Arrow The Emily Bett Rickards/ Felicity Smoak Thread

[Primal Slayer]

I believe the phrase is "grown too big for her britches".

That is my only problem with the character. They treat her as a god send. Even at the HVFF they spent majority of the male panel just gushing over Felicity and it's just to much for me.

 

[DeadFan]

That is my only problem with the character. They treat her as a god send. Even at the HVFF they spent majority of the male panel just gushing over Felicity and it's just to much for me.

Totally agree. Ever since they started trying to put the character front and center I've disliked her more and more and more. She was a fine character in small doses. When I say that I don't like her, this is where people jump in and start saying it's not the character it's the way she's written. Well, the way she's written IS the character! What other version is available to me on an episode where she is very annoying or where she does something totally unbelievable or acts obnoxious and no one ever calls her out on it?

 

[Dark Raven]

Totally agree. Ever since they started trying to put the character front and center I've disliked her more and more and more. She was a fine character in small doses. When I say that I don't like her, this is where people jump in and start saying it's not the character it's the way she's written. Well, the way she's written IS the character! What other version is available to me on an episode where she is very annoying or where she does something totally unbelievable or acts obnoxious and no one ever calls her out on it?

I completely agree. But it's not just the character or the way she's written. It's the actress!

Have you seen her bathtub segments she does where she thinks she's being funny and quirky? She's just being very annoying and almost creepy. It's almost as if she's gotten to the point where she thinks she's so liked by fans that she can just pull a few weird faces, say some strange comments and clown around and everyone will lap it up.

And even if she is written just this terrible way, other actresses would be able to do a better job with this material and make it less melodramatic and less cringeworthy. Her acting is absolutely terrible. I can't believe that the writers tell her to do her quivering voice whenever there's a dramatic scene. It's the way she interprets it, because she has such limited range. And whenever she has to act in any scene more serious, she comes off as a nagging, entitled ***** with her tone of voice, mannerisms etc.

She is good only for small doses, and even these small doses have become annoying too, because everything else that is terrible colours the way you even see the supposed funny moments. So a complete absence is the only solution.

I remember when Supergirl first began, people were saying that Kara's character would now be basically Felicity's transplanted to a superhero. But Melissa is 10 times the actress Emily is, and she has an infinitely greater range. She never comes off like Emily does, particularly in all the dramatic scenes. There's no excruciating lip and voice quivering and you do not want to cringe at all but are genuinely moved and amazed at her acting.

 

[DeadFan]

I completely agree. But it's not just the character or the way she's written. It's the actress!

Have you seen her bathtub segments she does where she thinks she's being funny and quirky? She's just being very annoying and almost creepy. It's almost as if she's gotten to the point where she thinks she's so liked by fans that she can just pull a few weird faces, say some strange comments and clown around and everyone will lap it up.

And even if she is written just this terrible way, other actresses would be able to do a better job with this material and make it less melodramatic and less cringeworthy. Her acting is absolutely terrible. I can't believe that the writers tell her to do her quivering voice whenever there's a dramatic scene. It's the way she interprets it, because she has such limited range. And whenever she has to act in any scene more serious, she comes off as a nagging, entitled ***** with her tone of voice, mannerisms etc.

Good God! The bathtube scene sounds HORRIBLE. So glad I missed out on all that. I try to skip through a lot of her scenes TBH.

I agree about IMO what I see as her limited acting skills. Now I know this kind of stuff is subjective and others are of the opinion that she's a good actress, but aside from some of the comedic stuff she does, I really don't get it when someone tells me she's good at the dramatic stuff. Her dramatic emotional voice is very difficult for me to listen to -- it has a weird quavering tone and quality that is very distracting and her facial expressions don't work for me either. I also don't like when she gets into her hyped up high volume excitable nerd talk. All this is why I just try to skip her scenes.

Looking back on it I remember especially a scene early in S3 when Sara had died and Laurel had brought her to the Arrowcave and laid her out on the table and Felicity, Oliver and Roy (I think it was Roy) came in and saw Sara. It starts out as a very quiet still moment. Laurel is very quiet and subdued and so is Oliver and the camera is moving slowly, everything is very subdued and you can just feel the shock that Laurel and Oliver are in. I think it's a very powerful emotional moment. Then suddenly BAM! Felicity clomps over (literally you can hear her shoes) and marches straight to the center of the table upon which Sara's corpse is lying, and Felicity literally becomes the focus of the scene (even though she barely knew Sara compared to Laurel and Oliver). Then Felicity precedes to make herself the center of attention and she literally yelps -- staccato bursts of yelping in a loud voice --- over Sara's death. Completely takes all the attention away from Laurel and Oliver's reactions and just ruins the mood. So when I look back on that I also think that was foreshadowing about how Felicity was going to take over the show and pretty much become the central focus of everything that we now seem to be stuck with

I think the solution (short of getting her off the show which won't ever happen I'm sure unless the actress wants to leave) is to try to minimize her role again. She should never have been given the prominence she currently has. But as long as they plan to go down the Olicity path, which I think they will go right back down, I'm pessimistic that they will ever cut down on her screentime.

 

[Dark Raven]

Good God! The bathtube scene sounds HORRIBLE. So glad I missed out on all that. I try to skip through a lot of her scenes TBH.

I agree about IMO what I see as her limited acting skills. Now I know this kind of stuff is subjective and others are of the opinion that she's a good actress, but aside from some of the comedic stuff she does, I really don't get it when someone tells me she's good at the dramatic stuff. Her dramatic emotional voice is very difficult for me to listen to -- it has a weird quavering tone and quality that is very distracting and her facial expressions don't work for me either. I also don't like when she gets into her hyped up high volume excitable nerd talk. All this is why I just try to skip her scenes.

Looking back on it I remember especially a scene early in S3 when Sara had died and Laurel had brought her to the Arrowcave and laid her out on the table and Felicity, Oliver and Roy (I think it was Roy) came in and saw Sara. It starts out as a very quiet still moment. Laurel is very quiet and subdued and so is Oliver and the camera is moving slowly, everything is very subdued and you can just feel the shock that Laurel and Oliver are in. I think it's a very powerful emotional moment. Then suddenly BAM! Felicity clomps over (literally you can hear her shoes) and marches straight to the center of the table upon which Sara's corpse is lying, and Felicity literally becomes the focus of the scene (even though she barely knew Sara compared to Laurel and Oliver). Then Felicity precedes to make herself the center of attention and she literally yelps -- staccato bursts of yelping in a loud voice --- over Sara's death. Completely takes all the attention away from Laurel and Oliver's reactions and just ruins the mood. So when I look back on that I also think that was foreshadowing about how Felicity was going to take over the show and pretty much become the central focus of everything that we now seem to be stuck with

I think the solution (short of getting her off the show which won't ever happen I'm sure unless the actress wants to leave) is to try to minimize her role again. She should never have been given the prominence she currently has. But as long as they plan to go down the Olicity path, which I think they will go right back down, I'm pessimistic that they will ever cut down on her screentime.

No no. The bathtub scenes are what she does in REAL LIFE! She just films herself and posts it on whatever social media she uses. Instagram or Tumblr or whatever. Maybe YouTube. It's some Bathroom Therapy series that is done for the CW.

Here's one, but the ones on YouTube aren't really the worst of them, and I can't be bothered to look for the others on other social media:

[YT]vrdPcTOMiZ8[/YT]

There are others which are excruciating to watch. This one isn't exactly wonderful either.

 

[SpideyVille]

The sad thing is, there are people like my ex and her best friend that eat up anything she does, so seeing her with any kind of activity on social media is like Christmas coming early for them. And that's how some people are with celebrities in general. They can do no wrong so if the show sucks, it's the other character's fault.

 

[DeadFan]

No no. The bathtub scenes are what she does in REAL LIFE! She just films herself and posts it on whatever social media she uses. Instagram or Tumblr or whatever. Maybe YouTube. It's some Bathroom Therapy series that is done for the CW.

Here's one, but the ones on YouTube aren't really the worst of them, and I can't be bothered to look for the others on other social media:

There are others which are excruciating to watch. This one isn't exactly wonderful either.

Thanks for sharing (I think?). Now that was just truly godawful. Words could never do justice in describing how horrible that was. I don't know how much of that was EBR as she truly is and how much might have been her trying to somewhat "channel" Felicity, but if it is authentic EBR, then I can see that EBR puts a lot of herself and her mannerisms into Felicity and that would sure explain a lot. And if that is all true, then I agree as bad as the writing for Felicity is, she might not be so bad if we had a different actress. IMO of course and all due respect to those with a different opinion.

When I watch that, it does look like she is trying to be funny and quirky, and does not realize that it's not funny and seems very inauthentic. It's like a little kid doing something b/c once she did something and all the grown-ups laughed so now she just keeps doing it over and over again thinking she's cute. Yes, I find it excruciating and cringeworthy.

 

[Dark Raven]

Yes. You are right. It does come across as inauthentic and as if she's trying to hard to be quirky and offbeat. But she comes across as totally unrelatable and not even very real at all. How do you relate to someone like that?

 

[Dark Raven]

I've been thinking: what if we're actually looking at this all wrong? What if Felicity isn't the writers and show runners allowing Emily to cut loose but is actually them reining her in? Maybe when they write her character it makes her appear a bit more normal, but her real personality is what we see in those bathtub segments and some of her interviews?

And if they allowed that to surface we'd get Felicity to the power of ten, but instead we only get to see a glimmer of that awfulness.

 

[AspieXLDS]

I've been thinking: what if we're actually looking at this all wrong? What if Felicity isn't the writers and show runners allowing Emily to cut loose but is actually them reining her in? Maybe when they write her character it makes her appear a bit more normal, but her real personality is what we see in those bathtub segments and some of her interviews?

And if they allowed that to surface we'd get Felicity to the power of ten, but instead we only get to see a glimmer of that awfulness.

If they had to actively write all other characters poorly in order to reign in EBR's overacting, than they would've been better served killing the character off when Slade had a sword to her throat or any of the other countless times she could've been killed.

 

[Dark Raven]

Well what I mean by that is that what if Felicity is actually a tamer and more toned down version of EBR regardless of how poor the writing is for everyone including her.

But they should've killed her off before but the Tumblr fans would not have liked that.

 

[terry78]

She has a nice ass. That is pretty much what it boils down to. And it excuses a lot of what she is.

 

[Urich Leeds]

She has a nice ass. That is pretty much what it boils down to. And it excuses a lot of what she is.

It's not that nice.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

This thread is hilarious, considering some of the acting on this show. Also, love judging the actress on her looks. Brilliant.

 

[Petelancer]

I dont particularly care for the actress or what she does in her own time but Felicity the character is one of THE most repugnant pieces of ****e that I've seen on current TV. Why do they make her out to be this extremely selfless moral great person when she comes across as an annoying completely self absorbed, selfish, inconsiderate tosser. What a waste of a character. I hope they just bury her character and give her a horrific demise

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I am curious, how exactly is Felicity selfish? Even breaking up with Olivier, while for clearly poor reasoning, doesn't make her selfish.

 

[Dark Raven]

Some of the writers and producers, and Amell himself act like EBR is the show's secret weapon. Don't some of the other actresses or even actors in the show get fed up of this and all the attention that seems to constantly be on her, and maybe how they have to play along and sing her praises too?

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Some of the writers and producers, and Amell himself act like EBR is the show's secret weapon. Don't some of the other actresses or even actors in the show get fed up of this and all the attention that seems to constantly be on her, and maybe how they have to play along and sing her praises too?

I think that would depend on their relationship with her.

 

[SpideyVille]

Do they get fed up, most likely. But do they say anything, no, because at the end of the day it's your job. If MG/WM are so hot on her, anyone else, including Amell, saying something negative would just hurt them and their career.

 

[Dark Raven]

Well they don't have to say something negative, but they might feel like they don't want to gush about her and how great she is. It would be more neutral wouldn't it? And their body language might be telling. But I haven't really seen that from others so far. They do all mostly seem to gush.

 

[regnak]

I am curious, how exactly is Felicity selfish? Even breaking up with Olivier, while for clearly poor reasoning, doesn't make her selfish.

S3 finale is legendary the story telling device of a hero/heroine having to choose between saving a loved one or a lot of innocent lives has been around for a long time. By making the right choice the heroic character shows themselves to be heroic and selfless. However:


Ray: "must save city from bio-weapon!"

Felicity: "No, you must fly to the dam and save Oliver!"


that is what a villain would do try and stop someone else from saving the city to save your loved one instead.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Well they don't have to say something negative, but they might feel like they don't want to gush about her and how great she is. It would be more neutral wouldn't it? And their body language might be telling. But I haven't really seen that from others so far. They do all mostly seem to gush.

Which makes me think they like Emily and don't mind.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

S3 finale is legendary the story telling device of a hero/heroine having to choose between saving a loved one or a lot of innocent lives has been around for a long time. By making the right choice the heroic character shows themselves to be heroic and selfless. However:


Ray: "must save city from bio-weapon!"

Felicity: "No, you must fly to the dam and save Oliver!"


that is what a villain would do try and stop someone else from saving the city to save your loved one instead.

That is it? That is all we got? Because if I remember correctly, they handled their business and saved Oliver.

 

[regnak]

That is it? That is all we got? Because if I remember correctly, they handled their business and saved Oliver.

There is plenty more but that was the litmus test. If you defend that you are too irrational for me to bother with.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

There is plenty more but that was the litmus test. If you defend that you are too irrational for me to bother with.

That is far from the litmus test. All heroes, from Luke Skywalker to Superman, have reacted in this manner. Heck Oliver has done it on this show. You want selfish? What Laurel did to Sara. That was selfish.