statsgirl

I thought that Thea was the cast member who was going to miss the opening episodes. In the Hong Kong flashback, Maseo tells Oliver that he can't be two people. We know something happens on the date before they get their main course. I'm assuming that, whether Felicity gets hurt for real or just that Oliver freaks out that she could be, whatever happens causes Oliver to decide that he can only be one person and that person is The Arrow. Oliver Queen has to be sacrificed for him. Felicity may decide that she wants more than Oliver is offering and start dating but to leave the team at this point seems like a drastic step. She's been there less than two years. Maybe s4 if Oliver is still dithering.

From the post: I think that trust is separate from acceptance but it's also tied into it. Oliver couldn't be completely honest with Laurel even pre-island, but could anyone? Is there anyone for whom Laurel had an unconditional positive regard, for whom Laurel was, as Dr. Phil likes to say, 'a soft place to fall'? Not Lance, who she was still angry at for drinking, not Dinah who she blamed for splitting up her family and who she wanted to hurt in Salvation, certainly not Sara who she blamed for ruining her life. When Oliver was wounded he needed someone who would do what he needed them to do without fighting or sabotaging him. I can't see that in Laurel. That's the problem, that she would want to be with Oliver because he was The Arrow, the Vigilante, the one who she thought saved the city. But it wouldn't be real. Superheros have their flaws and annoying things they do (even TV stars get bad breath) so if she wanted to be with the Vigilante, she wouldn't necessarily want to be with the person who the Vigilante was. That's kind of funny, but it's also true. It took running from Laurel to become who he could be. When Felicity asks how Oliver knows her name, he replies "Because you know my name." Move that to a metaphor, and did Laurel ever know his name? Did she know Tommy's until he was dying for her?

wonderwall, with the island reference, I meant that something huge would be needed to change Laurel.into the type of person who could be the heart of a show. Losing Sara and her parents divorcing didn't do it (she was still self-centred and blamed other people for her problems), and losing Tommy didn't do it either. His five years away changed Oliver from a selfish douche to a killer, and with that he is now able to become a better person, someone he probably would never have been had his life continued the way it was going. It would take that kind of dynamite to change Laurel and make her to take responsibility for her own actions, put other people ahead of herself, and to be able to look at things being grey rather than black and white. While she did realize that it was her actions that put Tommy into the position where he died, she was still blaming other people for her life and still resenting it when they didn't put her first and acting superior. You don't get to be the heart of a show by suggesting Oliver should fire Felicity and give Laurel her job, or by dismissing Diggle and Felicity in their own workplace.

The heart of the show has to be a character who is likable for who he/she is (unlike Oliver who is often not likable), who is optimistic and who sees the best in people, put other people ahead of himself/herself, is generally likable and is someone who is a touchstone for the best and who keeps other characters pushing to be better. I could have seen Tommy as the heart of the show. I can see Thea or Sara or Diggle or Quentin take that role because they have some of those characteristics in them. But that character is not Laurel and it's never been her. Even a major tragedy, like Sara or Quentin dying, isn't going to make her become like that. Five years on an island being tortured? Maybe.

And 308 is the crossover with The Flash. I guess that takes us up to Christmas. The title of 303 is Corso Maltese. Isn't that where Deadshot is working from?

She didn't say it was to help her acting. She became a fan of the comics after getting the job on the show, and it carried on from there. When she got the audition script for Felicity, she got really excited because she thought "she's so smart" and really wanted the role after reading the Hamlet reference. By coincidence, she was going to go to a performance of Taming of the Shrew that night. Does knowing Shakespeare help her with her role since Felicity is also familiar with him? Doubtful. Maybe it just shows that she's an actress who reaches out past the limitations of the script she's given. Or maybe it's that, like SA, she gets really excited about the show and wants to know everything she can about it. In contrast: I get the feeling that KC cares more about fashion than the show. Even if that's not true, the impression that she's going to get the BC mask and Oliver as a love interest handed to her without her having to do any work is a turn-off.

I avoid shipping non-canon ships too because they're only going to break my heart. (And on shows where they change direction, it really does hurt.) I don't know when I actively started shipping Oliver and Felicity as a couple; I just knew that I really liked seeing them in scenes together.

Wasn't the kid safe at that point? Oliver abandoned Diggle because the mastermind was leaving town and Laurel wouldn't be able to prosecute him if he did. If you can't trust your brother-in-arms to have your back, what good are they? Especially after all the times Diggle risked his life for Oliver. This episode really showed that Laurel was Oliver's blind spot and how bad they were for each other. My heart broke for Tommy.

That's her love interest? I looked at it and thought it was Paul Blackthorne. (The wearing of the badge threw me because why would she be wearing a badge other than at the police station?)

I was a total Tommy/Laurel shipper. I wonder if they hadn't anticipated that response. I liked Tommy and would gladly have sacrificed Laurel for him to stay but to have Tommy turn into the Dark Archer was too much like the Spiderman movie. Is there anyone else they could have killed off to push Oliver to his not-killing position? Moira maybe? as much as I regret losing Susanna Thompson this season. Thea would also have done but I think there's too much storyline potential in her character. I remember thinking that was weird that they specifically mentioned Olicity because I thought they could easily have done something with Oliver and Felicity, then put the breaks on it. Maybe they were thinking of Olicity as endgame then and wanted to wrap Lauriver up completely? But then, why tease Oliver/Laurel again next season? And why not tell KC they were over?

Thea is Moira's daughter. I'd be disappointed if she didn't end up using him to get strong and then manipulating Malcolm better than he's manipulating her.

Great comment, Orion. I assume Felicity Smoak would have been the counter to the nameless hacker guy who worked for the poilce department. We saw him in four or so episodes (he's the one going over the stairwell tape with Lance) and then one of Slade's army killed him because he was expendable. Stephen Amell said that one of the reasons they kept Felicity is that she brought out a side of Oliver that no other character did. So even without the romantic chemistry, and just for the fun and lightness, they might have kept her. Felicity was the reason I kept watching this show. When I saw her first scenes in 1x3, I thought "Hey, this is interesting. Maybe I should give this show another chance." And then I'd watch the credits to see if her name came up. If it did, I'd sit and watch. If it didn't, it was background. One scene that I love that hasn't been mentioned yet is in The Dodger when she says locks the door on him and she made a mistake and quits. Oliver is leaning over her, menancingly, all 6 foot plus of solid build, physically intimidating her, and she still gets up and walks out because she needs to to do right thing.

The problem is that the show has got other actors like Manu Bennett and Emily Bett Rickards saying that they that didn't know the comics but when they got hired for their roles, they went out and read everything they could so they would be able to be better in their roles. EBR even has a bookshelf made just for the Green Arrow comics. It doesn't make KC look good in contrast.

I remember Sasha Piertse as Grace on Stargate SG1 (2004) when she played Sam's hallucination, and as the bald little girl with cancer on House (2005). She's been in a lot of TV shows since she was 6 so it's strange to see her in the Break Out Star category. But still, I think it's too soon for EBR. She's been getting enough kudos for someone who is just 23 to handle. (Colin Firth said that he thought he was lucky that Mr. Darcy happened when he was 33 and not 23 because it could handle it better at a more mature age.)

I was wishing this weekend that Laurel had died instead of Tommy. Just think what they could have done, especially in terms of being a big brother to Thea that she could be closer to, and a friendship with Felicity. I think another reason to kill off Tommy is that it would make more of an effect on Oliver. He'd spent most of the season either fighting with or yearning for Laurel but they hadn't really connected on an emotional lever whereas he'd really connected with Tommy before their big fight, which was really Oliver's fault. So if there was going to be an effect on Oliver big enough to cause him to first give up the game entirely and later to strive to be a hero, it would more likely come from Tommy dying than Laurel. Third reason -- they wanted to go far away from the Spiderman route.

The reason you need good chemistry between the romantic leads, especially in a star-crossed lover situation, is that you want the audience to root for them getting together. That's a big reason why Oliver/Laurel fell flat for me, and still do, because every time something happens to keep them apart, I think "thank goodness that's over". And then the show would bring them together again, or tease them together, like AK saying that Laurel is the one to reach Oliver at his lowest point and bring him back up, and I'd start dreading it again. There is nothing in the scenes with Oliver and Laurel that made we want to keep seeing them in scenes together much less be together as a couple, and that's totally independent of how they behaved in the storyline (i.e. the writing). My favourite example is Nancy Lee Grahn and Lane Davies on Santa Barbara, who had terrific on-screen chemistry and then got into a fight and wouldn't even speak to each other except on set. And still the chemistry continued. So there's a thought I had that I wanted to ask other people what they thought..... I was reading Lights Will Guide You Home by ferggirl. It's AU with Tommy surviving the CNRI crash and in it he's still in love with Laurel, still wanting to be with her but giving her the time she's asked for. (I read it for the Tommy/Felicity friendship because it would have been so good.) So that got me thinking that if Tommy had survived, now that Laurel says she's in love with him, could they have made a go of it? I'm thinking not, and it's because as soon as Tommy left her, Laurel went to Oliver and they had sex. That killed it, if not right away, then later. If I were Tommy and any time I had a fight with Laurel, as couples do, I would always be wondering if when she left me, she went to Oliver's bed. Especially I'd be wondering it 7 or 17 or even 27 years into the relationship, if Laurel isn't regretting picking me and not Oliver.

Another thing that Diggle having a baby does is emphasize that Oliver is not the oldest, wisest member of the show, because with Oliver giving the orders, it can seem that way. Diggle used to give Oliver advice on strategic tactics and on how not to get hurt when you're being a soldier/vigilante. After two years, Oliver's kind of internalized that so Diggle being in a steady relationship and having a child is going to givce him something else he can help Oliver move toward. I thought it was a good way to drop it in -- stay tuned for next season! -- without having it slow down or distract from the big storyline.

Whenever the question of "Do the writers hate Laurel?" comes up, the back-and-forthing between love/hate and Oliver/Tommy doesn't much bother me, but giving her scenes, both in flashbacks and in the present, that she hasn't a clue about Oliver, and then having her say "I know you like I know my own name" and Oliver's "no one knows me as well as you do" and "you were the only one who saw the real me", really makes me wonder. I think she would have been doing it if Laurel hadn't started throwing barware and blaming for everything that went wrong in Laurel's life. At some point, you have to let other people live with the consequences of their own actions. I wonder if everyone in the family trying to appease Laurel as she was growing up wasn't what turned her into what she is today. I know it's scary to hope in case it doesn't happen but I think the EPs are going to try to get her into the show as much as possible.

I thought about including John/Aeryn in my list of OTPs who were done right but even though they absolutely were and it was evident from the pilot episode, the EP did a trick with them that was very clever but couldn't be done on Arrow so it's in a category of its own. I agree that Carol/Doug were an iconic couple, who had to wait until they both matured enough to be together, although it was mostly Doug who needed to. (I didn't much like Carol, sorry. Wing Chun's reviews of ER at MBTV and later TWoP were what hooked me on the board.) More than that, her father ditched the family because of her mother's illness and she grew up having to take care of herself and her younger brother from an early age because her mother had an unstable bipolar affective disorder. There was mention of ketchup soup from restaurant packets and sneaking out at night to duck out on the apartment rent. While what Abby experienced wasn't the physical torture that Oliver did, it happened from a much earlier age to a vulnerable child. A scene between Abby and her mother in the rain (for which Sally Fields won an Emmy) sticks in my mind, Abby's mother telling her that she couldn't help having her illness and Abby crying out "But you didn't even try to get better". That's a talisman for me. I agree, I hope that the relationship stuff for Oliver and Felcity in s3 is working this stuff out. But that's long enough. I want the show to keep from going the Andrew Marlowe route who is still keeping Castle and Beckett apart just because he's still got some more ideas in his bag and can, rather than because that's what the show needs (it doesn't, IMO). I don't know about other people but I'd like to see Oliver fighting crime with his team, including his SO, rather than the mess that was his relationship with Laurel.

Nanrad, Carby is an example of why I like knowing the endgame from the start because then I can enjoy the ride. (I think it was Aristotle who said you should read the story twice, once to find out what happens and then again to enjoy how it's told.) I understood the appeal of Carby because like Oliver, Luka was broody and PTSD'd and emotionally shut in and unavailable because of his own issues while Carter was fun and always there to talk to. But when he got back from rehab his first interaction with Abby was to manipulate her into being his sponsor because he didn't want a stranger and from there on, it was manipulation and lying and trying to push Luka out for the sake of winning. That's how you get shipping wars (and the ER one was pretty bad), that one pairing makes sense but another seems more attractive. It was even worse on House because of all the possible relationships for House (from Wilson to Stacy to Cameron to random strangers), the one with Cuddy was the one guaranteed to be the most dysfunctional. There are already more shipping wars on Arrow than I want between Laurel/Oliver and Felicity/Oliver and even Sara/Oliver. One of the reasons I want the show to go Oliver/Felicity is because it would be the option for the least amount of soapy drama. Oliver isn't emotionally ready to be in a good relationship yet and Felicity doesn't think he thinks about her that way and maybe she thinks she's not that much of a prize ("finally a man is interested in me and then he ends up in a coma") but they know each other and as a couple they would fit each other well, and there wouldn't be any baggage of sister swapping or cheating. I could just sit back and watch the story unfold. ETA :Another reason Hannah was a huge mistake is that I thought she was a much better fit for him than Bones. When you bring on a love interest to stall the OTP, you have to be careful not to make it a better one. Felicity wasn't put on the show to stall Oliver/Laurel but she sure showed up how back Lauriver was. ITA about the Gilmore Girls and how they blew it by keeping their OTP apart for too long and for the stupidest reasons. Yes. And yes. The trust and acceptance is what makes them so good together.

Being in a relationship, on screen, together, working through things. When one party is off screen, it feels like cheating. I hate the standard TV relationship pathway, the one they used on ER for Abby and Luka, and on Castle for Castle and Beckett, among a zillion other shows, is that the first season sets up the OTP and usually puts them into a relationship so you know they're meant to be together. Then by the end of s1, something happens to break them up (Luka is unavailable and Abby is drinking) or at least to keep them from getting together (Castle does the one thing Beckett has asked him not to do). S2 is usually spent with one of the couple having another partner and by the time he/she figures it out at the end of s2 (Beckett dumping the cop, Abby not getting engaged to Carter), the other person is in a relationship with someone else (e.g. Hannah for Booth on Bones). That lasts two or three seasons and then they finally get together in s4 or 5. One season of happiness, then something happens to split them apart (e.g. Luka leaves). I really, really don't want that for Arrow. @cadlymack indicated in the tweets with Julie Plec (I can't find them right now) that 3 seasons is long enough to keep the couple apart. Let Oliver grow up in s3, let Felicity realize that she's desirable but wants to pick Oliver, and then let them get on with the crime fighting for the rest of the show.

Listening to Marc Guggenheim talk about it, I get the feeling that that's what they were going for, both in the scene and in Laurel overall. It just never seems to come across that way.

It strikes me that most of those couples are from comedy shows, not dramas, and of the dramas Mulder and Scully never did get together in the TV show. Either it's much harder to write good couples for dramas or writers are afraid of doing so because they think it will lessen the show. I loved the Coach/Tammy relationship. It was realistic, they loved each other and while they had their fights but they worked their way back to each other in the end. Three other couples come to mind: Hart To Hart, Sheridan/Delenn on Babylon 5 and Dax/Worf on ST:DS:9 (a relationship that I always thought was the perfect example of opposites being together). All three of these shows are genre shows, with the primary focus being the action story and the relationship a sideline. Just like Arrow. If the EPs remember that the vigilante story is the story of the show, and keep stupid drama out of the relationship stuff once they are together, I don't see why it couldn't work.

I get they feeling that they are proud of their flashbacks and it was a good effect in terms of the show and the parallel Olivers (as one becomes a cold-blooded killer, the other is regaining his humanity). But by the middle of s2, the flashbacks were overdone since we already knew almost everything that happened in them and that added to the Lance Family Drama (including Quentin and Dinah) plus the lack of Diggle, Felicity and even Roy really weakened the show. So I'm glad they're acknowledging that it's time to get flashbacks on characters other than Oliver, His Women and His Foes. (Although if Ray Parker gets a flashback before Felicity does, I will be really pissed off. The only regular characters who haven't been in flashbacks at all are Felicity and Thea and while I understand that it might be hard for Willa Holland to play a 12 year old, there's little excuse for the lack of Felicity two seasons in..... another reason why I don't think Olicity and Felicity will take over the show, because they use her as a grace note rather than a riff, ) And the date stuff is the easiest to spoil without really spoiling anything big, it's not about Count Vertigo or Ra's, the big villains of the season, it's not about how Oliver copes with Hong Kong and only minimally about how he deals in the present since they're done by the end of the first episode. Ray taking over QC and Ray working his way to becoming a vigilante will probably be much bigger than Ray being Felicity's love interest.

I understand what he's trying to say (I think) but while it really works for Quentin and Thea, who have had huge life-changing events happen to them at the end of last season (Quentin was injured too badly to stay in the field and has a desk job now), if you were to ask Felicity or Diggle those questions, I'm pretty sure that Diggle will tell you he's nobody's sidekick, and Felicity will tell you exactly who she is before he walks awayu and she messes up your credit rating. I hope they have a good explanation for why in the world Laurel would even think of walking in her sister's path. If BR is booked for 16 episodes, then he'll probably stil be around for May sweeps since he may not be in all of them. I wonder if The proto-Atom is going to help Oliver take down the Big Bad. It's hard to believe there are still 2 months to go before the season premier.