepinwall and Matt Roush write that they missed the show focussing on the core 3 members of the Team so it's not just here. That makes sense. Or maybe they're aware of how lost these other characters got during the second part of s2 and want to make up for it now.

MG and AK did say that they learned from s2 but now I'm wondering. Saying that Roy will be equal to Diggle and Felicity is not going to make people like me who didn't like the dilution of Team Arrow feel optimistic. Sara coming on as equal to Oliver meant that everyone else got pushed further down the line. Maybe Roy has become a good fighter but what Diggle and Felicity brought to the team was a gravitas and a moral philosophy beyond Oliver's "kill the bad guys". I haven't seen anything in Roy that seems to be on that plane.

Benedict Cumberbatch's was good. But this is the one that killed me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=187w3X_uNNc

I know it's unlikely but they can always go back to the original meaning of oracle, which is someone who predicts the future. Or maybe someone who writes a computer program that affects the future. It would be kind of fun if Felicity wrote a program in college that is used for something in the current day Arrow-verse, maybe something one of the bad guys took and used and now she feels the responsibility to get in there are destroy it because her innocent program enabled the crime to be committed. I wonder if they regret that now. Her name was probably supposed to be just an easter egg, and now the DC universe is kind of messed up.

I pretty much gave up on twitter because it's exhausting with the tweet overload. And for too many people, it's really obvious that they're tweeting to the crowd and phony as anything. I find EBR refreshing because she's not trying to be anything she isn't. And I loved CH overseeing the date from the on-line couple. So realistic, I cringed and then laughed.

I keep running across fic where Felicity is allergic to nuts. Is this canon, or fanon? And if it's canon, from where?

Yep. And I will hate this show forever for it. I thought we were finally done with bad being good, and good being bad. Sure it is -- she's working on the wrong side of the law. She's trying to put bad guys in jail, which makes her an evil person since we all know that Shawn thinks bad guy are good, unless Sonny doesn't like them. Seeing Sonny and Shawn discussing Sonny sleeping with Carly was just awful today. Like two frat boys talking about the girl they both had. I know soaps habitually drop story lines and then pick them up again, but the middle of a kidnapping????

I love that EBR has so much fun with the writers of both shows. Pretty sure it adds to a better Felicity and a better Arrow. I wonder if they're going to make Felicity into or connected with another DC character. When they thought of putting in an IT specialist for Oliver to go to (after the feedback on the pilot from Comic Con), they probably thought she would be a minor recurring character. Then she became important and now that she's going to be in the comics, maybe they're having trouble separating her from the original Felicity Smoak. As KirkB asked, the question is 'do they know what the mistakes are'? They said that they were going to take the overarcing storyline idea in s1 (The List) and put it into s2 because to have one story over the season worked better. They said some things about s2 that they thought worked (I can't remember them) but I think they also indicated that they were going to put the focus back on Team Arrow (O/D/F) again. I think they still might not know where they went wrong with Laurel. AK said that he knows people are just waiting for her to put on those black fishnets, which makes me wonder if they ever do any polling. On the other hand, if they put her to the side doing legal stuff and keep Oliver out of her vicinity next season, maybe they do have a clue what went wrong. Oliver has done some pretty awful things, and so has Sara but IMO they are heroic because they want to do good things and help people who can't help themselves or who have been wronged (Oliver with The List and other criminals, Sara with helping women etc.). The problem with Laurel is not the blackmailing, because I support blackmail in a good cause, but that other than some things at the beginning of s1, she's been more selfish than anything else. Maybe if they write her a good storyline it could work, something equivalent to Oliver's island or Sara's troubles, maybe her personality could turn around. But after 46 episodes, I'm not optimistic that it isn't too late.

It did provide the opportunity for some good acting but this plot has more holes than a sieve. Louis has a great track record and proven skills; even if the water is bloody from the sharks someone still should have had the foresight to hire him. And then it just gets worse and worse ... Harvey comes up with a job offer that is third rate, Sheila rejects him, he loses Versatech, and then he finds out everyone betrayed him. Was this a re-make of the Job Story? For the past two seasons, I've felt that they've been dragging out the Mike is a fraud! storyline far too much. Here's a fix that they should have done when Rachel got accepted to Stanford: have Mike take a sabbatical during which he finishes law school somewhere, anywhere, near her and then return for a Masters or Doctorate at Harvard. He's smart enough to do it and work at the same time, it settles the Harvard problem since he graduates from there in the end, and then he's back on the partnership track and PSL. Until they put that storyline in the ground, the show will continue to spin its wheels.

Anne Shirley beat out Felicity, but still remarkable for EBR. Seeing what she does with her role, it's easy to forget how few years she's been doing it.

I don't really care about their backstory, that can be overcome. To be honest, pre-island Oliver was about the douchiest a person can get and yet I still root for him in the present. What stops me is KC's portrayal of Laurel, a combination of the acting and not overcoming what's written on the page. It makes Laurel self-centered, okay let's say it narcissistic, cruel (to Dinah, Quentin, Sara and Oliver) when she isn't getting what she thinks she should have, double-standardy when it comes to herself or others. How can I support Oliver in a relationship with a woman who deliberately hurts her mother, or who throws barware when her supposedly-dead sister shows up because she's not the centre of attention for once. She's someone I wouldn't wish on anyone I cared about. I know this is the CW and all but I would like it if they didn't make the world stop with 30 year olds like Oliver and Laurel, although it's nice to have Diggle and Quentin on too. It sometimes feels like a child's book or Boy's Own Adventure, where kids get to rule and if there are any adults, they're in the background. (I forgot about Malcolm but villains are allowed to be older on this show.) I wouldn't even need to see Walter mentoring Oliver that much, just have him there in the background as he was when he helped Oliver keep half of QC from Isabel. Just to know that there are older, more experienced people in the universe.

Current voting is so it looks like people agree with you.

Every time I see Jessica (Gina Torres) on Suits, I think "that's what Laurel should be." (Also her clothes are way better.) I do hate how much they dumped on that character[ BkWurm1 was talking] about this year. Great stuff for the actor who hit it out of the park, but too much for me.

I've hated Shawn ever since he became Sonny's Chief Hypocrite and Boot-Licker. I was thrilled when Alexis got out of his clutches but now he's ruining Jordan, who otherwise would be a strong female character. Why does this show feel the need to raise him up by giving him good women who end up lowering themselves for him? I thought that with Guza gone, it would no longer be The Sonny Corinthos House but it feels just as bad as before albeit with less screen time. I was hoping and hoping that he would have to pay for what he did to AJ but thanks to Carly, nada. Now he's sleeping with her because he happens to be without a bed warmer this minute and Franco is the one who ends up apologizing. As for Tracy and FauxLuke, that story can't be over fast enough for me.

Daniel's lectures are a whole lot better than any I've been to myself. Why can't my profs be like that? I thought they did a pretty decent of job them both these past two episodes. I like that Kate couldn't stop the voices telling her that Donnie was cheating (nice parallel with Daniel) and how that affected her perception of him in this episode because when the ex said that she had left him 6 months ago for someone with better political prospects, Kate should have realized that wasn't Donnie. And the way they were left, Donnie ended up disappointed and not as trusting in her. I thought Daniel's dad was a hoot in the 'taking advantage of the dementia lady for sex'. So wrong and yet, who is it really hurting? Cuddles and affection will do more for her than Risperidol.

On "the glass is half full" side, at least they followed their gut feelings to make Isabel a villain and Sara the BC. The bizarre thing is, I truly believe that AK and MG believe that they have shown her to be a 'good-doer' and they don't know why the audience hasn't taken to her. They are determined not to take her down the dark path, and just in case we don't believe it, they've cast David Cubbitt as Manhunter to show all those who were suggesting Laurel should have the role. In the interviews at SDCC, they implied that they learned from what didn't work in s2. I'm curious to see if they did and they're going to give her stories that remain on the periphery of Team Arrow and leave her to do her job as a prosecutor. If they try to put her in the Cave or make her BC, then I guess they didn't.

Yes, I knew that he had cancelled. I thought it was because he had found a role and had to be elsewhere. Now it seems like he cancelled Fan Expo to attend Dragon Con and while I know Dragon Con is a bigger deal, it leaves a bitter taste.