The Felicity Smoak Discussion Thread

[evaba]

Since I've always considered Felicity's CEO storyline forced, highly unrealistic and ultimately meaningless (at least in terms of character development), I'm glad that I at will at least have the satisfaction of watching her get fired! [insert evil cackle!] With the mediocre writing that is plaguing "Arrow" these days, you have to cherish every little crumb of goodness you get. Of course, I'm sure that this is a temporary setback, and Guggenheim and his writers will find a way to prove the boards of directors' wrong and again show us what a truly remarkable, capable and badass woman Felicity is! I mean, I find it hard to believe that Guggenheim would really let Felicity fail at anything....

P.S. I know that the board didn't fire Felicity because she is incompetent/never seems to spend any time on her job, but because they are a evil and greedy! Still, it's hopefully the end of an IMHO pretty useless storyline.

[JDBentz]

Since I've always considered Felicity's CEO storyline forced, highly unrealistic and ultimately meaningless (at least in terms of character development), I'm glad that I at will at least have the satisfaction of watching her get fired! [insert evil cackle!] With the mediocre writing that is plaguing "Arrow" these days, you have to cherish every little crumb of goodness you get. Of course, I'm sure that this is a temporary setback, and Guggenheim and his writers will find a way to prove the boards of directors' wrong and again show us what a truly remarkable, capable and badass woman Felicity is! I mean, I find it hard to believe that Guggenheim would really let Felicity fail at anything....

P.S. I know that the board didn't fire Felicity because she is incompetent/never seems to spend any time on her job, but because they are a evil and greedy! Still, it's hopefully the end of an IMHO pretty useless storyline.

Honestly, since Felicity seems to be Oliver's guide on his hero's journey now, I hope this puts her (and therefore Oliver) in the mindset to stick up for the little guy going into Season 5.

[Amarice]

Honestly, since Felicity seems to be Oliver's guide on his hero's journey now, I hope this puts her (and therefore Oliver) in the mindset to stick up for the little guy going into Season 5.

Don't count on that. Building up individual stories about Random People would actually need putting into it some effort. It's much easier to put into some danger Felicity/Oliver/Thea/Dig/their families/family's dog etc. That's why they are running in circles, because how many times you can reuse the same storyline? Right, in season 1 people closest to Oliver were also put in danger from time to time, but not ALL the time.

[evaba]

Don't count on that. Building up individual stories about Random People would actually need putting into it some effort. It's much easier to put into some danger Felicity/Oliver/Thea/Dig/their families/family's dog etc. That's why they are running in circles, because how many times you can reuse the same storyline? Right, in season 1 people closest to Oliver were also put in danger from time to time, but not ALL the time.

The funny thing is that in season one SOME people were constantly complaining about Laurel being the perpetual "Damsel in Distress"! How things change! Anyway, here is an interesting article about CEOs being fired/forced to step down, even from companies that they themselves have founded:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2013/03/28/when-ceos-get-terminated-by-companies-they-founded/#7d3033cd63dd

[Amarice]

The funny thing is that in season one SOME people were constantly complaining about Laurel being the perpetual "Damsel in Distress"!

TBH in season 1/early 2 Laurel was put in danger at least half a dozen times which well, at some point wandered into the territory of reusing the same Trope again and again. But there was a lot of others things happening, those individual, procedural episodes suited so well to "Arrow's" world and their plots were not solely about the main heroes/their family. Felicity was also put in danger, but it was so different from the situation we have now. I really sympathized with Felicity when she posed as a bait for the Dollmaker, or when she was taken by Vertigo, or in that casino... She was not some artifical Mary Sue, she was a normal girl pulled into Oliver's crazy crusade.

[DoubleDevil]

The funny thing is that in season one SOME people were constantly complaining about Laurel being the perpetual "Damsel in Distress"! How things change! Anyway, here is an interesting article about CEOs being fired/forced to step down, even from companies that they themselves have founded:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/karstens.../#7d3033cd63dd

Interesting article. I probably should've moved my discussion about Felicity and her appropriation of the business plane for private use from the episode "Genesis" thread back here since it did run a few days. Oh well, thanks for the read.

I did enjoy that she got fired (had to break my self imposed boycott at least for those scenes). I find it interesting that she was supposedly fired because of the “greedy“ board when in actuality it was her ignoring the board and going rogue in how she wanted to run the company. Felicity didn't show up for multiple meetings they requested in order to talk about what she wanted to do and she kept shrugging them off as unimportant and unnecessary (the last meeting was cancelled because her mom showed up, showed Mr. Dennis how dedicated Felicity was to Palmer Tech). So yeah, they're gonna get pissed and fire her.

[BkWurm1]

Interesting article. I probably should've moved my discussion about Felicity and her appropriation of the business plane for private use from the episode "Genesis" thread back here since it did run a few days. Oh well, thanks for the read.

I did enjoy that she got fired (had to break my self imposed boycott at least for those scenes). I find it interesting that she was supposedly fired because of the “greedy“ board when in actuality it was her ignoring the board and going rogue in how she wanted to run the company. Felicity didn't show up for multiple meetings they requested in order to talk about what she wanted to do and she kept shrugging them off as unimportant and unnecessary (the last meeting was cancelled because her mom showed up, showed Mr. Dennis how dedicated Felicity was to Palmer Tech). So yeah, they're gonna get pissed and fire her.

Felicity didn't miss any meetings because she never arranged or agreed to any meetings. She did not have a meeting with Mr. Dennis. He showed up without an appointment.

[DoubleDevil]

Felicity didn't miss any meetings because she never arranged or agreed to any meetings. She did not have a meeting with Mr. Dennis. He showed up without an appointment.

I didn't say she missed any meetings, I said she didn't show up to any meetings they requested. And the meeting that got cancelled because her mom showed up was the board members that were already waiting for her, not a meeting with Mr. Dennis. Then again maybe they used that meeting to fire her instead of just cancelling it.

[BkWurm1]

Are we talking some other episode because in her conversation with Mr. Dennis before her mom showed up she told him she didn't have time to talk to him and that the board could wait - not that they WERE currently waiting, but her dealing with the whole thing was going to have to wait. He'd been there to talk to her about not returning his calls, not to see if she was ready to go to a board meeting. There was no meeting with the board going on while she was in her office. And if she wasn't returning calls or scheduling meetings, then there wouldn't be any meeting where they'd expect her to be there.

A decision was made by the board to then just fire her but either it was put together after she once again told Mr. Dennis she was too busy at the time to talk to him or for all we know they had a conference call.

[DoubleDevil]

Are we talking some other episode because in her conversation with Mr. Dennis before her mom showed up she told him she didn't have time to talk to him and that the board could wait - not that they WERE currently waiting, but her dealing with the whole thing was going to have to wait. He'd been there to talk to her about not returning his calls, not to see if she was ready to go to a board meeting. There was no meeting with the board going on while she was in her office. And if she wasn't returning calls or scheduling meetings, then there wouldn't be any meeting where they'd expect her to be there.

A decision was made by the board to then just fire her but either it was put together after she once again told Mr. Dennis she was too busy at the time to talk to him or for all we know they had a conference call.

It really doesn't matter whether the board was already gathered or not (and I'm not wasting my time to rewatch it), the point is the board requested a meeting with her on several occassions to explain to them what she was planning to do which she declined. It wasn't a greedy, money hungry board of directors firing her because she wanted to give away technology as was insinuated, they wanted to talk to her about it and she refused, that's what got her fired. Big business does do a lot of charitable work whether you believe it or not and if Felicity would've actually talked with the board they may have agreed with her. Instead Mr. Dennis (and therefore the board) sees she'd rather chat with her mother on company time. Go ahead with the false claims of evil big business but here it's crystal clear they're a lie.

[BkWurm1]

Well the show implied otherwise.

[Halberdier17]

This isn't really about Felicity but it relates to the amount of screentime her mother gets.

Somebody counted it; Donna Smoak has now had more screentime in the Arrowverse than Ra's Al Ghul, Henry Allen, and Patty Spivot. She is 15 seconds away from passing Maseo Yamashiro and 7 minutes and 30 seconds from overtaking Damien Darhk.

[acer15]

I would not mind if the wrote Donna smoak out of the show.

[President_Luthor]

I don't necessarily have a problem with Donna -- in brief bursts during a short time-frame. She provides humour, lightens the mood in the series etc. The caveat here is: in brief doses.

It's the character's growing level of exposure on the series that I'd have some issue with.

I'd have no problem with Quentin-Donna having a minor sideshow subplot during S5, in fact I expect this. But potentially giving her personal trials and tribulations Plot A prominence in S5 episodes or even in a story arc? Nuh-uh. I'm also not confident that increasing Quentin's melodramatic subplots would be a good move story-wise for him. Does he need an Ivy Town-like break? Yes, he does. Do I need to see all of it play out on screen? No, most of it can happen off-screen, thanks.

I'm flabbergasted that Donna has had more screentime than Ra's Al Ghul. Considering the guy brought Ollie to his knees and practically killed him, I only expected bigger fish like Malcolm or Slade to surpass his screen-time -- but then again, even the Demon's Head was required to ship late-S3 Olicity, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

(Once Ra's joined the shipper army, I think he deserved a new nickname. I don't know -- Razzy, or something appropriately juvenile.)

[canaryalive]

I like Felicity a lot in season 1 and 2. She was cute, shy, funny but very brave, determined and a good friend, ready to put her life in danger for the sake of others. I was interested in her character to be explored more, I hoped this exploration will be more about her and did not involved love and romance. I wanted her to have a centric episode the same why Diggle had, to see her father story line develop and her partnering up with another female character for a case. I liked her as a loner and workaholic.
I was quite disappointed when they started to develop her as a love interest and all her stories revolved around men, whether it was Oliver or Ray. So for me personally her character regressed mainly because of the men in her life.
In season 3, for example, she was right not to want to work with Malcolm, and the speech she gave Oliver after he came back to life, was right on the spot, but everything felt so cheesy with the ending where it was more about their romance rather than the stupid choice Oliver is making.
Season 4 had big potential to give more depth in Felicity because they focused a lot in her character, but unfortunately season 4 is the worst written season and a long side with the other characters, she was also completely destroyed. They juggled with too many story lines for her and all were rushed and undeveloped and her character fell flat and misunderstood in the love drama department.
I liked her story with her father though, and I wanted to see her more as a CEO. She saving the world in the last episode was a big thing for her character.
I also wanted the wheel chair story to mean something and to show her more human and imagined that this will play a part in her relationship more.
I hope this season they will focus only on one story line for the character and she will be able to move forward and away from the spell of a love interest and the disastrous story lines that come with that.