“Don’t Get Me Started.”

Special thanks to @emrambling for also making this connection between these two ships, you're fire chef.

Okay, so for those who don't know, Felicity was a show created in 1998 by JJ Abrams & Matt Reeves.

Felicity is a show about a girl named Felicity Porter as she tries to find herself after rejecting an offer at Stanford university to follow her crush, Ben Covington, to New York after he writes in her yearbook. Through the process of this, she realises Ben isn't all she's made up in her head, but still decides to stick it out in New York as a way to learn more about life and herself without relying on her parents.

Rings a bell yet???

As @emrambling mentioned, Sydney essentially also follows Carmy to New York through wanting to try the hamachi dish, and she felt connected to Carmy through the dish. And how that dish made her want to work alongside him at the beef.

Similar to this, Felicity used to follow Ben's track and swim team meets because she felt like it looked like such an amazing feeling, and she felt connected to how fast he ran because she wanted to run away from the expectations of her parents forcing her to become a doctor (Which she does end up pursuing but I will write another meta on this for).

When Felicity got to meet and talk to Ben, she kind of started to realise how imperfect he was. His homelife wasn't great; his dad was a raging alcoholic, and he felt like his mum was stuck in the middle of it because she would either forgive his dad or she'd feel distraught over how much Ben and his dad used to argue and fight. He thought that moving to New York and having his own life would benefit his mum in a similar way that Carmy going to New York would help Mikey, since he didn't want him working at the restaurant. We also know that Carmy doesn't remember much of his dad, so that's another similarity.

When Sydney met Carmy, she also started to realise how imperfect his life was despite working to the level of being the best chef in America. But like Felicity, even if Carmy isn't what she made him out to be, Sydney decided to stick with him because she WANTS to get to know him. I also think Carmy and Ben's facial expressions to Sydney and Felicity when they have conversations are always very similar. Ben has this level of compassion and softness that he shows to Felicity that I feel he finds difficult to express with others, and Carmy does the same thing with Sydney a lot. While Carmy does struggle with asking Nat and the others how they're feeling, he has no problem asking Sydney how she's feeling.

Ben also doesn't think he deserves good in his life because he has deep-seated trauma from his dad that made him feel like he didn't deserve Felicity. Felicity always believes that he is good enough and is trying to continue to be better as a person. It's the way that Sydney empathises with Carmy's upbringing and understands that while he can be difficult, he is a well-meaning person.

There is a specific episode (Spooked season 1 episode 5) where Ben and Felicity deal with an armed robbery, and Ben is very visibly emotionally rattled by the situation. He kind of leans on Felicity for solace. Ben and Felicity have late-night talks to help Ben sleep after the trauma of that incident, kind of like Carmy and Sydney creating the thoughtful chaos menu and the later s2 episode 9 table scene.

But then, following that, at a Halloween party, Ben ditches the idea of going as Frankenstein. They talked about going as a 'couple costume' with Felicity going as Frankenstein's bride before. But instead, Ben "rejects" Felicity by going as Peter Lawford. Which reminds me of the time Carmy asked Sydney to go on the food tour and then ditched her for Claire. Ben also ends up kissing a random girl at the party, which is like how Carmy kisses Claire. But towards the end of that episode, realising how upset he made Felicity, Ben comes to terms with how shitty he has been to Felicity and gifts her a necklace in place of what she told him during their late-night chats about how her grandmother's necklace got stolen during the armed robbery. Which is like how Carmy gifted Sydney the Chef's coat upon seeing his custom one.

Ben ends up dating Felicity's friend Julie. Julie has also liked Ben since the episode Felicity introduced them. Julie ends up not trying to date Ben for a while because she knows Felicity likes him romantically. But then, when Felicity has something with Noel (There is a major love triangle between Felicity, Ben, and Noel), Julie decides to give it a go with Ben since Ben reciprocates interest in Julie. What I find interesting with the Ben/Julie relationship is the fact that Ben is emotionally immature at this point in season 1, so he ends up pushing Julie away, and he never talks to her about serious stuff. But you know who he continuously talks serious stuff to??? Felicity. And that reminds me of Carmy and Claire's dynamic. No matter how much time Carmy and Claire spend together, Carmy will always try to talk to Sydney and open up about real stuff (like when he asked her what her relationship with her mum was like or when he kept asking her about her dad, and everything in the table scene lol).

Ben and Felicity also become coworkers at Dean & Deluca, like Carmy and Sydney are. And I feel like their dynamic is a lot like how Carmy and Sydney's is. Because even if the interactions they have in their place of work aren't romantic, they clearly place them with the intention that you're supposed to pick up on what kind of dynamic they have. Like they'll naturally be close and talk to each other and have their own things going on, which makes it nice that Ben has his own life outside of being a love interest, and Felicity isn't always pining after Ben, and their conversations are very natural, and you can feel them growing closer.

Whenever Felicity reminds Ben of an accomplishment he made in high school, he always smiles to himself in a very genuine way, like he's very touched by what she says about him. It's like how Carmy struggles to really step into enjoying his craft, but he was genuinely touched when Sydney told him he was the most excellent Chef in the United States of America. It's really cute.

Also, whenever Ben gets jealous, it's more subtle and involves visual cues. Because when Felicity officially starts dating the other guy in the love triangle, Noel, and she makes out with him in the bathroom, Ben sees.

He doesn't mention it to Felicity to embarrass her near the others afterwards, since it was Felicity's business to deal with, and they had a Thanksgiving dinner to attend. It's like when Sydney got Shapiro's offer and Carmy knew about it during s4 episode 6 'Sophie' but withheld telling her since she was going through her dad having a heart attack. Ben only decided to mention it to Felicity in the following episode because it was to show us, as the audience, that he is naturally curious about the fate of Felicity's decision about what she and Noel are. It was to also show how much Ben cares about Felicity more and more like Carmy does for Sydney.

Also, Ben's dynamic with his Landlord, Sean, is like Carmy's dynamic with Richie. Sean is older than Ben, like Richie is older than Carmy. Richie has a lot of theatre references in his dialogue, which is like @currymanganese's theory that Richie is the director of the show. Sean is the director of a documentary he created about Ben and his college friends' lives, and he made a documentary about Felicity and Noel (when Noel is confused when his ex gf reenters the picture, Felicity loses her virginity to an artist named Eli. This causes a strain in their relationship). Sean decides to ask Ben if he's bothered by what is happening, and Ben asks why, and Sean's like "Because it's always been Ben or Noel, Ben or Noel, now it's Noel or Eli." And Ben responds, "So what?" and Sean's like "You're not jealous?" and Ben responds in a very unconvincing way of "No, I'm not jealous," then he pauses before saying again, "I'm not." And this is while Ben is still with Julie. So Sean is bringing into question Ben's feelings for Felicity in the same fashion that Richie did in the restaurant scene when Carmy brought in Claire. Richie was like, "You nervous?" alluding to the fact that Sydney was also in the room. I feel like neither Sean nor Richie does anything in a way that pushes Ben or Carmy into making a decision to come to terms with their feelings, but rather, it's a genuine point of thought that they're questioning with Ben and Carmy. Because we know Felicity liked(s) Ben, but up until this point, we didn't know what Ben thought about Felicity in a romantic sense.

Okay, I don't want this post to be too long, I'll make another, so this will be the last thing to mention. Remember when Carmy kept asking Sydney to go to the Ever dinner with him? In the Season 1 finale of Felicity, Ben wanted Felicity to go cross-country with him and to go home to Palo Alto (They both are from Palo Alto, like how Sydcarmy are both from Chicago), while Noel wanted to go to Berlin with her. Firstly, Felicity repetitively denies wanting to go cross-country with Ben because he had just broken up with Julie, and she KNOWS it will not be platonic if they go together. I feel like Sydney not wanting to go to the Ever dinner with Carmy is like this because she KNOWS this might cross some lines between professionally working together and getting closer. IT IS BEN AND CARMY who don't actually mind if they cross those lines. Ben WANTS to be with Felicity. Carmy WANTS to be closer to Sydney, whether it starts with being friends and becoming closer, to being even more than that. Ben asks countless times, and even asks to the very LAST MINUTE before he leaves to drive cross country if Felicity will go with him, and Carmy doesn't let Sydney refuse till he gets a confirmed answer that Sydney wants to go to the Ever dinner with him.

With Noel wanting Felicity to go to Berlin with him, Felicity thinks about how glamorous it would be. It's like the two sleepovers Sydney mentions. Like how she described with Shapiro, that she could have all the possible resources of a restaurant handed to her. For Felicity, it would be travelling to Berlin and having that amazing experience to see the atmosphere.

But it wouldn't make Sydney or Felicity happy.

Why, you may ask?

It would be with the wrong person.

Felicity and Sydney both knew it. Felicity would rather go Cross Country WITH Ben, and Sydney would rather stay in the "Musty House" Because she wants to work at the Bear and she WANTS Carmy.

And Felicity chooses Ben, and Sydney chooses Carmy.