apinknightmare

If the arrow isn't for Oliver and the star for Felicity, then what are we even doing here? Everything being off center is really bothering me.

Or Dinah will be in on whatever Felicity has going on, and she's misleading William for...reasons.

Well, Dinah doesn't think that Felicity is the one sending the messages that brought William to Star City since she "died" when they started coming, so no. I'm pretty sure we're supposed to think that Felicity went bad either before the Mark of Four was a thing, or has been so evil since that the help pact no longer applies to her.

I guess we're supposed to: A) Question whether Felicity even has one of these tattoos, and B) Dinah said that Felicity had changed, and had been ~evil for a while, so I suppose we're supposed to think that even if she did have the "Mark of the Four" that the rules they agreed to didn't apply to her anymore. I don't hear him say anything - I thought Felicity was nodding because he was starting to take off his shirt.

I think he says "Let me get this thing off."

I used to really like Kevin Smith, about 10 or 15 years ago he wrote a really great account of his life and relationship with Jason Mewes during his drug addiction, and I thought it did a great job of describing what it was like to love and care for someone who was so very deep into it. I kind of fell out of following his work a while after that, and I don't have anything against him - even after the fandom stuff that went down when he first tweeted about wanting to direct. But I hope Beth keeps turning him down, simply because he just won't take no for an answer and I know he has a special interest in the subject matter, but there's some entitlement there that turns me off.

She really does. I feel like it would be marginally better if she wasn't wearing that gown, and there wasn't that white glow around them.

Same. They picked a bad mystery to go with. Especially since I don't want to see any more of it, but I will morbidly watch out of curiosity—not about what's actually happening, but how they're going to explain it.

Agreed. And I think it's probably a nice change of pace for them to get to write new people that have connections to the old ones (or ARE the old ones), and writing a mystery is always fun, they just aren't doing a very good job of it, haha.

I mean, they already do if William's to be believed!

LOL, same.

That could totally be! I was speaking to the fact that the show itself has given reason to doubt that Maya is their kid and that the spoiler David gave didn’t go on as planned, so it’s not like people are doubting what he said just because they want to be negative or not believe him.

True! I think it's a little easier to waffle on this one considering William doesn't seem to know her, and Dinah's not like, "Hey, what do you think about your sister being an evil cage fighter, William?!" NOT that they couldn't explain any inconsistencies away - in fact, I'm pretty sure they will. It's just not as sure of a thing as it would've been if David had specifically said, "This character named Maya coming on is Oliver and Felicity's daughter," rather than "Oliver and Felicity have a daughter named Maya". Because even after he told so many people that Oliver and Felicity were having a baby, he still told at least one fan at a con in Australia (and possibly elsewhere) that that was the plan but that TPTB hadn't approved it yet, and were concerned about having a baby on set. So their kid Maya could've initially been the plan when he spoiled it, that then got changed, but they kept the name.

To be fair to him, he told people that Oliver and Felicity had a daughter who was named Maya - he never said that this Maya was going to be their daughter, fans who had that info just put 2+2 together and assumed this was her. It could've been true at the time, and he wouldn't have had any idea that Beth was going to use the same name for a different character (or it could still be the same character, and they're just playing up mystery to make it seem impossible now).

Yeah, that could be. I just assumed it was lazy/plotty writing because...well, it's Arrow.

Me too! Like, obviously not dead but way out of the vigilante life and off somewhere on the other side of the country moving on with his life. This is why it's hard to take anything at face value - because it's so ridiculously overdramatized for mystery purposes, or because they'll just forget about the rules previously established for plot purposes, like how Dinah had to knock out two cops because she said they'd kill both her and Roy if they were recognized as former vigilantes. And yet Roy couldn't attend the fight club because there'd be trouble if HE was recognized, but Dinah somehow didn't have the same issue like she did before? Same. I need the evil Felicity narrative to start unraveling and for them to start getting a sense of what she was really up to.

Yeah - Zoe said in episode 4 that Rene "wouldn't be caught dead in Star City." It still makes me laugh that she was so dramatic about it when he's just a couple of blocks away in The Glades. These flash forwards are so dumb lmao.

It's probably never going to be mentioned, because those actions weren't meant as character failings by Dinah and Diggle (I'll leave Rene out of this because he was down for any kind of vigilantism he could get his hands on), they were simply drivers to get Felicity to work with Watson and Siren and make her increasingly desperate. If any of this was going to be brought up, she probably would've done it when Oliver mentioned Siren and Anatoly. Didn't he also tell a fan that they would love 7B? Or did I somehow flip the first half of the season being rough for Olicity comment?

I hate that she used it as well, but she went in on the gentlest version possible. Oliver wants to work it out, Felicity wants to work it out, she still loves him, and she specifically said she didn't know if what was best for her "right now" was what was best for them. It's in fact so lame that I can't believe she even wanted to use it as a cliffhanger - especially given the ratings drop they saw the last time these two had relationship drama (although I guess to be fair that was a definite breakup - but some people think this is as well). And the wait between this episode and one where they work it out (assuming they don't work it out at least a little more in the crossover) is a LOT longer.

Maybe - but my reply with the comment was more about your thought that he was referring to something that had happened in this week's episode in the quote. They haven't come to any kind of understanding about their relationship never being perfect or normal, since their conversation about what was going on with them was cut off in the middle.

I was having a convo with someone on another site today who was like..."I don't know why she would have those plans if she wasn't the person behind it." Uh...so that she could figure out a way to stop it? And that's probably why she wanted the fuses and whatever from possible child/definite fight club cutie BlackstarMaya, because she was building something to counteract it? This is so obvious to me, it's truly shocking when people are just going along with it, LOL.

1. Nice pic without the smolder 2. Does Kat/Maya have a quod me nutrit, me destruit tattoo? LOL

This is his quote: They haven’t come to any kind of understanding or reached a place where they can move on with their lives, so I don’t think what we saw was what he meant.

I'm not saying Oliver doesn't have a problem - he clearly needs to come to terms with this new Felicity. But Felicity had already told him that the old Felicity was gone and wasn't coming back, and he still told her he wanted to work things out. She said she wanted to as well, but she was the one with a but. I do agree with your general read on things, I just think it could've been conveyed much better if that's what they were going for.

Eh, if this is what they were going for, I think they failed. They had Oliver wanting to work on things, to get them going in the same direction, and Felicity being the one to say that she didn't know if what was best for her is what was best for them. If they were aiming to show that he was the one with misgivings, IMO they failed.