apinknightmare

IDK, but this show hasn't ever been into taking its time with anything.

I figured the "connection" mentioned here has something to do with getting Tina on the team - since it seems like it happens rather quickly based on BTS pics that were posted, and because he's bringing her on to fulfill Laurel's dying wish, which to me means there will probably be more of a relationship or mentorship initially than there would be for other recruits. I think any "connection" regarding his P and her V (or any teasing of said connection) would probably *happen later. *I initially wrote come later, but I can't be punny about this!

I know what she said, I watched the scene before I commented on it. And yes, we can!

She never indicated that she was upset about being kept out of the loop or that Oliver and Lyla stole from Palmer Tech. She called Oliver out about breaking into Palmer Tech, he told that he wasn't going to lie to her about it, she proceeded to lay into him about making decisions for Diggle by breaking him out when he didn't want to be broken out. That was where her anger stemmed from. Diggle is Lyla's husband. Felicity no more gets a say in what Lyla does to help him than Lyla would get a say in what Oliver and Felicity decide to do to help one another. She told Oliver she would pull her own guys from the field to help, and Oliver said that if she got caught then both John Jr's parents would be locked up, so he helped her himself. I think the only reason they didn't address it is because when they were laying out the season, they decided that Diggle's prison storyline wasn't going to come until the back half of the season, so...no one was going to address it until the back half of the season.

But...Lyla was present and heard Felicity's objections. She decided to break Diggle out anyway. Plus, Felicity wasn't advocating for them to find Digg's accusers and get him out the right way, her thought was to let him stay there if that's where he wanted to be. So it's not like she was making some other strategic plan that Oliver and Lyla just chose to ignore. Nope, he told her they were breaking him out of prison.

What input was he supposed to let her have? The plan was Lyla's, not his. He chose to go along with it, she didn't.

I hope 'pretty bird snuggles' were on that board too!

Didn't Human Target beat the hell out of Oliver in Russia in the flashbacks while posing as some other dude? And when the PI mentioned Christopher Chance to her at the end of that ep, didn't she seem like she knew who he was talking about? So, I imagine Human Target gave Oliver her number as a way of fucking with him. Either because he's just that kind of a dick, or maybe he (HT) and Susan have had some kind of a run-in in the past? /putting more thought into it than the writers

IDK, I think Diggle and Mari were both great people to talk to - Diggle gave Oliver his perspective as a father, Mari as someone who grew up without the burden of the superhero/supernatural world that would've been similar to what William would've been dealing with if he knew Oliver was the Green Arrow and his dad. He just needed to include Felicity in the conversation, because of the advice she could give about growing up without her dad, and because they were going to be married. Preferably before he talked to Diggle and Mari about what he should do, and also after - when he was weighing the advice everyone gave him and was figuring out what to do.

I get him not talking to anyone on the team if he was feeling isolated by his "I destroy the life of everyone I care about" feels, since...well, I guess she's the only one on the show who isn't an enemy that he probably doesn't care all that much about. And if she was shady in a way that Oliver was unaware of, I probably wouldn't think that much about it. But she is shady, and he does know it, and this is the second time that he's gone to her with an insecurity of his, so...I don't think there's any way he's playing her at this point. And if he is, then he's heavily relying on appealing to her good nature, which is also not smart.

I feel like this Canadagraphs thing came up again because I went to his blog to check his reporting on the diner scene the other day when @statsgirl asked about it. No offense to you @HighHopes, it's just that when I searched your username + diner and + tina, nothing came up, and rather than looking through pages of posts about it, I went to CG's website, since I knew he posted about that day and I could find it easily. Whether JH was on set or not, whether DR was on set or not, there are pictures of EK, RG, and SA there -so we can say for sure that those three were present.

We already know that she does - she hired a PI who told her he wasn't on the island the whole five years he was away (and gave her a picture to prove it).

Maybe she gets him into some other kind of trouble, and just doesn't expose what she knows to the public? If that doesn't happen, then there really wasn't any point to having anyone in the show realize she's bad news.

I was thinking about this Susan situation - if she really doesn't expose Oliver's past because of her real feels, then I wonder why they decided to introduce her the way that they did? Not actually having her do anything with the info she has on Oliver lessens the "I-told-you-so" factor for the people who warned him off of her, and there isn't much of a lesson to be learned from it for him since he'll ultimately be right for trusting her. If they'd just introduced her as a rando reporter who was friendly with his administration and dated him while digging around in his past behind his back, the effect would be the same and he wouldn't look so stupid in the meantime.

My hopes for Oliver and the reporter are: 1. He doesn't tell her about being Green Arrow. This is my biggest fear. 2. That Oliver/the team find out that she's digging for info behind Oliver's back before she does something that reveals herself. 3. That the revelation of her digging for info leads to a breakup. At this point I'm only slightly concerned that it won't, because of SA's whole "she's just a reporter following an interesting story about the mayor of her city" thing along with his comment that Susan isn't Isabel 2.0 seems like a preemptive strike against accusations of Oliver's stupidity because of this storyline. And then there's Wendy's comments about them having real feels. I know it's an oversell, and I'm not thinking that it's going to be a grand love story or anything, but I'm hoping the feels just compel Susan to not rat Oliver out, and don't compel Oliver to continue a relationship with someone who he shouldn't have trusted ever, but anvil-to-the-head shouldn't trust at that point (whether she reveals her motives to him or he finds out about them on his own). I don't at this point think that we can take much from CP's filming schedule regarding the timeline of how this whole plot line plays out. If we get to filming 15 or something and she still hasn't been around, then maybe.

And didn't they wind up stealing nukes or something like that? I feel like they framed him for murder and then also did something else terrible. Something that Digg knew about. Which makes his decision to just "take" his punishment and stay in prison doubly wrong and stupid.

I just looked at C-graphs' blog about it, and he didn't mention David Ramsey being there.

The point of not caring about shippers (or comic fanboys, or any subset of fans) is that they don't think there are enough of them to cause a rating dip if they get turned off of the show. I think by "all in" she means they're going to stop randomly dating and try a full-on relationship.

Plus, waiting and seeing requires a leap of faith and trust, and after the past couple of seasons I totally understand why people would get restless. Like, I hung in after the shit hit the fan last season, and it never got better - only worse (and more idiotic). There really isn't any reason to believe that it won't be the same here. Not to mention we're entering the time of year where the show typically falls apart.

MG has repeatedly said that comic fans don't have the kind of numbers that could keep a show going (around 80k or so), and he's also repeatedly made it known this season that shippers don't matter. So, I don't think they're trying to appeal to anyone in particular, just reporting what's coming up on the show for the hardcore fans who keep tuning in, whatever it is they're tuning in for.

But the crossover is just one of their "moments that mattered" - there are others still to come, and the moments series is what the banner is for. I mean, ultimately the key players of each show would be up there, but I don't think that banner was necessarily meant to convey the "lead" of each show.

Maybe he's on there because he's in one of the moments that mattered, and Sara isn't.

Yeah, it's possible. But MG said something on Tumblr to someone in a DM about avoiding drama because it didn't go over very well last year, so I don't expect there will be any romantic drama - at least not between Oliver and Felicity. If anything, Felicity might get pissed at Susan once she finds out that she's been digging into Oliver's past. I wouldn't be surprised if Oliver talked her out of it though. They've been weirdly detached about pretty much everything regarding their relationship history, and I expect that to continue.

There isn't any emotional payoff to be had from Felicity seeing them together since she was teasing Oliver about Susan being his girlfriend and saw them together at the mayor's holiday party. She knows they're a couple, and she'll continue to be unbothered for plot, unless the plot for some reason needs her to be bothered by it.

I wonder if it'll be like Susan pushing his shirt off of his chest and running her fingers over the tattoo and talking about how beautiful it is or something super obvious, then a close-up of the tattoo to transition to a scene of Oliver getting it.