statsgirl

My vote goes for Oliver training Roy. He didn't do it well enough in s2, now is his chance to do it right. I hope Sara or Diggle will continue to train Felicity. Oliver training Laurel is wrong for a number of reasons: he should be too busy being vigilante and getting back AC to have time to do it; she doesn't really need superhero training, boxing should be enough; and I never wanted to see Oliver and Laurel close and sweaty again. I've been reading a fanfic where after Queen Manor is gone, Oliver moves in with Roy since Thea is now gone and Roy needs stability. As much as I'd like him to move in with Felicity, Roy makes a lot more sense.

Are they shooting 3x03 now? In that case, they can have four or five episodes in the can before Ramirez leaves for the other show. If he's not a major part of the storyline like Ray or Katana, then he can shoot his scenes to 1) start Laurel's training and 2) be her love interest so that she's got someone and can leave Oliver to Felicity, and then pop back occasionally to show that Laurel is still working out and still romantically involved. He doesn't need to do more, the superhero quota is met with Oliver, Roy, Diggle, Sara and possibly Ray, and Count Vertigo, Malcolm Merlyn and Ra's will do nicely for the longer arc villains.

,,,when you go to see a production of The Magic Flute and Papageno is shirtless and buff and your first thought is 'Hmmm, he should really be on Arrow'.

Agatha Christie, in one of her Tommy and Tuppence stories, had Tuppence say that if you get a mysterious note telling you to meet someone in a dangerous or deserted place and you just show up without checking it out, you deserve what you get. That's my rule of thumb for DiD. Oliver has had to save Roy a few times too, from the guy on the subway, Blood and later from being Slade's vending machine. I think they did this with the best of intentions, to provide Felicity with a growth arc (she wasn't jealous of Sara sleeping with Oliver, she was upset because Sara was better at her job (fighter, blood tech) while Felicity was failing at hers. I think it would have worked better if they had left the scar part out of it though. At least when Felicity puts herself in danger, it's because she's doing it for the team, and because they give her kind of a reason to (bait for the Dollmaker, no one else available with The Count, ditto with the Clockmaker plus needing to prove herself). For Laurel, it's too often been because they had to find a way to insert her into the story.

I got the feeling that by the time Sara went to Nanda Parbat, they had stepped down from the high intensity of protecting people from Slade (probably because Birds of Prey followed Suicide Squad and there was less Slade! in that). It was after Sara left that Slade killed Moira so if anything, they should have really increased protection for Laurel then since Slade had just announced one more person was to die. Maybe Oliver thought that if he handed himself over to Slade, Slade would leave Laurel alone so there was no need to protect her. I can fanwank that as Laurel being brave on adrenalin going out and hitting the mirakuru soldier and then, seeing what it's really like out there, getting scared afterwards. But it is harder to like her than Sara, who is always brave post-island, or Felicity who is always scared but goes ahead and does it. It's like they were trying to place Laurel somewhere in the middle, or maybe find a position for her that doesn't mirror someone else's..

Sara was already looking out for her without her knowing it, Diggle told us that at the start of Suicide Squad. I agree that Oliver should have told her, especially since Slade was after Oliver not the Arrow, and he mega should have told her after Thea got kidnapped. But on the down side, based on her past behaviour, he couldn't trust that she wouldn't go rushing out to confront Slade head-on rather than taking care she stayed safe. And that would have made it much more difficult for Oliver.

When Quentin wanted to put police protection on Laurel in the fall of s1 because of the bad guy she was going after, she was all 'you're not the boss of me' like a 13 year old and refused it. When in 2x21 Oliver told her to stay behind and stay safe, she followed him and almost got them killed. It would have made sense to tell Laurel that Slade was after her but how could he trust that she would behave with that consideration?

He's a very compartmentalized guy. I think he thought that if they didn't know, they wouldn't worry. Neither Laurel nor Thea are like Sara, who can handle herself, and even with Sara he told her to stay away so she wouldn't get hurt. I do think that Oliver still cares for Laurel although not as much as he did a year ago and not romantically any longer. I think the "do what you have to do" is Oliver compartmentalizing again; he was focused on defeating the army and the plan to inject Slade with the mirakuru cure and didn't have room for worrying about Laurel. Really dangerous though since he knew Slade wanted to kill the woman he loved. If Oliver had told Laurel 1) that he was the Arrow earlier on and 2) that Slade was out for revenge, what would she have done?

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.