apinknightmare

Well, someone should ask about her, haha.

Seriously. He says that in the same ep where Barry does something epically stupid, and then however many eps later does something epically selfish and also stupid. IIRC, he was insinuating that Oliver would've left those criminals to die, which he wouldn't have? C'mon, Joe!

I wish they'd done a comics/live action promo before now. It's a cool look.

I know it's been said before, but please keep the beard.

That's a really awesome promo!

Yeah, that's another reason why, if he's tied to HIVE, I don't want him to be DD. I'd like for her to have struggles with who he is and if she can trust him, but I would like the door to be open for them to have a relationship at some point. I would never buy her doing that with DD.

No, it wasn't ever discussed as far as I know, so I am assuming. Good point. Although I get the feeling Donna was always at least some version of Donna, so that still makes the villain on a hiatus for love thing ridiculous to me, haha.

I don't see a problem with it in general, or even with some other character on this show. I only see the whole trying out a new life away from crime with a Vegas cocktail waitress storyline completely ridiculous for this particular villain. If he wasn't however many centuries old and in the running for the old Ra's position, I honestly wouldn't find it that ridiculous. That's why I could maybe get behind the idea that he was her grandfather, and his son tried leaving the life and met Donna, then got back in for whatever reason.

See, I think making her dad be DD would actually make it less about her. It'd just be an aside in the Oliver/Team Arrow vs. DD dynamic. It wouldn't be just about her, it would be about the terrible things he did/is doing, his vendetta against Team Arrow, etc. I think the only way for the storyline for her dad to be truly about her is if the dad is a random (hopefully unwilling) HIVE member. That way his involvement can stretch all throughout the season, the storyline can be more than just a one off, it provides interesting conflict for her, and is apart from Oliver and the team's beef with DD.

Yeah, he always refers to his first marriage as a "long term relationship," but he was indeed married.

Yeah, I don't think she meant it to be rude or nasty.

I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't believable, but a big bad fathering a child that isn't groomed in the business ala Nyssa al Ghul is a little iffy to me. Especially since he and Ra's fought to be the previous Ra's heir - you'd think he'd want to get that locked up tight. That's why I wrote the rest about DD Jr. having gotten free at some point, but brought by into it by dad.

That's slightly less hilarious, but he'd still have to have fathered a child at some point. I guess he could've raised DD Jr. in the evil business, and DD Jr. escaped dear 'ol dad during his own version of villain spawn rumspringa. Maybe dad called him back into the family business for some tech support? Still hoping he's a regular guy tied up with baddies.

I don't think it'd be an issue if he wasn't supposed to be some big bad villain. I just find the idea of him wanting to be the next Ra's, stealing LP waters to keep himself alive (and I guess carting them with him to Vegas where he played house for however many years), deciding to give it up for a bit for a cocktail waitress, and actually being close to Felicity for a while just...utterly ridiculous, sorry. I think that would be so ridiculous, haha.

Equally ridiculous, true, but at least those vampires had committed to not eating people. Believing a big bad (old) evil dude, who's been evil for eons falls in love with a cocktail waitress after a trip to Vegas, has a kid and plays house for years, then leaves so he could return to being evil? Nah. Can't buy it.

This is all very true. I just can't believe, at all, that some fearsome leader of a terrible organization would've gone on vacay to Vegas, fell in love, and fathered a child (and stuck around long enough for her to even be able to remember him a little bit). I know some people have laid out reasoning for it here, but I just...I can't buy it. So, him leaving to keep her safe is stupid when he was a villain for however many hundred years before that. I just personally think it's one of the worst case scenarios, father-wise.

This could be cool, but I'm just not sure where they'd go with DD being Felicity's dad. She seems to pretty much hate him, and Felicity's hardcore enough not to care if the evil guy is her father if he's doing evil things, so it seems to me there wouldn't be much conflict for her there. I suppose they could somehow make her sympathetic to him, but...why would she be? She's not even now when it seems like all she knows he's done is some white collar type crime. Finding out he's used the Lazarus Pit and is the leader of HIVE who, among other things, killed Andy? I can't see her going all soft and conflicted over that. Might as well have DD not be her father at all. Now, if her dad is some random HIVE member, to me, there's more there. She's still connected to the main storyline since her dad is in HIVE, and if his backstory involves abandoning her and Donna because he was being threatened by them and the easiest way to keep them safe was to leave them, and joining HIVE was the price he had to pay, that to me is WAY more interesting. Because finding out there was a good reason for leaving (and a noble, Oliver-like one at that) would cause some conflict for her, especially since HIVE is responsible for Andy's death, and their leader would be Oliver and the team's main target. Seems like there's more meat there to me.

I'm nervous about it him being Felicity's dad, too. I think the idea is utterly ridiculous, but sadly, after this casting, I think it's more possible than not. I'm gonna need a villain who is just straight-up evil, and I was hoping that would be DD. I think the idea that a terrible person would try to give up that life to have a family could be interesting, but whenever these writers try to give their villains nuance, they utterly fail. I was just hoping he'd be an all-out awful guy with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Ra's already had his whole falling in love with a woman spiel, and I just...I really do not want this guy to be Felicity's dad. So he probably will be.

There isn't one, haha. ETA: I mean, seriously, if they try to sell this dude as taking a sabbatical or falling in love with Donna and actually living as a family man in Vegas they are Ra's-ifying him as a villain, taking all bite out of him. Unless we have some kind of Dread Pirate Roberts situation where he takes someone's place. But that's still stupid and they kind of already did that last season with Oliver and Ra's.

Which one is that?

Words cannot express how much I DO NOT WANT Felicity's Father to be THE big bad. Evil daddies are so overplayed on this show. Donna didn't seem to have bad feelings about him, so I really hope he's just some guy who got tied up in HIVE (or something) and left to protect them.

He's the big bad for the season, haha. I don't think they'd make him a LI for Laurel, not on this network. And they only way they could do it is if he infiltrates SC under a pseudonym since they all know that Damien Darhk is connected to Ra's. I mean, maybe they'll do that - have him being a mayoral candidate or something.

He sticks out most in my mind from Band of Brothers. I loved him in that. And also Captain America/Agent Carter.

I like him!

That was an interview with the woman who plays Nyssa, not Laurel.