Last week when she played "relationship counselor" to the boys was just perfect and thank you! My sister pointed out how Olly was recreating the team that he had on the island and I thought that was a good point-that way he doesn't just have to rely on himself and that has honestly saved his well-toned butt on more than one occasion.

And you've traveled more than me! I've been to a handful of states and to England, Scotland and Wales once during the summer between 6th and 7th grade. Hopefully I'll be going to New Zealand in a year for the Hobbit premiere *crosses fingers*

It's interesting. I don't know if he's recreating the team; I have no idea if Shado is good or bad at this point. I'm actually leaning toward "secretly evil," but I have no idea. I'm actually really curious to see how close they're sticking to their universe or if they're letting themselves improvise: they certainly did with letting Felicity onto the team, as the actress was only supposed to be on for a bit part. (I'm glad they did; "You're going to be really upset when you meet my partner" made me grin for ages)

Oh, man, New Zealand sounds awesome. Just think, you get to go to the premier and then you walk out of the theater and it's more of the same and you're just surrounded by that. I've been doing some travel hacking to afford my trip; if you've got time and are savvy, I recommend looking into that.

The last couple of episodes will be interesting no doubt! I'm actually dreading them because I don't want Malcom to die (because John Barrowman is just awesome in that role) yet at the same time I want Oliver to stop the horrible thing.

I think they're sticking to the basics of the Green Arrow storyline, with Laurel ending up with him and whatnot, but I think that they're playing loose with other stuff- like Huntress, Deadshot, traveling to Bludhaven (during that scene I asked if he let Nightwing know what was going down). Which I kind of like because it opens up the world that much more and yes, people complain about that but at the same time they'd complain if it was too rigid with the comic cannon.

IMO the writers/exec producers are doing a nice mix of things.