Arrow (3×05) Review - “The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak”

The back story of Felicity Smoak was revealed on this week’s Arrow, as a master hacker came to town

We love Emily Bett Rickards, which means we absolutely love Felicity Smoak. She’s intelligent, gorgeous, a great friend, and has a great sense of humor in her own geeky way, what’s not to love? Many fans were skeptical about her addition to the show in the beginning, thinking her to be some young woman working for Walter, who would expose Oliver of his personally made requests out of some form of self righteousness. Her quirky remarks and close personal relationships, especially that deep buried love for Oliver (Stephen Amell), enable the show to have a perfect mix of emotions. A Felicity-centric episode airing the week after an episode in which she was absent, until the end that is, was the right choice without a doubt, and we were able to learn a lot more about her than ever before in “The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak.” If you enjoy watching Felicity as much as we do, read on, as we gain insight as to how she became the woman she is today.

Emily Bett Rickards was outstanding and has re-defined Felicity’s persona, as she delivered more details of her past

A reminder to all, this episode was originally titled “Oracle,” which would’ve been an awesome name for one revolving around Felicity, but was changed for reasons that weren’t fully addressed. Of course, this is also Barbara Gordon’s popular nickname in Gotham City – are the producers teasing us? Regardless, this episode was a focal point for Felicity, being previously engaged in Barry’s fight against evil metahumans in Central City to miss last weeks showdown between Oliver, Merlyn (John Barrowman) and Nyssa (Katrina Law). The members of Team Arrow have many capabilities; Strength, speed, combat skills and so on, but none have the usage of brain power that Felicity does, and that’s exactly what they need when a masterful hacker appears in Starling City, making all sorts of threats after cutting off the city’s power supply. It was a pleasant change with Felicity being the main anchor while Ollie and the team were the support system, what a role reversal!

Fans got a glimpse into Felicity’s past through flashbacks, and if you didn’t watch any of the promos for this episode, you were most certainly surprised, if not shocked. We were taken to her college years, where we got to meet her boyfriend at the time, Cooper (Nolan Gerard Funk). When we see Cooper it becomes pretty clear that he is the voice of Brother eye, so the mystery behind the plot wasn’t overwhelming whatsoever, but was still a different take on what we have come to see before. Felicity was in a goth phase during college, while her boyfriend seemed a bit weak for someone of his supposed skills. Still, the relation to DC Comics with the cameos through appearance was a wicked bonus. Perhaps the whole Brother Eye ideal can be built upon in the future, as it’s been used in many comics throughout the years and is no stranger to comic fans.

As great as this episode was, the conflict didn’t offer much complexion, as it was based around Cooper hacking the Starling system, using a virus Felicity made years ago, just for the sake of stealing money, and this was definitely the biggest disappoint of the episode. With someone of his skills, he could’ve easily gone about his business in more than one less risky way, but chose to take the infamous route by putting scares into the people of Starling, beginning with the power outage – ironic, because the city of Vancouver, BC; where Arrow is filmed, recently had major power outages as well due to wind storms. Awesome job by the producers in fully using their surroundings in such a popularly diverse Canadian location to enhance their stories!

Relationship development was a hot topic this week for the show’s core characters, and through a lack of twists there was one major revelation!

Along with this plot and history, viewers also met Felicity’s mother Donna (Charlotte Ross) who made a random appearance in Starling. It was obvious Felicity had some issues with her mother in the past and Donna was looking to make amends, and the two found themselves coming together in times of danger. Ross was a good addition to the show, as she provided some comedy when she would interact with the men on the show.

“How many billionaires do you know?” – Donna

What viewers keep asking themselves is – who is Felicity’s father? Donna’s story seemed more straight than expected, but the Smoak women were acting very shady when it came to revealing his identity, meaning this could be a potential DC easter egg.

Meanwhile, Thea (Willah Holland) is slowly settling in to her nice new apartment, or condo, and working to repair her relationship with Ollie. Once again, there was more emotion from Thea about her double father issues which leaves us with another question – what are the writers aiming for with the Thea/Merlyn dynamic? How far along will it be until we see the purpose of her training, if there is one at all? Hopefully there’s a lot more to it than just having Merlyn be abnormally creepy and spy on her from various rooftops… Someone must’ve noticed him by now, right?

As for Laurel (Katie Cassidy), she had another strong week as she became acting D.A. to help the city throughout the crisis. What we know and learned more of, is that Laurel’s still and will continue to overflow with anger, and is always willing to act upon that emotion without hesitation. Some may like Laurel and feel she deserves to have these feelings, but it doesn’t do her justice and allows no means of sharing her emotion and feeling for her. Laurel’s always been the one to constantly do something foolish every time she feels heart break, but with the strong start she’s had to Season 3 – coming after two seasons of serving as one of Arrow’s weakest links, we should continue to see her grow and possibly learn from her friends and Sara’s legacy rather than just sitting in alcoholic group therapy sessions.

There weren’t many big twists and turns in this week’s story, but one big reveal was that Roy (Colton Haynes) was, apparently, the one who killed Sara! We don’t know this for sure as he woke up from a dream in which we saw him actually using his arm strength to throw those arrows into Sara’s chest. This left many, if not all viewers, totally stunned in big thanks to the writers who are taking Roy’s character to another level and creating a new personal story arc for him, rather than the prototypical sidekick he’s been so far.

Final Verdict

The episode’s writers Ben Sokolowski and Brian Ford Sullivan capitalized on Felicity’s personality in creating great dialogue for an episode that even had her name in it. Regardless of who writes each episode, the Arrow’s entire writers room has done a marvelous job in making Felicity such an enjoyable character to watch with all of her quirky remarks and terms of intelligence – some that often leave Team Arrow in a race to keep up. Many of us wish we had someone of Felicity’s style in our everyday lives, what a treat that would be!

Villains were difficult to develop in Arrow’s first season and there were major improvements in Season 2. This season is building the bigger picture, but for an episode that was taking a step to the side to focus on another characters story, especially after a lack of last week, there wasn’t much to take away from the villain Cooper. He’s Felicity’s ex boyfriend and has some issues, but other than that there wasn’t much detail to him or enough to make him freak us out. The plot tied in to this was somewhat vague and predictable, maybe to focus solely on Felicity and setting up a lot more in terms of what she means to the team in the future.

This week, Felicity had to face demons of her past, including not just Cooper but her mother, Donna. The relationship between mother and daughter was also predictable but still made us feel good when there was a development between the two. Cooper’s confrontations near the end were disappointing, but pushed developments further. Laurel continues to grow, and although that road does not go in a straight line, she’s more determined than she’s ever been. With the final scene revealing Roy’s dream, he’s the only main character who doesn’t have something big going for them – but that’s most definitely about to change moving forward, and can hopefully increase this season’s momentum.

Questions, Comments, and Concerns…

• What’s Merlyn’s goal with Thea’s training?
• Who exactly is Felicity’s father?
• Laurel should turn down the anger a notch, that’s what the lessons are for!
• Could Roy be having some post syndrome effects from the Mirakuru? Was he brainwashed? Or is he just seeing things?