Spoilers ahead for Episode 13 of Arrow 7, called "Star City Slayer."
Arrow raised the stakes in some huge ways in the first half of Season 7, and the 150th episode was one of the most bizarre hours of the show to date. Now, "Star City Slayer" delivered a twist that will change everything about the series and quite possibly the Arrow-verse. Felicity Smoak is pregnant.
Okay, the episode technically didn't explicitly say that Felicity is pregnant, but there's not really any other way to interpret the twist in the final scene in the present from "Star City Slayer." The Queen family (sans Emiko, who didn't appear this week) wound up in the hospital, getting their blood tested after they were drugged by Oliver's former cellmate and current serial killer. Although they were released from the hospital, Felicity got a call at the end of the episode.
Only Felicity's side of the conversation is audible, but it's enough. Her expression changes from concerned and curious to more than a little shell-shocked and alarmed. The doctor on the other end of the line told her some news about herself, and given that the whole episode was playing up Felicity as a parent to William, it would have been easy to guess what the doctor told her even without the final scene of the episode.
Besides, this is TV. Female characters don't get calls from their doctors about blood tests unless they're pregnant! Who wants to bet the next episode begins with Felicity throwing up with morning sickness?
The final scene of the episode was a flash-forward, when Blackstar and Connor Hawke attacked William, Dinah, Roy, and Zoe after they visited the former Arrow bunker. There, Blackstar finally revealed her real name: Mia Smoak. She's Felicity's daughter and William's sister. Of course this is how the Queen family expands on Arrow.
The reveal that Blackstar is Felicity's daughter won't be altogether shocking for eagle-eyed fans who like to speculate, but that Felicity is pregnant is the present is definitely a game-changer. Mia's age in the flash-forwards made it likely that Felicity would be pregnant at some point before the end of the series unless Arrow changed the future. Still, a present pregnancy is a very big deal.
For one thing, the present pregnancy likely means that Felicity is benched and behind her computers for the indefinite future. She's never been the character most likely to suit up and hit the streets to fight crime, but she hasn't been afraid to rush into danger whenever necessary to help save the day.
Felicity is too responsible to make reckless decisions with herself if she has a bun in the oven. She's certainly been showing off some strong maternal instincts after she started helping to raise William. The good news is that Felicity is the one member of Team Arrow whose contributions to fighting the good fight won't be inhibited by being benched for safety's sake.
The bad news for TV fans who don't love babies on non-baby-friendly shows is that... well, a baby is definitely on the way, if Mia kicking ass in the flash-forwards is any indication. Felicity being pregnant in February means that she'll still be pregnant when Season 8 rolls around, if Arrow follows its usual time jump following Season 7. Can Arrow really pull off such a monumental task?
Fortunately, Arrow seems to have neatly sidestepped any speculation that Oliver is not Mia's father. Admittedly, that she gives her name as "Mia Smoak" indicates that she doesn't have a typical relationship with her father, but all signs definitely point to Mia as the product of Oliver and Felicity's union.
For one thing, Felicity certainly hasn't slept with anybody other than Oliver lately, so if we're assuming that Felicity's current pregnancy is what results in Mia, then there's no way that any person other than Oliver is Mia's father.
Arrow hasn't held back from paternity drama, as fans have seen with Thea, William, and Emiko. Oliver and Felicity's very loving, very stable, and very monogamous relationship means we can be spared any of the melodrama that made the whole William situation so difficult for some fans to swallow. There is an Olicity baby on the way, and sign me up for the show to explore the implications of their growing family without any unnecessary theatrics!
On top of how clear Arrow has made it that are no other candidates for the father of Felicity's child (and that this isn't The X-Files we're talking about), Mia was shocked in the flash-forward when she learned that William is Oliver's son. Even before the big reveal of her last name, it was clear that Blackstar had some kind of emotional attachment to Oliver Queen. Was it a loving connection? Difficult to say, but it was definitely there.
In the same scene where Mia announced her real name, she also revealed that she and William are siblings. Technically, William is Oliver's son and Felicity's stepson, so they would only be blood siblings if they were both fathered by Oliver Queen.
Sure, William did refer to Felicity as his mom in the flash-forward, but he quickly qualified it by saying that she was his stepmom in what was one of the few funny moments of the episode. When asked if he was so interested in Felicity because she was his girlfriend, his immediate and totally grossed out reaction was that he's gay and Felicity is his mom.
Given that there's really no question of the father of Felicity's child being anybody other than Oliver, fans can put their minds to bigger questions posed by Felicity's pregnancy. Did William not know that Mia existed? He never mentioned her when talking about Felicity being dead, and he certainly didn't recognize Blackstar when he met her.
If he didn't know that Mia existed, why not? "Star City Slayer" saw him choose to go live with his grandparents in Central City, and we know that William doesn't have the loving relationship with Oliver and Felicity in the future that he did prior to Oliver going to Slabside, but surely somebody would have told him that he had a baby sister on the way. Central City isn't that far away, and Oliver and Felicity clearly intended to stay in his life even as he moved away.
Does Felicity go into hiding for the duration of her pregnancy? It would be difficult to blame her if she went to extremes to stay safe while expecting. No matter where she and Oliver live, their home always seems to be broken into. In this episode alone, their family dinner of chili was interrupted by Oliver's psychotic former cellmate, who drugged them all and ranted at them in a speech that probably would have ended in their murders if the drug hadn't worn off enough for Oliver to clobber Stanley in the head with a bottle.
Or does William know about his sister, but had no relationship with her and therefore didn't spare a thought for her after learning that Felicity was dead? If he didn't know her, he wouldn't recognize her.
What happened to the Queen family that tore them apart? Why does Mia go by "Mia Smoak" rather than "Mia Queen" in the flash-forwards? Was she raised without Oliver in her life, or did something drive her to actively choose to go with her mother's surname? Is it because Oliver dies in the "Crisis on Infinite Earth" crossover next fall?
Well, I'll say this for Arrow: I'm more invested in the flash-forwards than I was previously! Unfortunately, Arrow is now heading into a mini hiatus, with no new episodes until March 4. For some shows that will hit the airwaves between now and then, check out our midseason TV premiere schedule.
