statsgirl

I think it was an idea that he had had earlier but I don't think he was intending to do it, it was unthinkable for him. He told her to stay and the Manor because he needed her to be safe and that he'd come back for her after it was all over, and then he walked away. It was only after Felicity went after him and told him she wanted to be out there unsafe with the rest of them that he decided to go for it and trust her that she would know what to do and do it.. It's consistent with that Oliver has a really strong need to protect people, especially those he cares for. Even with Sara who can certainly protect herself, he told her to keep out of the way nowt that Slade was going for him. In my mind, it was about the mirakuru distorting Slade's brain. Shado was the reason he seized upon. In Adlerian psychotherapy one of the things Adlerians do is ask the patient for his or her earliest memory. This acts as a sort of shorthand for how you see yourself and your life. Sometimes, after therapy, the first memory changes in that other things that were happening is incorporated, so that post-therapy the memory has changed. I fanwank that the mirakuru affected Slade's brain and made him fixate on what was already bothering him, which was Oliver's relationship with Shado. I'd like to know what happened to Slade's SO and son back in New Zealand.

When Walter called Felicity to his office in An Innocent Man, she assumed it was because he was going to fire her. She did stand up for herself but someone with high self-esteem would have assumed getting called to the big boss's office was for a special project, not because she was going to be fired. When she was looking for Walter in The Undertaking and went up to Verdant to get Oliver, she immediately assumed that she had interrupted something between Oliver and Laurel, "gorgeous Laurel". I'm fairly secure about my looks and I've never addressed someone I've just met as 'gorgeous X' to her face. And Felicity babbles when she gets nervous around other people, a sign of social anxiety. In the scene with Moira in Heir to the Demon, she's very nervous and completely outflanked by Moira even though Felicity knows she's in the right. And with Isabel, she was "Please don't make me take a cab with her to the hotel" until she knew that Isabel was evil. I think Felicity got on well with Sara because Sara made the effort to make friends with her. The same with Diggle, who she first knew from his association with Oliver and later from trying to save Oliver's life together. When Felicity feels comfortable with someone, she's very different from how she is with strangers or someone she knows doesn't like her. With friends, she feels able to tell them off. With other people she'll do it if she thinks it the right thing to do, because she always does The Right Thing even though it costs her, but she's very uncomfortable and often scared.

Laurel's sense of entitlement is the reason I can't see her being friends with Felicity. She even shows it with Sara, who is her own sister. Laurel thinks she knows Oliver better than anyone else does, she thinks she should be allowed out to fight Slade's army even though she's never done anything with Team Arrow before, she even suggested Oliver fire Felicity and hire her as his PA. If Thea ever joined the Team, I bet Laurel would insist on teaching her. While Felicity's lack of self-esteem and concern for Oliver may make her want to welcome Laurel into the new lair, unless Laurel's attitude does a 180, I can't see Laurel and Felicity ever being friends.

The fact that Katie Cassidy didn't submit anything for Emmy consideration, not even Supporting Actress, kind of says it all. (I hate that Felicity is wearing those shoes on that poster. Laurel has ones as high but at least they don't have a stiletto heel and are more walkable.)

I agree that it will be Roy with a superhero costume next season. In Unthinkable, all he got was a mask and his usual red hoodie. (I don't know why they haven't arrested him yet since that's what he's always wearing.) That does sound like good news on the Caity Lotz front. Yay! Stephen Amell said that the way they filmed the Queen Manor scene was different than what was shown in the episode but it was better in the end. Cutting a kiss makes perfect sense because it makes the scene tighter and more iffy as to whether it was true or not. Many viewers commented said they didn't believe Oliver in the scene because if he really did love Felicity, he would have kissed her good bye. You don't even have to change the island dialogue because Felicity would have attributed the kiss to his "selling it". If there was a kiss and it was cut, I really want the original scene to be on the DVDs.

I think it is submitted by the individual actor or craftsperson but I would imagine that it has to be approved by the show's producers, if only to avoid embarrassment. Pretty much everyone who fits a category submits. Fingers crossed on the stunt coordiation (40 submissions) and sound editing (70 submissions). I'd like to think that they might get some of the acting nominations, esp Manu Bennett and Susanna Thompson but fringe shows don't do well in the Emmys. If Tatiana Maslany/Orphan Black didn't get a nomination, what hope does Arrow have? Thanks for the link, it's really interesting to see who is where. Stephen Amell is up against 84 others, including Kevin Bacon, Kevin Spacey, James Spader and Steve Buscemi (also Dylan Neal aka Dr. Ivo for his work on Cedar Cove). Manu Bennett is up against 253 others, and there are 170 submissions in the supporting actress category (including Gillian Anderson, Lana Parilla, Snadra Oh and Monica Potter)..

I think we've got off pretty lightly on terms of triangles on this show. The only real one has been Oliver/Laurel/Tommy, a classic because both Oliver and Tommy wanted Laurel and she couldn't decide which to be with. Robert/Moira/Malcolm was in the past and we don't know if it was a real triangle of emotions or Moira wanting to get back at Robert for sleeping around. Oliver slept with Isabel but he didn't seem to want to be with her in a relationship and Barry had more press than an actual triangle. People are still arguing whether Oliver was really jealous of Barry or not. The thing I liked about Sara was that Felicity actually liked her and thought she was good for Oliver, not the usual thing you see in a triangle. So while I don't like triangles on my TV shows (hated season 9 on ER), there's been nothing on Arrow approaching the mess that was Castle in seasons 3 and 4 where when one was with someone, the other was pining and as soon as that relationship ended, the other person got into one. I'm anticipating Oliver and Diggle having a discussion early in the season about Diggle's new family responsibilities and questioning whether Oliver can have that too, ending with Oliver reinforcing his "I can't be with someone I really care about" belief, and then the reintroduction of baby and baby mama a bit later in the season. And maybe some dynamite to get Oliver to reconsider. I wouldn't mind so much a triangle of Oliver/Felicity/other-alpha-male-likes-her. I'd hate a baby mama/Oliver/Felicity one.

Isn't that kind of the definition of a love triangle though? Two people who both want a third? I think it was inevitable unless Felicity doesn't date at all because either Oliver doesn't react which means he doesn't care (which would negate what they've been saying about the scenes in Unthinkable) or he does and you get a triangle. What she says is "Maybe there will be a love triangle somewhere that will give the situation a push" so maybe it will be used for character development and won't be so bad. Since EBR knows more about the big villain than Colton does, it's a pretty fair guess that it's related to Felicity's back story. I love Colton a little bit for saying that. And kudos to EBR for wanting to maintain the integrity of her character over the chance to wear a superhero costume.

He used to play Mr. Crabby Tree on Dudley the Dragon. My daughter was terrified of him. I don't really care about Wic one way or the other, except that I hate that she's married and he's in a relationship with a woman who is attractive and trying really hard, so yeah, I guess I don't like it but what's going to drive me from the show is the really bad plotting and storytelling for the sake of the emotional jolts. Like Henry being in what looks like prison when he hasn't been arraigned yet, like the prison officials not letting Walt speak to him on the phone because another prisoner said so, or cancelling his meeting with his lawyer and then giving him someone incompetent so we can see Cady defend him. The Paulina story was badly done in terms of logic. We never got an explanation as why she would terrorize the first family so that we would wonder if they were the ones who had killed her, we never found out why Paulina didn't report the sexual abuse at the school so that Sofia would be saved, or why, if she needed to be extracted, they didn't do something about the Gunther family. If the child-swapping websites do exist (how? wouldn't the kids need documentation?) why didn't Vic report it to the FBI or some other agency? All they did in the station was throw up their hands and say 'it's anonymous, we can't do anything about it'.

Was something cut? One minute Sofia is holding the gun on Walt and the next they're driving away together and Walt says he's taking her somewhere better. How does he know? Is he so naive about Children's Services or is he going to adopt her? The part of the mystery that was Walt and Vic investigating was good but Paulina and Sofia were just plot contrivances, which is disappointing because I thought that was the more interesting part. Was this show so much about the manpain in season 1 when I got hooked on it? Right now, I feel like it's all about Walt's pain and Henry's pain and Branch's pain and everyone else is just set dressing.

Maybe it's because I'm reluctant to give up on my Felicity/Sara friendship wishes but while I'd like to see Felicity get on with and have a friend in Lyla, they just strike me as being in two very different life places. Partly it's because of age as Lyla seems to be about 10 years older than Felicity (the actress is 39) but mostly because Lyla has had so much more in terms of life experience -- she's been in Afghanistan fighting, she's been married and divorced, she's worked for ARGUS and the duplicitous Amanda Waller, she's found the love of her life and she's pregnant with his baby. Felicity seems like she's barely out of college. I want Felicity to get along with her and for them to support each other but they seem so far apart, I want Felicity to have a friend at her level, someone who could be her BFF. Or what BkWurm1 said as I was typing. (Coincidentally Audrey Marie Anderson was in the Private Practice episode before the first one Stephen Amell did.)

If this is how MC and AK resolve the jacket scene, I would be one happy viewer. (I doubt the KC fans would be so much.)

Some contracts are just that, contracts for the length of time. But if the actor got a good lawyer to draw up the contract (and the Cassidy family would know some really good entertainment lawyers), the contract might include a penalty clause such as the show would owe her a lot of money if they dropped her before the end of the contract. With Arrow's budget always a problem, maybe they decided it was a better decision to keep her on for the length of the contract. Or maybe they really do want her to stay on the show. Maybe if they could release her from the weight of the expectation of the BC role, the superhero stuff and Oliver's OTP part, they might be able to write her better. For all the other characters Oliver excluded, the show runners have a freedom to move beyond the comic books -- the creation of John Diggle and Sara, Thea as Speedy, Felicity as young and part of the team, Malcolm Merlyn as the Dark Archer, Roy, Quentin -- and they've done a good job with them. If they could do the same with Laurel and see how she fit in naturally, it might be possible to save her. I think all the problem with Laurel would be made worse if she becomes the Black Canary, people wouldn't accept her, and not just those who like Sara, and the whole relationship with Oliver is the most dysfunctional he has in a show of dysfunctional relationships. The harder they try to put her into that role, the more ill-suited they make her for it. ETA: Maybe it's just that none of the interviewers are asking about her. Or the fans at convention KC doesn't attend. At Phoenix, SA was asked two questions about Felicity and none about Laurel.

The first time Oliver turned on the lights in the Arrow lair, all the lighting was green. Not subtle, but a nice effect. I was watching in City of Blood the scene by the docks where Oliver is soliliquizing at the harbour, waiting to hand himself over to Slade and I noticed how golden the light was. It reminded me of a few weeks ago when they were shooting a scene for a new movie with Ethan Hawke on the porch of the house next door. They started setting up early afternoon but they weren't going to shoot till 7 p.m. I got into a conversation with one of the crew and asked why so late, and he explained that that was The Golden Hour, when the sun was at the right height over the horizon that its rays through the atmosphere made the light look golden and better to film in.

Weren't Maxie and Georgie both Frisco's kids? Although that was a pretty long time ago, as were Lulu and Lucky.

So much bitterness from that remark. When I'm feeling better about MC and AK, I wonder what the effect would have been had the quote been "you don’t write what they want, but write what the story needs."

My bolding, because I think that's the crux of the relationships Oliver lets himself get into, that and whether he thinks it safe to be with the woman i.e. his vigilante activities won't get in the way of them being together. With McKenna, he thought he could have both a vigilante life and a real life, as Felicity and Diggle were pushing him to, and then found out McKenna got hurt because of him (his association with Helena plus teaching her how to use a crossbow). Later he tried again with Laurel only to have that blow up in his face along with Starling City. The one thing that doesn't fit was his willingness to give up his life in Starling City to follow McKenna to her sister's but I attribute that to hyperbole on the part of the writers since there was no way it was going to happen. Oliver also said that he's tired of having the same argument with her over and over (when Thea was kidnapped). It seems like Oliver connects to different people with different parts of himself. With Helena, it was the loneliness and pain. With McKenna, it was the dream of a normal life. With Sara, it was what they went through on their islands and his sense of responsibility for the hurt he feels he has caused her (this also applies to McKenna). With Isabel it was no string attached sex. With Laurel it was his dream of going back and wiping out the island years. With Felicity it's the idea of what it takes to be a hero. And with Diggle, it's everything that goes with being a soldier, the PTSD, the little bits of yourself being chipped away, and not really knowing who to trust.

The lesson for us all it to keep a pair of flats in a handbag. People in health keep telling us how important walking is; people in fashion keep giving us shoes that make it difficult (impossible for me). I loved the blue dress that was cutaway in the back, even though it wasn't really EA work attire, much less Arrow Cave wear. The black and white blouse in Keep Your Enemies Closer was just perfect though. From Marc Guggenheim's interview in pastemagazine: That answers my question of how Felicity got into episode 4. It also encourages me about what's coming next.

I'm ashamed that in the finale, Laurel wore more practical shoes (low-heeled boots) than Felicity did (spike heels??) I appreciate that they wanted to make Felicity more conventionally attractive but too often they went overboard -- the really tight dress in 2x02, the pink boob dress, the bizarre ensemble in The Promise that made her look like CSI's Garcia. I didn't like the cocktail dressy clothes in the Cave either; she shouldn't be dressing up for Oliver and Diggle there, she should be comfortable in jeans and cute sweaters.

The Leo awards were handed out last week and unfortunately Arrow didn't win any, not even best male lead (that went to Motive). Continuum was the big winner with 7 awareds. Here are the winners: http://www.leoawards.com/2014/winners_all/

If anyone slept her way to the top, it was Isabel "Robert Queen was going to leave his family for me" Rochev. And then she seduced Oliver (not that much effort was involved). One of the first rules I learned for women in business is never sleep with your boss. If you fail at your job, you'll get dumped and if you succeed it will be attributed to him. (That also applies to your advisor if you're a graduate student.) If Isabel had any brains at all, she would have known Felicity didn't to sleep her way to the EA position ten minutes after first working with her. I hate the stereotype and the writers did Isabel a real disservice for suggesting it unless they were trying for Evil. Now that the show has done it to tease Oliver/Felicity last season, I hope it gets dropped and never used again. Sara had a mechanical sonic scream. I hope the show doesn't make Felicity produce one for Laurel.

Not to mention, you think he would have said something to her about wearing a white coat on a stealth mission.

Hopefully Diggle will give Oliver a reality check. Or a smack upside the head, whichever is more effective. I was watching the scene in 2x14 where Felicity has been working out, futilely, and the team comes down. Sara helps her with her stance while Oliver is all "What are you wearing?" and later tells her that she's there because her tech expertise is supposed to trump the Clockmaker's expertise. It's a nice example of how he has put Felicity (along with everyone else) in a nice tight box and expects them to stay there. In terms of the show, it gives them some nice room to move Oliver in terms of character development. He's shut down emotionally but he's also shut down in terms of thinking about people too.

There were so many reasons for Isabel to hate Felicity .... even if only for being a blonde like Moira, the woman Robert stayed with. It would have been fun for the show to explore. She could also have hated the Queen family because they were born to money and had everything they wanted whereas she had to crawl her way to the top. Or maybe she was interested in Slade but he was so obsessed with Oliver and his family that he had no time for her. Or she could have hated Felicity because she saw her as a doormat for Oliver and the Queen family rather than ruthless and achieving like herself. Lots of reasons to hate on Oliver, the Queen family and Felicity. It's too bad we never got to know just why. Of course she didn't -- he was thinking about the plan to break Diggle out of the Russian jail. Sure, she could have interpreted that as Oliver thinking about Felicity but Isabel was anti-Felicity long before that episode. I think Stephen Amell was just reaching for something to answer back rather than it being about Oliver's feelings about Felicity..

Some of the actors seem to put more effort into understanding their characters motivations than the men who write them do, although that is to some amount understandable. It would have been so easy to give Isabel a reason to hate Felicity, maybe because Felicity brought Walter in to save the company, maybe because she supports Oliver who Isabel thought was just a pretty rich boy, maybe because she thought Felicity was a goodie-two-shoes. It's kind of sad though, that Guggenheim didn't talk with the actors even afterwards to understand who they conceived of their roles.