Alibelle

That was me! And I really wasn't expecting the gold mine that was his answer at all. I mean, I guess I maybe touched upon romance by mentioning Olicity first, but I honestly expected him to talk about signing his company over to Isabel, even though Isabel only entered his life as someone who was interested in taking his company in the first place, making that a super boneheaded move. [Oliver (well, all the Queens, really) and smart finances are not an OTP, apparently.]

I didn't understand Thea's freak out either. She was totally aware he was completely Arrow obsessed. The fact that she found some of his arrows shouldn't have been a dealbreaker when she forgave him for trying to kill her. That said, I can't be mad at Thea Merlyn. Apparently in the hopes that she would agree to go with him, her dad had already bought her a pair of shiny black leather leggings to wear, and you know she's going to rock the hell out of evil eyeliner. I also think it's kind of hilarious that she rather deliberately bankrupted herself and Oliver, had one bad experience with coach, and immediately hopped into the back of Merlyn's limo. Also, this pretty much means that she will get some additional fight training, thus fulfilling the promise of those archery trophies in her bedroom, and taking her one step closer to hanging out in the Arrow lair and making fun of Oliver. Because I can pretty much never get enough of Oliver's loved ones making fun of him. And also, I'm desperate for Thea and Felicity to become friends. So there's that!

I mentioned this one twitter, but after a little bit of reflection: honestly, I'd be disappointed if Olicity happened and then we missed the first 5 months of the relationship while we were waiting for the new season. So this is for the best! And looked at objectively, it was such a gorgeous testament to the trust and faith these two characters have in each other. They may not yet realize that they're deeply in love, but I am super deeply in love with the two of them. (Also, Oliver can't lie -especially to Felicity- for crap; that confession was sincere as all get out.) Ways to make you fall in love with a character 101, as demonstrated by Nyssa: - immediately knock Laurel unconscious at first sight (last time she was even more efficient, and had Laurel poisoned before even arriving in town!) - killer fashion sense - realize who the most awesome person in the room is, and immediately introduce yourself ("heir to the demon." "MIT, class of 2009") - make flirty eyes at Felicity, and just ignore everyone else in the room - have a solid amount of warrior respect for Detective Lance - have zero patience for villain monologues and kill it dead - express disdain for Oliver's questionable decision making skills - (also, I realize that she's gay, but I could seriously ship Nyssa/Deadshot. Anytime he irritated her, she'd just knock him unconscious, and he'd just find her all the more attractive for it) When Sara handed Laurel her jacket and told her that Oliver needed her like she was just passing a baton, it just made me laugh so much before I became super grossed out and irritated that this storyline won't just die in a fire. Because the baton is clearly Oliver's penis. (TM Captain Hammer.) Other issues I had with that scene: ladies, your dad is still standing right there, are we not even going to pretend that Oliver/Arrow are not the same person? Also, there's no way that Sara's jacket is a perfect fit on Laurel. Other thoughts: - Literally no one other than her dad caring that Laurel was kidnapped again. "I understand, but she's literally always kidnapped, and I've really got a lot of other things on my plate right now." - every other character - When exactly did Oliver get Roy a mask? Until I hear differently, I'm just going to assume it's the birthday present he always meant to give Roy. That's why it was in a fancy box. Also, Roy only likes three things, as far as Oliver knows: Thea, the color red, and vigilante justice. So this was a very thoughtful present! - If I was Sara, I would never voluntarily get on a boat again in my life. I mean, I realize she's survived every boat disaster, but that's no reason to ask for it, you know? - Swinging through the air together is obviously Olicity's thing. - Amanda Waller is a straight-up weirdo. She is weirdly indifferent to revenge. Like, she doesn't appear to carry any grudges at all. And her argument against Diggle and Lyla was "think of the hundreds of thousands of people you're endangering by not letting me nuke 576,000 people! Also, allow me to make an awkward and long-winded digression into the contents of your uterus!" So bizarre. - WHY DOES EVERYONE SUDDENLY HAVE A SECRET BABY? I AM UNINTERESTED IN NURSERY ARROW. I mean, Deadshot, Oliver, and now Diggle? If there's ever a kidnapped baby, we'll know that Laurel is also secretly a parent. - OLICITY. So many feelings. Love them.

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me Sara and Oliver's kiss in 2x13 felt like it came out of nowhere because until that point in the current timeline, there hadn't been any flirting or so much as any lingering looks between the pair of them. They just felt, to me, like comfortable friends who knew each other and were aware of each other's strengths and weaknesses. I mean, she asked about Laurel in 2x05(?) and basically just rolled her eyes at Oliver (as did we all, Sara). There was a mild sense of lingering regret over how her own relationship with him went down, but it felt more like a nostalgia thing, rather than any active sort of crushing on him. Their relationship was building to what I thought was going to be an epic BroTP, basically, since they weren't those people who'd had that affair anymore. So within that context, when they were both upset and standing there in 2x13, it felt like the kiss wasn't really about the two of them heading towards a relationship, so much as the two of them falling back into an old pattern because they were both upset about other things and other people, and this was how they had reacted in the past, sort of using each other in this way, so it was an easy and comfortable choice to make, without necessarily being the smartest or wisest (or kindest, with respect to Laurel - not that they owe her anything at this point, but still, not the most thoughtful choice on their part). And then we never saw any relationship chats between the two of them about how they felt about each other. They were always just really reactive to what was going on around them, and the safety of the other was always a concern, and they fell into this pattern of being in a relationship, but I didn't really see the two of them connecting emotionally. Even though, obviously, they do care about each other. It weirdly felt like all the romance beats for their relationship, for both of them, were talking with Laurel about each other rather than actually connecting with each other themselves. Just kinda weird. Incidentally, I'm still rather hoping for that epic Arrow/Canary BroTP. (And sort of mildly shipping Sara/Diggle. I don't mind Lyla, but she's not particularly exciting either. Sara needs someone who has an idea of the darkness that she's seen, but who is removed from it and is still stable and a force for good, and I think Dig could be that for her. Oliver isn't healed enough himself yet to be that for her. And Dig, at his core, is so nurturing and protective. Sara, on the other hand, has the capacity to be a fun and lighthearted person, even now, and Dig needs someone who can joke around a little sometimes, or he can fall into a pattern of being too serious. Plus they'd just be so pretty together. But I honestly wouldn't mind at all if Nyssa moves to Starling and she and Sara rekindle stuff. Those two are super interesting, and Nyssa rocks.)

Oh, my god, BkWurm1, if they have the guts to really go full-on villain with her and we get to see something like that on screen, I will personally kidnap and blackmail all the Emmys and bring them to Vancouver to hand them out to everyone.

Did you guys see this? It's from this: http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/05/13/arrow-showrunner-teases-a-suprise-outcome-for-season-2-finale I am, honestly, just so surprised that they're aware of it. Since going from the usual interviews, you'd never know, and yet watching the show, it seems so glaring. At least this leaves me sort of mildly, distantly, hopeful that they can fix it? Because it REALLY SHOULD NOT BE HARD. On paper, Laurel is twenty times more likable than oversexed college dropout Oliver Queen or her younger sister who slept with her boyfriend and then helped run experiments on unwilling human test subjects before becoming an assassin. The problem with Laurel is that all her problems are her own fault, but there's no real consequences to any of them. Unless you count the time that she tried to save a filing cabinet from an earthquake and Tommy ended up dead. But that's Tommy paying for her mistake, not her. She never has to make any tough choices and her regrets are incredibly superficial, especially when compared to Oliver and Sara. She is also very brittle and cold, and is dismissive even with people she likes. I think she could easily fit in the team dynamic as a voice of reason, for instance, someone who can stop by and say, "hey, I would really appreciate it if you didn't take those kinds of risks with yourself because you're my baby sister, and while I agree that this is a terrible situation that needs fixing, we can do it in a way where you're less likely to be hurt. Because I only have one sister, and you're it. I lost you once, and I never want to go through that again. I love you. Take a sweater, you're going to get a chest cold." Obviously the last line is because I'm desperate for Laurel to also have a sense of humor. Also, she could have a hobby or some interest other than blame and Oliver's love life. Anything. Like, Felicity never really talks about what she does in her spare time, but I could easily see her watching sci-fi TV or something whenever she gets a moment off to clear her DVR. I bet she reads tech blogs because she hates to be uninformed about what's coming and what's possible. I feel certain that Dig likes to watch a game while drinking a beer. I know that Oliver loves to work out and fondle arrows in his spare time, and uses his crafting skills to make new types of arrows (look, Oliver's kinda singularly focused, which is part of his charm at this point). I even know that Quentin likes to cook. I legit have no idea what Laurel's interests are. Even if it's COMPLETELY RANDOM and has no relation to anything, like she is not-so-secretly super into tennis and every now and then she pulls an inspirational quote from Andre Agassi's autobiography out of her butt: that would be endearing! It's kind of dorky! It's relatable! It's something that normal human people do, randomly like things! The Laurel moments I liked best this season were both from Time of Death: - when she got a giant smile on her face at the idea of helping out her dad with a dinner party (that was really sweet!) - when she intuited that Oliver and Sara were together and she got super pissed (that was REALLY UNDERSTANDABLE) Then, of course, she lost me again by humiliating her dad and apologizing to her sister. Not that it wasn't a sweet, if incredibly overwrought, apology, it's just that it made zero sense in the context of what she knew. If she had had a screaming fight with Sara about how much it sucked to find out that the two people she loved most were betraying her, and beyond the betrayal just the fact that they were keeping a secret that excluded her, and then she didn't even get to yell at them, she just lost both of them, and how could Sara keep the fact that she was alive a secret? Keep it from Laurel? It's like losing Sara again because clearly she didn't know her at all, or have the relationship with her that she thought she did. And if Sara then confessed some of what she went through and Laurel was horrified on her behalf, and then came the tearful apology? I WOULD HAVE BEEN ALL OVER IT. And I would have been rooting for Laurel, big time, and wanted to hug her. Instead, as I often am, I was just left cold and confused about what makes Laurel Lance tick.

Well, since "star-crossed" literally means thwarted by bad luck, then the only couple it really applies to is Sara/Oliver. Their relationship is the definition of terrible luck. For some reason, the term is usually treated as though it means "epic, fated, larger than life," but it really just means unlucky/doesn't work out in the end. Which isn't Laurel/Oliver. They didn't work out because Oliver was a really terrible boyfriend who was then physically absent. That's not unlucky, that's just being a crappy person. Felicity and Oliver, in contrast, aren't star-crossed either, they're pretty much just sweetness and honesty, with a bedrock of deep friendship. I know which relationship I prefer, especially on a show that is otherwise pretty dark and angsty.

The fact that Slade really didn't care about Ivo at all, and instead focused all his rage on Oliver, shows that his thinking is more lateral than logical. And, honestly, Blood didn't really know anything, so he just assumed the person would be whomever Oliver loved most (which is torturous for Oliver because if they've been persistent in establishing one thing, it's that Oliver has a lot of love to go around). Even Isabel has no idea who Shado is, so clearly she's not particularly in the loop with Slade either. Plus, she was looking for Felicity in order to kill her, so if Slade had had her as a particular target in mind, it seems like he didn't communicate it to his #2. Because we know that Slade does take Felicity, according to the promo. So maybe by "close to his heart" they meant literally. Because Felicity is only yea tall, and stands next to Oliver a lot.

The scene where Buffy is crying in Willow's lap about how much the breakup with Angel hurts, and Willow unwillingly starts to cry along HURTS ME. I can't watch that scene without crying until my nose is all stuffed up. I really wish Felicity had some girlfriends. I want her to bond with Sara, though the way they handled the Sara/Oliver thing makes that tougher than it originally seemed like it would be. But maybe now that they're broken up, we'll see Sara and Felicity enjoy some mint chip and bitching about how some people never replace the cotton pads in the med station after they're done, or whatever.

Maybe Central City looks like the island, and we get our first glimpse of it as they race to find more cures? Maybe it's the new park by Moira's grave and Slade felt they needed to be there? I don't know. No idea. I legit have the hardest time trying to anticipate anything on this show. They always go off on a surprising direction. (Wait, Laurel's an addict? Hold up, Oliver knows Waller? Huh, Oliver has a secret kid? Um, did no one explain how finances work to any of these people?) However, it likely isn't this same endless night, at least. Those pictures were all shot in daylight. So it's the next morning at the earliest, which means that they could probably make it on Isabel's shiny new QC yet, if they needed to?

What if the choice ends up being take the mirakuru or everyone ends up dead because Slade really wants to beat Oliver on a more even playing field, after destroying everything he cares about. Then Oliver hallucinates his mom, who tells him she loves him, please go kill Slade, and then to contain the damage that they're causing to the rest of the city, Argus or someone ends up pumping both dudes full of venom and dumping them on the island, along with Felicity, who goes with to keep an eye on Oliver, while Diggle stays behind to help neutralize Argus, and Sara works with the science peeps at Star Labs to try and come up with a cure from scratch. Boom. That fits all spoilers. Unthinkable (Oliver willingly taking the mirakuru), how Oliver and Felicity end up on the island, how Slade could be defeated and yet survive to perhaps be a recurring character in season 3, why Susannah Thompson was on set after her character died, and the thing that the execs said awhile back about how the characters were going to start season 3 in a very different place. That spoiler picture of the person who could be Dig on the island didn't look like Dig to me, for what it's worth. It looked more like Marc Guggenheim. It's just a backlit bald guy in the distance, but the posture and build didn't look right for David Ramsay, and we know for sure that MG was there on set.

You know, they say all this stuff about KC and GA/BC and whatever, but what they've actually DONE is give Felicity and Felicity/Oliver every single one of the actual romance beats, Sara gets the super cool action stuff, and Diggle gets to generally be awesome. Even Thea gets interesting angst, and was the only character put in line for further stuff with Merlyn, which was obviously going to be fun and exciting. KC and Laurel get none of that. Literally, all she gets is the EP's being super nice to her in interviews. EBR generally even gets all of the official promo push stuff now from the network. So I'm not particularly worried about Laurel anymore. Is she still a drag on the show? Would I still prefer that she decide to move to Central City to be with her mom or take a midnight train to Bludhaven? Yes, of course. But I really honestly don't think she will be taking either Felicity or Sara's place for anything. Though now that I phrased it that way, it would truly be...UNTHINKABLE. Dun dun dun! (sorry)

The thing is, I started watching this show expecting to like Laurel better than Oliver. I usually like the female characters best in action shows, and the pilot had these hints that Laurel had her own action arc that we were going to build on, I went online and heard about the Black Canary, and I was totally prepared to get on board, and looking forward to where they were going to go with her. And it's truly not that important to me that Katie Cassidy doesn't look like she can beat up people on her own, so long as they are smooth about the transition to the stunt double. I mean, I happily accepted that Sarah Michelle Gellar could kick major butt for years, and she's even more slender and petite than Cassidy. Heck, I was even fully willing to believe that Juliet Landau was a serious physical menace. Because their job was to act as though they were, and they did, and I was sold. I'm even generous enough to go along for the ride when actors are maybe not as great as I would wish, but they're serviceable enough to get the point across, and that's all I really require out of them. (And KC's early action scenes were fine here. Impressive? Not really. Good enough for me to accept? Yes, fine.) And I even liked Katie Cassidy in Monte Carlo, so I wanted her to do well. But then Oliver and Laurel's first scene together was filled with SERIOUS venom on her part. There was no warmth there. There was no curiosity or interest in how he had survived. She was downright vicious. So that shook me a little, but I was willing to let it go because she did have a truly excellent reason to hate him. No reason that I knew of to ever see him in a romantic light ever again, but to hate him, yes. And honestly, I was still willing to give Laurel the benefit of the doubt, since Oliver's actions were seriously shitty, so the choice of going fully hateful over hurt/confused/conflicted made sense. So I took it to mean that the show wasn't particularly interested in exploring the romance stuff any time soon, which isn't exactly surprising on a show that has been marketed this heavily towards a male demographic, so I was willing to put it off for a very long time too, as Oliver and Laurel grew to get to know each other again, as the new people that they are. Okay, that's fine. Then they made it clear that Tommy liked her, and I was basically like: UGH. NO. TRIANGLES SUCK. DO NOT WANT. DO NOT WANT!!! Then they had the scene where Laurel took his shirt off and they started making out, and I was like, okay, I guess we are doing this. It is, weirdly, not as sexy as when Thea was examining him shirtless, but what can you do? And honestly, based on the first Queen sibling hug, I was pretty much waiting for the moment when they'd fill us in that Thea was adopted or something, since there was some serious sparkage there before we ever even met Laurel. Once we did meet Laurel, I assumed that the Thea/Oliver was accidental, and we were meant to ignore it. Which, fine, whatever. And I figured they did the sexy shirt discovering thing with Laurel, since it was so sparky with Thea, surely it would be extra sparky with a love interest! Not so much. Live and learn. Oh well. Then we meet Felicity, and I fell in love with Felicity, as it seems like everyone else did as well, from Oliver to network execs. And they started to back off of Oliver and Laurel, and really pursue Tommy and Laurel, and I thought that they had recognized their mistake, and were going to make it so that Tommy and Laurel ended up as Oliver's friends, friends who support and rely on each other, and basically take the romance out, like the Scooby gang of Buffy, Willow, and Xander. Bedrock friends, with Tommy and Laurel standing in for Willow and Xander (where Tommy is OBVIOUSLY Willow because...come on, cutie-pie supportive BFF who occasionally struggles with an inferiority complex and has the potential to go villain?). But, uh, not so much. It appears as though there's still no real love lost between Laurel and Oliver, and while Tommy and Oliver are obviously still friends, there's insecurity that there that strains that friendship. Which is too bad. And the super friends group quickly enough solidifies into Oliver/Diggle/Felicity, and though there's still the slow simmer of Oliver/Felicity in the background, it's not an urgent relationship that needs pursuing yet, as Oliver has a number of things to work through. So Oliver hooks up with Helena (which made sense, and I actually really really liked this mini-arc), then later Makenna (which was fine, but relatively boring, and I was pretty indifferent to it. There were literally no stakes in this relationship, nothing in common, nothing particularly funny, no interesting insights. It was just there. And again, whatever, Oliver was on the island for a long time, it was nice to see him put on some training wheels and get back on the dating horse or whatever that was. Because basically it was practice dating before the big test where you try to date someone you care about), as things slowly start to get more emotionally tangled with Felicity--again, though, this is only the super duper beginnings of stuff with her, that neither one of them even really realized yet. Then, out of left field, suddenly Oliver and Laurel is trying to become a viable thing again. For who knows why. Oliver has barely seen her since he came home, he seemed like a HUGE Tommy/Laurel fangirl, and literally the only moment of even mildly friendly interaction between them seemed to be in the episode where he helped her out with the Firefly firestarter mystery guy, which was ages ago. WHY is this a thing?? And so I pretty much just figured that Oliver had to get it out of his system, since he had been harboring a lot of fantasies on the island about what his life was going to be like when he got back home, and Laurel, or at least the idea of her, had featured heavily in those, and he wasn't quite willing to let the idea of that go yet. Then the undertaking happened, Tommy died, everything went to shit, and Oliver/Laurel seemed to realize their mutual mistake and break up. I ended season one feeling fairly indifferent and bored by Laurel mostly, with the occasional moments of irritation and annoyance, as judgy self-righteous damsels in distress are not my fave thing, but whatever. I didn't totally hate her. They could still fix her. Then, during season two, Laurel basically wandered around either disliking Oliver or being impatient with him, hating the Arrow, and then later being super ragey (and apparently drunk?) and hating everyone, so she was rude to Felicity on multiple occasions, rude to Thea, mean to her father, and hated her sister. She was also not a fan of doors, Sebastian Blood, the letter of the law, or her old friend Joanna. She tried to get Moira life in prison. She semi-dated(?) her hot boss ADA Donner but was bored and rude to him too. And I was just searching for something, anything, going on with her that would allow me to root for her. So she figured out Blood wasn't as awesome as he seemed, and I was like, yay, finally, something! And that went nowhere. And I was like...okay. [bTW, was I the only one that hoped that Felicity would contact Laurel about Blood and how she may have been onto something around the time that Officer Daley died? Then they could have teamed up and started out sort of prickly, but worked together and ended up semi-friendly as they brought down Blood together? I could have seriously rooted for that.] Then she realized that Oliver and Sara were back together, and she got super pissed, and I was like, yes! That is a completely justified and logical reaction! It was SUPER RUDE of Sara to bring Oliver to her sister's house, unannounced, when this very relationship was such a key element in the damage that was done to their family. And I was angry at Oliver and Sara, and I was seriously rooting for Laurel to lose it on them. Dude, she had been having a rough year, get that self-respect back! Kick them out of your apartment! Be grossed out by their relationship, and hurt about it. Be angry at your mom for knowing about it, and letting Sara get on the boat anyway. Don't be angry at your dad, as he doesn't really deserve it. Or if you do get angry at him, get angry at him for falling apart with alcoholism when you were the one who wanted to fall apart when you found out your sister ran off with your boyfriend and the only reason you found out was because they both died. That is a legit complaint. A kind one? No. An honest one? Hells, yes, and I would've been interested to see it. But then we had Laurel apologize to Sara, not for being angry that she was still alive really, but for being so beautiful and together. Which...record scratch, what? That left me, once again, so confused about how to relate to Laurel. And then we had Laurel giving Oliver and Sara encouraging relationship advice. Just gross. What's next, sex tips? Just stop it. I don't want to see this. And so now, suddenly, to be told that Laurel is super in love with Oliver, and that the two of them are a forever romance and they know each other so well, just leave me basically like, you know what? I'm done. I do not understand. I keep TRYING to understand. I wanted to understand. But these two characters are barely acquaintances. And they're not good for each other, from what we've seen in their every interaction. And I'm pretty much just totally out of patience with it. And I don't think I've disliked a character this intensely since Riley Finn, and Marti Noxon's super irritating/tone deaf interviews about his specialness. I'm not actually anxious about how they try and include her in things because so far they have not done a great job of including her in anything whatsoever, and they're fickle about having her stay with any sort of plot, so even if she is in the Arrow cave for now, she likely won't be for long. And I've honestly yet to see a romantic moment between her and Oliver. The bonding over Russian, loneliness, and vodka that Isabel and Oliver had was more romantic than anything I've seen with Laurel/Oliver, so whatever. I'm losing my will to parse out her character motivations because I think I'm trying too hard to make them make sense. And instead I'll just go on quietly enjoying this epic Oliver/Felicity romance that I think they are writing by accident, if the interviews are anything to go by.

If her dad is a do-gooder who has made serious mistakes in the past (like abandoning Felicity--I mean, I don't think there's a bigger mistake a person could make in this universe. She is the best. Or as Julia Roberts once said: "Big mistake. Big. HUGE."), that would mean he would fit right in on this show. But I'm trying not to get my hopes up. I already can't seem to control them when it comes to Oliver/Feilcty, so I better rein it in elsewhere.

Statsgirl, I'm seriously enjoying this discussion too! And it has lowered my anxiety levels significantly, so that I can go back to loving the show, like I was doing for the first half of the season. And I WANT to like it! For the first ten episodes of season two, it was far and away my favorite thing on TV right now. ArctisTor, I think it's significant that one of the first things that Oliver did once he got back home was get on his mother's case for her lackadaisical parenting of Thea. I think all his self-worth is derived from his experiences on the island. Oliver Queen, CEO, and Oliver Queen, partying playboy are roles he assumes, and does not value. He's a terrible CEO and puts in the minimum of effort, sometimes not even the bare minimum, as he apparently doesn't believe in returning phone calls, or even attending meetings. He will throw a crazy party, and then will inevitably wander off for most of it, every time. Even when it's not Arrow business, like the time he hung out in his room with Laurel during his prison party, even though the sole point of the party was to have people see him at the mansion. He sees his real identity as the Arrow. He even talks about his other roles in third person, but when he told Blood "I'm the Arrow," that was said with some serious conviction. And I think this is one of the reasons why he values Diggle and Felicity so highly. Diggle had to work a little harder to earn his respect in the beginning, whereas Felicity made it clear with one head tilt that she wasn't buying what he was selling. They both call him out on his boneheadedness and consistently challenge him to be a better person. And more than that, they consistently expect him to be a better person. And that inspires him to rise to their expectations. Because weird as it is, somehow, Oliver really is a people pleaser. On the island, as he would succeed at things, there was still an element of condescension or just sheer terror involved. But that's when he first started building his pride and self-respect. Even small things like remembering the one book he read started to feel like huge achievements, and that's how he was able to become the driven person he was by the time he returned to Starling. But his psyche is a total mess. And I think that's why he values his connections with Diggle and Felicity so much, even over the other connections in his life, I'd say. They're the ones who enable him to become a better person. Who help him heal from the extreme ways he learned to value himself as a person. He relies on them to make sure he doesn't backslide into the terrible behavior that he knows he's fully capable of. He also feels fully secure in these relationships in a way that I don't think he does in any of his others. He has walls up with other people, even Sara, where he usually takes a moment before responding and sharing his thoughts. Because he still feels vulnerable and careful in those relationships in ways he just doesn't with Dig and Felicity. Team Arrow is rock solid. If you contrast his fight with Laurel in the hallway, where he's upset with her, but he's still editing what he's saying, with the fight he had with Felicity when she brought Barry in to the foundry, there's no hesitation in the fight with Felicity. He trusts her to take the full brunt of his anger and frustration. And she does, no problem. She even wins the fight. In 2x10, I think it's extremely significant just how upset he gets with Felicity just for not being around, because he relies on her so much for more than just the computer stuff, and that Dig's the one who was able to talk him down and point out what he was doing. I seriously loved the little dance that he and Felicity did on the stairs because it was such a physical manifestation of their emotional relationship. He has no hesitation in reaching out to her, knows she can take it the full weight of what he throws at her, has zero doubts in her ability. Even as Sara yells at him that she's a killer in 2x20, he's bummed about the fight, of course, but he has enough distance from it to turn to Felicity half a second later and explain his detachment. He tells her, when he wasn't able to articulate it thoroughly to Sara, because he can tell Felicity anything. He's used to doing to. And she's able to cheer him up pretty much immediately. Those relationship beats just end up feeling really powerful because it's almost always about Oliver growing as a person, but also slowly healing from some pretty severe trauma, right before our eyes. And that's pretty beautiful to watch.