There are a lot of great female characters on CW's Arrow. Sara, Laurel, Nissa, Thea. They've all had their ups and downs, and fans have been frustrated with all of them at one point or another. Some have died. Most are finding new avenues of growth. But it is universally agreed that the best woman on the show is none other than Felicity Smoak, Team Arrow's resident computer genius.
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Every other woman on the show gets her fair share of licks in. Sara and Nissa were trained assassins for as long as we've known them. The vagaries of the plot demand that Laurel and Thea continue their training to become badass superheroines. After all, it is a show about superheroes. Which leaves Felicity as the last woman standing who isn't out punching her demons.
Not that Felicity is lacking in demons. For all that we love about Felicity (the shoes, the glasses, the talent), we don't know all that much about her history. The Secret Origin Of Felicity Smoak aims to show us just that. Felicity may not be a brawler, but that does not mean she is without her own super-powers. Oddly, her leet hacking skills seem the most down-to-earth ability of the team's varied levels of archery skills. Felicity's past assaults her on all fronts: her mother, Donna, stops in for a surprise visit (and the resemblance is stunning) and a mysterious computer hacker threatens Starling City with a virus; a virus that Felicity herself created.
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Frankly, if they wanted to spin off a show called 'Up In Smoak' (alas, 'Felicity' is already taken), about our heroine fighting cyber-crime, I would greenlight a full season even before the premiere aired. Emily Bett Rickards is a gem of an actress. Her Felicity could easily be a harsh or abrasive character; but literally everyone else is harsh and abrasive on the show, so she eases back and becomes the voice of emotion in the show. There are too many voices of cold, mechanical and very 'male' reason in Arrow, even our ass-kicking women are calculating. So it's nice to have someone who is allowed to be hurt and vulnerable and sad and strong in ways that we, the non-warriors of the world, can fully relate to.
Rickards plays her with just the right amount of vulnerability, but is strong when she needs to be. But like so many of us, she's not always called on to be strong. We first see her in the episode at the end of a long training montage which features the rest of the cast engaging in sparring practice first thing in the morning; Felicity, meanwhile, is grumbling through about five sit-ups to start her day. Just like you and I.
Like Oliver's early episodes, we get a flashback to five years ago, when Felicity was still in college and a bit more of a rebel. She had black hair, wore grungy clothes and was all over her boyfriend, Cooper, who aided and abetted her penchant for computer hacking. I'm usually all about the goth look (having practiced it myself) but it's quite jarring here. Felicity has always been the blonde, klutzy one! Then again, this is Felicity's 'secret' origin.
The episode is taken wholesale from TV Writing 101. There's a tense mother/daughter relation, a 'dead' boyfriend whose body we never see (not that has ever stopped characters from returning) and timely rescue. Arrow is a broadsweeping show with broad arcs and characters, after all. It just does all of them so well. The episode lives and dies on Rickards' and to an extent, Charlotte Ross's shoulders. Despite Felicity rarely talking about her mother, from the first moment Donna walks in unannounced, we understand immediately their relationship. It's not the most in-depth look at a mother/daughter relations, but the two play it for all its worth, so when the final gentle dispensations of love are announced, there's audible 'aaaaaaw'ing from the audience.
This season of Arrow has been fun, but this is the first episode I can safely say has been great. The focus on Felicity helps center the whole story, and we find we don't mind the complete break from the main story arcs and focus on the concept of family. Both the family you make, and the family that made you. Even Oliver and Thea get some heart to heart moments about their newly changed definition of the word.
Drama in general, and Arrow in particular, is built on characters not saying the things that need to be said. In that regards, Felicity is the anti-Arrow: she is an open book. Her origins revealed, she has nothing left to hide. In a world of secrets, that may be the greatest super-power of all.
