Like many others have said, I liked Felicity at first (season 1 & 2) but once she got together with Oliver her character underwent a change for the worse. She went from being a fun, quirky, independent character to someone who is whiny, clingy, and insecure. Sometimes the original Felicity shines through, but it’s only a matter of time before the emotionally dependent one returns. It’s not Emily Bett Rickards fault, she’s just working with and trying to make the best of the material she’s given.
I wonder why Rickards isn’t returning for the final season, especially since it is a short one. Felicity is a large part of Arrow and this season’s flash forwards show her character is alive in the future, so I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t appear in the Crisis crossover or the series finale.
I’m not a fan of the character. I never liked her even in season 1 and 2. In season 7, I have grown to not mind her at all. I don’t mind that she’ll be gone in season 8, but why not just finish it out? We know she’ll be in the finale and most likely the crossover, so at most she’d be gone for 8 episodes. It would make more sense for her to leave if it were a full season pickup, unless she’s already trying to lineup a different job while new shows are getting started and needing actors.
Overall, this could finally lead to Oliver using his own tech. He’s become too reliant on Felicity. Oliver Queen has some pretty rad tech. His tech rivals Bruce Wayne’s, so it would be good to finally see that again.
I’m going to take a wild guess, and suggest that once the actress learned the show was being cancelled, she found another job and won’t be available for season 8
The reason I think they made Felicity the love interest over Laurel was the total lack of chemistry between Ollie and Laurel. The moment Felicity and Ollie met, there was an immediate chemistry between them. The actors just “clicked”.
I think with Laurel, her character was so poorly developed in the early episodes, it created a deep hole for her to climb out of. She went from the damsel in distress to drug addict to wanting to be a vigilante. And those storylines all seemed very forced. She was never built as an equal to any of Team Arrow. And then when they added Sara as the Canary, it made it harder to move Laurel up. The chemistry was even there between Ollie and Sara. I don’t know, maybe it was just casting of the part that made it hard too. When the show started, Katie Cassidy honestly wasn’t really that good. It really wasn’t until the Black Siren storyline that she really began to shine.
I agree with alot of that but I think Katie Cassidy was built up all that time to shine as the Black Siren because of every little thing that happened in former seasons. The death of the real Laurel was flat, yes but without all that happened since the first season amd on the Flash, Black Siren wouldn’t had made much sense to me.
I also saw it from a different angle, I always thought the first Laurel’s purpose was to show the unique chemistry/bond between father and daughter. I thought that made the story arc for Black Siren very strong.
That said, my favorite love interests for Ollie were Nyssa Al Ghul and Helena Bertinelli. Nyssa just strikes me as very unique and Helena, I believe, had more chemistry with Ollie than Felicity. That said, I love Felicity, beutiful jewish woman.
Gibbyhertz, I think she has had a lot more fun playing Black Siren. She is a totally different character than Laurel was. From her debut, she has had an edge to her. Something Laurel/Canary didn’t have. This is how she should have been written from the launch, just as more heroic.
