statsgirl

I think Sara is also going to be hunting him/her and that's how she gets back to Starling City. Since Oliver has cut down on his time with the notebook (s1 mission) and general Starling City criminals (s2 mission) he's free to join her for old times sake, since the bad guy is a bad guy after all. I don't think he'd try to stop her getting the guy since he is a killer and this isn't Oliver business. That's what I think too, that making the decision that he deserves to have a life again is this season's arc. (I'd like it if they would parallel that with Sara feeling that she can have a life again too instead of punishment to atone.) So whatever is going to happen with Felicity is going to take all season. Or at least it would on another show. This one, it may only take till Christmas. But in order for Oliver/Felicity to work in the end, Felicity can't know that he has feelings for her because then Felicity looks like a jerk for going with Ray. "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with" even though the one you love loves you back is going to turn people off both Oliver and Felicity. Sadly, they are known to killing off characters who still have lots of potential (Tommy, Moira) rather than ones I think should be sacrificed. But Sara is a Lance and she's the very popular Black Canary, and I think audience reaction would be not just regret as it was for Tommy and Moira but active rebellion. Tommy's death made Oliver stop killing, Moira's death helped turn him into a hero ... I don't see what Sara's death would accomplish for him.

This makes sense to me. The opening episode of the season is Oliver and manpain heavy -- trying to get QC back and failing, meeting Ray Palmer who now runs it, Thea missing for five months, and whatever blocks his date with Felicity. Then the second episode is about that popular character Sara and her flashbacks to how she became the Canary. Then back to Oliver again, and maybe Sara in Starling City fighting with him for some reason. It's true they could kill her off later in the season, which I would hate, for some plot contrivance but that's speculation based on the name Dinah Laurel Lance and I can't imagine a reason for it right now. He was really cute with it on. I wonder if they put him into a mask as part of the comics! story or if he developed a reaction to the paint as Virigina Hey did on Farscape. It's really a compliment to EBR that they use her character to get the audience to like new characters on the show (unlike...er...). I don't think it's possible for her to date a normal guy because there are no normal guys on this show. The closest were Tommy, who was Oliver's boyhood friend, and Roy, who dated Thea and then became mirakuru'd. If she were dating a normal guy, they wouldn't put him on screen, and probably wouldn't talk about him other than in casual passing because the show is All About Oliver. We haven't even got Felicity's own backstory much less a story of who or why she's dating.

Matt Mitovich has been a fan of Felicity and Oliver/Felicity from way back. I expect we'll get more from the interview in spoiler segments over the summer. NCIS has permanently put me off drug-induced admissions of feelings. It was okay in the episode itself (Truth or Consequences) but on the discussion boards and news sites, everyone who didn't like the ship denied it even happened. Same here. Between the flashbacks we've had so far, and the Sara flashbacks, what more is there to tell about her? I don't know, that still doesn't work for me. She knows she has feelings for him and he has feelings for her, but so quickly she decides to date the guy who took over his company? Even if Ray did it legally, it still feels like a betrayal of Oliver to date the guy. Worse, it means she did it pretty quickly. I can see waiting around for a year or five and then deciding Oliver's not going to say anything and move on, but five minutes? I like this better. I'm fine if Felicity doesn't know, in fact I'd like it better if she doesn't because then her dating Ray makes more sense, but I do insister that the show make canon that Oliver has romantic feelings for her and it's not just her crush.

Berlanti is an overall ideas man for the show while MG and AK write the scripts while Berlanti runs his other shows so hopefully I can trust him for the big picture. I'm surprised he agreed to an interview though, I don't think he's done one for the show yet. Yes to the first two, because after last season's finale he must be aware of it. As to making her aware, I'm not holding my breath till season 3's finale. The "larger logline" suggests that it will be tied into the willpower drug somehow rather than a McKenzie Hall type of date.

She's got lab tech training as Ivo's assistant. She's smart, she can pick up the computer thing if she can't be out there fighting any more, and I think that's the only way they could make Laurel BC, is if Sara is still alive but unable to do it. But hopefully it's won't come to that. I don't think they're going to kill off Sara, not because this show doesn't kill beloved characters (it does, one a year) but because making Laurel BC is already iffy because so many people don't want it. (One of the comic book bloggers said he was going to drop the show if they do.) I think that's why they didn't kill Sara last season, because Laurel wouldn't have survived it.

I think a superhero needs certain attributes to be a superhero -- genuine concern for the welfare of other and wanting to make the world a better place for them (as opposed to him or herself which is what a supervillain has); a willingness to take risks for other and to be hurt in the process; and a higher morality than othe people. Laurel fails in all three. It's not just because she's been a stickfigure all s2 or that CL did such a good job that I can't see her as a viable BC. Anger and motivation, as others have said. Also she's got Malcolm Merlyn, with his skills and resources training her 24/7 while Laurel still has a day job, a father to nurse back to health, and a life. I can fanwank that, that after several years Sara is the one who and Laurel - finally - takes on her BC wig and outfit. But unless KC seriously ups her game as Laurel, I doubt I'll be watching.

Felicity has a 'type'. At least it would make up for the way the show dropped her mid s2 for me. It's a spoiler from Kristin. In her earlier incarnation as "Wanda", she used to be called 'Wrongda' because she got it wrong so often. EBR has said that the only person from Arrow that is planned to turn up in Central City is Oliver because they want The Flash to stand on its own as a show. (I'm glad because I hate that you have to watch Chicago PD to find out the rest of the story on Chicago Fire's characters.) Given that, I can see Felicity visiting Barry when her relationship with Ray ends for some comfort but by then he'll already be involved in his own love triangles. I'm not worrying.

Oliver will be as poor as the show needs him to be. In real life, the Queens would have assets stashed all over the place, overseas and in smaller accounts but this is a comic book TV show. However, given the takeover attempts at the beginning of s2, I can see that Moira might use the foundry (Verdant), the mansion and the jewelry and paintings to shore up the loans they would have taken out to keep half of the QC stock. Even if the mansion is still in the family's hands (which is doubtful given how barren it was in the season finale), Oliver would probably still sell it so he could have start-up funds to get QC back. I wonder how much Moira's life insurance was, given that the company had to pay out on Robert's. It does look like Oliver's in a good mood, or at least explaining to Felicity why everything is going to work out now. I hated that boob dress in s2, and I hate it even more in purple now. If she's wearing that to a business meeting, the show deserves a smacking.

It wasn't absolutely necessary for the show, but then even some of what they show on air isn't. I think that it provided character information on Felicity, that even though initially she was only on board until Walter was found by the end of the season she was so into the mission that she spent her $1 million on re-fitting the lair rather than socking it away to grow interest. It also makes me wonder what Diggle did with his, did he put it into savings because he knows from his military days that you may find yourself unable to work and need that money? It also tells me that even though Oliver was crushed by Tommy's death and only wanted to run away, he still thought enough about his team to make sure they were financially secure. You can guess at it in fanfic but it's not the same thing as canon. It's going to be even worse this season -- we won't get to see how Laurel reacts to Quentin being wounded trying to save her (will this bring on memories of Tommy dying for her?), we probably won't get to see Oliver and Laurel talking about him being the Hood/Arrow because it would be ridiculous to wait 5 months for that conversation, we won't get to see how Oliver first adapts to being homeless and with little money, or Diggle and Felicity looking for new jobs. It may all get explained in the comics but the TV enactment is writer + actor + director, and that makes for much richer information.

"Dress for the position you want to have" is the advice my old college professor gave me. Yes. And it makes me bitter. It also hurts the show because Katie Cassidy fashionista is a long, long way from who Laurel Lance should be. It wouldn't matter if they moved her off the show sometime this season but if she's staying, it mocks the idea that there is an actual plan for the show. (Michael Shanks got tired of his long hair on Stargate SG:1 but they didn't want him to cut it because James Spader had long floppy hair in the movie so he told them he had to get it cut because he was in a Shakespeare play and so they let him. On the same show, Amanda Tapping jokingly complained that she wanted to grow her hair longer but couldn't because every season ended on a cliff-hanger and so her hair had to be the same at the start of the next season as it was at the end. When the show finally ended, she grew her hair out and you can see it longer on SG: Atlantis.) It's possible but I think they should at least keep an eye on what she's wearing (a white coat to break into a government building?) so it doesn't look ridiculous. Fashion designers sometimes have two sets of designs, those for the runway and people who get photographed a lot like the Kardashians, and another, toned-down set ordinary people can wear every day. If KC is wearing designers clothes for Laurel, they should be from the second group rather than the first.

As a character and the actress portraying her, Moira is much, much better mileage. The longer Laurel is on, the more useless to the main show she is. They also had alien Vala lampshade (?) it, commenting on the apparently limited gene pool of Earth humans. They seem to have let her have whatever she wanted in clothes and jewelry in s2, and it pushed the character into an even more unrealistic zone wearing clothes that may have fit her fashion blog but were inappropriate for a junior attorney. (Her McQueen tweet last week "I want to empower women. I want people to be afraid of the women I dress" just seemed wrong to me.) Maybe they're doing that because they don't know what to do with Laurel and this is the trade-off but I don't think they will be able to write a consistent, cohesive Laurel as long as they let KC do her outlier fashion thing on the show.

Awesome!

Does blackmail work in Gotham? That's Laurel's specialty. Jean Loring was probably exaggerating for effect (and there was no way Laurel should have been on the prosecution team) but I can see Laurel preferring to hang out at the Queen's because they had better wine and a pool, among other things.

That happened on House -- when Olivia Wilde was hired, Jennifer Morrison's long brown hair suddenly went blonde (and some people still had trouble telling them apart) but fortunately the EPs of Arrow value EBR much more than David Shore did Morrison. Laurel is the only one of the main cast who has long brown hair. It's been getting lighter and lighter, but that makes no sense unless she wants to have Sara's hair as well as her jacket.

@scarynikki12, do you know anyone who is going to the Arrow panel and can ask a question for you? If you love both shows equally, I'd go with OB because there may be fewer people attending and you'd have a better chance to sit closer or get to ask a question. The Arrow panel audience will probably be huge.

i think the problem with getting Emmy nominations is not that there are too many submissions but that the committee are snobs. In every category, 4 or 5 are from prestige networks like HBO or AMC and only one is from a regular one, usually The Good Wife in the drama categories. Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Homeland, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black... all of these shows have snob appeal or else an actor who is an Emmy darling. When Hugh Laurie was doing amazing work making the unpleasant Dr. House a character the audience rooted for (and singlehandedly creating the fashion for the three-day-old beard), he didn't win a single Emmy, it was James Spader three years in a row. If House were on now, it would be Jon Hamm or Bryan Cranston repeatedly winning. That's another problem with the Emmys, that the same people and shows win year after year. There are a lot of good performances on TV but it's always the same people nominated and winning. Candice Bergen had the grace to take herself out of the nominations after 7 nominations (5 wins) for Murphy Brown but she's the only one. Arrow should have been nominated for best stunt coordination, and maybe got a couple of Best Supporting or Directing nominations too. There are times when SA does some acting that I think could have been up there too, and as much as I like Christine Baranski, I think Susanna Thompson could have had a shot at Best Supporting. The real snub though is Tatiana Maslany not getting a nomination while Michelle Dockery gets one for a role she can basically sleepwalk through. I'm glad Julianne Margulies won an Emmy for The Good Wife and Clare Danes for Homeland but now it's time for other people who do just as good work to have a shot. Either they should increase the number of nominations or they should limit how many times the same actor for the same role gets to be on the ballot.

I'm sure the idea for the action figure comes from DC and not the show. But the one they produced looks just like Caity Lotz. If they were planning on having Laurel become the BC, it would make more sense to have the action figure look neutral, like it could be any female, even KC.

It seems self-defeating to release Sara as Canary if they are going to make Laurel BC. It would only bite them later to have the confusion among comic book fans.

Everyone gets caught up repeatedly doing what has worked before. I think that's more likely than it was planned because this show? Doesn't plan very well and often has no clue what it's really doing. At the start of the show Tommy was like pre-island Oliver except for one big difference -- he truly loved Laurel and didn't want to hurt her. Unlike Oliver, who always did what he wanted without thought of anyone else or any hurt it might cause, Tommy considered Laurel before his own wants. He treated her very well, he arranged a fund-raiser for CNRI, he brought her a Christmas present that was thoughtful rather than throwing money at her, and he supported her emotionally. The measure of a relationship for me is whether the people make each other better or not. Tommy made Laurel better by trying to help her and being a lover who cared about her and Laurel made Tommy better by supporting him emotionally and helping him stand up to his father. By mid-season, Tommy was supporting himself financially and successfully running Oliver's club. The only times I saw Tommy lose his temper was with his father, who repeatedly tricked him, and when he found out that Oliver was the Hood and had been hiding it from him. Laurel's temper was worse and she lost it every time she thought someone wasn't paying enough attention to her, Tommy, Oliver, the hostess at a restaurant. When Oliver and Laurel were together, they made each other worse. Oliver cheated on Laurel with a number of women and Laurel made herself willfully blind and never called him on it because she wanted to be Oliver Queen's girlfriend. She pushed him too hard, as she later pushed Tommy too hard, but instead of telling her how he felt, Oliver cheated on her again. With Tommy, Laurel was still pretty much of a bitch who mostly cared about herself (e.g. she was mad at Tommy for not being around when her mother was in town when Tommy was dealing with learning Oliver was the Hood) but at least she was a better person than when she was with Oliver.

In season 1 there was a scene where Tommy, Laurel and Oliver talked about knowing each other from school (it could be the dinner with Helena, I'm not sure), presumably high school since Oliver dropped out of 4 colleges before the boat trip . In Time of Death, Oliver told Laurel "I've loved you for half my life", and since they're 28 or 29 now (born in 1985), that supports the high school theory.

I have a memory of Sara telling Oliver that he and Laurel were on a break when she (Sara) saw him and wanted to get together with him but I could be wrong. But even if they weren't, Laurel had known Oliver for years, most likely from junior high school long before her younger sister met him. She must have known him pretty well before Sara even crossed his path, and presumably wanted him for herself.

I'm still hoping that she's set up a consulting company and is going to be an independent consultant to Ray Parker. That also requires business-type clothes. It's been two years since Felicity was a lowly IT worker, everyone else has grown (Oliver became a businessman; Laurel is probably and ADA at least: Thea gone from brat to club manager to whatever she is now) so I hope they give Felicity a change to grow too. Since Felicity was the one who administered the Mirakuru cure to Slade and has been on a number of missions with her guys, there is no way I could accept Laurel becoming such an awesome BC that she would be more fitting to be Arrow's LI than Felicity. I'd have a hard time even with Sara again now that Felicity has done so much, much less Laurel ever.

"Quiet please, I'm threatening." I think he may be my favourite of the short-arc villains. I didn't like him in s1 but Seth Gabel nailed it here, only to die. I wouldn't have minded him being brought back to life again. I know this episode is called "State vs Queen" but I always think of it as "Oliver saves Felicity from the Count." It didn't help that anyone taking even a non-legal ethics course found so many things wrong with Laurel's behaviour I love Thea's black dress and the side silver bracelet (Willa Holland did good portraying nervous waiting for the jury). Felicity, on the other hand, did a couple of bad DiD moves, keeping her QC badge (she's not wearing it at the cave earlier, was it in her coat pocket?) and those ridiculous shoes to go hunting the bad guys, and I'm embarrassed for her. Does Oliver keep a green leather suit in the trunk of his car? Who mends the leather when it gets torn when he gets shot as he did here? "You poisoned me and put me in a home. How I hated you for that. Turns out someone else hates you too... Who? Oh, you're going to be so surprised when you find out. Turns out he's a man of means. Set me up so I could draw you out." I love how worried Oliver looks when he lowers the bow and throws away his arrow as the Count threatens Felicity. When Diggle is feeling ill, Oliver offers to call Lyla for him (nice set-up) but Diggle is all "she'll only worry" manpain. Felicity says "I'm really starting to wonder what it would take to impress you guys", I wonder how many times that window at QC needs to be replaced. I'm counting 3 so far.

Wow, that really sucks. The Emmy nomination committee and voters were always the biggest stuffed shirts but it's ridiculous to not even give Arrow a nomination for stunts. I'm glad EBR got a nod from Blastr.com but I think SA deserves one too. The nuances he puts into the acting too often get overlooked because of his action scenes.

It's summer, and with no new episodes in sight, I crave fanfic to get me through. What have you found that you love?