Just a word: there’s a lot of contention about Oliver not immediately running to the phone to call Felicity, or out rightly running to Felicity. Not sure why. We were all told that the focus as comedy, not intense Olicity scenes and since when do the Flash writers allow for that?
I mean, we’d all love a really awkward scene where he tries to convince her that he’s not Barry and she doesn’t believe him… um, no.
What’s the point? It takes up screen time - and seriously, no one argue that this isn’t the point: it’s a TV show. IT’S EXACTLY THE POINT - away from Oliver/Barry and we’ll return to it in the next episode.
It’s lazy writing to constantly apply negativity to Oliver the way the Flash managed to last night: he can’t do wrong for doing right, he has everything against him already - but lo and behold: he’s swapped identities with Barry. He’s less surly. Less himself.
The bright, funny Oliver is an Oliver influenced by Barry’s personality: a few interviews have confirmed that from minute 1, their personalities influence the other and will have lingering affects.
Oliver will learn how to see with eyes unclouded by anger, and the man has a lot of anger in him. PTSD. Trauma. Stress. It’s far from all he has, though the Flash writers love to pretend otherwise. He’ll be a grumpy puppy again after the hiatus, but maybe he’ll have caught a clue about something too.
It all would have been much funnier if it hadn’t been focused on making Oliver out to be an asshole every other minute.
So why are people expecting logic from the Flash writers? Why, because Oliver didn’t profess his love for Felicity?
We already know he loves her.
He spends the entire episode uncomfortable, tetchy, irritated and wanting to return to normal because he doesn’t fell like himself. What does saying her name change or mean? He hasn’t done anything wrong. And he knows it: he doesn’t have to bring his wife into it, unlike Barry with Iris every other second, because Oliver doesn’t feel like he’s done anything wrong.
There’s a crumb here to pick up on. It’s a badly broken crumb that could have been handled far better, but…
Oliver, like Felicity, is so used to going it alone again. Yes, she helped him with his PTSD at the party, but when he’s in action, he didn’t need that. His first instinct isn’t to go running to his wife: it’s to fix himself.
If Felicity got hurt without him, she wouldn’t call him. Not because it slips her mind or because she doesn’t love him. It’s because she’s forgotten how to rely on him: part of their 7b SL will be to remember all that: to be inclusive once again.
What, did you think it worked like clock work with a snap of the fingers? Doesn’t anyone understand how much they’ve changed, how much they need each other but don’t remember how to get back there?
Case in point: Iris delivers a small snippet to Oliver about Felicity.
Many complain that he already knows he screwed up, and he does. But he had no idea, really, what it did to her immediately following his incarceration.
In 7.08, Felicity says ‘you left me and I had to learn how to survive’. He says ‘how many times do I need to apologise’?
He knew he’d done wrong: but he thought it was something forgivable because he didn’t think he’d had a choice. Except.
She never says, you went behind my back. Felicity never told him that it was like a betrayal, that when the FBI came for him he let them take him away from her and she called Iris because she was so betrayed and angry.
He knew he’d hurt her. He never saw it as a betrayal.
Iris doesn’t know she’s telling Oliver, she think’s he’s Barry.
And for the first time, he doesn’t think about fixing himself: he’s thinking, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Even after what Felicity said at the end of 7.08, I guarantee that Oliver still thought everything is fine. Wait and see. hearing that, made him realise, well I’m a dumbass.
Yes, Oliver is THIS much of a pine cone. May I remind you of S3, 4, 5 etc?
It’s a very alpha male perspective, being shocked and freaked out by her carrying a gun. HE’S the protector, HE makes HER safe. She needs to be kept secure and in bubble wrap. Seeing her with a gun made him face a heck of a lot in a sort amount of time and added to his PTSD, Oliver didn’t deal very well. But he tried.
Now he’s just realised that HE’S the one who has to reach out first. He hasn’t, because: TRAUMA.
Felicity pushed him away at the end of 7.08 because: TRAUMA.
They’re not in sync right now guys, and really, what do you expect? How much do you expect either of them to be able to handle at any given time?
Not mentioning the other doesn’t mean they aren’t thinking about them. And if you take everything you see on screen as IT and not the layers in between, then why demand for more when you refuse to see more?
This episode was the Flash writers inept attempt at revealing the way he’d walled him off from others. He and Felicity have been truly alone. This is ANOTHER SHOW. Pus, if Felicity were in it, there’s no way she’d let them all pull him to pieces.
The writers HAD to let them have their fun: Oliver needed to be the blame guy, the grouchy one, the person they could 'fiddle’ with. Can’t do any of that with his wife in view.
This episode teaches him another lesson: I loathed how he was unnecessarily pulled to pieces , but in one instance they had a kind of point. The way Oliver thinks has hurt the person he loves most. There are several hints, some big whoppers. It’s S3/4 of Arrow but better.
Flash writers suck. Just remember that. the only way they could reveal an Oliver Queen who needed a push in the right direction was to separate him from everyone and have him do comedy with Barry.
I mean, they actually made Iris catty and unlikeable and, once again, turned Barry into a zippy little asshole.
7.09 will be another step, this time to Felicity. The third step, will be towards regaining his identity.
