Heartaches, Bromances, True Love and Team Arrow: the Relationships Thread

[JayKay]

Nice, I can see it. Chuck had a bit of that jabberjaw syndrome in the early years, too. Sarah's reticence and frequent half-nakedness could certainly correlate with Oliver. And Casey's the Team Dad plus if there was a Morgan on Arrow, Diggle would be threatening him constantly.

Now I'm thinking about what kind of show Chuck would have been if it were called "Sarah."

[TanyaKay]

Chuck, in my opinion, was too tropey and even the dangerous situations were a little too cartoonish. I mean that lady general herself was quite hilarious and every other episode they would come up with a situation where Sarah and Chuck would come up with s situation where they would pose as husband/wife or significant others.

 

Arrow on the other hand, is less tropey, darker and not at all cartoonish. Felicity is a lot more mature than Chuck ever was - whether it is about wearing her heart on her proverbial sleeves, or needing constant emotional support from a sister and best friend that Chuck always needed or the validation of his action that he always wanted from Casey and Sarah and at times from the general.

 

Sarah was stone cold and awesome like that in the beginning. They later came up with excuses for her behaviour and that was again tropey. Oliver's behaviour stemmed from a deep sense of duty to right his father's wrongs and love for his family and his city, no matter how screwed up that version of love was.

 

The comparison between the two Johns though was quite apt. Casey was my favourite character and I have a feeling that if Roy Harper ever tried to act a little brattish, John Diggle would deal with him the way John Casey dealt with Morgan.

 

In my opinion, both Felicity and Oliver are far more complex and layered characters and that makes then a tonne more interesting to me than Chuck & Sarah ever were.

[statsgirl]

Sarah was stone cold and awesome like that in the beginning. They later came up with excuses for her behaviour and that was again tropey. Oliver's behaviour stemmed from a deep sense of duty to right his father's wrongs and love for his family and his city, no matter how screwed up that version of love was.

On the Clock Tower thread, I posted a link to a fanfic which made Felicity=Chuck, Oliver=Sarah, Diggle=Casey, Tommy is her brother, Laurel=Captain Awesome and Thea=Morgan.  The one thing I didn't like about it was that Oliver is so cold and just using Felicity but if that's what Sara was like at the beginning of Chuck, that explains it.

[wonderwall]

It's no doubt that Chuck and Arrow are completely different shows, I was just saying that the three main characters bring similar strengths to the table. The similarities of the team dynamics is quite interesting to see. What I mean to say is, is what sets Felicity apart from Oliver and Digg is the generally what sets Chuck apart from Sarah and Casey.

[TanyaKay]

What I mean to say is, is what sets Felicity apart from Oliver and Digg is the generally what sets Chuck apart from Sarah and Casey.

 

only in the first couple of season, later Chuck too was able to go all ninja on bad guys because he could download kung fu to his brain. Screw body strength and muscle development, he has now got to play the hero, yeayyyy.

[wonderwall]

I feel like the similarities between Felicity and Chuck are more mental and emotional rather than physical. If you think about it, Chuck grew from being that quirky, babbling insanely smart person to this confident, still quirky, insanely smart person. Felicity seems to be on the same trajectory as she's become stronger, more confident in her abilities yet still remains to be quirky and insanely smart. 

[statsgirl]

There is also the parallel of being on the outside, and then moving into the circle.  Both Chuck and Felicity start out as outsiders, not quite living up to their potential, not quite fitting in to the group of matching Captain Awesome.    Then over the course of the series, they learn to trust their strengths and to believe that they are indeed valuable to the team.

Oliver/Sarah have the expertise, and Diggle/Casey the experience.

[Guest]

It started with the three of us, it's time we got back to that. YES. This times a billion! I am all about Team Arrow. I'm actually surprised this thread doesn't have more replies!

 

I did think that Felicity and Diggle were kind of sidelined in the middle of s2. There were a couple of episodes where it felt like they were only there to provide relevant information on the person they were tracking and then once the characters (and audience) knew the important info, they left. I haven't rewatched it yet but I remember Birds of Prey feeling especially like this. I could be wrong but that's how I remember it. 

 

I've never once saw Felicity and Diggle being pushed aside at the expense of one another though. Oliver relates to both Felicity and Diggle in different ways. He has different needs for both of them. Diggle provides strength and support in his experience with war and being a soldier. As David Ramsey said, he's been in a similar place as Oliver but he's evolved and is a few years ahead of him and that experience is helpful, even if Oliver doesn't always take his advice on board. Felicity is a different kind of support, a guide if you want to call it. She challenges him and inspires him to not give up, to keep going. She's almost like his inner strength. And what I love is that Oliver can have these two different relationships and they can help him individually at times but when they all join together, that's when they are at their most powerful. 

[NumberCruncher]

That's why I get nervous at the idea of the Arrow Cave expanding.  Oliver, Diggle, and Felicity together = cohesiveness...the team just clicks together so beautifully.  The Team Arrow dynamics faltered when they brought Roy into the mix in S2 and it didn't seem to recover until the end.  I'm not against adding members per se, but more people usually means less interaction between the original three and the prospect of that bums me out.

[Guest]

Yeah, I'm not convinced about Roy yet because they did mess up his introduction to the team last season. I'm just glad the writers seem to be aware that they messed up which means they can rectify it, hopefully. But I still think of Team Arrow as the core three and probably always will. Sure, Roy/Arsenal is his sidekick but I can still see Oliver, Diggle and Felicity kind of making all the decisions. I hope so anyway.

[statsgirl]

I think they can fit Roy into the cave, especially as muscle since Diggle has family responsibilities, but the EPs have to remember that Oliver/Diggle/Felicity are the Team Arrow that is the core of the show.

[TanyaKay]

I can take Roy as a mentee of not just Oliver, but also John and Felicity. Like everyone's kid brother, who gets booed sometime but people like him as well. I hated the way they let Sara dominate the arrow cave and I am even more concerned about Laurel's supposed entry in there. I just do NOT want that. Laurel ruins everything.

[Morrigan2575]

I've seen a lot of people say that they were building a romance from the beginning with Felicty, but I don't believe thats the case at all. When the EPs talk about the connection that has been building for 43 episodes, I completely agree that it has, but I think it was unintended to the event that it was.

From the beginning? No. From mid S1? Probably. From February 2013? Definitely.

There was an interview with the EPs from right before the S1 finale where said that they had to end the Oliver/Laurel/Tommy triangle so they could move on to Oliver/Felicity.

Based on that and based on the fact that they told Colin Donnel they were killing Tommy off in February I believe that they made the decision to go for Olicity around the same time.

However, I think they probably started playing around with the idea relatively early but maybe had no real intention of going for it until February. Like maybe the writers/EPs would go hmm, let's see what they can do with this scene? Oh wouldn't it be fun if?

Edited September 12, 2014 by Morrigan2575

[tv echo]

I think people were building off of some comment by an EP(?) that what happens in Season 3 is something that was two years in the making.  This is true.  The Oliver and Felicity romance was two years in the making - not that the EPs planned their romance from Season 1, but that their relationship developed organically over the past two years from strangers to allies to friends to now maybe more than friends.

 

I think it was clear in the beginning of Season 1 that the EPs were going for an Oliver and Laurel endgame.  But stuff changed and now that's been shelved for the time being.  I don't think, however, that the EPs are currently planning an Oliver and anyone endgame.  They have their plans for Season 3, but I think everything else is still open as far as Oliver's romantic life is concerned.  I really don't think they've given up on Oliver and Laurel, but I don't think they've committed to it or anything else either.  I think the EPs are now optimistic that the show will run at least five seasons and so they have plenty of time to make that decision later on.  Just my opinion.

Edited September 12, 2014 by tv echo

[blixie]

 

I really don't think they've given up on Oliver and Laurel,

 

I think they mostly *have*, I think they are hoping the can redeem Laurel and win over the audience to accepting and rooting for her, at the very least as BC, but the romance with Oliver bridge seems to be all but burned. But I also think they are hoping that rehabilitating Laurel happens by MAGIC, and that it doesn't require them to do any actual *work*, because they are two years into her sucking, and year three doesn't appear to be overly focused on her yet again. The teases have been Laurel is not sure who she is (DUH neither are the writers sure of who she is) and she is going to learn how to fight in her marginal down time between being DA and being "business partners" with Oliver. I'm not sure how you ditch the female lead out of her two big stories (romance, action) for three years of your five year expected timeline and think it's going to work, especially when your selling Olicity on the organic long term story payoff that it is. If they're going to earn that Oliver and Laurel love story payoff time is more than wasting.

[wingster55]

Based on that and based on the fact that they told Colin Donnel they were killing Tommy off in February I believe that they made the decision to go for Olicity around the same time.

 

So Tommy was Olicity collateral? 

[Sunshine]

So Tommy was Olicity collateral? 

No.  Tommy's death was the device used to propel Oliver's Season 2 journey.  He was Oliver/Laurel collateral damage.  The decisions on how S1 would end and S2 would begin were probably all made around the same time (Feb 2013).

Edited September 12, 2014 by Sunshine

[NumberCruncher]

I don't think Tommy's death had anything to do with Olicity--it was done to set the wheels in motion to turn Oliver from a "killer" to a hero...basically the main plot of S2. I also don't think the door is 100% shut on Oliver and Laurel. There's no way to know what the show will look like in 2 or 3 years.

[SmallScreenDiva]

I don't think there's an endgame in terms of romance just yet, even though Stephen Amell himself said the ship has sailed on any romance with Laurel and Sara. It's too early in the series to be talking about endgame anyway. But I do think they have given up on Laurel/Oliver. I think they became really aware of how people — fans and media alike — detested that pairing during the second season. Also the adverse reaction to AK's quote referencing Lois and Clark when talking about Oliver and Laurel I think proved how many people just objected to that relationship.

[Chaser]

I always got the impression Tommy was supposed to die; nothing to do with Oliver and Felicity. It was all about Oliver and O/L.

 

I think the game shifted between S1 and S2. They were looking at the feedback and what was working and what wasn't. That's why S2 started with Team Arrow, heavier Oliver/Felicity interaction, and the brakes on O/L. I  think the actual go ahead with Olicity was later in S2.

 

While its true anything can happen between now and the end of the show, I do think that right now it's Olivery and Felicity.

[KirkB]

I don't think Tommy dying had anything to do with Oliver and Felicity, or Oliver and Laurel, or any other pairing. It was all about Oliver. Tommy's death was the catalyst to get Oliver to stop killing everyone and start becoming the hero he was meant to be. The fact it is also making Oliver a better person over all and putting him on the road to eventually believing he might be worthy of someone loving him is just a bonus.

[statsgirl]

I agree that Tommy died to further Oliver's story, just as Moira died for the same reason the next season, and Robert in the pilot episode.  Season 2 was about becoming a hero to honour Tommy, it was even in the introduction to the episodes.

 

Tommy's death was the catalyst to get Oliver to stop killing everyone and start becoming the hero he was meant to be. The fact it is also making Oliver a better person over all and putting him on the road to eventually believing he might be worthy of someone loving him is just a bonus.

It's also true that Felicity was the one who was always against him killing if there was another way.  Diggle was fine with the killing when the scum deserved it (his military background?), Laurel either hated it or was okay with it depending on her mood, and Sara was trained to accept killing as an option.  And Felicity was the one who called him a hero to Quentin in Sacrifice.  So in that sense, coming closer to a hero also put him closer to Felicity.

 

I agree that we don't know the endgame relationship yet if the show goes on for a number of seasons.   But I don't think the chances of Oliver and Laurel ending up together are good given how people reacted to Oliver/Laurel and Oliver/Felicity.  I think it was MG who said in s1 that they had to end Oliver/Laurel/Tommy to be able to explore Oliver/Felicity.

[Morrigan2575]

So Tommy was Olicity collateral?

Never said that. I said the decisions were probably made at the same time. They were already looking towards S2 when they made the decision to kill Tommy (to further Oliver's journey).

[wonderwall]

 

 

“If you really think about it, as cuddly as Diggle is, she’s the woman at the moment who knows me better than anybody. There is something very attractive about that.”

—  Stephen Amell on Felicity (x)

 

Sorry, Laurel :p It's nice to see him talk about how Felicity knows him better than anybody, but I also hope they show it on screen (and not just have Felicity tell Oliver that she knows him like she knows her own name or some nonsense like that)

[NumberCruncher]

Interesting.  By the time that quote by Stephen was published they would have filmed through 2x07 State vs. Queen, which is obviously a big Olicity episode.  The fact that after that episode they put big-time brakes of the relationship makes me wonder if the EPs figured out what they wanted to accomplish in the season finale, realized things were moving too fast, and out of nowhere, quickly shoehorned the Oliver/Sara fling into the storyline .  I always thought it was incredibly strange that the show went from having thick Olicity sexual tension in 2x06 and 2x07 to only occasional 'shippy moments the rest of the season while Oliver was hooking up with Sara.

Edited September 12, 2014 by NumberCruncher

[statsgirl]

I think building up a relationship and then putting the brakes on it is a pretty SOP for TV.  You set up the big romance so that everyone knows, and then you pull back because you've got 23 episodes each season to fill and much of the fun is in the telling of how you get there  (as opposed to the 'will they/won't they?' which makes me want to bang my head against a wall).

 

I think putting the OTP together in s2 is too soon.  (The end of s3, on the other hand,, feels right.)

[Chaser]

Oliver and Sara was very jarring. That was my problem with it. I feel like they had a set list of stuff they were trying to accomplish and it didn't come across as smoothly to the audience:

 

They slowed down Oliver and Felicity, but in the process made Oliver look like a jerk. It stll doesn't make sense to me that the episode ended with a Sara/Oliver hook up after the Moira/Thea thing. I was expecting Felicity to talk to Oliver about how he was doing. And I would have loved if Oliver asked her if there was anything more to her avoidance to Moira. Moira gave Felicity quite the look.

 

And the whole Oliver/Laurel/Sara thing was such a mess. I don't even know if I want to touch it.

[Password]

Made no sense. None.

[NumberCruncher]

Oliver and Sara was very jarring. That was my problem with it. I feel like they had a set list of stuff they were trying to accomplish and it didn't come across as smoothly to the audience:

 

They slowed down Oliver and Felicity, but in the process made Oliver look like a jerk. It stll doesn't make sense to me that the episode ended with a Sara/Oliver hook up after the Moira/Thea thing. I was expecting Felicity to talk to Oliver about how he was doing. And I would have loved if Oliver asked her if there was anything more to her avoidance to Moira. Moira gave Felicity quite the look.

 

And the whole Oliver/Laurel/Sara thing was such a mess. I don't even know if I want to touch it.

Yes, that was my main point which I clearly didn't explain well in my earlier post. It wasn't that there were roadblocks put up between Oliver and Felicity--I completely get that's what happens to TV couples-- but rather the abruptness of switching gears to Oliver and Sara that didn't make sense to me and came off as contrived so that the showrunners could get from Point A to Point B. As you mentioned, it just ended up leaving Oliver look like a jerk because all the while he's sexing up Sara, he's still fostering Olicity moments and throwing his relationship with Sara in Laurel's face. Yuck.

[TanyaKay]

Yeah, that Sara/Oliver romance reflected rather poorly on Oliver.

[statsgirl]

I think some of that could have been averted if they had spent any time exploring Oliver's relationship with Sara in s2.  I can buy that they had unfinished business and they were both damaged people who naturally might have sought comfort in each other but that was never explored, nor was it properly explored how their different experiences led them in different directions. There was a tantalizing glimpse of it in Seeing Red when Sara wanted to kill Roy and Oliver said "I'm tired of having this conversation over and over" but we never really saw how they were together other than as fighting partners.

 

 

It stll doesn't make sense to me that the episode ended with a Sara/Oliver hook up after the Moira/Thea thing. I was expecting Felicity to talk to Oliver about how he was doing. And I would have loved if Oliver asked her if there was anything more to her avoidance to Moira. Moira gave Felicity quite the look.

Maybe not had a long talk about how Oliver was doing, but some sort of acknowledgement that Felicity had just been willing to tank her whole relationship with Oliver to Do The Right Thing.  Diggle's comment about how it must be hard seeing Oliver and Sara together in the next episode was woefully inadequate.  And made Oliver look like even more of a jerk.

.

Edited September 12, 2014 by statsgirl

[Chaser]

I always felt Oliver/Sara were more of a FWB relationship. They tried to be more but it just didn't work. Wish the show had explained that relationship better.

Edited September 12, 2014 by 10Eleven12

[Password]

I would agree with you, @statsgirl about them having unfinished business, but I feel like I had to wipe away the entire season 1 to be able to really understand it. I thought Oliver gazing fondly at Laurel's picture and wanting to fix things included sleeping with Sara. The retcon they did on Oliver and Sara's relationship was really jarring (excellent word). I just thought both of them knew better. Certainly the dinner followed by Oliver's wonderfully hypocritical speech in the hallway. It made no sense to me because I binge watched it so season 1 was fresh in my mind and it made Oliver look like an insensitive cad...again. Pre island Oliver would've applauded.

[KirkB]

Yeah, that Sara/Oliver romance reflected rather poorly on Oliver.

 

   Didn't make Sara look too good either.

 

   I do think part of the reason Oliver and Sara hooked back up was to crush the Oliver/Laurel remnants and stop (or at least slow) the Oliver/Felicity momentum, but it also had the unintended effect of reminding everybody just how self centered Oliver and Sara both can be. The family dinner is a perfect example. I get why Sara might freak out and ask him to come but everyone from Thea to Slade could have told him how monumentally bad an idea it was. Their sleeping together at the end of Heir to the Demon was perfectly understandable, all things considered, it's just that the next episode should have opened with them waking up in bed and both realizing how bad an idea it was.

[wonderwall]

I honestly think Sara and Oliver hooking up again showed that Oliver was completely over and 100% over Laurel. 

 

I can't at all believe that Oliver would hook up with Sara if he still had any feelings or remnants of it towards Laurel. He wouldn't do that to her if he still cared about her in a romantic way much less in a friendly way. I honestly don't believe Oliver post-island to be that terrible and wish-washy of a person. So I'm going to give Oliver the benefit of the doubt and think that when Sara/Oliver happened, he was completely done with Laurel. 

[NumberCruncher]

I always felt Oliver/Sara were more of a FWB relationship. They tried to be more but it just didn't work. Wish the show had explained that relationship better.

I can see the whole comfort sex aspect of it, but in a way that even felt like a betrayal of who post-island Oliver really is. Why have Oliver make comments to the effect of "it was 5 years ago and I was a different person" (i.e. I was a spoiled womanizer who cheated on my girlfriend but I'm a new man now) and have him show/express interest in long-term relationships with women--Laurel, Helena, McKenna--only to write him jumping into bed with Isabel and Sara without so much as sending them on a date first? Sure, Oliver Queen was a playboy at one time, but after returning from the island, that's not how he's been written. I'm not saying he has to be chaste, but please maintain some consistency in characterization so we're not all sitting here thinking "WTF?".

[Password]

It's not so much that he may have had lingering romantic feelings, he just wasn't being a particularly good friend. And Sara won the award for worst sister of the week. It showed a serious selfish streak still prevalent in both Oliver and Sara and, as much as Oliver was over Laurel, not sleeping with Sara, as in actively making a choice not to pursue it (after the one night stand, preferably before) would've shown great growth for him and her. Yuck. The whole relationship was horribly written.

[BkWurm1]

I can see the whole comfort sex aspect of it, but in a way that even felt like a betrayal of who post-island Oliver really is. Why have Oliver make comments to the effect of "it was 5 years ago and I was a different person" (i.e. I was a spoiled womanizer who cheated on my girlfriend but I'm a new man now) and have him show/express interest in long-term relationships with women--Laurel, Helena, McKenna--only to write him jumping into bed with Isabel and Sara without so much as sending them on a date first? Sure, Oliver Queen was a playboy at one time, but after returning from the island, that's not how he's been written. I'm not saying he has to be chaste, but please maintain some consistency in characterization so we're not all sitting here thinking "WTF?".

 

I think Oliver had come to the conclusion after his attempts at having a real relationship with McKenna and Helena that as long as he was Arrow, he couldn't have a real relationship.  He only turned to Laurel in S1 after he thought he was close to ending the need for Arrow.  Then he trotted out his "the life I lead" speech so while I roll my eyes at Oliver's belief, him treating sex even more casually than he'd treated it before the island actually fit with his mind set. 

 

Sara was not really casual but she was someone that I think Oliver saw as already part of his messy life.  In a emotionally turbulent moment, both he and Sara turned to each other and I think they found themselves feeling a connection that they didn't let themselves often feel. 

 

I think in Oliver's case he was fighting what he had been gradually feeling for Felicity.  For Sara, she'd loved Nyssa but something made her stop.   I think both of them saw themselves as never having that kind of honest close relationship and but found with each other a good echo of the real thing.  They knew each other's dark secrets and also knew each other when they had been foolish near innocent kids.  Being together filled a need and having that need filled probably made the relationship at first feel really intense and important.  (Which is the only excuse I can give to Sara for wanting Oliver along to the family dinner or to Oliver for going) 

 

That said, I don't think either of them saw their relationship as the real thing.  I do think that Sara paused and considered whether maybe it could become the real thing in that moment between Oliver suggesting they get an apartment together and Sara asking if he was asking her to move in with him - two very separate things.  Oliver's non answer was all the answer she needed and I saw right in that moment her disappointment, not so much that he wasn't asking her to move in with him, but that she realized that she wanted more than what their relationship could ever deliver to each other.  I think Oliver would have gone on using their FWB kind of status as a way to not feel anything more real, but when she left, and everything came crashing down, truths he'd been trying to ignore really became obvious. 

[wonderwall]

Team Arrow dynamics in one gif? :)

 

 

I personally loved this scene :p 

[wingster55]

I don't know when that ends or begins! ;)

Or what ep (Hashtag: poor memory)

[DrSpaceman10]

Episode 2x08 (The Scientist), Felicity->Oliver->Diggle (plus Moira). I know too much lol

Edited September 13, 2014 by drspaceman10

[calliope1975]

I don't know when that ends or begins! ;)

Or what ep (Hashtag: poor memory)

 

That's when Moira returned to QC and Felicity babbled her way into awkward. 

[wingster55]

Ah thanks.

That one was actually on my rewatch list 

[bethy]

I love that scene, too, but I don't think I'd ever noticed Diggle shaking his head so subtly there before. So cute.

[wingster55]

I actually think Tommy could've taken Felicity's role as the person who Oliver could open up to...

 

I think that Diggle is also that person somewhat.

But if Tommy lived...it could've been all 3. 

[Chaser]

Whenever I picture Tommy in The Foundry: I see him sitting on Felicity's desk and serving as the peanut gallery. He doesn't actually go on missions though. He is just a friend in on the secret. I like that image. 

 

Bonus: He flicks Felicity's ponytail and makes her blush - not in a shipping kinda way, just in a general flirty kinda way.

[Starfish35]

Bringing over from Laurel thread.....

I'm not entirely convinced it was a bad call. I think it was intentional to show thatLaurel did think of herself as being between Oliver and Team Arrow. I think we were meant to give that a sideeye

I'm not sure about that. For one, I have a hard time giving the writers credit for that much subtlety, but for another there was this quote from AK about this scene -

Oliver has women in his life. He has Laurel. He has Felicity. Helena is doing a 10 to 20 stretch. But Laurel will always be one of the closest people to him, whether that’s romantic or not. That’s why it’s so powerful to us that, in his darkest hour, Laurel is the one who pulls him out of it.

http://collider.com/andrew-kreisnerg-arrow-interview/

I still think, as badly botched as it was, this scene was supposed to show us Oliver and Laurel's super connection. (This is also the same interview with the Lois and Clark statement.) While I know they were already working on Olicity at this point, I personally don't think they'd quite given up on having an Oliver/Laurel thing on the back burner. I think maybe this was in part a test, to see how people reacted to Oliver and Laurel together once she knew his secret and was no longer antagonistic toward him. If people had reacted better, I'm not sure Lauriver would have been ruled out as definitively as it was this summer post finale.

But that's just my personal theory. :)

[wonderwall]

I think that Diggle is also that person somewhat.

But if Tommy lived...it could've been all 3. 

After Laurel and Oliver slept together though, I don't think he could've ever taken on that role. I think he probably would've even turned darker like his father. Tommy deserved so much better :/ 

[catrox14]

I'm not sure about that. For one, I have a hard time giving the writers credit for that much subtlety, but for another there was this quote from AK about this scene -

 

 

I think the director put Laurel between Oliver and Team Arrow to show that Laurel thinks she has greater sway with Oliver. That Laurel thinks she has a different and separate connection with Oliver and by placing her in the middle and the subsequently being dismissive of Felicity and Digg, she established that separation.  I think it was a directing choice to support the writing that Laurel thinks she'll always be more important to Oliver than anyone else.

[foreverevolving]

I love how Oliver face is all kinds of serious, yet his eyes are in total amused mode!