apinknightmare

Just like Ray doesn't know what platonic means!

Maybe we were supposed to think that she was seeing a lot of Oliver in him/talking about Oliver while she was talking about Ray.

Regarding Felicity being sequestered from Diggle & Roy & Oliver, I wonder if that's part of the overarching theme of the season? Maybe she's going to find that while she is happy with the kind of life she has outside of the foundry, she's happier when she's in it and able to dedicate more time to that cause. Maybe she's going to miss out on some things that will make her realize that? She's never been on the outside looking in before. It seems like all of these people need to find a healthy balance between their two lives. This might be part of Felicity finding hers. I'm probably giving the show too much credit, but...I don't know.

I'm 99% percent sure they intend all this questionable stuff to be both cute and charming.

It's like, "we're giving her this super awesome job and a boss who will appreciate her for her brain and stuff!" YAYYYYYY "but he's a creep who's going to be non-platonic and questionable as hell" BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Plotting isn't the show's strongest point, either. They had a whole conversation about Felicity taking the job offscreen, so... I did feel kind of bad when Diggle walked in and she did that little fingerwave over the Palmer Industries logo. I was like, GIRL, YOU ARE OBLIVIOUS AS HELL RIGHT NOW.

Yeah, he was gross. Anytime these EPs try to sell chemistry, the relationship is gross. Except for Felicity and Barry - they're cute lil' puppies forever and ever.

I'm not that mad at her since Oliver flat-out told her QC would be better off with Ray running it and that it was selfish for him to try to get the company back since he blew off his responsibilities as CEO in S2.

I hate that things happened the way they did with Oliver walking in on it, but I think we all knew it was going to happen. I do like that Oliver was ready to do something about it, and I also like that the very last thing Felicity heard him say was his spiel to Cupid about how he had to be alone - we all know that was double-speak, and he was talking to her. I wish we could've gotten a scene with them together afterward, but I don't think he'll be broody around her and I think he realizes that he did this to himself, so that's an improvement. There are so many other ways to handle it, but if they wanted to go down this road, I'm glad it was this road, because I understood why Felicity was moving on (although WHY CAN'T IT BE WITH SOMEONE WHO IS NOT RAY), and I felt for Oliver when he saw them, so it doesn't feel like the typical angsty misunderstanding to me (yet). It also makes me really curious about what this scene in 3x09 is between them. Haha, no she's not in it at all. I don't think she was mentioned.

Wow, Ray really IS single white male-ing Oliver. Salmon ladder, the hero speech Felicity gave about him, the fact that he took her to the same restaurant Oliver did. ANVILS ANVILS ANVILS Diggle brotping everywhere. Love him, want more of him in any capacity. I can tell the same people wrote Time of Death. I liked Cupid - I'm glad Oliver gave her up to Waller so we can see her again. I'm glad he didn't go into angsty manpain level 11 and decided to take Roy out after he saw Ray and Felicity kissing. Not surprised he saw it, not surprised it happened. Still hate the interim pairing of the two, still think that poor man's Tony Stark is a creepy mccreeperson.

I think that's the "greatest Olicity scene" SA mentioned on the Arrow After Show. I hope it doesn't have anything to do with Ray.

What I would LOVE is if Cupid somehow knew about Felicity and managed to arrange it so that Arrow sees Felicity and Ray kiss (or alerts him to their date or something, I know this involves handwaving, but just go with it) with the hopes of devastating him or luring him to her or whatever, and that's what sparks the moment of clarity - that he sees he's losing her and decides he wants to do something about it. There are of course many reasons why it probably wouldn't work (it's too early in the season for him to fight for her, how's she going to get close to Ray while he's gone if he makes a play for her, etc.), but it would turn my expectations on their ear and I'm just desperately wanting this show to do something that surprises me in a good way, okay? Still really counting on that necklace to be wearable tech that comes in handy. Really, really hoping for it. Well, let's hope he didn't somehow have her measurements, haha.

Yeah, Oliver's definitely going to see something. To maximize the heartbreak he'll probably see them go in for the kiss and then he'll walk away before Felicity gently turns her head or pushes Ray away. I wonder if Oliver will address it immediately or if he'll let it fester? All the big dramatic stuff has always been addressed immediately between the two of them - they've never had a miscommunication, so it'll be interesting to see how it's handled. Conventional wisdom says they'll drag it out for angst, but we'll see. As far as the couture thing is concerned, not naming the designer doesn't bother me. Because not only would they have to name the designer, they'd specifically have to state that it was couture. They'd probably have to do god knows what to get permission to use a designer's name on the show, so it's easier and faster for Felicity to just tell us it's couture rather than give a designer's name and THEN say it's couture.

I wouldn't have a problem with Ray buying her a dress to go to dinner if she had already agreed to go to the dinner. He invites her, she says no, he waves a shiny new dress in front of her face, and then she agrees. Maybe that wouldn't be a red flag for me if it weren't for all of the other things he's done since he met her.

Haha, you'd think he would though. This cannot be his first run-in with a stalker. Billionaire playboy? Someone had to be all over that at some point before the island.

I just posted a new clip over in the SPOILERS ONLY thread. I have to admit that I do love my good, old fashioned batshit villains, so I'm down with Cupid.

Ugh, I forgot there's still a necklace coming. I wonder what he's trying to get her to do that warrants a gift like that (that she hopefully gives back)?

My problem is this: I was spoiled to the teeth over the hiatus, and after reading all the interviews and watching the Comic Con panels, I had a different scenario in my mind as far as this romance was concerned, and the further the show takes it away from my imagined ideal, the harder it gets for me to take. I know, ultimately, that Ray was brought in as a roadblock and that the relationship was doomed. But I did, honestly, expect to be sold on their romance in-show and to believe in it to a certain extent, because I love Felicity and I want her to have good things and to be appreciated and wanted and loved. I thought Ray was going to be charming and affable and someone that I would enjoy watching Felicity with. I wanted that; I looked forward to it. All the things that we've seen from Ray so far (his aggressive pursuit in getting her to work for him, his handing her the top-floor corner office and a great job, the lack of respect for her personal time and space, his using gifts to manipulate her, etc.) would be okay (for me) if one or two of those things were part of his personality. But all of this behavior on top of the fact that he's her boss and she's yet again going into a relationship where she doesn't have equal footing is making me very uneasy. I know he's meant to be a scatterbrained, do-good kind of nerd, and I know we're meant to think that it's sweet (on their own, some of these things would be sweet). I know the writers probably aren't intentionally writing the beginning of an unhealthy relationship, but that is exactly what they're doing, so regardless of why Ray's there or what his real purpose is or whether he's ultimately harmless or not, I can't enjoy any of this because it gives me the squicks. I don't begrudge Felicity liking a pretty dress (it's gorgeous, it looks great on her!), and I don't begrudge her wanting a great job and a corner office, or falling for her rich and powerful boss. It's the fact that all of these things are happening with the same person in a manipulative way that I don't like. And I'm just having difficulty with it because it's not at all what I was wanting or expecting. Felicity's never let anyone manipulate her - not even Oliver in the early days of S1; and I don't want to see her go out of character so that she can be one half of a doomed relationship anyway. Maybe it'll come off better in the episode, maybe she'll call him out and they can level the playing field a bit. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Honestly, I didn't think there was anything off about her except for her agreeing to go to dinner with him after he gave her a shiny new dress. I didn't find her reaction to him to be OOC apart from that.

He should've given her a Cryblork 5000 or whatever stupid tech-of-the-moment this show would've come up with. It would've been creepy and wrong, yes, but at least I'd buy her going weak-in-the-knees and agreeing to go to dinner with him over that. A dress? Naw, son.

Because it's difficult for me to let go, and I just want to believe in something good, could it be possible that this behavior shows up in the stalker episode for a reason? Is it too much to hope for her to call him out on this at some point during the night?! I KNOW, I KNOW

They've written to plot for a while now, but yeah, it's really evident this season. And it's never made me side-eye Felicity like I am right now. She's my favorite, and I'm so, so sad.

Well, we'd probably still be stuck with writers who portray her in the shittiest way possible, so there's that.

Regarding that new spoiler clip: it's everything I was hoping it wouldn't be. He bought her a dress specifically to lure her into going to dinner with him. She falls for it, because it's couture. Yuck. FELICITY NO.

I think limited Oliver could also be a good thing, but it really doesn't strike me as a good idea to have him gone for what seems to be three whole episodes after they come back from a 6-to-7 (how long is it, anyway?)-week break. I know others here have mentioned that January is for hidden storylines because the ratings are lower anyway, so I get why they're doing it, I just don't care about watching any of this. I just hope that whatever it is they bring for February is enough to make me want to tune in, because at this point I'm not quite ready to give up yet.