#arrow 4x19

Laurel had known both Tommy and Oliver since they were veryyoung- virtually their whole lives. And it seems that she was close to themthat whole time (which would explain how she ended up in the orbit of a pair ofbillionaires). It’s never stated exactly when she and Oliver started dating(Sara gives an indication in an island flashback sequence but its vague- but itwas sometime when Sara was young enough to be sneaking out of the house andgetting grounded and for Tommy’s party to be broken up by the cops) but itseems to be sometime late in high school or early in their college years. Therelationship lasts until they’re 22. And at that point Laurel is planning onmoving in with Oliver and beginning to think about marriage. We all know whathappens next. What I want to emphasize is what didn’t happen- in five years, Laurel did not start a newrelationship. She had hook-ups, at least the ones with Tommy, but never is itindicated that she actually dated someone. Laurel doesn’t start seriouslydating again until several weeks after Oliver came back from the dead.

As I said, I ship Merlance. I think Tommy brought out the bestin Laurel and vice versa. I think Tommy truly loved Laurel. I think Tommy andLaurel were much more equally suited to each other than Oliver and Laurel. Ithink he had a playful energy that balanced out her intensity but a franknessand honesty that kept her grounded. I think he had the confidence to fight backwhen she tried to push him around, whereas Oliver served as her whipping boy inseason 1. I think Tommy and Laurel could have been great together. But I alsothink that Laurel hadn’t moved on from Oliver yet. That’s why she didn’t trulyget together with Tommy until after Oliver’s resurrection. That’s why there’ssome weird notes of emotional cheating going on with Laurel and Oliver going toeach other more than Tommy. That’s why Laurel lies to Tommy at the drop of ahat and why she chases after the Hood. That’s why Tommy eventually breaks upwith Laurel and she pretty much goes straight back to Oliver. Tommy was alwaysmore dedicated to Laurel than she was to him. I think that would have changedeventually. I think Laurel and Oliver would have gotten their closure and Tommyand Laurel gotten their second chance. If Tommy had lived.

You said she spiraled into addiction over Tommy, I think that’spartially true. However, the reason it was so bad was because it wasn’t juststraight grief. It was grief and guilt and confusion. Tommy was an old friendand there’s plenty of grief right there. But there was a lot of guilt too- hedied saving her, and he loved her a lot and she’s not sure she loved him. Andto make it worse, just before he died for her she slept with someone else. Allthose emotions twisted up without resolution or a chance to really discover howshe felt about him. Tommy and Laurel’s relationship was unresolved potential.

Now, her relationship with Oliver. From where I stand Oliver andLaurel have two breakup scenes- and neither of them takes place when they’reactually a couple. The first is the major one that ends really any chance ofthem being together but only resolves Oliver’s feelings, not Laurel’s. Thatscene comes in episode 2x14 after Oliver’s dinner with the Lance’s, when hefollows Laurel into the hallway, they fight and he says that he’s loved her forhalf his life but he is done chasing after her. The second breakup scene iswhere we definitively see that Laurel no longer feels that way about Oliver andit doesn’t come until season 3- I believe it’s in 3x03 that Laurel tells him “it’shard to remember I time when I loved you”. That’s said in anger, and it wouldseem that her feelings left some time ago but this is the moment thateffectively kills any lingering suggestion of romance between them. But here’sthe thing- if you consider when they first got together to the first breakupscene, that’s something like 11 years of romantic feeling between them. ELEVENYEARS. Add on to that years of friendship before, and a few years after andLaurel and Oliver are huge parts of each other’s lives. Nothing else iscomparable, in terms of romance. Especially for Laurel, who didn’t have a Shadoor a Sara or a Felicity. The relationship between Oliver and Laurel certainlywasn’t healthy for all, or even most of that time. There was cheating beforethe island, there was betrayal, years of separation defined by guilt andidolization on his part, and hatred and grief mingled up on her part, and therewas the almost obsessive inability to move on during season 1. The good and thebad mingled for most of those 11 years. But Laurel spent over a third of herlife in love with Oliver in some way or another. Moving beyond that was goodfor both of them, but the fact that they played a role in shaping the other personis undeniable.

So yes, Oliver was the love of Laurel’s life. Because he definedso much of it. That’s not necessarily positive but it’s true to who thecharacter is. Laurel was a flawed character but her love for Oliver Queendemonstrates both strengths and weaknesses.

So why was this chosen for her final moments on the show? Doesn’tit highlight her being stuck in a relationship with a man who mistreated her?To some extent yes, as a part of her complexity and the reality of thecharacter they created. But I think it’s more than that and more than reducingher to that relationship. The picture that they pulled out is especiallyimportant and the scene has to be put into the context of that. That picture isa symbol- it was the thing that was Oliver’s beacon when he was gone. Laurel asa symbol of hope, and light and strength to others. So the scene begins bycalling this to mind. Remember that Laurel inspires people to be better and tofight harder. The gap is bridged by relationship talk which really comes downto several key ideas: 1. Laurel forgiving Oliver for the terrible way hetreated her. Forgiveness is a wonderful thing and for a character’s finalmoments to be defined by that is no shame. 2. Her telling Oliver that she caresabout and values him 3. A sort of selflessness as she encourages Oliver to livehis life and celebrates the happiness he has found. And 4. A bittersweet lookback at how this all started. Because the path that lead her to where she wasstarted with her and Oliver, and there’s sort of this expression of ‘I don’tregret the choices that lead me to where I am, but miss the simpler times’. Andthat look back with a hint of affirmation leads to the request which doesn’t getrevealed until later- the new Black Canary. Remember that Laurel was aninspiration, remember that she forgave and was selfless and cared, rememberthat she chose this life and accepted it, and do all this remembering throughcontinuing her legacy. It’s all about who she was as Laurel Lance “alwaystrying to save the world”, as Oliver’s love interest, and as the Black Canary.It’s a tribute to her character as a whole. (I would argue that this conversationwas very important to that and had it occurred with anyone other than Oliver[Lance] it could not have taken on so many shades, it would have been morelimited to a single shade of her character, and giving her the protagonist asher scene partner, emphasizes her importance much more than any other charactercould and allows her death to influence the show as a whole).

Now for the couple side notes:

I don’t find Laurel’s comments inappropriate despite Oliver’srecent breakup because it is phrased in light of “I hope you find your way backto her” and with a sort of confidence that that will happen. As well as a noteof I’m glad that you found her even if it ended, in sort of the same way thatLaurel is glad to have known him in spite of everything.

The retcon: I rewatched the 4x19 flashbacks and 2x01 and… I don’tthink there’s actually any retcon involved. We weren’t given specificindication that the flashbacks happened but that’s kind of the nature of a showwith flashbacks as an inherent part of its structure. 2x01 tells that Oliverwas around when Tommy’s funeral happened, and that he left. The timeline isleft entirely vague. 4x19 doesn’t go against anything that was said in 2x01. Itshows the funeral and it shows Oliver leaving. It also deals slightly more withthe fact that Oliver and Laurel sort of got back together before theUndertaking, and since 2x01 references both of them in the context of thefuneral it seems they would have interacted in the context of that. 4x19 fits. Thetwo episodes together also emphasize Laurel’s mixed feelings regarding Tommy.She says she loved him, then she kisses Oliver, then he feels guilty, feels hecan’t stay around his failure and takes off, when he gets back she feels guiltyabout what she did with Oliver and feels she betrayed Tommy. I don’t have aproblem with it, in fact I think it does a lot to explain the gap between 1x23and 2x01 in terms of oliver’s relationships and emotional state.