statsgirl

Maybe the long hair is also about maintaining the image of femininity while being all physical. She can kick his ass and she's a trained assassin, but she's still a real girl. I thought of this thread last night while I was listening to a PRI report on the new Lego female scientist figures. Now that they're out, there are complaints that the figures are too stocky, and that their hair is in a bun. The scientist being interviewed in the radio retorted that she's a chemist, long hair would interfere with her work so she has to tie it up and then when she's off work, she can let it down and be sexy. If you want to see what the figures look like: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2014/06/04/lego-to-produce-female-scientist-minifigure-set/ Sexier, earlier females legos http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Olivia-s-Invention-Workshop-3933 http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Heartlake-Vet-3188 (I'm on a laptop and the link feature doesn't work properly.) It is kind of sad that she loses that, although not entirely because she's still tell Malcolm he's a murdering psychopath to his face. But poor kid got a lot thrown at her in the second half of the season -- Roy broke up with her and later tried to choke her; Slade kidnapped her, held her for a day and then told her that Malcolm was her real father; she saw her mother murdered in front of her and found out that everyone she cared about, her mother, her father, her brother and her boyfried, had all lied to her. Even Walter because he knew who her real father was. It's reasonable that she would see herself as easily pushed around after that. It is in this show that you have to be broken down before you can be made stronger ... it happened to Oliver, to Sara, to Slade, to Diggle, to Quentin, and to Laurel with her addiction arc. So presumably Thea is going to get stronger after this.

I don't know how Arrow works but it may be similar to how House did. They blocked off each season into 3 sections. The first planning meeting was at the end of May where they plotted out the arcs for the first third of the season and handed out individual episodes to the writers (because it takes a month or so to write a script and then they have to prep it before they start shooting). The second on was in August, and the third in December. I agree with ArrowLimbo that they probably won't make Laurel BC right off the bat, just start with setting her up in the role. By the December meeting, they should have aired 8 or 9 episodes and have a good idea of how she is working out in terms of the show and audience reaction. That gives them the last third of the season to either solidify the character, find her something else to do, or write her off.

The jacket hand-over scene suggests two possible things 1) that they are serious about making her the Black Canary; or 2) they are going to make a push to see if the audience is going to accept her as BC or not. (If it fails, maybe they will take the Manhunter option.) Either way, I anticipate a big push to put Laurel in position for a BC role next season.

Thanks for the clip. I missed in my 6 viewings of the episode that when Oliver gets knocked down, he clenches his fist as if he really wants to jump up and beat up that guy but he can't. Nice work, SA! Yeah, Laurel grabs Max from behind when he's not looking, punches him in the kidneys (ouch!) and twirls him around. It seems like they were trying to set up Laurel as BC in future though. I was remembering some advice a professor of mine once gave us "Dress for the job you want to get" (meaning that you should look like you fit the next role. If you're an undergrad, dress like a grad student. If you a grad, dress like a professor.) If KC wanted to be the Black Canary, she should have been looking like her from the start

Starfish, that is why you should never deny yourself the indulgence. Shipping wars -- one of the worst was House because the showrunners deliberately fanned the flames because they thought it was fun to get the fans all het up, and IMO because EP Katie Jacobs saw herself as Cuddy in the House/Cuddy relationship. (I won't say romance because it was more like a war zone.) Since they were never going to let House be in a good relationship, they shouldn't have kept shoving romantic text and subtext at him. It was one of the things that drove me away from the show and the boards..Even last year's Tubey awards, Jennifer Morrison won a couple of worst actress categories for Once Upon A Time, not deserved but some Cuddy/Huddy fans had vowed that they would get Cameron fans for this.

You and I know that it's ridiculous, but that's Oliver's story and he's sticking with it. So it's going to take some serious TNT to move him. Pretty much anyone a superhero knows is going to be in danger, because that's the nature of the beast. I remember lines that no one should live in Cabot Cove (Murder She Wrote) or be friends with MacMillan & Wife because it's too dangerouls.

That could be a good arc, especially if DC is thinking to branch out with Nightwing into TV or movies. But looking at those pictures of Steve McQueen, he looks too young, too much like a kid beside Stephen Amell. It would look like Felicity is settling because being with Oliver is unthinkable. (I know Grant Gustin looks young too but he's got the brain power connection with her.) I wouldn't mind Luke Mitchell though.

From the Bitterness thread: I like this idea. Beyond setting up that Felicity has A Type (first Oliver/Arrow, then Barry/Flash, and now someone else) and finally giving her a romantic interest, it would force Oliver to re-examine his whole "I can't be with someone I could really care about because she could get hurt" idea since there is Felicity, off to possibly get hurt with someone else.

Curious how memory plays tricks It does seem like a set-up for Laurel becoming the Black Canary, though.

Those two scenes really struck me in a way that Laurel wasn't the intended love interest, Felicity was. Oliver was looking to connect and Laurel shut him down, albeit with a squeeze on the arm, and then he went down to Diggle and Felicity, the people he can connect to, and told Felicity she would have him to rely on (which kind of plays into the "you'll never lose me" in Heir to the Demon). I can see a conversation with Diggle and Oliver, much like the one in that episode about opening up to others, next season about family the costs and benefits of having one, and what you do to protect them. Maybe it's on purpose, that it never occurred to Oliver to see her as someone who could fight just as someone he needed to protect, while Diggle and Sara did see all that she could do. Maybe that will change next season after Unthinkable when he's seen she is someone he can send out into the field. In Time of Death she needed Sara and the Team to save her.

Diggle was great, and a good contrast to Oliver and his crusade. Yeah, it will be easy to find a new problem, it's the Glades. It's interesting going back to watch this episode after having seen the rest of the season. I don't mind so much that Felicity becames Oliver's PA because it meant that we got to see more of her (although the idea that it was a step up professionally for her is still ridiculous). But that dress at the office was too tight, and not in a good way. "Which suit will you be wearing tonight?" Season 2 in a nutshell. I liked Felicity tackling Oliver over being insensitive to Diggle's break-up (Diggle being stoic and not wanting to tell Oliver because he has enough on his plate was such a guy thing) and even more that Oliver regretted not being there for Diggle when it happened. At one point Oliver touched Diggle on the arm and I thought hey!, it's not just Felicity he holds on to. Thea was really awesome, especially when you compare her to last season. The shot at the end where Roy is telling her he won't go out again hunting and then the camera pans to the red arrow in his back pocket was nice. Blood was ..... a typical politician. Which is to say he was more about scoring points than actually helping people. Since it was FEMA trucks that were being hijacked, I would have thought that a federal government agency would have been trying to catch the guys. It was kind of creepy how Slade was watching Oliver and Shado through the trees, but a nice set-up for the end of the season. Grrr! That just drives me crazy. It's probably all about appealing to the young male audience but so impractical. Even worse when it's a wig because how is it going to stay on while you're doing all that fighting? Putting long hair into a pony tail is even worse, it just gives the opposition something to grab on to. See Rochev, Isabel.

I can see this as a parellel of Robert and Moira's marriage, which explains why Oliver was okay with it. Even on the Queen's Gambit, Robert was more concerned with the fall-out of the cheating with Sara rather than the cheating itself. But what's Laurel's reason? She came from a truly happy marriage. And the picture gazing gets dropped as soon as he starts sleeping with Shado. LOL, Felicity has a type.

Yes. That's why I wonder if it could be CW/WB that wanted her for the role rather than the EPs casting her in a general audition..

I think Unthinkable answered the question of whether Felicity can take care of herself. She's not as good a fighter as Sara, not by a long shot, but she can do what needs to be done i.e. put herself in danger and coolly take down the bad guy. It doesn't make sense any more to say that he can't be with Felicity since she can't fight, not that it ever did much since everyone Oliver/Arrow knows is a target (Moira, Thea, Laurel, Quentin) whether in a relationship with him or not. Merely by working with him makes Felicity a target too. But I wouldn't be at all surprised if Oliver continues to use that rationalization to keep her at arm's length.

It seems like they're going to do it as Iris feels like he's a brother and Barry feels something more. Having seen the scenes in the trailer with Grant Gustin and Danielle Pannebaker, I'm more worried that Iris is going to be Laurel, and Caitlyn is Felicity/Sara/someone he has more chemistry with.

David Ramsey himself has said in an interview that Oliver isn't ready to be in a relationship with Felicity at this time, and after the finale Stephen Amell said that the ILU came from an honest place, whatever that means. But if we find out that Oliver didn't mean it, the EPs and WB (who retweeted MG's tweet with a #Olicity) are in for a world of hurt IMO. I think we'll find out if it was real or not through Diggle talking to Oliver since Sara's gone now and there is no one else left that Oliver is close to, possibly coming out of a conversation about Diggle's baby. Anything other than the words wouldn't be definitive. I think I'll have a better understanding when I see the episodes closer together but there was an awful lot of set-up material to get through to set up the big finale episodes and I don't think they realized, maybe don't even realize now, how the stop-start way they did it slowed the show down. Having Roy get mirakuru'd and then dropping him to do the Lance Family Drama made it seem like Roy's story wasn't important when it was, and we got too little of seeing Oliver and Sara in a relationship because all they could talk about was Laurel and Slade. Maybe that's why Felicity dropped off of Oliver's radar, because having set up the UST with the Barry episodes, they thought it was just ready and waiting to be picked up later, not realizing that you occasionally have to stir the pot while the ingredients cook. This show really doesn't plot well. That's interesting. greenarrowtv.com is doing their annual survey for s2 and I was flipping through last year's winners. Helena was the most disliked character (Laurel came second) and The Huntress Returns worst episode. (Surprisingly Malcolm Merlyn was most liked character followed by Felicity and then Oliver, and Oliver/Felicity best relationship.) I wonder if they include Helena to keep Oliver's options open because really, the only one completely closed at this point is Shado. Well, maybe not complete disaster. Roy did try to choke Thea a few episodes later. Nyssa is an al Ghul after all so her values would tend to be rather screwed up. But I did believe that Nyssa truly loved Sara, even if her way of showing to wasn't what one would hope for.

For me, Laurel's reaction when she does the math and figures out when the child was conceived is the best thing about this storyline.

He looks like a man who enjoys his clothes, if that turned up collar is any indication. I love what a fan of the show he is, how he feels that Oliver/Diggle is one of the bedrocks of the show, that he admires Diggle as a person, and how excited and positive he is about everything..

Mr. statsgirl didn't understand either, especially when I would get up in the middle of the night, turn on my computer, and edit a post because I was afraid it was going to get a warn. The inconsistent moderating just drove me crazy -- what was okay on one thread was a horrible sin on another. I once got a warn for failing to cite my sources (!) when I made a sociological comment about male fidelity, But it was home for fifteen years and the only place where I felt like I was back in university, arguing irrelevant things till the early hours of the morning. I'm happy to be here with you all, but I will miss TWoP terribly.

He even said it again (in Seeing Red, I think) that he was tired of having the same fight over and over again,. I think to make a relationship successful, you have to see the best part of the other person (Laurel got that right, even though she wasn't seeing the real Oliver) and the other person has to see themselves, that best self, through your eyes. You have to make each other better. That's what I got from the light/dark speech, that Sara felt that who she was wasn't going to make Oliver a better person if he stayed with her. I'm bitter that the show keeps having Sara beat herself up for not being good enough, while Laurel acts like she's wonderful..

Wow, He has all my admiration for doing that every day. Without doubt, he works really really hard for his role. I wonder if they edit out the grunts and heavy breathing to make it look effortless. A Day In The Life of Stephen Amell. (With the secret of why his relationship with Sally works.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUYXR3_T0G0

Maybe that's what Kreisburg was talking about, that it would have been in character for her to throw a hissy fit but she didn't. (Just kidding, Kreisburg seems to have no idea how Laurel comes across.) It's another example of 'hand me down' awesomeness, like handing over Sara's jacket, or Oliver helping to win her cases in s1. I'm glad we finally got an answer to "Does Quentin know that Oliver is The Arrow?" because it was getting ridiculous but I was expecting Laurel to do something great, and all she did was not screw things up. And finally listen to her father for once. That's good growth for the character but it does not a superhero make.

Having Laurel suddenly show up as the Black Canary is better than showing her "journey" but did Sara leave all her stuff to Laurel, not just the jacket? OR maybe since Laurel is so good at googling, she found the Superhero Costume Emporium, except with real fishnet stockings instead of just patterns on the leather pants. That made me laugh out loud. The only woman who's been in danger because she's been in a relationship with him was McKenna, and than it wasn't her relationship with him as it was that she was a cop trying to catch Oliver's psycho ex-girlfriend. Maybe Sara by getting on the Queen's Gambit. But beyond that, it's either because they accidentally got in the way (Laurel, Walter, Tommy, Roy, Diggle) or were related to him (Thea, Moira) or deliberately put themselves in the firing line (Diggle, Felicity) to help him. It's a really stupid reason, but it did give him permission to have sex with Isabel whenever he wanted to. That's how I saw it. The hesitation was "Wait, she thinks I'm asking her to move in with me?!?!?! I just wanted to find a place where we didn't have to worry about people walking in on us." On this show? Totally that. It's what Joss Whedon would do. I think that after the conversation on the island, Felicity is going to give up on a relationship with Oliver. Bring on the evil antagonist!

That's sweet if him, the way he gives credit to his costars. But what struck me is that both Diggle and Felicity are part of the Green Arrow comics but they are among the best parts of the show, along with Sara. So my takeaway is that the more the writers are willing to move away from comic book canon, the better the show can be.

It's creative bankruptcy.