Loved it? Hated it? What did you think of Legends of Yesterday?

[katakombs]

To say that this is a trust issue in Olicity and that Felicity was wrong not to trust Oliver is to throw out 3 + seasons of Arrow canon. One of the major problems Oliver has always had with his team, especially Diggle and Felicity, is that he keeps them from the truth and in so doing, screws things up all by himself instead of getting their insight into the situation.

Oliver may have needed to rely only on himself during his five years away but when he got back to Starling City, he has repeatedly be shown to screw things up when he ignores his Team and makes decisions entirely on his own. Not telling Thea that Malcolm was her bio-dad got Thea not only living with Malcolm for 6 months but also got Sara killed by her.

Oliver decided he had to fight Ra's all on his own. That didn't end well, if Maseo/Sarab hadn't been there, Oliver would have died in the snow. Does he learn his lesson? No, he returns and alienates his Team by declaring that they are going to join forces with Malcolm Merlyn, the man who killed his father and caused the death of 503 people in the city including Oliver's best friend, who drugged Oliver's sister to kill his former lover and set everything into motion. And of course, once again, Oliver can't do it alone. He needs the help of all of his Team but first, he convinces that they are going to die in the Nanda Parbat prison of a deadly virus. Imagine how they must have felt, not only those further from him like Ray and Laurel, but Diggle and Felicity. And still they helped him save the city once again by catching the carriers and the virus while he fought Ra's. Every time Oliver tries to do something alone, it doesn't work.

Lyla forgave Oliver kidnapping her long before Diggle did. Why? Because Diggle was closer to Oliver, he thought of him as his brother who he could save so Oliver's betrayal was much harder on him. Felicity is even closer to Oliver, she forgave Oliver everything at the end of the season because she loved him and thought he had finally learned that he had to communicate with the people close to him and not make decisions entirely on his own. But now she's in a relationship with him and as he breaks her trust, he may break the relationship entirely by lying to her.

This isn't an Olicity problem, it's an Oliver "keeps doing the same thing hoping for a different result" problem.

Does he feel that he can't trust Felicity -- or is it motivated by a nagging sense that she isn't "The One" or (more likely) he's not ready/mature enough to make her, or anyone, The One at this point in his life. Either way, he'd owe it to her to say so, even if it means they split up for good.

I'll take Door 4, that she is The One (he was ready to propose to her in the season opener) but he's afraid that if he tells her about the kid, she'll leave and that's what knocked him off his game in T1. Like Sara, he feels that what he's done in the past has made him unworthy of being loved.

The irony is that the T2 situation was created by Barry misdirecting Oliver. Barry gave Oliver the impression that Felicity was angry because she found out he had a son. That's not true, she was angry because he kept lying to her. So in trying to give Oliver a heads up, Barry ended creating the very situation that Oliver had tried to avoid (i.e. Felicity being so angry she left him).


The other question, though, is why Oliver hadn't already told Felicity about the pregnancy. He wanted to propose, he wants children with her, why hasn't he yet said "When I was younger, I got a girl pregnant but the baby died. I didn't know how much I wanted it until I heard that it had died." That would have been a logical, adult conversation to have.

The team addressing point 2 did lead to improvements, I will acknowledge that, I just don't believe that they were foreseeable benefits, even with Barry's hindsight. Without Cisco helping Kendra regain her memories they wouldn't have been able to fix the gauntlets;to me, this was less of Barry using his knowledge of the future to fix the past but rather, the team stumbling across the answers needed in their quest to fix a nonissue that Barry misinterpreted.

I don't think they were foreseeable benefits, rather it was knowledge of what failed i.e. leaving Carter to bring back Kendra's memories. Knowing that, Oliver looked around for an alternative to help Kendra and he went to Cisco because Cisco was written to be the MVP after Oliver and Barry in this two parter.

[President_Luthor]

Much will be made of the Olicity fallout and the Savage crisis in the crossover, but I would say all of this pales in comparison to what Barry did -- more accurately, what his running to create a time travel situation did.

He changed the course of history in T2 as it would have unfolded, had he not entered this timeline. How he did it or even what he did -- providing knowledge about how the previous Savage battle went, giving Ollie an (inaccurate) sense of how Felicity may perceive his concealment of the truth, etc. -- is practically a moot point when you consider that changing the timeline has unknown ramifications, it comes at a price and a balance will be exacted.

Ollie and Felicity could still have resolved their issues, the team may still have defeated Savage in T2 -- but we'll never really know because Barry entered the timeline and injected knowledge from T1 that gave the people involved an advantage or influenced their decisions and actions. Not making right or wrong judgments on Barry or whoever else acquired this T1 knowledge, but what I'm saying is everything since T1 Barry's arrival is in a sense borrowed time, defying the Fates, disrupting the space-time continuum, "cheating" the time gods, going against the grain of T2, however fans wish to interpret it. We will never know, truly, how T2 would have unfolded because Barry's entry and the knowledge he brings from T1 changed the equation. Forever.

Right and wrong, fair and unjust -- this will mean little in the grand scheme of time righting itself and claiming reparations in any number of ways to correct itself. As big a threat as Savage, Malcolm or Zoom may appear, they are nothing compared to time balancing itself out. It's the most merciless of any of Ollie or Barry's foes and would care not a whit if the price it exacts is unfair or appears unjust. Wherever people may land on if/when Ollie faces the music, time will not care who lands in the right or wrong of it.

Time may see the whole Olicity situation or the Ollie-Samantha custody agreement as irrelevant in the grand scheme of things (the best case scenario for all involved) and do nothing. In this case, their actions and decisions are their own -- and the fallout their own. Or it may see it as a critical event where it will exact a price from them to even the balance, in which case everything they do to try to counter or change the blowback won't matter ... because the cost has been tallied. Time will right itself and not give a damn who gets affected.

For example, Malcolm may be concerned if Thea his daughter somehow gets targeted by Savage. But a skewered timeline needing to balance itself out? Thea means nothing to it, Malcolm means nothing to it and if their death(s) are required to even things out, it will take that price. Same thing with the maelstrom around the status of Olicity after the crossover. I may like Felicity as a character in her own right (I do, in case this was in doubt ), dislike too much melodrama in these CW shows and can appreciate where both Ollie and Felicity land on the secrets and lies re: crossover. Time won't give one iota about likability, Ollie or Felicity being right, trustworthy, wronged, unfair, whether a lie was justified or not, whether a pending revelation of the truth is still lying or not, etc. Ollie could do the right thing, Olicity is in the clear -- and time still takes his son from him because the cosmos comes to the clinical decision that this is part of the price that must be taken to even out a skewered T2. I'm going on the theory that time will be collecting the cost, with interest, from anyone it chooses in this now-altered timeline. Without bias or favour.

Teams Arrow and Flash should all be worried/scared about Malcolm Al Ghul, Savage and Zoom -- but they should be freaking. out. about living in a timeline that is now defying history as it might have been before Barry's time jump. Consequences are in the cards and when they are realized, being right or worthy of a good fate may mean little when viewed through the prism of time travel's cost and time correcting any anomalies.

Yup, they're screwed. The question is: who's going to be royally burned and who gets a mere paper cut? Barry surely has an inkling something is amiss, Cisco probably knows they're in a jam or will be soon re: time travel fallout.

The payback is post-dated ... but it's coming.

[Klaus1994]

To say that this is a trust issue in Olicity and that Felicity was wrong not to trust Oliver is to throw out 3 + seasons of Arrow canon.

Felicity said, and I quote, "How can I be with someone who doesn't trust me?"

Don't you find it a bit hypocritical that she can dismiss Oliver's love for her while still maintaining that she loves him?

[Klaus1994]

Felicity is unequivocally wrong and Oliver deserves nothing but sympathy for how he is treated.


Here is what he says to Felicity:


"I need to run something down, I’ll be back as soon as I can.
Don’t worry its nothing dangerous.
There is something going on... and I am going to tell you all about it. I would just like the chance to... know what I am dealing with first.”


Felicity then decides not to respect his wishes or place even a modicum of trust in him. Instead she goes being his back, bullies Barry into breaking Oliver’s confidence, and then has the audacity to proclaim Oliver is the one with trust issues.

[DoubleDevil]

Felicity is unequivocally wrong and Oliver deserves nothing but sympathy for how he is treated.


Here is what he says to Felicity:


"I need to run something down, I’ll be back as soon as I can.
Don’t worry its nothing dangerous.
There is something going on... and I am going to tell you all about it. I would just like the chance to... know what I am dealing with first.”


Felicity then decides not to respect his wishes or place even a modicum of trust in him. Instead she goes being his back, bullies Barry into breaking Oliver’s confidence, and then has the audacity to proclaim Oliver is the one with trust issues.

There are those that don't want to see any blemish on Felicity so it has to be Oliver's fault. Oliver's a liar and I won't defend him against being called one but what people are forgetting is that an honest person lies because of a lack of trust, a liar doesn't have to lack trust in order to tell a lie. It's a mistake of today's society believing that everyone has a right to know everything that makes Oliver keeping knowledge that he might have a son a secret from Felicity wrong, he not. Not yet.

[katakombs]

Much will be made of the Olicity fallout and the Savage crisis in the crossover, but I would say all of this pales in comparison to what Barry did -- more accurately, what his running to create a time travel situation did.

He changed the course of history in T2 as it would have unfolded, had he not entered this timeline. How he did it or even what he did -- providing knowledge about how the previous Savage battle went, giving Ollie an (inaccurate) sense of how Felicity may perceive his concealment of the truth, etc. -- is practically a moot point when you consider that changing the timeline has unknown ramifications, it comes at a price and a balance will be exacted.
----
The payback is post-dated ... but it's coming.

One of the things about The Flash that frustrates me is that there is never any real payback for Barry himself. He wanted to open a black hole to go back in time to save his mother which would have meant risking not only Central City but also much of the Earth. He ended up connecting them to Earth2, which brought in Zoom and a whole slew of bad guys. Did anybody ever say "Barry, you made a selfish decision and it hurts everyone else" ? No, it's always Poor Barry, he has such a hard life because his mother died. (Meanwhile there's Iris, who lost her mother at an even younger age and her father to Barry when he moved in but there's never a sense of Poor Iris.)

And because there are never any real consequences for Barry, he keeps making the same mistakes over and over.

I know it's a small thing in terms of the Vandal Savage timeline but look at what Barry did here:
Oliver came to him with some DNA and told him that it was about Damian Darhk (lie) and to keep it a secret from everyone --Diggle, Felcity, Thea, Laurel, all his team who are fighting with him against Darhk. At that point, Barry, who should have learned from his mistakes not to keep secrets from people close to him, should have told Oliver that since they're all fighting together, he should read his team in. So agreeing to keep the DNA test a secret was his first mistake.

Felicity's go-to move when she's so angry she can't talk is to walk away and "get some air". She did it in season 2 in Tremors, she did it in season 3 when Oliver got back. Barry saw it interpreted it wrong and then gave Oliver the impression that Felicity broke up with him because she found out that he had a child he was concealing from her. NOT TRUE. She walked away because he lied to her face, repeatedly, and this brought up the whole trust issue from seasons 2 and 3. If Barry had told Oliver what really happened (she was angry because he lied) instead of making assumptions about what did, Oliver might have told Felicity the truth.


Not to mention, when Felicity came looking for Oliver and Barry, Barry didn't hide the paper fast enough. The fastest man, and he couldn't hide it?

I'd say a good half of the fault in the situation is Barry's.

Felicity is unequivocally wrong and Oliver deserves nothing but sympathy for how he is treated.


Here is what he says to Felicity:


"I need to run something down, I’ll be back as soon as I can.
Don’t worry its nothing dangerous.
There is something going on... and I am going to tell you all about it. I would just like the chance to... know what I am dealing with first.”


Felicity then decides not to respect his wishes or place even a modicum of trust in him. Instead she goes being his back, bullies Barry into breaking Oliver’s confidence, and then has the audacity to proclaim Oliver is the one with trust issues.

Then there's their later conversation when she asks him what he was doing in town:

I think Damian Darhk has someone operating in Central City. So I sent Barry to run down a lead.

That's a clear lie and shuts Felicity out not just as a girlfriend but as a team partner, exactly what he did through season 3.

She replied:



Just to be clear, I don't care that you have a child. I can't believe that you have a child that you didn't tell me about. I care that you lied to me just now.


Felicity isn't saying that Oliver has trust issues, she's saying that he doesn't trust her. Since he's repeatedly told her that he loves her and wants to be with her, that's not a small thing.

[DoubleDevil]

She replied:



Just to be clear, I don't care that you have a child. I can't believe that you have a child that you didn't tell me about. I care that you lied to me just now.


Felicity isn't saying that Oliver has trust issues, she's saying that he doesn't trust her. Since he's repeatedly told her that he loves her and wants to be with her, that's not a small thing.

And that is where she's wrong. It's not that Oliver doesn't trust Felicity, it's that Oliver is a liar. Trust doesn't factor in anywhere in Oliver's behavior here, it's only Felicity's perception of her principles that's a factor in straining the relationship as she clearly stated in her comment "I care that you lied to me just now" meaning everything is revolving around Felicity, not Oliver or William or even anyone else (otherwise she would've said something like "What matters is that you lied just now"). Just because she wants Oliver to be honest due to her love for him doesn't mean it's going to happen, women can't change men no matter how much they love them, only men can change themselves (which could be because of the love of a woman). And THAT is the biggest mistake Felicity is making which she should've recognized at the very latest upon Oliver's first return from Nanda Parbat, Oliver isn't the man she wants him to be and she can't make him that man no matter how much she wants to. She's like a woman in an abusive relationship believing Oliver is a good man and because of her love he'll eventually wake up and miraculously become a better man, it won't happen until Oliver decides that he wants to change.

[Klaus1994]

Then there's their later conversation when she asks him what he was doing in town:

I think Damian Darhk has someone operating in Central City. So I sent Barry to run down a lead.

That's a clear lie and shuts Felicity out not just as a girlfriend but as a team partner, exactly what he did through season 3.

She replied:



Just to be clear, I don't care that you have a child. I can't believe that you have a child that you didn't tell me about. I care that you lied to me just now.


Felicity isn't saying that Oliver has trust issues, she's saying that he doesn't trust her. Since he's repeatedly told her that he loves her and wants to be with her, that's not a small thing.

I don't see this lie as evidence of a lack of trust; it was a terrible lie that would have fallen apart as quickly and as easily as any one of the lies that he told Felicity at the start of season 1.
I always thought that he wanted her to see them as lies and understand that even though he did not reveal the truth he trusted her enough to not need to attempt to deceive her.

I just finished a philosophy course at university about Ethics and there was a chapter on truthfulness. I am now wondering if do you not understand that there is a difference between lying to someone and trying to deceive them, because from my interpretation of what the show has portrayed Felicity doesn't.

To me the reason behind this particular lie was not to deceive Felicity but rather to postpone the confrontation to a more appropriate time. It's not about shutting Felicity out but she isn't mature enough to recognize that.

Which is perfectly in line with her character if we are being honest; remember what particular moment she picked to reveal the truth of Thea's parentage to Oliver. Felicity has never been able to deal with things in a sensitive matter when it comes to others needs, it always has to be done according to her clock. Felicity had knowledge that she considered a "burden" and she sought "relief" by sharing with Oliver, completely unaware that by gaining her relief she left Oliver even more burdened than she had been.

What a lovely and compassionate person she is.