Felicity, Deadshot and Diggle
A crowd-pleasing addition to Arrow has been Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), whose popularity has led to a quick promotion for Rickards as a series regular for Season 2. Guggenheim recalled how impressed they were by Rickards from her audition and said with a laugh, “We always have to be careful, because Felicity can take all the energy. We have to be very careful to not make it the Felicity Show, but it is at the same time a lot of fun to have Felicity be inserted into this relationship with Oliver and Diggle. It changes the relationship between Oliver and Diggle, especially given the fact that we’ll be having some stuff happen with Oliver and Diggle in light of the fact that Deadshot’s alive, in episode 16. So that’s another big piece of what I call the third chapter of the season. “

Ramsey echoed the sentiment, sating he felt adding Felicity to the team, “Is great. It’s much needed, first of all. She brings something to the Arrow cave that we could never bring ourselves. And part of our relationship, Oliver and Diggle’s, is a little bit contentious sometimes, only because of the pressure – the Shakespearean pressure of 'Avenge me!' from his father that’s been placed on him, And Diggle is saying, 'Hey, we can save this city, but there are more ways of saving it besides the strictness of this book.' So yeah, I think she needs in a much needed third voice to say, ‘Maybe both you guys need to reconsider things.’ And we both need that. So Felicity is very, very needed.”