statsgirl

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.

When Sara came home from college before the ill-fated boat trip, it seemed like Quentin was expecting to hear that she had come home because she was failing, not just to have a weekend off. Between pushing Laurel into either law school or academia like her mother, I just got the impression that Laurel was the shining academic light of the Lance family. Not that Sara wasn't smart, just that she wasn't academically oriented like Laurel. Even having to go home to help Sara with her trig makes it appear that Laurel is the smart one in the family. He really doesn't. I can understand why they would want to do that, to highlight the chance in him, but I can't understand why Laurel would want to move in with and marry him. I can see Sara wanting to have fun and party with him, but not Laurel's motivation.

What interests me about Laurel is the disconnect between what they tell us about her, and what they show. From Seeing Red: Laurel: I have to go help Sara with her trigonometry. Oliver: I don't even know what that is. Laurel :You're so cute. Aside from wondering why Sara would even be taking trigonometry since she's been portrayed as not being the academic type, I don't understand Laurel in this scene. She's been presented as smart and focused but I can't imagine Anaything that would be a bigger turn-off to a character like that than having Oliver say "I don't even know what trigonometry is." (One of the things that makes Benedict Cumberbatch so sexy as Sherlock is his brain.) So is what attracts Laurel to Oliver his body? Would that be enough to put up with his behaviour? Because if not, then it's his money and that makes her a gold-digger. Not to mention that she still doesn't seem to know that he's cheating on her. What's the reason for writing her this way? It certainly doesn't make it any easier to make her the Black Canary.

Moira said told the pregnant girl to go back to Central City, saying that she had family there. If she was Oliver's age, she'd still be under 30 now, which would make her parents in their 50s or 60s. There is probably someone, either her parents or maybe a sibling, who would take Connor if she died. But in books and movies, when the mother dies she usually leaves a note for the birth father saying "Oh, by the way, I never told you but...." Yeah. I remember last season when Oliver had to tell her that Thea required more disciplined parenting. But at least she can learn -- this week when Thea went all teen angst and said Moira couldn't contaminate Verdant too, Moira reminded her there she had signed a contract. Grow up, Thea. I'm really going to miss Susanna Thompson. She brought everyone's game up, especially Stephen Amell.

I think it's great that she's nominated and I wish her luck in her career but I don't think there's any way she can win this because even though she's in Three Ghosts a fair bit, she doesn't have that much to do. Kristin Lehman is nominated for an episode in which she tries to take down a very creepy Amanda Tapping playing a psychologist and Erica Durrance submitted an episode where she reacts to her brother dying and finally finding out her fiance's deep dark secret. (I don't know Carmen Moore's episode because my cable company cut me off APTN.) You can't compare EBR to either of them because Arrow has never asked her to do much more than 'quirky' or 'worried'. So while part of me is worried at Felicity being a damsel in distress given what they've done to Laurel, another part would like to see her being given the chance to show whether she has some real acting chops as Susannah Thompson and even Willa Holland has been given lately. But if it is Felicity that Slade kidnaps, what is Laurel doing on the island?

I really liked the doctor dude. That was a nice touch, and a call-back to the earlier episode. I think Sara went to Nyssa and the LoA for help. It was clear they couldn't do anything to Roy much less Slade and his army so it would be time to call out the very big guns. I will truly miss Moira. Not only was Susannah Thompson an actor who could make a silk purse out of the very hackneyed dialogue they gave her, I loved her Lady Macbeth ruthlessness to get what she wanted. She was a good counterpoint to the flat-out craziness of Slade and Malcolm Merlyn. I think it would have been too dangerous to see the grandchild because someone would have figured it out. With the paparazzi after Playboy Oliver, some enterprising tabloid reported would have done some digging if Moira had been paying visits to a baby. I would, however, be upset if she didn't hold a watching brief over the child since she kept talking about important family is. It's possible that having a baby would have changed Oliver but I think that's more true in fiction than in real life.

Since Laurel gave up on Oliver in disgust a number of times in the past two seasons, I would have expected her to be more concerned with Sara's scars than with hugging Oliver. Stalking Arrow and Canary outside the labs was just creepy. I don't understand why Kreisburg thought we would be so in love with Laurel when we found out how she handled knowing Oliver was the Arrow. She thought about it, talked to her father, bought his reasoning, and didn't tell. Those are the actions of a rational intelligent person. Why should we be sending up fireworks when Laurel finally behaves like a normal person would?

Diggle manipulated him into paying for the guard's medical bills early in season 1. Not saying that what Diggle did was wrong because it was a lesson Oliver needed to learn, but it was a manipulation.

I "needed" Oliver and Laurel together in season 1 to end it for good. (I shipped Tommy/Laurel because Tommy made Laurel likable, with Oliver she was a pain.) Now I need them to be blue dead as a relationship. Shakespeare couldn't find a believable way to write them together again.