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Slade's most obvious target is Laurel because that's who Oliver was obsessing about the first year on the island. But if Slade's been watching Oliver in Starling City, he should know that Oliver hasn't had much contact with her, and that he's been sleeping with Sara. So I would think Lauel if the show can't be bothered to do much thinking about it, or if not her, Sara. He's had the opportunity to kill Thea twice now and I think that if it were going to be her he'd have done it already unless he's playing cat-and-mouse. I would be surprised if it were to be Felicity because I don't think Slade would consider her that way. She's Oliver's PA and she's on Team Arrow but she stays pretty much in the background, unlike Sara. Slade strikes me as a man who pays attention to the obvious rather than the woman hidden in the background. I love the idea of Oliver being willing to be shot up with mirakuru if Felicity 'dies'. I think Kreisburg and Guggenheim would jump on the idea, but then they'd make it about Laurel and not Felicity. Your way is a much better story. Please, Slade, take Laurel away, out of Oliver's orbit, and do whatever you want with her. The only downside to that idea is KC herself. When she talks about her scenes with Paul Blackthorne in interviews, she talks about their "process", which sounds like Blackthorne spends a long time with her going over Laurel's motivation and how she would react in their scenes and what she would be doing so that KC doesn't have to look like she's doing multiplication in her head and so their scenes come off as Laurel's best. I don't think she does that with Stephen Amell, maybe because he's too busy to spend that kind of time with her, maybe because he's not experienced enough to know she needs it. Going by KC's anecdote, Manu Bennet works his stuff out in his own head and plays it out for anyone who may be around. I'd love to be wrong but I think putting Slade and Laurel together would look good on the page but KC's acting wouldn't be up to it. ,

Oliver was trying to drop a whole building on the men (yes, men) who were part of Slade's army. Since there is a mirakuru cure, he could have save them. That sounds pretty 'unthinkable' to me. A description designed to drive us crazy trying to figure out who the "someone close to his heart" is. After last week's Laurel-fest on the heels of "it has to be the three of us", I'm not playing any more,.

I have the feeling it wasn't that Felicity's story was so big it couldn't fit into s2, but that they took the room for Laurel's.

This is the greatest discussion I've read in a long time. I feel like I'm back in college.where the arguments we argued were smart and exciting and important (to us anyway). Arctis Tor, I really like your analysis of Laurel, although it took me a minute to remember that DiD stood for Damsel in Distress and not Dissociative Identity Disorder, although that could apply too. Pootlus, all your scenarios make sense, but I was thinking that there was one you didn't include: 8. the Pygmalion Factor. I was getting some information last night and I realized that AK was not only the one who the GA/BC that turned off many people, but that he wrote BC as Dinah Laurel Lance. This version of her is his creation, maybe he even had a hand in casting KC in the role and now I'm thinking that his bewilderment that so many people don't love her is genuine. He can't see what is wrong with the character and as one of the two show-running EPS (Berlanti is usually off doing other things), he has a lot of clout. It could be that the Pygmalion Factor is the wildcard that throws logic and good writing out the window. Maybe we should all be hoping that The Flash gets picked up and he leaves Arrow for it.

Well, fashion is her passion, after all. Laurel is in 9 of the 12 pictures, Diggle & Felicity in 2, and Thea in 2. In the first on, Laurel looks like she's keeping Oliver from getting close to Diggle and Felicity. They really must think we tune in for Laurel.

Yeah. I used to be excited for the finale, now I just want it to hurry up and get here so I can find out how bad the damage is.

Diggle is pretty non-judgmental generally I presume he and Felicity brought Laurel in because Oliver wasn't listening to them. Or was it that Laurel went to them because she finally had some information and that's what prompted them? I much prefer the latter. Either way, I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when Diggle and Felicity talked over whether to let Laurel in. (Fanfic anyone?) I don't watch Blue Bloods, I didn't know he was already done on it. Is Arrow all he's got now, poor guy?

In other words, even Sara, who was presented as the not-so-smart daughter, knew Oliver for who he was. Maybe not in her bones or as well as she knew her own name, but even back then she knew him better than Laurel did.

That's one of the things that bugged me when he pretty much disappeared when Sara arrived in the cave and she was the only one strategizing with Oliver. How much time does David Ramsey spend on Blue Bloods? (He plays the mayor.) Could it be affecting how much screentime he gets on Arrow? I'm glad he's got the Suicide Squad tie-in because that gives him at least something that is his own and not in the shadow of Oliver.

Alibelle, I have long thought that the only way to make sense of Laurel is to see her as a gold-digger, but you've made the argument brilliant. Unfortunately, I don't think the EPS see it this way at all.

True. But if they actually knew what crap was, would they still be trying to force her into storylines like she's the greatest thing on the show?

I'm trying to think of in what possible way Laurel would be better for Oliver than anyone else, including Helena. Even setting aside that she doesn't know Oliver and that he has successfully lied to her for 7 years, and that he's put her in the category of someone like Thea who he can't be honest with because she's too fragile to know the truth... Is there anything about Laurel that would be good for Oliver? Thanks, I didn't know that. Nor, I hope, did the producers but why am I not surprised that what they had Laurel say is exactly the wrong thing? I agree. He was the perfect tie-in to get the movie audience to like the show but making him the team leader has ruined him for me (along with his OTT anger at May and the show's expectation that she needs to be the one to appease him.) However, another way S.H.I.E.L.D. has ruined Coulson for me is his constant propping of Skye especially over Simmons who is a better character. Rather like the Arrow producers prop Laurel as knowing Oliver bestest over Sara and Felicity.

That's why I think what they're doing on this show is such a cheat. They pay lip service to what the audience is asking for, and occasionally a scene like the one with Felicity and Diggle trying to stop Oliver from sacrificing himself (and which serves to show how much more attractive Oliver is, and how much better Amell's acting is opposite people who are not KC), and then it's back again full speed to St. Laurel. I tweeted to AK that I cheered when Oliver said it's time to get back to the three of them only to be even more disappointed when Laurel pulled him away but given Kreisburg's mindset, I doubt he paid any attention..

They don't trust us to notice Laurel's bug if it's not flashing. They don't trust us to notice Laurel's wonderfulness unless everyone keeps telling us about it.

But it's always possible that something went wrong... that the gun misfired and killed Thea, or that she was hurt in the car crash and so making Oliver choose was moot because Thea was already a goner. They want us to believe both things, that Blood knew that Slade was going to kill Moira, and that Slade was really giving Oliver a choice. I think what happened is that they wanted to give Laurel some information that Blood was working with Slade so that she could be the one to save Oliver, and this was the best they could come up with. Once again, it doesn't pay to look too closely to the mechanics of the construction. The writing for this show seems to go from endpoint backwards to construct it, rather than "Here's the situation and the characters, given that, what would happen next?"

She sure didn't at the Calgary Fan Expo. She seemed positively delighted with the direction Laurel is going in . It makes me very worried. It makes perfect sense but then she wouldn't be important enough in terms of the show or her connection to Oliver, though. For some reason, the EPs adore her and are determined to make her the show's lead. I thought when Felicity and later Sara were so well received I've seen several comments in various places that the contrast between the two scenes shows how much better Laurel is for Oliver than Felicity because Laurel brought up his family and other people while Felicity made it all about Oliver himself, I guess reinforcing his self-absorption. Once again, I don't understand what the writers are going for. Which was the better speech? Laurel pulling in everything she knew about, and finally giving him the information he needed to keep going, or Felicity telling him not to sacrifice himself because he is a valuable person?

Well, the poor guy does get hurt a lot. I wouldn't be surprised if they had intended Thea to be an archer and have switched it to Laurel now. Special snowflakes get everything cannibalized for them, especially when nothing seems to be working.. On Wednesday over at tvline.com, before the board exploded in Laurel-hate, Matt Mitovich suggested that Even he sees the problems.

I'm currently working on the theory that they have changed their game plan to keep Sara as the Black Canary and have Laurel turn into the Red Arrow, since Roy is going to be Arsenal. It makes Sara fans happy and explains the promo pictures of Laurel shooting an arrow, and why she ran home from the Cave to change her blue coat for a bright red one before hunting down Oliver. (How did she find him? Does she have him GPS'd?) Ditto to every comment above. In addition, she spoils the episodes she's in by a combination of bringing the action to a screeching halt whenever she has a scene, and forcing the storytelling into convolutions to accommodate the character. The storylines they create for her take time away from characters I'm more interested in; the A stories she's involved in make her the special snowflake of the show. I didn't mind her so much when she was peripheral to the show, I can enjoy it around her. But when she comes into the Arrow Cave, pushes Diggle and Felicity aside and claims Oliver because she's his true soul mate -- then I wonder why I'm watching.

Exactly. I have never seen a show/tell contradiction like there is on this show. And whichever you buy into, what they show or what they tell, you'll probably end up cheated. Although i do think she believed that she could be more than an IT girl even before Oliver told her. You don't go from the daughter of a cocktail waitress to attending MIT (on scholarship or work plans) without a power belief that You Can Be More. But compared to what this show tries to pull with other characters (hello, Laurel) that a pick of the tiniest nit.

His father died in the pilot, which was over 6 years ago now, but that's me being really picky. I think what he went through on the island would have been as traumatic as seeing his father die, if not more.

It would be a lot for Oliver to take, although he lost his father 7 years ago and Tommy last year. But on the plus side, it would give him a clean slate with respect to the past. He'd still have to take care of Thea, probably fighting Malcolm for her, but a huge burden of the past would be lifted from him, and he could start to truly re-make himself as the character Diggle and Felicity know on his hero's journey, not the frat boy douche boyfriend of Laurel..

I had the same thought. But it's not just Diggle and Felicity. Laurel also treated her mother when she blamed Dinah for leaving her, and she was pretty nasty with her father at the beginning too. And from the flashback before the boat trip, it looked like Sara was always treated as the family screw-up and Laurel the amazing child wonder. If they would just let Laurel be a self-absorbed and selfish person, not bothering with people she thinks aren't good enough for her to pay attention to (I can see her as a Mean Girl) and refusing to pay attention to anything that doesn't fit her world-view, it would fit the Arrow universe that they've created very well. Bonus, it would also play to Katie Cassidy's acting strengths. I don't think those scenes make Laurel superfluous, I worry that the producers are setting up Laurel to replace those other characters. She probably won't replace Diggle as Oliver's bodyguard or Felicity as his hacker, but she can be written to replace them as his Voice of Reason or Person He Leans On. The threat is already there that she's going to replace Sara as the Black Canary.

They never are. That's how they get defeated. I don't have much to add to what everyone else has said. The best scenes were anything with Diggle and Felicity in them and Thea's scenes with Walter and Oliver. The worst was the logic that Oliver and Thea are now broke with their shares of QC rising, the fact that the shares actually are rising with Isabel in charge, and any scene with Laurel starting when she showed up at the Arrow Cave. I also thought she was condescending with Thea but that could just be because I've completely had it with the character. Kreisburg and Guggenheim have bought me a ticket on the Laurel hate train, packed me a lunch and waved me off. The "Hi! I'll be your interrogator." scene was just so perfect because it was funny, true to the characters, and advanced the action. Laurel being the only one who could save Oliver was awful for the opposite reasons. It made me cheer too. And then it turned out that Laurel was taking over there and replacing Sara as Oliver's fighting partner. When Anatoli (who will always be Zelinka for me) said that Oliver and Sara are perfect for each other because they both like blowing things up, my viewing partner said "Hey, it was Felicity's plan to blow up Star Labs!" The ship pandering was all over the show this episode. Don't be sorry at all. It's the only way to take Laurel, either that or drinking. The question for me is whether they're serious with all the Laurel propping, or whether they're leading us down a garden path for a big twist. I suspect the former, and if it's true, not even Diggle and Felicity will be able to save the show for me.

Letting Laurel go evil would be the solution to so many problems. They wouldn't need to keep coming up with ways to write her into the show because she would be working with the bad guys and naturally part of the stories, they wouldn't have to keep forcing her chemistry with Amell, and she could start to do the physical parts of being a super without being in competition with Caity Lotz. The question is, do the producers have enough of an objective view of their show to do it, or are they too in love with KC? You don't really fall in love with money, that's a decision you make to go after this person who has it. Maybe you can fall in love with really good sex, I dunno. Oliver was so selfish in the flashbacks, it's hard to believe the sex could have been that good. It's not that Laurel and Oliver are wrong for each other (which they are), it's that it's such a stretch for me to see Laurel as actually being in love with Oliver even in the flashbacks. She's presented as someone smart and ambitious and middle-class; he's a rich boy who keeps getting kicked out of schools and is a douche. Did she even know he cheated on her? I'm guessing she had to have a clue because she went to extraordinary lengths to keep Sara away from him so she must have had an inkling he wouldn't be faithful to her. I have the impression that Oliver liked Laurel because she was pretty and smart and available, and that Laurel liked Oliver because she had made a life plan for herself, he fit into it real good, and she wasn't going to let anything keep her from getting what she wanted..

I think it was supposed to show that Blood knew even before Moira's rally that she was going to die i.e. that Slade was going to kill her, proving that Blood was working with Slade and giving Laurel a reason to say "I told you so" after she had apologized to everyone for going after Blood for no reason.. Which not only makes Moira sacrificing herself to save Thea meaningless, it makes me wonder what would have happened if Thea had been killed first, either in the car accident or by jumping on to Slade's gun. Would Slade have killed Moira anyway? Or would he have assumed she would drop out of the mayoralty race because of grief over Thea? (Still doesn't explain Blood saying Moira died though.) That's what makes me think that Slade kidnaps Laurel and not Felicity. But if he were kidnapping Laurel, there wouldn't need to be this stupid reason to get her into the storyline so maybe it is Felicity after all. Apparently they're related to the people who caused the Queen fortune to disappear in spite of all the stocks and trust accounts and off shore assets they hold. Maybe they still think Laurel is a reason people tune in to watch.