Is ‘Arrow’s Oliver in #Olicity Denial?
Getting his crime-fighting game back on point is gonna be harder than Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) realized now that he’s both mayor of Star City and down about half a team. But according to executive producer Marc Guggenheim, it’s also gonna be entertaining as hell.
“I think the fun has been asking ourselves how we can sort of rebuild the show from the ground up again,” says Guggenheim, who is doing some renovating over on Legends of Tomorrow, too. “Oliver lost his team at the end of Season 4 and by doing that, we created an opportunity to redo things.”
RELATED: Arrow: Chad Coleman on Being Oliver’s New Foe and “A Capital Badass”
Part of that entails the development of a new team, which begins to take shape Wednesday night. In addition to “properly meeting” Rick Gonzalez’s Wild Dog, the vigilante teased in last week’s season opener, Guggenheim previews that we will also see the return of Madison McLaughlin’s Artemis from last season, as well as Rory Regan (Joe Dinicol), better known as the Batman comics character Ragman.
“They make for a very nice combo platter, especially when you add in Curtis Holt,” he says of the newbies. Although they may have second thoughts about the whole do-gooding thing after they get a load of their leader. “We are setting up the idea that Oliver is not just going to recruit them, he’s also going to train them,” continues Guggenheim with a laugh. “That excited us because this is an opportunity for Oliver to be a douche…which is something we enjoy writing occasionally.”
“What did you say about my suit?”
As if that isn’t enough to keep our hero busy, there is also the matter of his still-in-shambles love life. Now that we know Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) is involved with Det. Billy Malone (Tyler Ritter), isn’t about time Oliver caught on to the sitch, as well? One would think a superhero would be more on the ball about the ex-fiance he works with every day.
RELATED: Stephen Amell: Arrow Is “More Grounded” in Season 5
“That’s a good question!” agrees Guggenheim. “It speaks to the fact that Oliver has had a lot on his plate lately and…also, I think Oliver is trying to adopt a more hopeful tone, be more optimistic. And in that optimism, he’s hoping that he and Felicity will get back together. So perhaps there is a little bit of denial at play that he hasn’t clocked the new spring in Felicity’s step.”
This being Arrow, Guggenheim points out, “it is just a matter of time” before Oliver puts two and two together. And when he does, this Green Arrow may not be so green with envy. “I don’t think Oliver reacts the way most people would expect him to react.”
Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.
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C
So Felicity gets thrown under the bus for Oliver's manpain again. I'm sick and tired of the way they write women on this show. Was there even a point to giving Felicity a boyfriend
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G
For the same reason they used her to prop Barry and Ray when they first appeared. But who cares about her own storyline anyway? Testosterone prevails.
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O
They gave her a boyfriend so Oliver doesn't look like a giant a-hole for moving on. He'll get a new love interest soon. It's all so predictable. These writers couldn't write their way out of a paper bag.
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O
This Felicity boyfriend storyline is the worst thing they could have done. No thanks. Looks like I'm dropping Flash and Arrow this season.
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G
Seems like a good chunk of their female audience is following your lead if we're going by the demo for their premieres. Serves them right. I'll always support the cast but there's much better TV than this and I won't stick around to see my favorite characters getting butchered.
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I've been thinking about dropping it ever since they broke up Oliver and Felicity. The season was terrible from that moment on. Now this just cemented my decision. I'm mad how they're treating Felicity, throwing a boyfriend at her so it's ok for Oliver to move on. I'm not here to see Oliver regress or sleep with more women like S1. I'm over it.
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It's sad that my interest with the show plummeted when I realized what they were doing this season. They're not even being subtle about it. He'll maybe sleep with the journalist, then they'll introduce the new BC in 5x11 and they they'll go from there. Meanwhile the only piece of info we get about Felicity is this new random boyfriend and Sara Diggle gets erased by flashpoint to be replaced with a comic canon boy.
Point being there's too much retconning for me to ever have faith in these writers again.
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O
Yep. Everything the EP's have hinted at pre-season has slowly turned me off the show. Felicity got a bf so Oliver can move on. He'll probably get a couple of love interests, what with all this back to basics nonsense. Just like S1, right? Sara Diggle's erasure proves they don't value female characters as much as male ones. All the retcons about Laurel being a saint and Oliver blaming himself for her death (when he didn't in S4) just adds up to me feeling messed around. Plus there's a load of new characters I don't care about and little of what I do, such as Felicity and Diggle. So it's pointless continuing. I know when enough is enough.
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They don't value female characters and if Felicity's paralysis storyline is any indication, they never did. Thea gets chained by the foot to an abusive dad for 2+ seasons until they realized they couldn't milk that storyline anymore. The inconsistencies with Laurel's writing ever since she was introduced were like whiplash to any viewer until she fell into the background. Once they killed her off, they're now acting like she's this symbol of purity and goodness. It's okay NOT to be considering all the characters in this show are flawed but the inconsistencies and the retconning... Nah, not for me.
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R
How does the fool come on and say "Felicity has a spring in her step" like a man is all she needs? They are also saying she is going to be dealing with the fallout of Havenrock? Oh yeah Oliver finds out "the love of his life" has moved on and he, from what this idiot says probably acts rationale and then find his own "supposed" love interest I guess so he can get a "spring in his step" as well. Why does this fool Marc even bother to open his mouth. He vomits I'm an incompetent, hack, with no original thoughts, crappy ass writer and show-runner each time he does. Well I'm out for this season. I will read comments & reviews in hope that something can bring me back to this season but I really don't see it happening in 5A maybe 5B will be better (really not thinking it will be but whatever there are good shows on so I don't have to settle for a badly written and thought out story line for Arrow!
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i could have been interested, or maybe even excited, by this storyline if I didn't hate so much what they are doing with the show in terms of Felicity and now baby Sara.
If they wanted to keep Oliver and Felicity apart romantically and just colleagues this season, fine, do it. But giving her a new boyfriend makes her look shallow and I hate seeing him on screen so I'm skipping these episodes.
I'm furious that they erased Baby Sara so they could make Diggle's child a boy. This show is already too heavy with men, just look at the new team -- Oliver, Wild Dog, Curtis and Evelyn as the lone woman. Taking away baby Sara, on The International Day of The Girls for heaven's sake, is just rubbing salt into the wound.
Call me when this show is back to what it was in the first part of season 4.
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They're clearly giving Felicity a boyfriend to ''show they are not catering to Olicity fans''. OH MY GOD. That was sort of clear when those fans were hoping for a wedding, but got the worst EVER story line of a baby mama. If they couldn't take the heat Olicity was bringing, truly, really, leave them as partners, get some flirting in like season 2, and be done with it - for this season at least. Do NOT introduce random love interests that will do NOTHING, but annoy people. The problem is - it could MAYBE be believable that they are in dark/difficult places individually and are not ready to be in a serious relationship. Got it. But what is NOT believable is that after what we so with their driving into the sunset, getting engaged and everything the writers put them through, that they would be easily moving on. No. No. No. I'm sure Olicity is endgame of sorts, but what matters to me more is actually the journey -- and THIS sucks. I'll always somewhat care about Arrow, and check in periodically to see what's up, but this bullshit with no Diggle & Felicity in a loft with another dude.... not gonna tune in for this.
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O
I would've been totally cool if Olicity didn't get back together until the end of the season or the beginning of the next. They have issues to work through. But the new love interests doesn't add up with what they were selling last season. "You're my always, I just want the chance to be yours." "We found ourselves in each other." You don't say stuff like that and then date other people. It's crap.
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Ratings continue to drop season 5 premier was down 36% from season 4 and judging by the comments more and more people are going to stop watching the show all because Marc Guggenheim is a talentless idiot who is running this show into the ground and no one at Berlanti productions seems to care. Making Oliver all angry and alone and Felicity dating some guy is so season 3 again. Who wants to see that crap besides Guggenheim?
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O
"That excited us because this is an opportunity for Oliver to be a douche...which is something we enjoy writing occasionally." -- I think this may be a big problem with Arrow right now. Last season, they made Oliver into too much of a douche with the lying and never apologizing. Hard to root for a guy who's an a-hole.
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C
The characters are thrown under the bus when they're prioritizing dramatic moments over character moments, it's what I've always hated the most about the show. My biggest problem this year, and I'm saying this while despising douche!oliver, is the retconning. It's almost like they're trying to recreate the Oliver from the early seasons but without any nuance. It started with killing his opponents and it's gonna soon follow with the sleeping around. None of those things make sense after 4 seasons.
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