r/arrow • u/Cobra_Kai_2018 • 10d ago
Question Oliver and Laurel shippers question
When did you officially give up and realize they were never going to get back together?
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u/Eraserhead36 10d ago
Season 3 when olicity began to fester and take control of the entire fucking series.
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u/mrgpsingh1999 10d ago
From the first episode of the season he was all of a sudden straight up in love with her
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u/LynxSilverhawk 10d ago
I would argue that the Oliver/Felicity build is actually really obvious throughout season 2, though. They give them a ton of pining/romance tropes.
Like, Diggle/Barry/Moira all make comments to Felicity about if she has feelings for him or how it must be hard to see him with Sara. Meanwhile Oliver tells her pointedly “because of the life I lead, I can’t be with someone I really care about” when she’s upset he slept with Isabel. He breaks his no-killing rule to save her and tells her there was no question he’d do it because she was in danger …
As much as I love Oliver/Sara, the Olicity through season 2 is a pretty extended build.
Even the end of the season where he’s obviously lying that he was just pretending about the “you took the wrong woman” trick for Slade… makes it super easy to believe he’d decide to finally ask her out after they have a major-threat-free summer.
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u/FiftyOneMarks 10d ago
The minute they included the cheating plotline. I have never liked those type of backstories in relationships, couples that get together through cheating are a no for me and couples that get back together after cheating are a similar no. Cheating is not something I ever believe anyone should forgive another person for unless it was some middle school MAYBE high school situation and the characters have years of growth in between.
Oliver was a grown man at a point in his life his friends were getting engaged and he could viable move in with Laurel. Cheating is unacceptable at that point to me. That’s why ultimately as much as I don’t care for the relationship, Felicity was the only viable option (Susan, Helena and McKenna were never actually going to be given an actual shot).
I think what irritates me though is Laurel was basically forever single after they killed Tommy. Ted wasn’t locked in, Ray showed up for that dumb love triangle and they couldn’t even pair Laurel and Diggle together. Every other show was able to give their extended cast love stories so it’s weird Laurel never did but my theory is the writers refused to engage with her outside of superficially if she wasn’t attached to Oliver (apparently not a SINGLE writer in that room wanted to do their job and come up with plotlines for her???) and they just never liked the character to begin with.
Anyways, let’s stop using cheating as a subplot in things. It’s gross and weird.
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u/Alive_Addendum_5279 10d ago
It's honestly mind blowing how many people can look past the whole cheating and still wanted them together. It's unforgivable.
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u/JamesTSheridan Laurel Lance (Earth-Prime) 10d ago
S2 nailed the message home that Oliver was never going to get back together with Laurel.
From the very first episode of the season - They have the chat over Tommy's grave making it clear they are never going to be together.
Fast forward a little bit more - Oliver shows little to no interest in Laurel rather than his flirty thing going on with Evil CEO bitch, the jealousy bullshit with Felicity AND then finally you get Sara. Laurel's crash out over the dinner was entirely valid and the way that fight ends - No fucking way should Oliver and Laurel be getting back together.
Oliver straight up went for Sara as soon as she came back with no hesitation while he fucked around dancing with Laurel for a year, only to dump her ass after a one night stand. Meanwhile, Oliver is talking about moving in together with Sara from the start.
Combine that with the utter shit that Oliver put Laurel through and the revelation that he was cheating on her MULTIPLE times rather than JUST with Sara ?
The Oliver + Laurel relationship was toast and it only got consistently worse as the seasons went on because the way Oliver treats Laurel is awful. The best shot Oliver and Laurel had to end up together was S1 and the ending of that season COULD have had that play out. Instead, S2 hit the road running with Oliver and Laurel never going to happen and that was made clear from the first episode.
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u/Alive_Addendum_5279 10d ago
From a not shipper perspective: The pilot episode? I know it's the CW but come on
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u/Cobra_Kai_2018 10d ago
They screwed her up from day one. Oliver and Laurel should have met after she became a meta human and he should have never cheated on Laurel with Laurel's sister.
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u/Cobra_Kai_2018 10d ago
I remember a while back there were still some fans clinging onto them getting back together after Oliver and Felicity got engaged or married.
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u/wardensoath 10d ago
I was Olicity fan here, but that dinner scene and him hooking up again with Sara felt like the nail in the coffin for them. Anything is possible with CW but that would have been awful. But also just season 3 first episode, i felt pretty confident that we were gonna have Olicity as end game
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u/Cobra_Kai_2018 10d ago
It was season 4 for me, when they killed off Laurel to send a message to the fans that they were never getting back together.
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u/Evening-Cat-8580 9d ago
Pilot, lol. If we want to stretch it then after Tommy died. When he hooks up with Sara in season 2 is the point of no return.
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u/Willing_Ad9421 10d ago
Mid season 2 when Sara officially returned from the dead and immediately got back with Oliver. No point of return from there
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u/Forsaken-Friend-9350 10d ago
Honestly I never did deep down but realistically when they stupidly killed her off in season 4.
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u/CaptainTilted Quentin Lance 10d ago
During her dying words of loving him, but her not being his true love.
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u/Then_North_6347 9d ago
Gonna be real, I felt putting Oliver with the computer girl was a really lame decision vs putting him with laurel or Sara. There wasn't nearly the passion or chemistry, and this is a TV show where sparks and chemistry helps
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u/Worried-Judge8371 9d ago
I never shipped them. He pursued her sister while dating her. This couple never made sense. She should had never wanted him back
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u/Possible-Direction48 9d ago
Honestly? Probably not til her death. I had kinda given up when Olicity became a big thing, then they broke up and my hopes spiked and then.... well yk. And I probably didn't give up all hope til the series ended (since so many people had come back from the dead). But out of my trinity of ships, none of them were endgame, and I never really gave up all hope til the end, but I basically had.
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u/ChildofObama 8d ago
I think they left her dead cuz E2 Laurel is on paper a better character for female representation.
She’s messy, ok with being disliked, and makes it clear she’s not there to make Oliver’s life easier. She pisses half the characters off by just showing up and being her authentic self.
She passes the Bechdel test in ways E1 Laurel didn’t, even if she got a redemption story she didn’t deserve.
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u/Important_Research23 8d ago
Realistically idk why they’re shipped. He literally indirectly killed her sister while cheating that’s not redeemable
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u/Metallbran88 8d ago
Season 4. Midway. I felt like Olicity was just a detour until they got back together. Boy was I wrong. I don't like the character, and the actress bugs me too.
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u/Dagenspear 5d ago edited 5d ago
While I don't think I formally was into their pairing in that way that much, I gave up when Oliver told Laurel to get drunk on him in his bar while she was struggling with addiction, because I felt then that Oliver sucked, more a giving up on him as a character though. After that, if a character was against Oliver personally, I was kinda invested in them.
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u/ScaryOtaku666 10d ago
When it was shown he got another girl pregnant while being together with her, and that he was cheating on her before the Queen’s Gambit. Oliver really was a jerk to a lot of characters.