apinknightmare

I'm not bringing up Laurel's storyline to compare it to Felicity's, I'm merely pointing out that we have never seen Laurel and Nyssa actually training (Nyssa showing her the moves she's critiquing) - we've only seen them fighting together, which is the result of that training, and yet you aren't questioning that they've actually trained, even though you haven't seen it. You don't believe Felicity's been doing any sort of meaningful Vice Presidenting offscreen because you haven't seen it, but you have seen her talking about quarterly earnings reports and patent filings - typical company running stuff. Seems a little hypocritical to me. Personally, I'm glad they haven't shown more of Felicity doing day-to-day work. I love her, but I imagine that would be more boring than the flashbacks this season.

Okay, so you don't need to see Laurel and Nyssa training to know that they've trained, just seeing the result of that training is okay? What exactly do you want to see Felicity manage? What would be riveting to you? Is hearing her talking about quarterly earnings and patent filings not enough to know that she does actual work as VP? They barely have enough time to show the actual important parts of this show, why are they going to waste time showing Felicity doing mundane administrative crap to show that she's doing the job that we already know she does?

You wrote that they would be pulling any management skills she has out of thin air, which they wouldn't since she's been VP of Palmer Technologies for however many months. Not saying she's qualified, but she's not completely unqualified. Do you need to see everything on this show to believe it? Laurel trained with Nyssa even though we didn't see it. Diggle has a life and a marriage with Lyla that we don't really see. Palmer Technologies is a profitable company, so she can't be doing that bad of a job.

Yeah, I'm sure she learned absolutely nothing working as VP at Palmer Technologies.

Laurel did have at least a minimal ability to fight, so maybe she was training for that? Until they conveniently dropped that so she could get damseled.

Did Ray fly his suit to Nanda Parbat? I thought he went with them on the plane and just flew in from the airport or something.

We don't have enough information to say what Felicity is and is not capable of regarding business management, because the only work we ever saw her do this year, when she was an actual Vice President, was on Ray's suit. Felicity knows what she can and cannot handle, and after working with Ray for the better part of a year she knows what the position requires, and if she doesn't feel equipped for it, then she's smart enough to ask for help or find someone who can actually do the job. If she ends up accepting and running the company like a champ, then so be it. This is a world where magical healing hot tubs exist and a guy runs around with a bow and arrow and manages to pretty regularly defeat dudes with high-powered weaponry - I can accept that a person as smart as Felicity is can run a company.

Diggle and Oliver are going to be on the outs into next season, so he's likely to be in his own storyline in the 3.5 comics anyway.

Writers do follow what the show runners tell them to, but the show runners don't just get to do whatever they want. If MG and co wanted to make Oliver evil for 10 episodes or return to the Oliver/Laurel romance at this point, or make half a season largely flashbacks to set up a storyline in the future, the people in charge of making this show profitable would step in with a hearty NO, and MG and co. would have to abandon those plans. I do think that O/F is the pairing that the show runners want, but at this point it's also the pairing that the data is telling them is most popular. So it's a win/win in that regard.

The answer to this is pretty simple. Oliver needed a love interest, because Laurel—for whatever reason people want to believe—wasn't working out. Whatever market data the money men value at WB (which I'm sure is not Tumblr and Twitter, a claim some people seem to desperately cling to) told them that a large amount of viewers wanted to see Felicity as his love interest, so that's what we're seeing. If that data ever skews to another female on the show, then I'd be willing to bet we'd see Oliver with that other female at some point.

I'd love it if her reaction was, "I'm surprised you have just the one."

It's not just that tweet, it's a combination of things that might ultimately amount to nothing. The fact that MG said they needed to get the sex out of the way before the events of the finale, their alleged ride off into the sunset, the fact that there's a Queen Inc. in the future that we all assumed meant Oliver got his company back, when Felicity could be the Queen in Queen Inc. now that Ray signed it over to her. I thought it earlier, that tweet just made me think it some more. I don't necessarily think it will happen, that's why I posted the idea of Oliver and Felicity eloping along with "crazy talk."

I don't think it's specifically Moira, although I do miss her a lot. I think part of what's wrong with this season is Oliver has nothing at all going on apart from his mission. The only thing Felicity's got going on outside of it is working with/dating Ray, but he has a mission of his own. Thea's tied up with Malcolm, who's tied in with Ra's, who is Oliver's new mission, and Diggle's got Lyla on occasion and for one episode, the Suicide Squad. Laurel's got her training and now she's in on the mission too. Quentin's chasing after Oliver. There's no home life for any of these people, there's nothing outside and unrelated to the big bads and crime fighting. I want to see parties and board meetings and galas and all the stuff we saw in the first two seasons that reminded us that these people are PEOPLE too. I really hope they get back to some of that.

There isn't a shot in hell that Felicity doesn't forgive Oliver, so that's a lost battle for those viewers regardless of whether there's a wedding or not.

Before we get confirmation that it was a stupid reason in the finale, I think all the reason he needs is that he knew they would disapprove of him putting all his eggs in Malcolm's basket.

I think it's too soon, but I'm guessing it's relationship related, since he referred to Donna's "maternal instincts." I think he's probably referring to that scene she had in the hospital with Felicity in 3x18.

IF they did such a thing, and IF that Porsche scene is real, then I think they'd probably just show the two of them with rings on their fingers and maybe not even address it. It would be like the "I love you" mania of last season but however many times worse. Or, maybe he tells her he wants to go to Vegas, and we're left wondering if it's for a quickie wedding or if he wants to go visit her mom, haha.

It's a good picture! Made even better by the scowling man in the background.

Ahaha, I love that she called that guy an "unwilling participant."

Crazy talk, but I think they're eloping.

I think they didn't have Oliver tell Diggle more for future drama reasons than them trying to pull off a shocker. I mean, Oliver clearly showed that he cared about what was happening to the team when he had Diggle in his room, and they still tried to pull off Evil!Oliver leaving all his frands to die.

Haha, yes. Probably!

How would him saying that he'd do everything he could to get back to them show that he realizes he needs his team, or make him keeping them in the dark about the plan any better, if you are a viewer who is upset that he did that? It gives them no indication whatsoever that he's cooking something up or that he'll tell them he needs their help or want it when the time comes to ask for it.

MG said on Tumblr that I'm really interested in his explanation.

At this point? Maybe, yeah. Nyssa hates Oliver. For all he knows she still has an allegiance to the League and is just pissed that her dad removed her as heir and would jump at the chance to show Ra's that Oliver was faking. I mean, yeah she's pissed at the wedding thing and seemingly hates the dude, but Oliver wouldn't know whether she hates him or Ra's more. Hell, Ra's seemed to put so much into Oliver because of the prophecy, she could tell on him just to get some satisfaction of having him offed. Not to say Ra's would believe her necessarily, but it seems like kind of a stupid risk to bring her in on the plan until he absolutely had to, if he ever had to at all. I wouldn't be surprised if she was in on it though, although I hope they show that conversation in a flashback.