Romance on Arrow was a bumpy ride in early seasons, but the show has settled on Oliver and Felicity as the big love story of the series. The two are currently separated thanks to Oliver's incarceration in prison, and there was glass between them when they saw each other for the first time in five months. More kisses are undoubtedly on the way once the married couple is reunited. Actress Emily Bett Rickards recently revealed that the Olicity kisses that are epic on screen aren't so epic in real life.
When reminiscing over some of the kissing scenes in earlier seasons of the series, Emily Bett Rickards was reminded of a kiss in the Season 4 premiere when Felicity failed at making eggs for Oliver, and this is what she had to say:
I remember the next scene when I tripped with the champagne which was like a big deal. And I stubbed my toe and almost broke it, which was fun. We were shooting at one of the suburbs... This was one of our first days back in Season 5. We were happy, can you imagine? How sweet.
For Emily Bett Rickards, the most memorable part of the temporary happily-ever-after in Ivy Town wasn't the kissing scene at all, but Felicity's mishap shortly thereafter! She even mistook the scene as taking place in Season 5 rather than Season 4, which is totally understandable now that she's into Season 7. The scene where she tripped with the champagne is memorable in its own way, as Oliver's quick catch before it could smash on the floor was a hint that he hadn't lost his Green Arrow reflexes.
It's certainly good to know that she only almost broke her toe in the first days back at work on a new season. Starting off with a broken bone undoubtedly wouldn't have made her job any easier, even if Felicity does spend a lot of time behind a screen as Overwatch. Emily Bett Rickards' "can you imagine?" comment after saying that Felicity and Oliver were happy is worth a laugh. Arrow is grim more often than not.
Of course, as Emily Bett Rickards mentioned in relation to Oliver and Felicity's very first kiss back in Season 3, co-workers kissing is very different from two characters pining after each other sharing a kiss, so it makes sense that the kissing scenes are less romantic for Rickards and Stephen Amell than they are for Felicity and Oliver. Fans undoubtedly get more of a thrill out of watching the characters than the actors get performing the scenes!
Emily Bett Rickards went on to give some background on another Oliver/Felicity kiss, and it's undoubtedly one that viewers remember. It took place in a Season 4 episode that had Oliver and Felicity at odds much of the time. By the end of the episode, they were ready to make up in their apartment, and it was filmed to show them in a sort of yin yang position. The position was aesthetically pleasing but not all that natural. Rickards said this about the kiss:
Well, first of all we are lying down, so it was already a good day for me. Anything horizontal... oh yeah and then we humped! Well did you see I was cut? So we were lying down and then all of a sudden I came into frame. So it's a little bit easier than you'd think. So if you want to recreate that kiss for yourselves, I don't think it's going to be as romantic, because you have to think about getting in the position.
The episode didn't show Felicity slipping into place for an unforgettable kissing scene, and it would have shown Emily Bett Rickards arranging herself for the camera to get the perfect shot. Her words may be disappointing to any fans who hope to recreate that kiss themselves, as her reveal to Entertainment Tonight indicates that romance is lost when you have to get yourself into a certain position.
Felicity and Oliver likely won't be kissing in any position for the foreseeable future. Although the latest episode did show Felicity taking some significant steps toward catching Ricardo Diaz, capturing the baddie doesn't mean Oliver is sprung from prison. The deal was for Oliver to out himself as the Green Arrow and accept a prison sentence in exchange for the FBI hunting Diaz; it will undoubtedly take some special circumstances if he's going to be officially released rather than escape.
Oliver should be out of prison by the time the big "Elseworlds" crossover rolls around, although we can't even 100% count on that. The first look may have shown Oliver back in his Green Arrow gear, but we've since seen Stephen Amell decked out in Flash gear to play what we have to assume in the Elseworlds version of The Flash. Could Oliver remain in the clink and the crossover simply feature an alternate Oliver, hanging out in leather with alternate Barry and meeting Batwoman?
We'll have to wait and see. My fingers are crossed that the arc lasts for more than just a few episodes. His incarceration means we're getting to see Oliver adapt and evolve in ways he never would have needed to on the outside. Lacking the tech backup of Overwatch and the backup in the field from other vigilantes, he has to make due with no allies other than fellow prison Stanley, who is either a wrongly-convicted man or a secret serial killer, as far as I'm concerned at this point.
Seeing Oliver MacGyver gadgets should be fun, and the characters outside get to explore new arcs as well. Throw in the new Green Arrow and the flashforwards, and Season 7 is a new era for Arrow. For the oldest series in the Arrow-verse, new arcs may have been difficult to concoct. Perhaps the new showrunner is exactly what it needed.
Tune in to The CW on Mondays at 8 p.m. ET for new episodes of Arrow, ahead of new episodes of Legends of Tomorrow. The fall TV lineup truly does offer plenty of superhero options now and in the future.
