My Felicity Problem

Last night on Arrow, Felicity Smoak kissed Ray Palmer.

90s Sitcom Laugh Track: WOOOOO!!!!

As played by Superman.

Sorry, Brandon Routh is doing a really good job with that character, it’s just really hard to not see, you know, Superman, when watching the guy who played Superman on a superhero TV show.

UGH.

Anyway, today over on The AV Club, they have a piece about how Felicity needs to rise above her role of simply being Oliver’s tech support, and that such characters (pretty girl hackers) should maybeee not be quite so overused.

This is a fair point, but deputizing Willow into your argument is not a great idea, since Willow’s arc is amazing. Off topic, time to focus.

I’m noticing another disturbing pattern when it comes to Felicity.

Barry Allen

Oliver Queen

Ray Palmer

Felicity is becoming a superhero groupie and that’s a really bad look for a character that I really, really, like. And it annoys me because it’s something that we’ve seen before.

Oh hey Lois. What’s up?

Smallville did some really cool and interesting stuff with Lois Lane. She was a breath of fresh air when she came in at the top of season 4 (5? Whatever, somewhere in the middle), linked her to the cast by making her Chloe’s cousin and developed a really fun bantering relationship with Clark during the height of the Clark/Lana “good relationship” stuff. And the Clark/Lana break up stuff. And the Lana/Lex awesome stuff. And sad Clark because of Lana/Lex. She and Chloe were often off doing their own thing that was waaaayyyy more interesting than the main action.

She also hooked up with Aquaman and Green Arrow during that time. And I get it, to an extent. Lois had to end up with Clark. Regardless of how it happened, in the end, they had to be together. It was one of the few cases of their inevitability working well. So having her mark time with other Superheroes, specifically Oliver Queen (never more of a cut rate Bruce Wayne than he was here) who was working so closely with Clark, was a good way to do that without losing her to side plots.

Oh HEY Smallville Green Arrow. (Not pertinent, just nice to look at occasionally)

But it also seemed kind of weird and unnecessary.

I liked the Oliver/Lois relationship and I’m already on board for Felicity/Ray, (even if it means the death of Felicity/Barry! WHHHYYYY????) but it represents an overall pattern of not knowing what to do with female characters besides pair them up! I like pairing people up and I do it all the time. But also, it doesn’t need to happen. I refer, as ever, to my beloved Revenge.

Emily has relationships. She has guys, but this season, she’s not with anyone. The romance ship has long ago sunk with Jack (thank God) and Daniel is a moron, and her fiancé Aidan is dead. So no romance for Emily and it’s not distracting because she’s doing other things. If Felicity was running Queen Consolidated (now Palmer Technologies) and working in that world, and not having a guy thing happening, she’d still probably be compelling and fun.

That said, we saw Brandon Routh shirtless last night. And it was nice.

Thanks CW, never change.