Arrow Star Stephen Amell On the Potential Laurel, Felicity & Oliver Triangle

92 comments

1. Kelly,Stephen may be delibera
   tely ambiguous, but seems as though producer Marc Guggenheim is a Lauriver shipper!;-)

   Here is what he said in a recent interview:

   http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=46389

   On balancing the will they/won’t they aspect of Oliver and Laurel’s relationship on “Arrow”: I think any time you do a TV show, and you’ve got two people together who are star-crossed lovers and they’re destined to be together, but you don’t want them together because you run into the “Moonlighting” problem of your two main characters, once they actually end up together, in a committed relationship, then it seems to lose all of its sexual spark.The little magic trick that we have to do with Oliver and Laurel is, keep bringing them together and pulling them apart, bringing them together and pulling them apart.

   So, Laurel and Oliver are destined to be together, but the showrunners will be doing their best to keep sustain the will they, won’t they for as long as they can….which will give them ample opportunity to keep both their two ships afloat! I rewatched a few old episodes, and I actually like the Felicity/Oliver interaction, especially in the early episodes, when he comes to her with his Internet problems, offering all kinds of BS explanations. Still don’t know if an Olicity relationship would work as a serious romance arc, though. And if Guggenheim’s pronouncements equals “the word of God”, as they say on TV tropes, Oliver and Laurel are the show’s destined lovers.

   Reply

   1. Hi,

      Thanks for bringing up Guggenheim’s latest comments. I, too, had seen that interview at ComicBookResources and had a similar reaction to your’s. This is the most blunt statement I’ve seen from the Arrow team acknowledging they are indeed planning a will they/won’t they with Oliver and Laurel. However, in a prior interview Guggenheim had compared Oliver and Laurel to Ross and Rachel from Friends, and here he references Moonlighting. So, when you’re throwing out comparisons like that it’s pretty obvious what you’re up to.

      When it comes down to it, Laurel is the love interest, and Felicity is, well, Felicity is a complication the writers didn’t see coming. When Guggenheim talks about how they are basically always thinking one season ahead I’d guess that when they were originally mapping the first and second seasons if Felicity was in their long-term plans at all it was as nothing more than a sidekick. I still get the slight sense that they don’t know what to do with her yet. When the producers/writers and stars do publicity to tease season two they are more than happy to discuss the Laurel/Oliver relationship but rarely ever discuss Felicity, other than to maybe say how great Emily Bett-Rickards is.

      I’m sure Comic-Con will reveal quite a bit more in this and other areas in a couple of weeks when Amell, Cassidy, Rickards, Colton Haynes, and producers Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Andrew Kreisberg take part in a 45-minute Q&A session. In a setting such as that there’s bound to be an Olicity question at some point.

      Felicity definitely stood out from the get-go, as there was a completely different energy in her scenes with Amell than anywhere else in the show. Similar to their obvious cinematic inspiration, Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy (specifically Batman Begins), Arrow is a show with rather fleeting humor. So, whenever Felicity would pop up it was such a welcome relief. For those so inclined, I’m sure it’s fun to fantasize (or write fan-fiction) about Oliver and Felicity giving into passion in the Team Arrow headquarters, and that’s probably a scene the show could make look pretty hot. However, in truth I’m less interested in that than I am in simply seeing Felicity continue to provide the show with much needed levity.

      When I picture the writer’s room for Arrow, I imagine a white board with a phrase like “Who is Felicity Smoak?” on it as opposed to “Felicity/Oliver vs. Oliver/Laurel.” I would think their ideas for Felicity in season two would stem from the realization that we need to start learning more about her outside of Team Arrow as opposed to pairing her with Oliver romantically.

      Reply

      1. Three years of “won’t they”. That’s some slow burn.

      2. Plus, at this point Laurel Lance could be the one in that grave at the end of the fourth season for all we know. So, three years of “won’t they” followed by “and now they never will.” It’s probably not her because killing off Black Canary would be seriously gutsy, but we don’t really know for sure.

2. Dang, there is no way to edit the comments! Hope you’ll understand anyway!

   Reply

   1. I liked Oliver and Laurel. He messed around made it seem, used her to get to her baby sister, and because of him, Laurel and father loose the sister. If Felicity was just an IT person, how does she even get the guy in the end of the show? She is an absolutely beautiful, smart, intelligent IT woman working for Queen. She showed friendship with Oliver sort-of like a big brother you admire. Drunk, additive behavior Laurel gets ditched so many, many times by playboy Queen, that for a minute I actually loose interest in him because he seemed nice, concerned, and willing to get back hom and help his mom and sister. Instead he screws his longtime girlfriend’s sister, which gets her sucked out of the family ship….all for his friend, blond, IT, Felicity Smoake? Katmandu (Ra’a Guls daughter is more his type, mysterious, gutsy, smart, intelligent, beautiful,) as is all dresses, Felicity, who is definitely loyal, socially a fun, funny, character, also a beauty,likable, caring character, for Ray. I realize on the whims of the fans it is what it is, but I’ll admit, Arrow is a good show in the eving after work like Law and Order. The 1000s of ways these characters could interact to save, and or protect Starling City with SCPD? Hooked.

      Reply

3. Hi Kelly, and thanks for the reply! Concerning the “will they, won’t they” comment, my impression is that it wasn’t very well received by the “Arrow” fandom. Although the Lauriver shippers were relieved that Guggenheim confirmed that L/O are the show’s OTP, they were still not very happy about the “bringing together/pulling apart” formula, which many see as a sign of lazy writing, just like the awful Tommy/Laurel/Oliver “love triangle”. I personally don’t mind a slow burn if it’s done well. The development of the L/O romance is IMHO a secondary issue- the most important thing right now is to give Laurel a good storyline that will make her an interesting character that the audience can root for, rather than a mere “love interest”. My impression is that many of the viewers who support the Lauriver pairing are comic book fans who want to see their fave couple on the small screen. Since the comic book Black Canary is often a heroine in her own right, her adventures does not necessarily have to be that closely tied to the Oliver/GA storyline, as long as they do get together sometime in future seasons.

   As for Felicity, I would love to see more of her back story. I mean, up until now we have learned practically nothing about her life outside the Arrowcave. Diggle’s storyline is mostly tied to Oliver’s, but at least he has Carly and his nephew, which give him “a life” apart from the crime fighting storyline. Felciity’s lack of back story surely has to do with her status as a supporting character, but now that her role/screen time has expanded, there is an opportunity to give more depth to her character…and maybe even a “love interest”, let’s say the “Arrow” version of Ed Raymond? I can hear the collective sigh of disappointment from the Oliver/Felicity shippers if the writers ever decide to let her get involved with someone else, but I think it has to be done at some stage or another, otherwise the “Olicity” craze might become a burden for the showrunners, because it overshadows what they consider to be their main romance arc.

   This is just a theory, of course, but apart from the obvious onscreen chemistry between Stephen/Oliver and Emliy/Felicity, I think it might be the fact that Felicity in reality lacks “a life” outside the “Arrowcave” that makes it so easy for viewers to imagine an Oliver/Felicity relationship….she has noone else in her life, so to speak. What I mean is that she may function as something of a Mary Sue for some parts of the “Arrow” fandom, in the sense that she is someone that they can project their own wishes and fantasies on. This is not to degrade the Olicity shippers and their preferences…I’m just trying to understand why so many viewers find it necessary to hook Felicity up romantically with Oliver- I mean, I think that she is a funny and likeable character, but I personally prefer to see them as just good friends and crime fighting partners.

   Reply

   1. I really liked Tommy and Laurel as a couple until they turned it into a full on love triangle at the end. It was actually kind of nice seeing Laurel have her own storylines that were only tangentially related to Oliver, if at all.

      For next season, I think that if the writers take the point of view of what does Tommy’s death mean to Laurel as opposed to what does it mean to Laurel/Oliver then they will be on the right track. It will obviously have an impact upon her as well as upon her relationship with Oliver. It’s just an issue of emphasis.

      Even Bett-Rickards agrees that they need to delve into Felicity’s back story next season. I get what you’re saying about her being a bit of a blank canvas upon which fans can project. That sort of goes along with what I had previously written about her being an audience surrogate character. So, there is probably a risk to showing us more of her life. However, it seems an inevitability now that she’s been promoted to regular status.

      Everything they have done with Felicity to this point has had all the hallmarks of your standard crush storyline. Sometimes a crush is eventually reciprocated, ala Xander and Willow on Buffy. However, it usually ends when the person simply moves on (Chloe on Smallville), or has an encounter which opens her eyes (Fred and Angel in Angel, Community has done it a couple of times with Annie and Jeff). They might not be in a rush to close that door for Felicity and Oliver, but as you argue and I’ve argued in the past it will make for some interesting drama if they give Felicity a love interest who is not Oliver. Of course, they can very easily do that in a way which actually furthers the shipping for Olicity, what with the potential for jealousy and what-not.

      We’ve never really seen Felicity in any other context other than Team Arrow. So, I tend to imagine a love interest would emerge from that dynamic. For example, we already know that Felicity will be a go-between for Team Arrow and Laurel’s dad. If they are to introduce a love interest for her that might be their opening, with the potential for some young lawyer or detective to enter into the formula.

      Really, though, for as much as I have written about it romance is but a rather small part of Arrow. The first thing that excites me about next season when I think about it is not who might knock boots with whom but instead the tantalizing notion that Oliver might be so despondent over what happened he may no longer be working as a vigilante at season’s beginning ala Buffy at the beginning of that show’s third season. Ya know-the hero’s journey kind of stuff.

      Reply

4. I feel like I’ve been repeating myself in my replies to you, so I’ll try another angle, which deals more with the action aspect (though there might be some romance thrown in, who knows?) In the last few days “Arrow” showrunners have announced that they have cast Summer Glau in a recurring role as Isabel Rochev:

   http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/07/11/who-is-isabel-rochev-summer-glaus-new-role-on-arrow/

   So, it seems as though one of the “Big Bads” that Oliver will have to deal with next season will be a young and gorgeous version of DC heroine Isabel R.! This is a very interesting plot development IMHO, and I would love to see Laurel as Black Canary being somehow involved in this confrontation as well. Both Summer and Katie have a somewhat “cold” beauty and they are both good at portraying kickass heroines, so it would be fun to seem them go up against one another. It’s also nice to see a woman cast as villain-the only female villains I can think of from the previous season are the Huntress and Moira, and Moira wasn’t really a villainesse in my eyes. I detested the Huntress (sorry!), so I hope that Isabel will be a more “likeable” nemesis for Oliver than his “psycho ex-girlfriend”!

   Reply

   1. I guess I just slightly scooped you on this one because I actually posted an article about that news earlier this morning:

      Summer Glau Cast as Arrow’s Next Big Bad. Cue Nerdgasm in 3,2,1 (http://wp.me/p39B8E-1dM)

      I, too, am thrilled with this news (as indicated in the title of my article). The odd thing, now that I think about it, is that I wouldn’t really call myself a huge Summer Glau fan. It’s really more a case of I have watched and liked a lot of TV shows she happened to be in as opposed to me watching certain shows just because they starred Glau. So, we’re talking about The 4400, Firefly, The Sarah Connor Chronicles (my childhood obsession with Terminator 2 probably made me more forgiving of that show than I should have been), and Alphas. Plus, one of my all-time favorite episodes of Angel is “Waiting in the Wings,” which was her acting debut.

      She brings with her a respectable resume in genre television, and a history of playing butt-kicking roles that instantly makes me ecstatic to see what they do with her on Arrow. It also seems like the absolute perfect time in the trajectory of Arrow to introduce Isabel Rochev, what with Starling City having just suffered a catastrophe and Queen Consolidated a public embarrassment and likely steep financial consequences. So, now is the time for someone to try and take over Oliver’s family business and pose a physical threat to him in the process.

      So far, the show has had Huntress as their Catwoman, Shado as a bit of a wild card but who is still good at this point, China White as a ninja assassin on the periphery of the action, and Moira being as cutthroat as she needs to be to protect her family. My immediate thought was that Rochev would be presented as a foe for both Moira and Oliver. However, it’s certainly possible to work Laurel into the mix somehow. I’ve been under the impression that there are no plans to go full-on Black Canary with Laurel until much later. Even so, they could do something like Laurel failing to combat Rochev through legal means, and starting to feel more and more the pull of vigilantism based off of Oliver’s example (not that she knows it’s Oliver, though, obviously). Whatever they do with Rochev could be an instigating event on the road toward Black Canary.

      Oh, btw, I really like Huntress’ first two episodes. However, I wasn’t exactly thrilled when they brought her back as the “psycho ex-girlfriend.” It was kind of funny to see her written as hurt by Oliver’s emotional coldness toward her when in the structure of the episode the first time he sees her she is threatening the lives of his mother and sister. Even with Jessica Du Gouw’s commitment to Dracula, I am sure they’ll find a way to bring Huntress back at some point. I’m not just particular looking forward to it.

      On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 4:40 PM, We Minored In Film

      Reply

      1. Ha, I forgot China Blue! Glad to hear that you share my sentiments about the Huntress…I also thought she was OK in the first two episodes, but when she came back she was just awful. BTW, the “Arrow” fandom is worried about the Summer Glau “curse”-it seems that every show she appears on gets cancelled! Of course, that is just superstition, but there are still long threads on the subject.

      2. Yeah, I know about the Summer Glau curse fears. Pretty much every single show became a regular or recurring character on either didn’t last long, period, or didn’t last too long after she joined. It’s real hard to imagine that happening with Arrow, though, if for no other reason than that if they stick with the Whedon “Big Bad” formula Glau’s character will likely only be around for the one season. Plus, these type of random things eventually work themselves out, such as how Star Trek: Nemesis broke the long-standing trend of all even-numbered Star Trek movies being awesome versus weak odd-numbered ones.

         On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 5:40 PM, We Minored In Film

      3. I wrote: Ha, I forgot China Blue!

         That should be China WHITE of course, I was probably subconsciously thinking of Ken Russell’s “China Blue” (Kathleen Turner) in the cult movie “Crimes of passion”. She was a pretty interesting and badass heroine as well!;-)

      4. I won’t lie – I did Google “China Blue” thinking maybe I had been wrong this entire time in thinking her name was China White or that there was some Green Arrow comic book story line unknown to me where she became known as China Blue. I ultimately figured you had mis-typed, but never actually jumped to the “obviously, she’s thinking of ‘Crimes of Passion'” place. They’ve already said Laurel might start making some bad decisions next season out of her grief over Tommy. However, going full-on China Blue from “Crimes of Passion” would be a bit too extreme, huh?

5. Hi Kelly,

   I wonder if I may…erm…”pimp” a tumblr blog entry of mine here? It deals with the issues that you discuss in your article, with the difference that my take is a bit more critical when it comes to the “Arrow” showrunners “shipper” politics. I don’t discuss actual story content that much- I’m more concerned with the showrunners’ interaction with the fans on twitter etc. and the mixed messages they keep sending to the fans/shipper community. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this:

   http://arrowfan1.tumblr.com/post/57093694365/fanon-ships-and-ship-tease-on-arrow

   Reply

   1. By all means, “pimp” away. It makes sense that you’d branch out to a service like Tumblr. Cool.

      My general reaction is that you are touching on the on-going debate regarding the creative autonomy of showrunners versus online fandom. They want to get as many people to watch their show as possible. The best way to do that is to make your show buzz-worthy, and simply making an awesome show that is compulsively watchable isn’t enough. You have to generate word-of-mouth, and the way you do that now is through active engagement with social media. We’ve already seen the power of social media in elevating the Vampire Diaries (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/vampire-diaries-taking-advantage-social-416297), and being almost solely responsible for the blight/triumph upon society known as Sharknado. In general, the CW is the network which seems to court social media more so than any other, largely owing to the fact that their age demographic is lower than others and more prone to be receptive to social media messaging.

      So, what the Arrow producers have been doing in-between seasons has been masterful, superior to probably any other showrunners out there. We are over 2 months removed from the conclusion of the first season, and Arrow has dominated the internet news cycle more so than any other CW show. They have been dropping spoilers left and right, and when something has been confusing they have jumped out in front of the story to offer an explanation. One imagines they know and count on here being sites such as mine and countless others that are reacting to everything they’ve been saying. Plus, as you noticed they also take to Twitter to tease potential storylines.

      The concerns are:

      1. Are they maybe telling us a little too much about season 2? Will the season be more enjoyable if they hadn’t already told us so much about it beforehand (we have the option to simply ignore it all, of course)?

      2. Will the mixed messages regarding Laurel/Oliver and Oliver/Felicity ultimately come back to bite them in the ass?

      3. In attempting to drum up awareness and viewership via social media engagement, are they allowing themselves to become overly influenced in their storyline decisions by fan reaction?

      We won’t really know the answers to any of these for a while. However, on that second concern your article was very well-argued. In that area, I get why they are doing what they are doing. There is a general “as long as the people are talking about the show it’s good” defense. But everything they’ve said in traditional media argues for Laurel/Oliver and the trailer from Comic-Con follows that as well and then Guggenhiem tweets the line about Oliver and Felicity? It is certainly annoying.

      Reply

6. Hi Kelly, and thanks for your reply! I agree with you that interacting with the fans on social media and creating media buzz is a prerequisite for TV showrunners nowadays, and the “Arrow” TPTB are masters of this game. As you wrote, all the season two “leaks” and “teases” have created a lot of excitement on various media sites and fan forums. However, I think that some of the tactics that Guggenheim and company use are a bit cynical. If you consider that Guggenheim is an well-educated man and a former attorney some of the stuff he tweets is a bit degrading (for him, that is!), especially since the hype doesn’t match the actual content. In general, I don’t think that it’s necessary for the writers/producers to get that “chummy” with the online shippers.Too many promises and too much “teasing” will end up with a situation where online fans feel entitled to some story developments and will protest wildly when they don’t get them, which is evident in many online TV fandoms.

   I’m not sure if the showrunners are really aware that the majority of the shipper fandom are young girls, who don’t always understand the showrunners’ “shipper politics”. My experience is that many of them think that their ship will happen if Stephen Amell mentions “Olicity” in an interview or if “their couple” gets 60% of the votes in an online poll. Many of them don’t understand that scripted television cannot be written according to the whims and preferences of the fans or that a series based on a comic book source material cannot deviate too much from canon, in the sense that it can make Oliver Queen and his IT-girl endgame, rather than Oliver Queen and Black Canary. You know more about comics than I do, but I don’t even know if DC comics would allow such a drastic change in their source material. My main gripe with Guggenheim et al is that despite the fact that they know that “Olicity” (probably) won’t be endgame, they keep teasing the shippers in a way that suggests that it MIGHT happen sometime in the future, out of fear of losing a segment of their fan base. I really don’t see the need for such pandering, since the fans who passionately support a certain ship and watches only for that ship is surely a small minority in comparison to the general viewership.

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   1. I do find it funny that some fans will react to some of Laurel’s legal-leaning storylines with questions as to whether or not the Arrow writers have any idea what they’re talking about. A lot of the fans probably fail to realize that Guggenheim has a law degree.

      At this point, I think the level of social media interaction and sheer number of teasing/spoiler-y interviews from the Arrow camp is slowly inching toward the point of media saturation. Andrew Kreisberg briefly broke the internet earlier this week when he confirmed exactly what I predicted in the “Burden of Canon” article: Oliver and Felicity are likely going to have a chat about her feelings for him, and then later one she will get her own love interest. That continues the Felicity-is-the-new-Chloe-Sullivan arguments. I didn’t write about it on my site at all (even though it would have likely generated plenty of page views) because I was kind of Arrow news OD’ed. I kind of want them to stop talking about the show for a while.

      The whole entire Arrow experience with their fans is really interesting in comparison to the way Mad Men’s Matthew Weiner approaches it. I think through the sheer level of unprecedented access and interaction and the real-world ability to save shows through mobilization that there is a creeping mentality in TV fandom of possessing an outsized ability to influence storylines more so than ever before. So, a while back when Matthew Weiner rather defiantly took a stance, proclaiming that Mad Men is his show and not the fan’s show and that he is the one who will decide where the stories are going. Fan feedback should not be ignored, of course, but it also shouldn’t be allowed to continually dictate creative direction. But Weiner was kind of written off as being a giant dick for saying what he did when although he could have been nicer about it he wasn’t wrong.

      This is not to say that Arrow is necessarily allowing fans to dictate story. In fact, what makes it so annoying is, as you’ve pointed out eloquently in your comment, how they seem to be giving that illusion in a cynical effort to general social media awareness and viewership. It is certainly possible that their Olicity teasing could bite them in the ass someday, and they fail to realize how seriously some fans take this kind of thing. However, there is also a part of me that thinks the strategy will ultimately work for them in terms of increasing/maintaining viewership as long as they play the will they/won’t they game. I think their bigger risk, ratings-wise, would come if they actually did put an end, for good, to the potential for Olicity on the show, or had Oliver start behaving like a dick to Felicity or Felicity start sleeping with Diggle or something else that made no sense. My reasoning for thinking that is just the general success of well-done will they/won’t they’s on TV, even if there is a growing movement against that kind of storytelling as of late. Then again, in the age of Twitter the rules might have changed, and they might piss people off way more than they expect. Plus, if they foreground it next season they also risk alienating those fans who really prefer the romantic melodrama be but a background element to cool fight scenes, comic book homages, and strong serialized storytelling.

      On this point we are in complete agreement – Oliver and Felicity is not the romantic end game for them. DC would probably let them go there with those two if they wanted (the main thing DC won’t let them do is use any Batman characters). However, it would just be temporary since Black Canary is the real end game. The fact that a lot of fans don’t realize/refuse to believe that is directly attributable to the masterful manner in which the producers have kept that ship going.

      Reply
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9. Yeah, OQ marries BC but then DIVORCES her too..The marriage was more of convenience then love. It’s NOT ‘ENDGAME’ in the Comic books.

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   1. It’s the closest thing to endgame in the comics, though. Oliver has various other love interests, but his most consistent one since the 60s has been Black Canary. Yes, eventually Canary leaves him after he goes too far in hunting down supervillains without telling her, but that came after those two had been a couple off and on for over three decades of storylines.

      The show’Arrow, on the other hand, seem to have established Laurel as Oliver’s endgame. She is the symbol of his potential for domestic bliss and general happiness if not for his need to pursue vigilante justice via his alter ego. The show has given him other canonical love interests in Shado and Huntress, but Shado is a flashback character meant only to provide thematic resonance for present-day storylines and Huntress a foil who represents an inferior moral code than Oliver’s. In fact, in one late first season episode they used Shado very clearly to establish how deeply Oliver loved Laurel. Those two are this show’s central couple.

      Reply

      1. Thank you, Kelly! I couldn’t have said it better myself. Your check is in the mail!;-)

         P.S. Are you following me on tumblr? I thought I saw a “kkonda” among my followers!

      2. Yep; that was me on your Tumblr page. I’ve been keeping up with your Tumblr for a while, but I was never able to like posts or anything like that because I didn’t have a Tumblr account of my own. So, I finally joined and officially followed your arrowfan1.tumblr.com. I haven’t really done anything else other than that with my account so far.

      3. Thanks for following me and for reading my “rants!;-)

      4. You don’t see Clark Kent divorcing LL or ANY OF the OTHER super-hero’s div their so called “LOVE OF THEIR LIFE”. That SAYS IT ALL! Who hasn’t been in similar relationship that are on and off but 9/10 times, it’s NO GO!

         It’s NOT that I hate the actress playing “laurrel” but honestly, she’s AWFUL! Her acting is just OFF and she LOOKS weird. I don’t know how else to EXPLAIN/say it; but the MOST important thing about my dislike of her character is her absolutely ODD/NON-EXISTENT chemistry with the ‘supposedly’ LOVE of her life..I couldn’t EVEN WATCH that FORCED-AWKWARD/sex scene with the two..It’s just that bad..It was awkward..I turned away..It was THAT BAD.

         Felicity, the FIRST time she came on scene with the character Oliver, I smiled..At this point in TIME, the two are just too cute and I can’t even GET over the amazing charm that the two bring to their scenes. How can I even LIKE a character like BC when, IN THE END, she’s just ANOTHER women that he divorced..YOU don’t div someone that is suppose to be YOU SOUL MATE..I’m sorry, that just won’t do.

         I’m not EXPERT in comic books but from what I gather ONLINE and from those whom ARE experts, OQ married BC due to HER being his only option, BEST OPTION..Not saying that he doesn’t care becuz, he obviously had to CARE enough to marry the women but remember, THEY AREN’T END GAME/TOGETHER IN the very end!

         BUT in the end, the ACTRESS is just NO GOOD on her portray of BC*?*…

      5. Honestly, the comic book storylines for some of these characters run back so many years that it ultimately gets horribly convoluted. For example, I don’t know if Lois Lane and Clark Kent ever divorced, but I do know that in the recent continuity Superman was actually in a romantic relationship with Wonder Woman. That doesn’t necessarily mean Lois Lane is done being Clark/Superman’s romantic endgame or that Wonder Woman is the new one; it mostly just means the writers wanted to try something new. If it’s not popular, they’ll just undo it somehow and move past it quickly. As far as I know, Green Arrow and Black Canary have actually been divorced in the comics for a couple of years now, but that entire relationship was completely wiped out by D.C.’s continuity re-booting new 52. In the current comics, Black Canary has reverted back to being the original version of the character named Dinah Drake, not Laurel, and she has yet to engage in a relationship with Oliver Queen.

         I do get what you’re saying, though, and I am sympathetic to preferring Felicity over Laurel. At this point, the show, regardless of the comics, has done so much work to establish Laurel as being the love of Oliver’s life that it will be hard for them to ever back away from that. It’s hard to know what specifically to say about accusations against Katie Cassidy’s ability as an actress in the role of Laurel other than “I get that, but I actually like her performance.” I was not crazy about Cassidy when she was on Supernatural several years ago, but I have grown to enjoy her on Arrow as she has grown into the role. Felicity does make me smile more, but that’s also largely because Felicity is the one who gets to have funny lines whereas Cassidy as Laurel is usually given more dramatic, weep-y material.

         Also, remember not to get too caught up in the comic book continuity. After all, in the comics Felicity has absolutely nothing to do with Oliver Queen or the Green Arrow universe, and is happily married to a normal guy. So, in the comics if Canary is not Green Arrow’s end game than Felicity is not even a player in the game whatsoever. It’s all much ado about nothing, though. What seems most likely to happen for at least the next couple of years on Arrow is that Oliver will never be shown to settle down with anyone, Laurel or Felicity, with the writers constantly teasing his inability to achieve happiness while living a double life.

      6. I understand but I’m pissed that EVERYONE that is a FAN of ‘luarel’ seems to ALWAYS CLAIM that “SHE’S” his ‘end game’ when in actuality, SHE’S NOT! That’s what I’m saying! She is NOT his end game.. I don’t know about the tv series but, if I have to be honest, WE all WANT him to be with the person that understand and STANDS BY him and give him his all; that’s what WE WANT to find in RL, why not the TV show..Laurel is just not doing it for me at all. Felicty is just great..why else would everyone love her character AFTER so short a time on screen?

         I know she’s a brunet and older in the comics but WE all know CW doesn’t follow books or whatever media THEY TOOK it from! I just hate when even one of the producer say ‘she’s’ it when the FACTS state otherwise, you know.

         As for SPN! Yeah, NOBODY liked ruby’s character! Who would..Only SAM is that STUPID to believe that BACK-STABBING BITCH! NOBODY liked ruby, not that i know of and I certainly didn’t! Yeah, she’s the pretty of the two, that’s for sure, since the second ruby was butt ugly, but it’s not looks, it’s the character but LOOKS do count on CW and I was surprised they got someone who looks the way she did AFTER the first ruby! So, it’s not Laruel’s looks when I say, she looks odd..I HONESTLY don’t know how to explain but she’s just WRONG in her interactions with Oliver..The two together is just cringe-worthy for me..Too forced..Don’t you see that it’s pretty much ‘shove’ in your face and forced and MORE! She just doesn’t WORK with Oliver at all..When one gets down to the grit of things, CHEMISTRY does matter and she and Oliver has none! BEING the ‘leading’ female, there has to be sparks, chemistry, UST etc..She has exhibited none of these 3 and more!! I’m sorry..I’m just being honest..LOOKS can ONLY get you so far, if you don’t have the above 3 for being the leading female!

   2. My understanding of the current line of DC comics is that there are no happy marriages allowed. So many major marriages/relationships were broken up and others not allowed to happen. From my understanding (which is somewhat limited), this has caused some controversy because it broke up a number of relationships and erased others. I don’t think we can limit this to the BC/GA storyline and draw on other relationships in the current DC-verse.

      Reply

      1. That’s my understanding as well. I certainly know that the Superman/Wonder Woman pairing was far from being universally accepted. I did just read that in current Flash continuity Barry Allen’s marriage to Irish West was erased by the new 52, but the two are again being built up as love interests. Actually, The Flash continuity is so funky, and most of the relationships tend to last, even after Barry was dead for over 20 years. However, I don’t know if Black Canary and Green Arrow have even encountered one another in the new continuity.

      2. Like I said, not a comic book fanatic so, don’t really know much other then WHAT OTHER ‘experts’ say and I doubt they’d lie..There’s no reason too. They still should respect whatever MEDIA they stole/took from, you know.

      3. That’s fair. Your original point is valid at least in that for those who say Laurel and Oliver are endgame because of their comic book counterparts the actual comic book storylines are a little more complicated than all that.

10. Kelly, if you were more deeply involved in the “Arrow” fandom you would know that, “k”s arguments are pretty standard “Olicity” fare. In fact, the general tone in the above post is very representative of the tone of more hardcore “lunatic fringe” of the “Olicity” fandom. When I read these rants, it always strikes me how such a likeable and mild-mannered character can inspire so much malice and bitterness!
    Anyway, the O.P. seems to base his/her rant on two main complaints, which I will address below:

    1. Bad acting

    The O.P. states that Katie Cassidy is a bad actress…while I presume that s/he, like her fellow “oliciters”, regards Emily B.R. as a “great actress” or a “brilliant” actress (actual quotes)! Now, I’ve never seen Katie Cassidy in anything before I started watching “Arrow”, so I didn’t know what to expect…all I can say is that her acting has been competent enough not to draw me out of the fiction. I actually think that Katie C. has stepped up a bit in the season two episodes, especially in the scene where she met Ollie for the first time since he bailed out of Starling city and went into isolation on the Island. I think she managed to convey many different emotions in that scene: happiness to see Oliver again, apprehension because she had to tell him that they can’t be together, regret and remorse about Tommy’s death, compassion for Ollie when she hugged him. I personally don’t think that it was a bad scene by CW standards, and I don’t feel that Katie’s acting is inferior to, for example, Colton Haynes’, to mention another one of the show’s younger actors.

    I’m not saying that Katie is an A-level actress, because she’s not. However, I think most casual non-shipper viewers would agree that Emily B.R,. doesn’t belong to that category either. I therefore find it rather absurd when “Olicity” fangirls raise Emily’s talents to the skies, while trashing her colleague and friend Katie Cassidy. Emily is charming and Felicity is a very likeable character, but I would say that her fans watch Emily through some pretty rose-coloured “shipping goggles”. I personaly find that her style of acting pretty much remains the same whether she’s supposed to be terrified (e.g. when she’s attacked by the Dollmaker), crushing on Oliver or angry at Oliver….she acts and delivers her lines in a pretty similar way in all these situations. I’m not saying it’s bad acting, I’m just having a problem seeing her “greatness” as an actress and that the hype will wane when the more casual viewers discover that she isn’t that fantastic an actress as her fans like to believe.

    2. The “chemistry argument”

    Like many other Felicity fans, the O.P. refers to the INSANE, OFF-THE-CHARTS, INTENSIVELY sensual chemistry between Stephen and Emily, which all by itself serves as a persuasive argument why Felicity and Oliver should be the show’s main romantic couple and endgame. Since there is such an incredible online hype around this alleged “chemistry” I have really been trying to sense it myself when I watch them together. However, I see no sensual intensity whatsoever between Felicity/Emily and Oliver/Stephen, only embarrasing and awkward Freudian slips and some rather unconvincing crushing and fangirling on the part of Felicity. So, chemistry is clearly in the eyes of the beholder…For me watching Felicity and Oliver romantically or sexually involved would be like watching a brother and sister make out. And there are plenty of viewers who feel the same, as evidenced in the following thread:

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2193021/board/thread/220842177?p=1

    So, what the O.P. presents as a given FACT is clearly a personal impression on the part of some viewers. In fact, contrary to what the online “oliciters” like to claim, there are actually viewers who do feel the chemistry between Stephen and Katie. It’s just that these people don’t troll the Internet 24/7 to share their impressions and bash the rivaling ship. And many viewers who don’t support the Laurel/Oliver pairing still have no desire to see Oliver and Felicity hook up, because they think they’re just fine as friends. Not all viewers are shippers who believe that “Arrow” would be SO much better if only Felicity and Oliver could consummate their “epic love story” (as some tumblr bloggers like to call it!).

    As far as I’m concerned Stephen Amell doesn’t have much sexual/sensual chemistry with any of his female co-stars, but when he’s doing his scenes with Laurel/Katie there is an emotional intensity which makes their relationship interesting in my eyes and that’s enough for me. On the other hand, the contrived “Olicity” moments (“Oliver half-nekkid on top of Felicity”) and the F/O banter leave me cold. So, even if some parts of the online fandom are gushing over Oliver’s and Felicity’s alleged UST and using it to prop their demands for an “Olicity” romance arc, there ARE folks out there who don’t feel the F/O chemistry, and who would prefer if they stayed in the friendship zone.

    Reply

    1. “It’s just that these people don’t troll the Internet 24/7 to share their impressions and bash the rivaling ship. ”

       You’re joking right! I can tell YOU now, I’m not a lunatic/obsessed fan..THIS is actually my FIRST time on these type of sites(in regards to tv shows,)..I don’t follow or have any acct on ‘face-book, tumbler’ etc etc..So, no, I’m NOT your so called “LUNATIC” die-hard fan..I don’t even follow tv series at all. I’m just NOT that type of person..I don’t remember(time, day, channels etc) and I don’t find following TV-SERIES to be important enough in LIFE and I just WATCH whatever is ON the TV and if it interest me and HONESTLY, I’m always about A YR or MORE yrs behide TV shows since if I like a series or am curious about it, I do searches online then WATCH the ENTIRE season ON DVD in ONE SITTING..That’s how I am. So, not a follower or lunatic as you so amply like to CALL/DEFINE ‘F/O’ fans. Just becuz I LIKE the pairing, DON’T ASSUME ANYTHING. VERY rude of you just becuz YOU’RE stereotyping ALL F/O in one category..

       You can say whatever you FEEL is justifiable for ‘laurel’s’ character and I have mine but it doesn’t MAKE the O/F fans OPINION OF her incorrect..She is pretty bad in the show and just becuz it’s coming from Felicity fans doesn’t negate it.

       Sibling relationship. YEAH, don’t think so..I don’t SEE Thea making Felicity comments about Oliver or Oliver looking or acting the way he does with Felicity to Thea. Thea’s annoying anyway..Don’t care for her and I don’t see why everyone on the show refers to him(roy) as that abercrombie face/kid..He’s not even good looking..But that’s mine opinion..

       I never ONCE mentioned Felicity as THE BETTER actress..I said, Oliver and her, onscreen together, are just charming too see..Makers VIEWERS go ‘AWW’…Me, anyways.

       Reply

       1. You’re right. Just because a opinoin is held by one section of fandom, it doesn’t negate it. Olicitys’ views are no more or less valid than Laurivers’.

          However fandom has a habit of liking a particular type of character to the exclusion of others. That type is the pretty, quirky nerd type. Which Felicity is painted in very clearly. Often this is used as an excuse by the writers not to bother creating much depth/characterisation which is certainly true of Felicity. And that’s not an opinion it is a fact. Felicity doesn’t have much in the way of characterisation which doesn’t fit into ‘pretty’, ‘quirky’ or ‘nerdy’. We know nothing about her past, her friends, her family, her life goals, her relationships outside of a crush on Oliver.

          I say this as someone who likes Felicity. She’s sweet and funny and a little but awkward. But she’s just not very interesting. I hope the writers take an opportunity to develop her a little bit further because I would like to get to know her better. At this point in time she’s a little bit too much like those other ‘geek’ characters for me to find her interesting.

          However, like many fans, I don’t see anything between Felicity and Oliver other than her crush. There is no ‘spark’ (which I do happen to see between Laurel and Oliver, but again this is personal opinion). From my point of view, Felicity’s actions are also becoming increasingly like sexual harrassment. I really hope the show either addresses this or move away from this trend, because it is becoming increasingly uncomfortable for me as a viewer. I’d happily ship Felicity/Oliver if the show gave me a reason to buy into it however it really hasn’t.

          (And for the record ‘shouting’ at others is also regarded as a form of ‘rudeness’. Pleas don’t do it.)

       2. Here’s what we know about Felicity:

          She has a nut allergy
          Her middle name is Megan
          She’s Jewish
          She’s not a natural blonde
          She’s been building computers from scratch since she was a pre-teen.
          She was “not with anyone” during the season meaning she had no boyfriend.

          That’s not a whole lot to go on. As I wrote elsewhere on this site, “This is mostly due to the fact that Felicity did not become a full-time character until halfway through the season. Plus, it is increasingly common in television for side characters to display the truth of their character through their actions but never really get a spotlight hovering over the details of their personal life.”

          So, we know that she is loyal, brave enough to put herself in danger but not brave enough to not shudder when a gun is pointed at her, smart, funny, socially awkward, and reluctant to just roll over for anyone (see her anger at Oliver’s assumption she’d be fine taking a job as his executive assistant).

          However, she is still mostly a character still in progress who has received arguably the least amount of development of any major character on the show to date. I think Kazzy has summarized her strengths and weaknesses as a character rather well. There might be an element where the less we actually know about her the easier it is to project attributes on her, keeping her a fun-but-underdeveloped audience surrogate figure. It is interesting how some see romantic chemistry whereas others see nothing more than brother-sister bond. For example, there is a moment during the latest episode where Officer Lance marvels at Felicity’s computer prowess, saying something like, “How does she do that?” and Oliver doesn’t respond but instead, with his back turned to Lance and face turned tot he camera emits a little smile. He could be thinking “that’s my girl,” but I’m sure there were those who saw it as just a smile in admiration of the talents of his surrogate little sister and those who saw a smile in admiration of the girl he’s slowly falling in romantic love with.

          I enjoy Felicity, but while her affection for Oliver is apparent I don’t really see anything in Amell’s performance which reads as a reciprocation of that affection. I look forward to hopefully learning more about Felicity as the new season progresses.

       3. Yeah, I somewhat agree with you on Felicity having NO back-ground but you do have to agree that, that’s DUE to her being a supporting-GUEST character at first..It takes time and since “luarel” is the leading female, OF COURSE, the viewers will be SHOVED face FIRST with ALL EVERYTHING HER!

          Sexual Harassment??? Seriously..WOW..Just wow…I’m sorry..I don’t see it and it’s not due to my being bias or anything..Felicity is just quirky and it’s a character/mannerism of hers that is shown to be just that, quirky and odd; which I find adorable! SH??? LOL..Seriously..???? WOW!!

       4. Agreed about Felicity. I argued the same point elsewhere on this site. A big reason we know so little about her is due to how her screen time on the show has evolved from just being in one or two funny scenes every other episode to eventually becoming a series regular who still only appeared in scenes with Oliver and Diggle.They could have given us more background about her to help us better understand the deeper reason behind her dedication toward helping find Walter. However, it wasn’t completely necessary that they do so. I’m curious to see if we’ll learn more about her background here in season 2, beyond her reference to having gone to MIT.

       5. To Kelly.

          ” but not brave enough to not shudder when a gun is pointed at her, ”

          I think any GIRL can relate to Felicity when it comes to the above. So, just becuz she’s not A MAN-WOMEN like ‘laruel’ is, doesn’t make her WEAK or whatever..I find that kinda offensive of you to state. I doubt any female would go all NINJA on the individual that has a gun pointed at their head or them…

       6. I meant no offense nor was it meant to be an argument for Laurel’s superiority over Felicity for handling personal threats better. I actually think it is an endearing and relatable attribute that Felicity is not a Wonder Woman or Black Canary type when placed in danger. Laurel was raised by a cop, and she’s repeatedly shown that influence by fighting off attackers before their strength in numbers become too much. Oliver has the whole 5 year ordeal in the island, and stares down death every episode, never appearing to blink an eye. Diggle has his military background to call on to inform his fearless exterior. Malcolm had his vague background training that turned him into an assassin. Currently, Black Canary has her own island ordeal. Part of the show’s grounded in reality approach is that the characters who have backgrounds that have hardened them to life threatening circumstances react accordingly. However, those characters who don’t react more like a normal person would. So, when Moira, Felicity, and even Tommy had guns/arrows pointed at their face last season they flinched. Specific to Felicity, the fact that she is clearly scared on occasion but still puts herself in that position because she thinks it is the right thing to do is practically the definition of heroism. So, trust me, in no way was I criticizing her for clearly flinching the few times her life has been threatened.

    2. As usual, your summation is thorough and passionate. I have encountered enough different wings of the Arrow fandom to be familiar with the type of argument put forth by “K”; this is just one of the first times these arguments have been put forth in such a manner in the comments section of my site. I am sympathetic to the notion of disliking an actress/actor who stars on a show you otherwise greatly enjoy, and her poor performance (by your own assessment at least) dragging everything down and pushing you to the point of frustration. I am going through something like that with the show Grimm at the moment. However, there are certainly more polite ways of communicating such an argument.

       I think you are on-the-mark when you describe how the notion of Cassidy being an inferior actress to Rickards is likely not a true assessment of performance but instead a reaction to character. Beyond being an audience surrogate figure who has been the chief source of Arrow’s limited comic relief, Felicity has to this point almost never been placed in an unsympathetic position. If you react negatively to her continued accidental sexual innuendos, it’s not because the writers mean for you to but instead you have grown tired of what you view as an overused aspect of her character. Laurel, on the other hand, is continually put in positions where the sympathy might gravitate more toward the men in her life (father, Tommy, Oliver) than her. Plus, the poor girl almost never gets a chance to even tell a joke.

       So, to say something like you don’t care for Cassidy’s acting because (random example) you think she lacks the sufficient conviction and authority to be believable in courtroom lawyer scenes may not be a view held by everyone but at least it is one which can be argued fairly. I get that. Or maybe you just never liked her as Ruby on Supernatural and can’t get past that now. That’s not nearly as fair, but I get that as well. But as for her abilities as an actress based upon what she did on Supernatural I would have said she’s an inferior actress, even by CW standards. However, I think she has improved considerably in the ensuing years, and maybe it’s because I’m used to the CW grading curve for actors after years of Supernatural, Vampire Diaries, and Smallville but on that curve there’s no way I’d say she’s a bad actress. Partially because the subject matter and tone is so different, I think her work as Laurel is better than anything put forth by anyone on latter era Smallville (although I’ll admit that picking on latter era Smallville is definitely low hanging fruit).

       Reply

       1. It was maybe a bit TOO passionate, since the poor girl didn’t belong to the cray cray online/tumblr/FB “oliciters”, who can be a rather rude and fanatic bunch sometimes, and who are rapidly gaining a bad reputation in fandom. So, if I sounded unnessarily harsh I was just channeling my frustration with a certain part of fandom, and I know I’m not the only one who feels this frustration.

          As for Felicity I believe that both “kazzyb” and you are correct in that there isn’t anything to disike about her, exactlly because she is portrayed as a non-confrontational, likeable person and an audience surrogate rather than a fleshed-out, well-rounded character with relations of conflict and drama with the rest of the cast. As for the sexual innuendos, I think the writers need to tone them down, because even those viewers who found them charming in the beginning are starting to complain that they come off as embarrasing and contrived rather than funny. I think that the common sentiment among some fans is that you can get too much of a good thing, and that the writers have to find other ways to convery Felicity’s “crush” on Oliver.

          If you consider the issue of female characters who are put in conflict with the male protagonist, you’ll find that there are many examples of such characters who are subjected to an inordinate amount of fandom hate. Skyler White is an example of a well-played, interesting female character who was so maltreated by the “Breaking Bad” fandom that Anna Gunn felt compelled to adress that “hate” in an op-ed in NYTimes. I’m not suggesting that Laurel/Katie is in any way comparable to Skyler White/Anna Gunn, I’m just suggesting that there is a similar mechanism at work in both cases, This fandom “misogyny” or double standard also affects Thea, who is often described as a “whining b**tch”, because she doesn’t treat her brother or her mum with silk gloves! Since Thea and Laurel are among my favourite characters in “Arrow” I am often surprised by the intense dislike from some viewers, as well as the lack of empathy with these conflicted but basically positive and goodhearted female characters. It seems that the ONLY women in TV-land who is except from criticism are the chirpy, funny tech girls, who surprisingly often have a minor crush on the handsome hero!;-)

          Concerning Katie’s acting, I also think there is a difference between what I would call an actor’s looks and “style of performance” and their actual talent. Katie looks more like a fashion model than a lawyer, even when she is wearing a business suit, and the courtroom scenes are not her forte. However, since “Arrow” is a superhero/fantasy show rather than an actual “law and order” series, I can disregard this lack of verisimilitude. She also has a certain “edge”, which was especially apparent in her early scenes with Oliver (where Laurel was supposed to be harbor a great deal of anger and resentment against him), and which I think some viewers/fans translate as “bitch**ness” (sorrty for using this word, but it is a word that keeps popping up in comments etc.!). However, IMHO this doesn’t mean that she can’t act or interact with her fellow actors in a convincing manner or evoke the emotions she is supposed to evoke in a certain scene. In fact, I think some of her scenes with Quentin and Oliver are among the best in the show and personally feel that her mode of interacting with Oliver has changed over the course of the season, something which was very evident in their first meeting after the five month break. This is IMHO a sign that Katie has put in quite a lot of thought into her character portrayal, and that is also the reason why I think she can pull of the Black Canary persona once she gets the chance to do so.

          This was another longwinded reply from me, hope you don’t mind. The main reason I go off on a tangent in these comment sections is probably because I enjoy our “Arrow” conversations!

       2. I mixed Katie the actress with Laurel Lance the “Arrow” character in my latest post, so I’ll repost with some corrections!

          Katie also has a certain “edge” in her style of acting, which was especially apparent in Laurel’s early scenes with Oliver/Stephen (where Laurel was supposed to be harbor a great deal of anger and resentment against him), and which I think some viewers/fans translate as “bitch**ness” (sorry for using this word, but it is a word that keeps popping up in comments etc.!). However, IMHO this doesn’t mean that Katie can’t act or interact with her fellow actors in a convincing manner or evoke the emotions she is supposed to evoke in a certain scene. In fact, I think some of her scenes with Quentin/Paul and Oliver/Stephen are among the best in the show and personally feel that Katie has changed the way her character interacts with Oliver over the course of the season, something which was very evident in their first meeting in the season two premiere. This is IMHO a sign that she has put in quite a lot of thought into her character portrayal, and that is also the reason why I think she can pull of the Black Canary persona once she gets the chance to do so.

       3. There might have been slight venting on your part :), but I get why.

          I think your comparison to Skyler White is apt. Much of the post-Sopranos era of TV is written about as being the age of the anti-hero, but not much attention is paid to the anti-hero’s long-suffering love interest(s). Quite often, these characters grow to become the most hated aspects of their respective shows among certain fans. A lot of the time these characters are put at a disadvantage due to being used as plot obstacles, such as Rita on Dexter inconveniencing Dexter’s serial killing by insisting on marriage counseling. Plus, the longer the shows go with these characters not knowing the anti-hero’s secret (Oliver is Arrow, Walter is a meth dealer, Don Draper cheats on Betty all the time, Dexter is a serial killer) the more a Smallville-esque annoyed mindset takes over, e.g. “how the hell do they not seriously know Clark is the Blur by this time?” Beyond that, these characters are often used to illustrate the emotional collateral damage caused by the anti-hero’s choices and secrecy, but this can be overused to the point of viewers growing tired of seeing, for example, Thea bitch at Oliver because to some it seems to be all she does. In the case of Thea, whether it’s true or not the show seemed to actually support that conclusion by flat out having Thea apologize to Oliver for always being a bitch all the time. However, for the level of knowledge Thea had about everything to give Oliver a pass based upon his apparent actions would have been too kind.

          These are all understandable tropes of show’s of this type. I think the reactions against them might be a reaction to overuse, just as a lot of people are growing a little tired of Felicity’s sexual innuendos. However, there’s no denying that there is a definite disturbing feel of misogyny to the manner in which it is usually communicated.

          It does seem that the smart, tech geek girl characters get a pass. Characters like that are probably more prominent in crime procedurals, my TV blindspot. However, Felicity counterparts/predecessors I can think off of the top of my head include Chloe on Smallville, Abby on NCIS, Claudia on Warehouse 13, Felicia Day on Eureka/Supernatural, Fred on Angel, maybe early Willow on Buffy, and Molly on Sherlock. Chloe on 24 probably has some of the characteristics but doesn’t completely fit. Among those, I know that Felicity, Chloe, Fred, and Molly were/are shown to have crushes on the show’s male leading man with Willow also having her own crush on a supporting character, i.e., Xander.

          I would agree that beyond her actual performance Cassidy’s already at a disadvantage for her lawyer stuff based simply on her looks. I also agree that her performances alongside Amell certainly evolved over the first season, and she had a pretty touch task playing a character who falls back in love with the man who not only cheated on her but did so with her sister, a sister whose death he is responsible for. That’s an emotional mindefield that could easily result in a character coming off as incredibly weak-willed and pitiable, neither of which describe Cassidy’s version of Laurel.

       4. URGH!! I hate Abby on NCIS!! She gets away with too much! I don’t agree that just becuz a female is the “GEEK” on a series that she gets a pass*by fans anyways*..I only recognize Chloe(LOVE HER) from SMV and Chloe*LOVE HER ALSO* from 24..Saw the entire series two yrs ago..God, is it just me or what..I so dislike and find the daughter pointless. Don’t like her at all. First day/season, yeah, ok..She’s ok..I get why she’s there but Day 2 onwards, what is the point of her..She was annoying and a useless character..URGH!

          LOVE Willow but she’s not your typical “geek” is she! NO.. Fred..Don’t really know, since honestly, LIKE said, I don’t watch much tv series and I’ve not seen ALL of BTVS or Angel..LESS of ANGEL, since I don’t really see the appeal of him or the show..So, I got the gist of both shows but never really show all or any of them much..

          I like the show Chloe’s thou..LOVE their portrayal and Felicity, of course!!

       5. Korinna.

          Well, as for Thea..Well, what can ONE say about a GIRL who choose a GUY over her own mother! I mean, the only thing I can fault Miora in regards to raising her is, her being spoiled rotten to the point of her choosing a GUY or “THE LOVE of HER LIFE” over her mother’s life! I mean, really! Yeah, I get that Miora did wrong but not with EVIL or bad intentions. All she wanted was to PROTECT the spoiled bitch from Malcom when she was left defenseless with a young daughter! You can’t fault a parent for doing everything they can to protect their children/spoiled brat, even if the deed is wrong to begin with but she somewhat came through in the end..It’s really unrealistic for the brat*and I’m being nice here* to choose GUY over the women whom gave you life and had done her BEST to try and protect you..That’s MY reason for not liking Thea at all..Oh and she annoying too..NOT the good kind of annoying also.

          It just seems as thou you claim that anyone not liking STRONG, TOUGH female characters on shows are wrong in their thinking.. I really don’t know what to think about it..Thea is not a very likable character nor is she suppose to exist but whatever..

          Notice I don’t comment on luarel, becuz that would just be repeating myself..I do have to say thou, SHE does not look like a fashion model…She’s to man like..LOL…

       6. Just jumping in real quick to defend Thea…To be fair to Thea, she didn’t know any of the finer points about Moira’s cooperation with Malcolm that we the audience did. All Thea heard was her mom admitting that under threat to her family she had been complicit in a plot to level the Glades, and that there were mere hours for the people to get out of the Glades before the destruction. Moira was instantly taken into custody making her unavailable to explain what exactly she meant about having done it to protect Thea and Oliver. Thea reacted in exactly the fashion that Moira’s announcement was meant to enable-giving everyone a chance to get their loved ones out of the Glades. I get that if you view it as Thea picking Roy over her mother that it is cause to dislike Thea. I just didn’t really view it as being an either/or choice situation since with Moira instantly taken away by cops there was nothing Thea could do really do for her (e.g., it’d be a while before she’d even be able to pay bail if that was even an option).

       7. Well, she never even TRIED, did she?! Not really, not UNTIL OLIVER BEGGED and BEGGED her too…She a bit of bitch, really! To treat your own mother that way, says a lot! Not understand nor even CARING! That’s what gets me!

       8. That it is true that Thea didn’t exactly stick around to hear Moira’s explanation. The two did at least make up at the end of the season 2 premiere.

    3. This is so well written, I want to hug you 🙂

       The majority of Olicity fans appear to behave like they’re 12 years old when expressing their opinion, which makes me think they just might be. Frankly, I have had just about enough of screams of “Olicity!” after every review, when the show is about so much more. I love Felicity as a character but moments between her and Oliver seem incredibly contrived to me, not to mention sudden and inorganic.

       I truly and sincerely hope that the writers do not compromise their integrity, not to mention that of the comic books, to please the teenyboppers of the fandom. Dinah Laurel Lance is the Black Canary and the love of Oliver/Green Arrow’s life. Perhaps they don’t write her as well as they should – I actually think Katie Cassidy is a very capable and cool actress given the right material, for example, her snarky, badass stint on Supernatural – but she should be endgame.

       On Smallville, people liked Clark and Lana, and Clark and Chloe together, but in the end, he married Lois because that is how the comics told the story. Arrow needs to follow the same code of honour, for lack of a better expression. This isn’t Gossip Girl.

       I take comfort in the fact that Stephen Amell seems to agree. But that could be because he is very close to Katie off-screen.

       Reply

       1. “I love Felicity as a character but moments between her and Oliver seem incredibly contrived to me, not to mention sudden and inorganic.”

          You’re definitely not wrong about any of that. I, too, like Felicity. I think the Olicity reaction has been such that the show had to address it, even if just to ultimately build to a conclusion in which Oliver decides that he doesn’t like Felicity in that way and the pair both move on to alternate love interests. That’s actually completely what I thought they were going to do with the two going into the season. I have seen that storyline done fairly well before, and it came off as very sweet (Fred/Angel on Angel). I have also seen Community attempt a somewhat unnecessary entire deconstruction of the notion of a will they/won’t they with Jeff/Annie, which could have been handled better. I didn’t expect Arrow to tease it out so much, though I should have. The bigger concern, as you have pointed out, is that the manner in which they have approached the material has felt largely forced and inorganic. I said it in my recent episode review, but Oliver and Felicity are not actually a couple yet the show persists in having her react to him as a jilted lover might.

       2. Indeed. I personally loved Jeff/Annie but I didn’t find myself devastated by the lack of continuity in that coupling because Community is a show about so much more than romantic pairings, not to mention the fact that, aside from Pierce and Shirley, the characters switch partners more than square dancers, albeit temporarily. I couldn’t stand Fred on Angel but I agree, it was handled well. The characters moved on without any awkwardness or resentment and Fred, in fact, became instrumental in helping Angel realize he was falling in love with Cordelia later that season.

          Felicity works very well as a Girl Friday. She’s a friend and a confidant and I enjoyed the character as she was written previously, hell, I didn’t even mind the minor crush. She was a little like the Moneypenny to Oliver Queen’s James Bond, this slightly quirky, witty female non-love interest with an unrequited puppy crush that didn’t affect either character too much beyond a point. Having Felicity suddenly be heartbroken and furious about Oliver sleeping with other women is absolutely ridiculous. She has no claim on him, nor did she expect to last season. And I did not see any jealousy in the last episode from Oliver whatsoever either. To me, it read as a brotherly figure being protective given the shady characters he has witnessed since his return home. Apparently that is what Stephen was trying to portray as well and I think he did it well.

          The show really needs to re-evaluate this. In season 2, they’ve pushed Laurel all the way back on the promotional poster, and out of some episodes as well, with Felicity being front and centre. Logistically, perhaps it makes sense because she knows Oliver’s secret and therefore gets more screen-time when it comes to the case of the week. But if it was done because of crazed fans’ shouts of “Olicity”, it is really disappointing and frankly, unwise. People already like Felicity. Laurel – or rather, Katie Cassidy – deserves the opportunity to work with better material that allows her to also portray the character in a way that is better received. I personally love Laurel but I do understand people’s frustrations with the things she says and does sometimes because her scenes are so full of drama, angst and the dreaded damsel in distress scenario.

          I guess I’m just sad that a show I loved in season 1, I am not enjoying as much in season 2 because of one overhyped, forced and inaccurate element. I don’t really watch the CW (aside from Supernatural) for this reason but I thought Arrow would be different.

       3. “Having Felicity suddenly be heartbroken and furious about Oliver sleeping with other women is absolutely ridiculous. She has no claim on him, nor did she expect to last season”

          That pretty well sums up the entire Oliver/Felicity season 2 dynamic. Felicity now acts like a character who knows there are people who call her and Oliver Olicity. Also, kudos on the comparison to Moneypenny.

          “I guess I’m just sad that a show I loved in season 1, I am not enjoying as much in season 2 because of one overhyped, forced and inaccurate element.”

          I can relate, though probably not for the same exact reason. The Olicity pandering has been too big to ignore, as has the related effect upon the screen time and characterization of Laurel. However, it’s the increasing soapiness of the show and continual retconning to explain new plot twists that I’ve had a harder time getting past (e.g., I really, really hated bringing Malcolm Merlyn back just for paternity drama with Thea). Plus, although I was thrilled by the action in “Three Ghosts” I was not one of the people clamoring for the show to introduce metahumans/superpowers into this universe. They are definitely taking things in a far more comic book-y direction, and there is an undeniable escapist glee to be had from that. But I do look back on the Christopher Nolan-clone/Brothers & Sisters hybrid it was last season and kind of miss that.

       4. Hi Ella,

          I want to hug you too for your well-written replies and comments! I totally agree with all the points you made in your replies and I think it’s good that our opinions are heard, even if they are minority opinions. I also feel that season two of “Arrow” is a different show from the one I fell in love with in season one, especially when it comes to the characters and their relationships. I think it would have been different if the writers/producers hadn’t emphasized the Oliver/Laurel romance so much in season one, especially in the first part of S1, because then this sidelining of Laurel/Katie Cassidy and the 180 turn towards Olicity wouldn’t have felt so odd and unorganic.

          It’s like both Oliver and Laurel have morphed into different characters (at least in relation to each other), and in my humble opinion (and I know it’s a minority opinion) it is because they have had so little natural interaction in this season. I don’t mean that they have to be romantically involved, I just think they need to share a few scenes that show that they still have some kind of connection. The real action and interaction has mostly been between the members of the “Arrow” team, and the few Laurel/Oliver scenes we’ve had so far have been either antagonistic or angst-ridden. This emotional coldness is odd, given the fact that Oliver in the end of season one declared that Laurel is the most important woman in his life. It is as if the writers decided to let the viewers’ preferences guide their writing in season two, and since Felicity and the (possible) Olicity romance has been much better received (at least by the online fandom) than their own canon ship, they just decided to retcon a bit and phase out Laurel/Lauriver in favour of the fan popular ship. I guess the part of the fan base who would like to see the canon couple continue their romance or who are indifferent to shipping will just have to accept that this is the direction that the show is currently taking.

          I think the original plan was to make Felicity Chloe 2.0, and to have her fill the role of Girl Friday/comic relief with a minor crush Oliver, while he regarded her more as a friend/little sister. Then the Olicity craze started, and the clamors for Felicity and and Olicity romance became so loud that the writers/producers felt the need to address it and even exploit it in their writing and marketing of the show. I felt that Laurel and Oliver were an interesting couple in season one, and I enjoyed their scenes together, while I never really saw the much-hyped chemistry between Felicity and Oliver. Maybe it’s the age difference, but I see her as his little sister, rather than as a love interest. In fact, both Isabel and Shado seem a lot more plausible as love interests. However, the opinion that Katie and Stephen lack romantic/sensual chemistry and Stephen and Emily ooze chemistry has become so dominating that it seems like a self-evident truth. To be honest, I don’t think that Stephen has that much sexual/sensual chemistry with any of the women in the show, Maybe that’s why I don’t see “chemistry” as such a decisive argument for either Olicity or Lauriver-I think it’s more important that both Felicity and Laurel gets better writing and interesting storylines.

          Even if the writers decide to downplay the Laurel/Oliver romance, I wouldn’t regard this as a reason for writing off Laurel/Katie in order to make Olicity the main romance arc. Maybe Oliver will be better off not having any romantic liaisons at all for a while and as for Laurel/Black Canary, she is such an interesting heroine that she doesn’t need to be Oliver’s love interest in order to have a function/role in the show. Like you I just hope that Laurel will get better material to work with and the chance to make her character relevant to the ongoing story, without necessarily being Oliver’s prime “love interest”. As for the Olicity romance, I actually don’t see much of it enacted on screen, even the “Three Ghosts” episode. For a non-shipper viewer event the so-called “Olicity” moments looked rather one-sided-for example, when Felicity hugged Oliver he didn’t seem really overcome with romantic or erotic”feels”, as they would say on tumblr!;-) In fact, he seemed to take it just as a friendly hug, like he was hugging his sister Thea…but then again, I’m not a young Felicity fan who identifies with her and wants her to be together with the handsome hero!

       5. Sorry about the typos and other errors in my latest post-I was in a hurry!

       6. “I think it would have been different if the writers/producers hadn’t emphasized the Oliver/Laurel romance so much in season one, especially in the first part of S1, because then this sidelining of Laurel/Katie Cassidy and the 180 turn towards Olicity wouldn’t have felt so odd and unorganic.”

          Agreed. Hitting the pause button on Oliver/Laurel to take a little bit to follow Felicity’s crush on Oliver to its logical conclusion is actually a good idea. How they’ve gone about it, though, has been incredibly puzzling. It’s forced Oliver, Felicity, and Laurel to all seem like completely different characters on occasion this season.

          As for “Three Ghosts,” based upon what we’ve seen on screen and what the producers have hinted the question they will explore in the immediate future will be whether or not Oliver actually has any feelings for Felicity. The show has been seriously ramping up the Olicity momentum on the show ever since “Keep Your Enemies Closer” when Oliver had his fling with Isabel. However, it’s been largely one-sided. The only time I thought you could actually make a strong argument for it perhaps being mutual was the manner in which they handled/resolved the Vertigo/Arrow confrontation with Felicity in the middle. But you could also make a valid counterargument (e.g., he was just saving his best friend). It is honestly kind of hard to read Stephen Amell’s expressions sometimes, as they tend to be a bit uniform, particularly when he’s Arrow. However, I, too, still saw more of a brotherly vibe from Oliver to Felicity in “Three Ghosts” which makes Felicity’s more romantically-tinged overtures seem bizarrely incestuous. But overall my reading of the direction they’re taking it at the moment is one of an ultimately unrequited affection.

          It’s kind of like this: Laurel/Oliver was the great love of all time in the first season. Felicity was the audience surrogate character who was about the only person on the show allowed to actually comment on Amell’s physique. Then the summer happened, and the chants for Felicity at Comic-Con were deafening, and an admittedly social-media aware producing group decided the Olicity dynamic needed to be explored. However, they realize that so much time for Oliver has been devoted to Laurel that him displaying affection for Felicity would seem odd. They need to establish whether or not he even has feelings for Felicity at all. Plus, beyond that, Felicity’s popularity warrants increased screentime, which they justify in-universe by giving her a new position as Oliver’s secretary. However, they have their big plans for Sara, who is going to occupy Oliver’s time for multiple episodes. So, they condense the Felicity/Oliver arc across a handful of episodes beginning with “Keep Your Enemies Closer,” using Barry Allen to drive a wedge between Felicity and Oliver. But in the process Laurel falls by the wayside, Felicity becomes an oddly increasingly bitter-sounding character when they haven’t established her right to bitterness, and they just can’t help themselves with the endless teasing, never quite tipping their hand one way or another because they want fans to keep debating about it between episodes. The closest they’ve come to showing us their cards was with Barry’s conversation with Felicity in “Three Ghosts” where they might have finally admitted the conclusion to this story will be that Oliver doesn’t feel the same way about her. But then, via voiceover, they imply he does love her (though not necessarily romantically).

          It….could have been handled better.

    4. Well said Korinna…I admit the last episode where the two characters Oliver and Felicity hook up surprised me. Sure, okay, get “the girl”, but get with the right girl. Hence my assuming Ray and Felicity would. Not necessarily Laurel only because he had been unfaithful to her with her sister. Felicity was the inside person on the different ops. Black Canary, her sister, Thea, Ray, Dig, and the others where actual chapters who played super hero parts as equals protecting Starling City.
       I liked Oliver and Laurel, as pat old chums/friends. I didn’t so much care for Sarah except as a love interest of the Ra’s daughter. Thea/Roy, Dig/Leli and baby Sarah, Mom and Walter, Felicity/Ray, I was thinking Oliver now not the Arrow would meet a new love interest. Time will tell. Oliver/Arrow
       messed around a lot with someone it seemed. I thought as the episodes played out he basically used Laurel to get to her baby sister, and because of him, Laurel and father in the end loose the sister. If Felicity was just an IT person, how does she even get the guy in the end of the show? She is an absolutely beautiful, smart, intelligent IT woman working for Ollie Queen.

       Sure, she shows she’s everyone friend, showed friendship with Oliver, sort-of like a big brother little sister, older than Thea relationship that you admire. On the other hand, I never anticipated a drinking, with addictive behavior Laurel, who gets ditched by family friend and led on by Oliver so many, many, many times by our playboy Queen. That’s why Tommy seemed right for her. But internal temper tantrum OQ, always stepped in to screw that relationship up. For a couple of episodes, I admit loosing interest in him because although he seemed nice, concerned, and willing to get back home if only to help mom and Thea, his actions werent always there. Instead, the night of the explosion we see him screwing his longtime girlfriend’s sister?

       The all around IT friend, what IT person is really like this woman, emotional, Felicity? Watching Felicity and Oliver romantically or sexually involved would be like,”Watching a brother and sister make out,” is a good anology of these two. Worshipping Ollie, but was she remotely interested? Katmandu (Ra’a Guls daughter is more “his” type, mysterious, gutsy, smart, intelligent, beautiful, she understood the chemistry of these foot soldiers. She Felicity, is definitely loyal, socially fun, girl friday, who is/was funny, likable, caring character, for Ray, NOT ma in character Oliver Queen. Of course, I understand the writers are listening to me per say, but these two together…Ick.See wore a lot of dresses to get men watching riled, a beautiful, blond, thinner above the waist, but stockier but below the waist. I realize on the whims of the fans it is what it is, but I’ll admit, Arrow is a good show in the evenings after work like Law and Order, it hooks you. The 1000s of ways these characters could interact to save, and protect Starling City with SCPD? Hooked.

       Reply

11. OK, I apologize for putting you among the cray cary oliciters! You just sound so much like the “Olicity” fangirls on tumblr and elsehwere, with their constant putting down of Katie C. and their tendency to elevate a rather cliché secondary character like Felicity to almost celestial heights. These same fangirls also have a rather unrealistic picture of the Oliver/Felicity relationship. In their own fan fiction fantasies it’s not a question IF the “epic F/O love story” will happen, but WHEN, and they interpret every glance and every awkward sexual innuendo as a sign that deep down Oliver is falling in love with Felicity and that in time he will discover her awesomeness and they will consummate their love and become the show’s endgame couple. Some of them even fantasize that Felicity will be the future Black Canary! More balanced viewers, like Kelly Konda, see only an easy-going rapport between the two characters/actors that will probably not lead anywhere, because in the show Laurel and Oliver are meant to be the main romantic couple. It might even be that Felicity will get her own love interest in season two.

    From the tone and style of your post, I understand that you might be quite young, That’s why you think you know the opinions of millions of viewers and I sincerely wonder how you draw your conclusions that NOBODY or EVERYBODY thinks this or that about a certain actor/relationship. It seems highly unrealistic that you could have any grasp whatsoever about the feelings of the general viewership or even the feelings of the online fandom.

    I personally know a lot of fans who think that Katie C, is a good actress and who enjoy the Laurel/Oliver romance. Katie gets gushing replies from fans every day, who obviously thinks that she is a gorgeous and talented actress. As for Katie’s portrayal of Ruby you are far off the mark, because I have met lots of people in the “Arrow” fandom who LOVED Katie on “Supernatural”, while they think she is less convincing in her role as Laurel. So, my impression is that Katie/Ruby was much more of a “fan popular” character than Laurel…and much more popular than Ruby 2.0. So again, you’re imputing your own negative feelings on EVERYBODY, without having any solid evidence whatsoever to back up your allegations. It might be that the hardcore Sam and Dean fangirls didn’t like her, but there is a recent poll up where Ruby is rated one of the most popular of the female characters on “Supernatural”.

    We can argue until hell freezes over, and the only reason I replied was that I felt your allegations shouldn’t remain unanswered. You are free to feel anyway you want about a possible or inevitable Felicity/Oliver romance-just don’t expect the show to go your way, because it probably won’t and you will be in for a major disappointment.

    Reply

    1. Have you even SEEN her in SPN?? I stated that I HATED her character and her character WASN’T LOVED and that is fact..I’m not saying that EVERYONE HATED her character but MOST DO! END of story.

       I also NOTICE that you TEND to back up your so called arguments with endless ‘they said/he said/whatever is posted etc A LOT’…If you haven’t seen SPN, you don’t have the right to make a judgement call on her but instead your using ‘somebody’ else opinion??? Hmmm.

       I’m a bit confused at the following:

       “draw your conclusions that NOBODY or EVERYBODY thinks this or that”

       WHEN or Where do I make the above statement?

       What every is said about the F/O fan, you do the same..YOU can believe that you’re “ABOVE” them but for you to SIT there and TRY to CORRECT ME on my belief or whatever proves that you’re just AS invested in the character ‘laruel’.. Have the decency to be honest about everything.

       From the START..WHAT STARTED me on this posting is the FACT that ALL you ‘laruel’ fans keep on mentioning the whole ‘end game’ thing..I just stated that they WEREN’T together..Yeah, the had a relationship, so what? It didn’t END with them..THAT WAS the WHOLE point of my VERY first post..Nothing else.

       YOU seem to love to BRING NEGATIVE LIGHT/ATTN to the F/O fans being all crazy and fanatic about the two and whomever that is a fan or disagrees with YOU GUYS, so, in the end, it’s still bashing of F/O..Honestly, it’s all the same..YOU GUYS do bash in your own ways and I’m guessing so do they..I really am not familiar with the whole ‘tumbler,tw,fb’ etc..I’ll take your word that the fans are just that, SUPPORTING their favorite couple to the eXtreme!! I’m NEW to this fandom..I saw SEASON 1 in one SITTING about 2 months ago and LOVED Felicity from the start.. I like her and Oliver and that’s about it..But even I am ANNOYED with all the ‘end game’ talk.

       I’m realistic enough to know that F/O is a HARD SELL to go on about in the series but A LOT of LOVE is shown for this pair for a reason and not just becuz they don’t like YOUR LARUEL, so, you call them crazy. That’s what I’m getting from ANYONE whom doesn’t ‘LOVE’ the “main female” LEAD..

       As for my age…What does that have to do with anything? I’m not a tv person..Don’t get me wrong.. I love watching whatever show; just, not until a few yrs later when it’s over or whatever catches my fancy..Like I said, I’m way behide when it comes to tv series..I ABSOLUTELY HATE/LOATHE the ‘TVD’..The show should be called ‘elane’ since everything is about the conceded ‘bitch/*****’…URGH! I can’t understand why anybody would like watching someone like her and a RAPIST..It’s disgusting..URGH! It’s nothing like the books.. I guess 14-18yrs olds don’t care that a girl is literally RAPED and her so called ‘BF’ is only after her own happiness and life(self-absorb bitch)! URGH! I just hate that show! A pretty face and a guy can rape a 16/innocent girl *Caroline* and get away with it on tv..ERUGH! That show should be cancel!!! I’m sorry but NO vamp show thous far has gone or done such horrid things like ‘TVD’..It’s rape and they don’t care!!

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       1. Well, let this be a lesson to you K – it turns out, the Felicity, Laurel, Oliver debate among Arrow fans is a bigger thing than you realized, and when you use all caps in comments sections people take that to mean you’re yelling.

          Your initial point about being frustrated with the Oliver/Laurel endgame argument is understandable as those two are not technically even together in the comics at the moment. Heck, their relationship has been completely erased from history in current continuity. However, films and TV shows often do not reflect the latest development in comic book storyline but instead the relationships that are best understood by the general public therefore usually favoring the longest-lasting relationships. This summer, Man of Steel gave us another Clark Kent/Lois Lane romance even though at the same exact time in the comics Superman was hooking up with Wonder Woman, but they did so because years of history made Clark Kent and Lois Lane synonymous with one another. The same is arguably true of Green Arrow and Black Canary on Arrow. Your point, though, is technically correct: these two are not eachother’s endgame in the comics because they did eventually break up, but that is true of most famous comic book couples (Cyclops and Jean Grey – she died; Clark and Lois – broke up multiple times; Daredevil and Elektra – it’s complicated; Black Widow and Hawkeye – broke up; Thor and Jane Foster – she went back to Earth; Peter Park and Mary Jane Watson – had their marriage erased from continuity). But the idea in the comics tends to be that the longer-lasting a relationship the more inevitable it is that the couple will be reunited eventually, then broken up to repeat all over again.

          That all said, Arrow’s producers have joked that any new, non-related female character is a potential love interest for Oliver. So, for now there really is nothing stopping them from putting Oliver and Felicity together, and you are not wrong that in its first three episodes of the new season the show has certainly given the pair a couple of intriguing moments. What they have said on the matter is that Felicity will at some point, presumably soon, have a conversation with Oliver about her feelings about him as a way of getting it out there and moving on. If they do go there with the two, romantically, which I think is still highly unlikely, I think that the way their story has been structured to this point any love interest – Felicity or otherwise – will be but a temporary relationship on the road to the ultimate happy ending with Laurel. So, if you take away the comic book endgame argument to justify the Laurel/Oliver pairing it’s still an argument that can be made mostly because shows that go as all-in on a couple as Arrow has with Laurel/Oliver struggle to ever back away from it.

          As for Vampire Diaries, there have certainly been multiple occasions where their vampires using compulsion has resulted in situations which are tantamount to rape or assault. The spin-off, The Originals, has actually been kind-of addressing that as of late with a new character questioning the ethics of Klaus’ continual compulsion of her. It plays like they’ve heard the criticism, and are trying to respond. From the sounds of it, though, it’s way too little/too late for you, but I actually kind of like the show. I took bigger issue with a storyline last season in which Elena had been compelled to do whatever Damon said but neither party nor the audience knew it until a quarter of the way into the season.

       2. Wow..That’s a lot of couples splitting up..I’ll take your word for it. PPL go with the flow, so, even thou Superman isn’t with that ‘women’ anymore and instead with WW, PPL don’t like CHANGE..That’s life, I guess..I use caps*to certain words* to not yell but more to info-size the word…

          I don’t see why ‘TO’ series has to explain anything…They’re not the one doing the raping..See, this is just like TVD..No responsibly taken for their actions..That show is trash and honestly, no-one dies and if they do, they come back..It’s pathetic…Kol, feel bad for him and that BITCH elaen destroyed a WHOLE line just becuz she said so..What a conceited, ugly as soul of a bitch! GOD, I hate that show! URGH! It’s old and fast!

       3. We’ll have to agree to disagree about TVD, but I’ll admit the show is by no means above criticism. The one main point you argued that I agree with is that the show does have a nasty habit of bringing back dead characters…repeatedly. It does sometimes serve to diminish the impact of the character’s death.

    2. Just chiming in…I wasn’t crazy about the Katie Cassidy’s version of Ruby, and only warmed to the character when Genevieve Cortese took over the role. However, my understanding of the Supernatural fandom is similar to your own in that I believe my opinion on the subject to be the definite minority. I do recall countless fans complaining about Cortese during season 4 in preference for the Cassidy version of Ruby. I never knew how much of that, though, had to do with the fact that it became known that Cortese and show star Jared Padelecki were dating in real life, and that although teased as being innocent at first the Cortese version of Ruby was like Yoko to Sam & Dean’s Beatles if Yoko had not just broken up the band but also helped enable a horrible cocaine addiction that almost lead to John Lennon’s death or something. Either way, when Cortese’ Ruby was written out I was among the few I knew who missed her.

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12. Just a small addition. Katie Cassidy was voted the best female actress on “Arrow” with 43% of the vote in the GreenArrowTV polls:

    http://www.greenarrowtv.com/best-actor-female

    Emily Bett-Rickards got only 19% of the votes for best supporting character, largely surpassed by John Barrowman, who won landslide victories in all the categories he participated in.

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    1. Wow. It’s hard to quantify fandom and everything, but that’s an interesting poll result to throw out there. Good for Cassidy. Based on all the Felicity chatter, I would have expected Rickards to get more than 19%.

       Reply

       1. Actually, my memory failed me a bit…Emily got 27% of the votes in the guest star/supporting actor category, while Barrowman got 44%:

          http://www.greenarrowtv.com/best-guest-star

          It seems that it’s hard to win any category that includes the Barrowman-he won the favourite villain category with 78% of the votes!

    2. Polls really mean nothing when there’s OBVIOUS hate(LOL) going on…”Shrugs”… Yet again, with these “POLLS”…Hmmm.

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    3. Can’t really compare since ONE is the “leading” actress while the other is the supporting/guest star..Their polls wouldn’t even have been in the same category??

       On another note..Was there something wrong with this site a day or two ago?? I tried to get here through email but then a WARNING POP-UP saying the site has a virus or is dangerous etc and I was recommend to GET OUT, FAST!?

       Reply

       1. As far as I am aware, there is nothing wrong with the site. You’re the first to mention encountering any kind of pop-up mentioning any kind of virus. I am sorry about that, and will look into it. If it happens again please contact me at kellykonda@weminoredinfilm.com. In such a situation, I’ll have to check with my webhost, WordPress.com, to get things in order.

       2. I thought Caity was referring to the official Season 2 Cast Photo: http://www.superherohype.com/images/stories/2013/August/arrow_season_2_poster.jpg

          It’s the one that has Laurel in the back left-hand corner of the frame, behind Slade, Felicity, and Oliver. When it was released, a lot of Arrow fans took notice of how the photo de-emphasized Laurel in favor of Felicity. It was in stark contract to season 1 photos which prominently featured Laurel and didn’t feature Felicity at all.

       3. YOUR KIDDING, RIGHT!?!?!?

          That blonde in the far left corner, behide SLADE is ‘laruel’..WOW! The women looks NOTHING like ‘laruel’ at all. Why is she BLONDE in that poster and it can’t be her. Too different in appearances, reason why I can NEVER figure out WHO SHE IS!

          I’ve mentioned many times before that, the actress/Laruel LOOKS ODD and OFF and WEIRD and now, I think I know..There’s something wrong with her CHIN!! It’s too sharp..HAVE she had surgery of any kind??? She looks so OFF!!! She doesn’t look like how she does in past pic or even in SPN! Her face, with that chin is so elongated.. That’s whats been bugging me about her FACE.

          Anyway, thanks for finally letting me know it’s laruel that’s in the BACK-GROUND!! YOU sure it’s HER!! It DOESN’T even look like THE SAME PERSON..YOU SURE????

       4. I don’t know anything about whether or not Cassidy has had any work done. However, yes, I can guarantee you that’s her in the poster mostly because the CW identified it as her when they first released that poster two or so months ago. Her hair does seem a bit lighter this season than last, though maybe not as light as it looks in that picture.

13. Who is Luarel???

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14. FINALLY! People who are talking sense about Felicity! It’s so refreshing to read. I just don’t see any chemistry between Felicity and Oliver at all and I really cannot see them as a couple. Friends, yes. Don’t get me wrong, I like Felicity as a character, but all the “Olicity” shippers make it really hard to like her sometimes. I’m sick of all the hype! It’s getting ridiculous, especially when they start bashing Katie Cassidy/Laurel who is a very good actress in my opinion. I also can’t stand it when the “Olicity” shippers constantly comment about Felicity on things that have nothing to do with her. For example, previews and photos from Arrow where she isn’t even present. VERY VERY annoying. I personally like Oliver with Laurel and the intense chemistry between the two, but I wish the writers would also stop giving Felicity more airtime than Laurel. She’s the leading lady for crying out loud. And as for having Laurel at the back of the poster for season 2, and Felicity up front that was disgusting. She shouldn’t be treated like that. If this Olicity crap continues, it will put me off the show which is a shame because I love Arrow. I just can’t bear to watch all this Olicity hype takeover. It’s getting ridiculous.

    Reply

    1. “For example, previews and photos from Arrow where she isn’t even present. VERY VERY annoying. I personally like Oliver with Laurel and the intense chemistry between the two, but I wish the writers would also stop giving Felicity more airtime than Laurel. She’s the leading lady for crying out loud. And as for having Laurel at the back of the poster for season 2, and Felicity up front that was disgusting.”

       What is the above about? What poster/photos?? The only POSTER I know about is the one with the ISLAND as the back-drop and Oliver, Felicity, Diggle, thea, roy, Slade and this one BLONDE women that I have NO IDEA who she is?

       Reply

15. ” I’m sick of all the hype!”
    You’re not the only one, believe me!

    Reply

16. ‘K’ if you’re familiar with Amell’s facebook and the Official Arrow facebook page, there are several promotional videos and photos regarding Arrow that are uploaded daily. There’s also the occasional video from the cast themselves thanking fans and just generally interacting with them which are very cool. I’ve noticed that even when Felicity/Emily isn’t present in these videos and photos, which half of the time she is, you get Olicity shippers constantly bringing her up in the comment section when it’s not necessary. It’s getting ridiculous. For example, the Arrow page promoted Katie’s fashion blog recently, to which Olicity fans had something to say about it. the majority of the comments were from Olicity shippers, slating Katie… again. I mean, give the girl a break. It doesn’t always have to be about Felicity Felicity Felicity. Anther example is stills from episodes. If there is any photo of Katie alone, without any doubt there’s people commenting ‘#TEAMFELICITY’ ‘OLICITY’ WE WANT FELICITY’ I mean, really? There’s just no need. It’s beyond too much now. Like I’ve said, the hype is ridiculous. It’s like no one else can have any limelight but Felicity from the show. I also saw a video from Stephen, Katie, Willa and Colton thanking the fans for reaching 1M facebook likes, and again all the comment were about Felicity. She’s overrated in my book. I like her character, don’t get me wrong, but not everything has to be about her.

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    1. I like Felicity as a character, but I’m kind of with Korinna in that I’ve seen shipping wars break out among TV show fandom but never quite like this. I like seeing even more of Felicity this season, but at times I kind of miss when she would just show up for a little while, be awesome, and then be gone again. It’s strange to say since I run a website I quite often use to review and cover Arrow-related news, but my enjoyment of the show is somewhat predicated upon at some level tuning out the Olicity/Lauriver wars. It’s not an easy thing to do.

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       1. “but never quite like this”

          It can’t be that bad??

17. Caity, you’re absolutely right! It’s been years since I’ve been in a TV fandom, but I have never before seen this kind of gushing and fangirliing over a character who is (objectively speaking) nothing more than a rather run-of-the mill “cute and awkward” Hollywood nerd. I mean, girls like Felicity are a staple on just about every sci fi/crime procedural show-there is nothing special about her that warrants all this hype. Fortunately the hysteria is pretty much limited to the FB pages and tumblr-on most “Arrow” discussion forums that I participate on there isn’t that much talk about Felicity or Olicity…people are more interested in discussing the plot developments and the various comic book characters than talking ad nauseam about Felicity, Olicity, Felicity, Olicity…I wonder what will happen if the “oliciters” get their way and Felicity and Oliver will consummate their epic love story…maybe they’ll discover that is isn’t that special after all!

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18. I couldn’t agree more. I recently read this article and it pretty much hits the nail on then head.

    http://arrowfan1.tumblr.com/post/68051369803/a-follow-up-on-the-laurel-lance-post

    Reply

    1. LOL! I wrote that one! It pretty much sums up my feelings on the whole Laurel/Felicity/Oliver issue.

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19. I think the part that fangirls get into is the natural romance dynamic: dorky, but super helpful girl A is into super hot hunk…. who is in turn into crazy beautiful girl b, it’s so perfect for the ending to be that the hunk realizes that girl a is actually his true love… right under his nose the whole time. I

    Reply

    1. You’re not wrong. With Felicity being an audience surrogate figure last season, I’m sure the dynamic you’ve described seemed all the more enticing since any fangirl could just imagine themselves in Felicity’s place. The drama-filled end of the scenario would be for the hunk to reach his realization too late, and the girl has moved on, not one to allow herself to be taken for granted. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out on Arrow.

       On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 12:10 PM, We Minored In Film

       Reply

20. Can I just say how very much I hate the Moneypenny allusion? Has anyone thought just how much that relationship has to SUCK for Moneypenny? ‘Why, yes, Mr. Bond, let me stay home and do basically nothing while you romance half the world.’ Why in the world would anyone wish that on a fun, intelligent character?

    The liking of Felicity is not a fangirl thing. I didn’t come to Arrow to ‘ship anyone. That said, Arrow seemed like it was going to be a Lost/Hamlet mashup until Felicity came on board. The Team Arrow dynamic of Digg, Oliver and Felicity *works*. You need someone with a sense of humor or else the constant drama gets very, very old. There was no banter until she came on board, and I expect that out of a superhero show. Not camp, not stunts, just a little witty whistling in the dark. I don’t mind her quirks. With all the reserved characters running around, it’s nice to have one character who’s got little filtering.

    And frankly, I’m not happy with the whole ‘let’s farm the geek girl off as the bestie friendie’ bit, either. If it wasn’t such a repeated theme in television, that would be one thing, but it’s getting to the point where such characters are as stereotypical as the friends of men as the gay best friend is for female characters. Someone who’s a pipeline into the other sex without being a threat to existing relationships.

    The difference is, though, the gay male best friend frequently has or is seeking a relationship and the friendship has no potential for emotional bad news. The same is not true with the ‘not really a girl’ geek girl.

    I wanted to like Laurel, but as written, the character has just no sense of humor. Not impressed with Sara, either. If the show’s hero was less angsty, it wouldn’t be a problem, but angst on top of angst on top of angst…no.

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    1. I think the comparison of season 1 Felicity to Moneypenny is accurate, but you’re not wrong: Moneypenny’s life would be all flirt with no pay-off. After a while, that seems like it would beyond suck.

       As for Felicity’s function, my favorite part of the show was and still is Team Arrow. I am less interested in the romantic relationships or family dynamics or island stuff, but when Felicity, Diggle, and Oliver are plotting their next move, be it in the Arrow cave or conference table at his Queen Consolidated office, I’m usually pretty happy. A lot of that has to do with the much-needed levity Felicity brought to the show. The producers say the tone of their show keys off of their lead character which is why they plan on making Flash a more light-hearted show since Barry Allen is a different kind of hero than Oliver’s brooding bad-ass. However, because Arrow takes itself so seriously they rarely engage in Buffy/Angel Whedon-esque humor to ease dramatic tension. That’s just not the kind of show or writing Arrow is interested in being, sometimes to their detriment I’d argue. Instead, their most consistent source of humor is Felicity, which makes her jokes all the more important. I think I reacted to her much as you did, then.

       The Felicity geek girl character type is becoming somewhat cliche, you’re right. It’s not just how similar she is to Chloe Sullivan on Smallville but also Molly on Sherlock. Teen Wolf also had a similar character, who then turned out to be a big villain. To be fair, Arrow does have to deal with expectations of Oliver ending up with Black Canary due to the comics, and they did give Felicity a love interest…for 2 episodes before taking him away and putting him on his own show where he’ll have his own love interest.

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       1. The comic are wrong too..Oliver Queen and BC divorced and honestly, BC is ONE of many women he’s cheated on; it’s just that SHE’S the one that keeps coming back for more and more and heart-break..Doesn’t maker her the ‘LOVE OF HIS LIFE’..

          Also, in the comics, she is originally married to ‘Larry Lance’..It wasn’t until MUCH, MUCH later that she had the on-and-off relationship with OQ..

          It could EVEN BEE SAID that the whole ‘comic-book’ canon has ALREADY been FILLED with Sara and Oliver coming together..It just depends on how one looks at it.

          “L” is a pathetic and useless character and PLEASE don’t even JOKE about her ‘destiny/TRIAL’ to becoming BC is her being a DRUGGIES and a DRUNK and A BITCH!

       2. I think the argument is not so much about specifics as it about popular association. Oliver Queen is so commonly thought of in connection to Black Canary (and vice versa) that it gives them the feel of a Clark Kent/Lois Lane, Peter Parker/Gwen Stacey (and then Mary Jane Watson) pairing. You assume there are other love interests who come along, but you figure that those crazy kids must always seem to eventually come back to each other.

          However, you’re not wrong – if you look at the actual history of Green Arrow and Black Canary there’s is a weird, loopy, long-lasting, and sometimes co-dependent pairing. So, you can make a solid argument for why they aren’t each other’s end game after all, but the actual specifics of the storylines don’t tend to matter when it comes to the romantic pairings of characters in film/TV adaptations of comic books. For example, when Man of Steel came out Clark Kent and Lois Lane weren’t actually a couple. She had a serious boyfriend, and he eventually had Wonder Woman. However, Man of Steel didn’t have to honor any of that because everyone thinks of Clark Kent and Lois Lane as going hand-in-hand. So, there was Amy Adams giving Henry Cavill a big kiss at the end. It’s for that same reason that Black Canary will always kind of seem like a love interest for Oliver, if not now, then down the road.

          But Arrow has done some funky ass crap. You’re right – you could read Sara’s relationship with him as being their version of Black Canary and Green Arrow, and they’re going all in on Felicity/Oliver this season. So, who knows what the heck is going to happen.

21. And for the record, I really do wish people would quit generalizing certain fandoms as belonging to a specific age group. You couldn’t be more wrong. I don’t hang with twenty somethings, I’m far from being a teenager, and my thirtyandfortysomething friends like the dynamic because it’s *different*. About the only thing we have in common with Felicity is that we *do* tend to enjoy quick wit and quips — and yes, the occasional unintentional double entendre or pun.

    It’s sad that one fandom seems to need to disparage others. Accept that some people enjoy some dynamics and others different dynamics, and be civil. The important point is for everyone to enjoy the show and respect what others enjoy about it.

    Reply
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