statsgirl

Doesn't Laurel get kidnapped or have her life put in danger at least 3 times a season? Will 'more danger' be kidnapped every four episodes?

Or they're desperate to do anything with Laurel that will save the character. But going back to the pilot and trying to start all over again, that's funny.

Okay, but when Tommy said it in the pilot, we hadn't had a chance to see what Laurel was like yet so it was easier to buy.

That was fun. I totally froze on . Poor Stephen Amell, no wonder he wants a break from working so much. Not surprised that And since this is the bitterness thread, I still think Laurel's addiction arc was a complete waste of time that could have been better spent on other characters.

The Arrow is the controlled part, the part he can trust to do what needs to be done, and Oliver is the part that he can't control, the wildcard that could ruin everything the Arrow is working for. That makes a lot of sense. If that's the scenario, I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out over the season.

It's Spain, land of love and bullfights. It's a pretty good promo -- lots of action and characters (no Diggle or Thea though) and a mention of Ra's al Ghul but jeez Slade running the CGI sword through Moira looks so fake now that I see it with better light.

I think Felicity got more actual lines because she babbles and because she's on the computer speaking into the others' ears so that even if the focus is not on her, she still has lines to say. (Except in episodes like The Promise where she had only two lines, one deeply cringe-worthy.) Diggle had two episodes about his adventures, Keep Your Enemies Close and Suicide Squad. And his facial expressions are worth more than words. As Oliver matures and mentor Roy in his turn, Diggle is less needed to be Oliver's mentor so I'm hoping for new directions for Diggle next year.

I thought he was going to decide that he could only be the Arrow and not Oliver Queen. But if Oliver Queen beats up the Arrow, wouldn't that suggest he can be Oliver and still the Arrow because Oliver is still strong enough to survive? Or does being Oliver mean he can't be focused enough to be the Arrow? (Have I just been reading too many books on dream analysis?)

When Oliver went out fighting crime in 2b, he often went out with just Sara and left Diggle in the lair with Felicity (e.g. ToD). That's not on Felicity at all. I agree that not every story has to be about Oliver but since he is the star of the show, most stories eventually come back round to him, including Walter's friction with Moira and his kidnapping, Moira's secrets, Roy being mirakuru'ed and Thea's conflicts and kidnapping, and those stories usually lead to some sort of growth or development for Oliver. Diggle's time with the Suicide Squad didn't but that was only one episode and I expect it will cause friction with Oliver next season. Laurel's addiction arc was about Laurel and Laurel and slightly about Quentin. But if they are going to write stories that are not Oliver-centric, whether I think the time spent on it is worth it depends on how much I enjoy the story. Looking back over season 2, I think Laurel addiction arc was a huge waste of time because it didn't advance any character, including Laurel who ended up pretty much where she started, and it was badly written and poorly acted when we couldn't tell if she was supposed to be sober or drunk. Like Isabel's episodes, it ended up being a big nothing, but it took up lots more time. That time that could have been spent showing Oliver trying to mentor Roy (who got mirakuru'ed and then disappeared for 2 episodes, back for one and then gone again) or anything to do with Moira who I find fascinating as a character and played by a very good actress. But there was no time spend on stories for Moira or Roy or Thea. That's the problem as I see it too, and so did a number of reviewers like Mo Ryan and Alan Sepinwall. I think eventually MG and AK got the message. Occasionally this show gets meta, but never more than Oliver's line in City of Blood "This started with the three of us. It's time we got back to that." And then they promptly had Laurel follow him.

I don't mind a parachute arrow, I can take that more easily than Oliver fixing his own dislocated arm when Diggle is standing right beside him and Felicity is freaking out at the sight of blood instead of helping. (There's already going to be an excess of testosterone in the lair, this fiction is too much.) Diggle's comment about Lyla's pregnancy sounds like the panel was written by a man. Usually the first trimester is throwing up, the their is "I'm a beached whale and I hate that I can't see my feet" but the second trimester is the full-of-energy-nesting one.

Diggle was there in the scene in 2.21 when both Diggle and Felicity tried to keep Oliver from sacrificing himself. And Laurel had the big speech to save Oliver at the end of that episode. Kreisburg even said that at his lowest point, Laurel brings him back up. Because Felicity had been background scenery for most of 2b (even Diggle got his own Suicide Squad episode), they had to have Felicity affect Oliver in 2.22 in order to buy the ruse in 2.23. If they hadn't, few people in the audience would have been pulled in by the "I love you". Just think how much more time there would have been for Diggle... and Moira, and Thea and Roy... if they had dropped Laurel's addiction arc. That storyline contributed nothing to Oliver's growth (unlike the scenes with Felicity) and little to the show overall.

I think Bletchley Circle got cancelled and so did Longmire. And Sherlock won't be back till 2016. Sorry. However Downton Abby is sure to be back. I'm leery of new shows because a lot of the time I think they're good and they turn out not to be or I fall in love with them and they get cancelled after a few episodes. (New Amersterdam, I'm looking at you.) I'll try NCIS:NO because I like Scott Bakula and CCH Pounder, and I'll try the comic book shows to see which ones I like. Beyond that, I'm keeping an open mind. Returning shows: Arrow, Castle, OUaT. Murdoch Mysteries, Perception (the most realistic of psychopath shows), Remedy, Sleepy Hollow, Strike Back, Suits, Orphan Black and Dr. Who. I would have added Death in Paradise but they killed the old lead off and I don't like the new one nearly as much.

True that he was injured because of Oliver's actions. But Oliver only gave him the mirakuru to try to save him. If the mirakuru hadn't been twisting Slade's mind by then, he should have got that. The only reason Oliver left him to die (thinking he had killed him with an arrow through his eye) was because Slade was already crazy.

I'm holding on to Stephen Amell having a good idea of what works and what doesn't, and what the fans of the show want. AK and MG may be married men but they seem to have no idea how to write a good relationship. It didn't need to float away or fall out of his pocket? Oliver noticed that there was a very attractive woman on the island, and Laurel was history. Every time they try to tell us some more about Oliver/Laurel in the past, what they end up doing is showing us just how shallow that relationship was. Didn't Slade have a son and a family back home? That's the only explanation I can think of for picking Oliver over him. YES! I've seen it defended as wanting to distract Isabel from Felicity but all it showed was that Oliver will sleep with any female at the drop of a hat so yes, the chances are almost certain he's sleeping with Felicity too. I've been ranting about how his lack of protecting Felicity from Isabel completely undermines the idea that he cares for Felicity since the episode aired. So much for his promise in 1x14 to protect her, or don't office politics and bitchy remarks from the joint Big Boss count? I would have liked it better if Isabel associated Felicity with Moira (blonde hair, consort of the CEO) and played out her twisted fantasy for ruining Robert (Oliver) and Moira (Felicity) for what they had done to her in the past. I like Oliver's horror that he had banged his father's mistress, it reinforced that yes, he was like his father, and that he had got so obsessed with Slade that he "was so distracted that he failed to notice that the real danger is right in front of him" (quote from Unthinkable). It helped him go down further into the depths so that he could rise again. I don't think that they wrote him as having a romantic interest in her but they were building a substantive friendship. When she left that team at the start of The Dodger, he went after her, apologized, and agreed to try things her way. For the blinkered Oliver Queen who never apologized except for pre-island stuff, that was pretty big. (Diggle also got sort of an apology at the end of the season and it was well deserved.) The theme of Oliver listening to Felicity and taking her advice continued the rest of the season. Diggle had repeatedly warned him against working with Helena; in the Huntress Returns, he finally stops her not after she hurts Tommy but after she uses and ties up Felicity. One of the biggest changes in their relationship was at the end of Salvation when Oliver doesn't want "to be on an island any more". He approached Laurel, she says "sure, let's get coffee sometime" and then goes after Tommy, whereupon Oliver went to Felicity and told her she could talk to him and she accepts. Very trope. In s1 Oliver still believed that Laurel was the love of his life but he was more honest with Felicity and steadily growing closer to her as a friend and someone he relied on. There is a lot of honesty there, unlike his relationship with Laurel.

Laurel wanted to be mad at the Vigilante for Tommy's death. Any hints that she got that Oliver was The Hood/Arrow, she would have forcibly ignored, just as she ignored that he was cheating on her in the past.

Having the fall-out be over Shado is the sloppiest writing. Apparently guys are always bros unless a woman gets in the way. AK said in that infamous interview that Oliver and Laurel will always be important to each other because of what they've shared. I don't get that at all. If anything, they are like Capek's Romeo and Juliet, two children in love with love and the idea that they are being adults, with no real sense of who the other person is. Most of the time it seems they were either lying to each other or to themselves. If "always being in each other's life because of what they've shared" applies to anyone, it's Oliver and Sara. They both started out as selfish children, went through some horrific times both separately and together, and came out of them determined to right the wrongs that are done to people who can't defend themselves. Laurel says she's a good-doer but I've never felt she connected to the Arrow over wanting to do good, not like Sara did wanting to protect women and just generally stop bad guys. While Oliver and Sara argued about killing, Laurel's "I looked into his eyes and he's a killer" just served put her an ocean away from Oliver.

Diggle's been pretty protective of Felicity a couple of times, first when she was joining the team if she would be hurt, and later when Oliver was with Sara in front of their noses. I don't want him to be too protective of her though -- if anyone is going to kick Oliver's ass over his treatment of Felicity, it should be Felicity herself,and Diggle can stand back and grin.

I think there is a ton of stuff they could do with Diggle next season if they wanted to do psyche and not just action because he's a pretty deep person. He's a soldier so once he signed on with Oliver, he was focused on the mission, not Oliver's neuroses or b.s. (something I really love about him), although he did try to help Oliver deal with it, soldier to soldier. But now he's got Lyla and a baby on the way. How is he going to deal with Lyla working for ARGUS? And working with Deadshot? Since how will he react to Thea and Malcolm? David Ramsey said that Diggle is five years ahead of Oliver in terms of maturity and where he is in his life. I'd like to see Diggle navigate his own life for a while.

There are a lot of complaints that Laurel is written all over the place, but if you make the assumption that she's basically a shallow person, it all seems to fit together. For Sara, I can see that it might have been that she had a crush on Oliver from way back, from the time Laurel got her grounded so Sara couldn't hook up with him. For all that he was a douche back pre-island, he would have been pretty hard for a 20 year old to say no to, especially given that Laurel was being a pill about Sara's warnings ("Why can't you just be happy for me?"). So she could have justified to herself getting on the boat that she was in love with Oliver, but she still wasn't open about it just it case it was fake. For Oliver, it was like father, like son. Robert gave Isabel promises, or maybe he just let her make assumptions that he had no intention of keeping and when it blew up in his face, the easy way out was to fire her. Laurel was pushing Oliver to commit to something he didn't want to, and he took the easy way out, going with his father and asking Sara on the trip. He probably was attracted to Sara, she was pretty and fun and liked sex, and he didn't bother to think it all the way through. You don't sleep with the other sister unless you're intending to blow up the relationship as Laurel said, but the intention was unconscious.

It's debatable but it seems to me that having a blind spot around someone, whether it's the woman you thought you were in love with, your mother, or the woman you think you can save from herself (Helena), and not seeing them for who they really are means being stupid around them. If Thea comes back with Malcolm and tries to take Oliver down while Oliver keeps insisting that she's just his little sister and harmless, that would make him stupid around her too, and I'd expect Diggle to act accordingly although he might be softer given all Thea's been through.

Long before they knew of Moira's involvement in the Undertaking, Diggle didn't trust her and wanted Oliver to be wary around her. But Oliver kept insisting that she was innocent of any wrongdoing even after she shot him, so Diggle started looking into Moira on is own and Oliver got mad at him for it (which is what I mean by Oliver being stupid about her).

Diggle is opposed to anyone who makes Oliver stupid (Laurel, Helena, Moira). He likes people who care about Oliver, try to do right by him, and puncture his self-importance (Sara, Felicity). The wicked smile Diggle gives Oliver when Oliver tries to physically intimidate Felicity and she walks out on him at the beginning of The Dodger is priceless. At the CW Arrow tumblir there's a good bit of art for Team Arrow with Diggles' section " Ex-soldier; Bodyguard; Black driver; Suicide Squad; Hand-to-hand combat; Having none of your bullshit since '12. Pretty much sums him up.

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled we're finally seeing Felicity's apartment. We got to see Diggle's and Laurel's, and Tommy's yard in s1 and Quentin's house and the Clock Tower where Sara was staying in s3 so I'm very happy we get to see Felicity's now. But it still feels off to me. Felicity is someone who matches her earrings to her nail polish (in State vs Queen) or her belt to her shoes (various episodes). Nothing in that picture seems to match anything else except maybe the vase which is several shades lighter than the throw. Everything else is a mish-mash of colors and styles (even the pages from the Ikea catalogue match more), and it seems a bit fussy with all the vases and four side tables in different styles for someone who made her Arrow lair very stylized and sleek (I'd be knocking that beige vase on the side table over within half an hour). There's no place to read comfortably except lying on the sofa but there's no light there so it would have to be a kindle or tablet. (I know, I'm really picky.) I really like the burgundy settee and the yoga mat in front of it though. Part of me was hoping it would have character like Kate Beckett's place (pictures 2 and 3 or here) who is supposed to be about the same age as Felicity. Not necessarily the complexity of Beckett's place but I was hoping that her bits and pieces would tell me more about who Felicity is as a person. (Beckett again.) Does she like old movies because she has that poster? I expected a bunch of DVDs of old movies because you can't download those easily when you want to. (If it refers to Oliver/the Arrow, it feels like the set designer is saying "Aren't I clever?") Does she have time to read these days? I can see her downloading new things she hasn't read on her tablet but having a bunch of books that are old friends from pre-tablet days. Does she ever invite friends over to watch TV or movies? Her couches are at right angles to the screen. But if I'm the only one who feels that way, that's okay. Maybe I'll think of it differently when I see it on TV.

I agree, but more than that, I don't think Tommy and Laurel could ever have had a trusting relationship again. I don't think Oliver has willingly opened up to anyone yet except possibly Sara. Diggle forced some things out of him because Diggle has been there himself, in a war, and he knows what Oliver is going through. I don't think Oliver has really opened up to Felicity at all, the closest she's got is the anguished cry in the foundry "it was five years where nothing good happened" and her remark about Fantasy Island because of the number of women there shows how little he has told her about what happened there because her world is very different than Lian Yu was. For the same reason, plus Tommy dating Laurel, I don't think he could have opened up to Tommy either. Neither Felicity nor Tommy would be able to understand at all. Oliver may have been afraid of them treating him like a freak if he told anything about what it was like. That's how I see Tommy alive too, a friend to all on the team but not directly involved in the missions except maybe very occasionally as a distraction. Like Oliver, he's too well known to go undercover as Diggle and Felicity have done and he doesn't have any special skills like fighting or tech or tactics. I think 1st Year Island Oliver really did believe he wanted Laurel. She was like a talisman to him, the vision of a better life and he wanted to make up to her everything he had done wrong. 2nd Year Island Oliver was different, He was better able to survive and he had good friends in Slade and Shado (also a sexual relationship) so he didn't need to hold on the Laurel's picture like a lifeline. Also having Sara turn up changed how he thought about her -- she was no longer someone who had died because of his thoughtlessness, she was someone who had been wounded and had suffered like he had, someone who understand all he had gone through better than anyone in Starling City. Sara dead was a wrong he had done and needed to pay for; Sara alive was a comrade he could connect with.

She does a really good job of integrating Tommy into the storyline. I wish he were still around. Yes. :-D ETA: same writer, a different take on Tommy in the present. Only read if you're okay with threesomes. The Curse of Cuervo.