Arrow: 10 Mistakes It Must Fix In Season 5
5. Felicity's Role
It's fast becoming the case that there's no middle ground when it comes to Felicity Smoak. You either love her character and want her and Oliver to be together, or you think she's single-handedly destroying the show and should be killed off.
Felicity now is about as hated by Arrow fans as Laurel was circa Season 2, maybe even more so. It's a strange position, given how popular her character was across the first two seasons.
Season 3 brought her and Oliver together as an actual item, which was a problem for many, while since then she's frequently been on hand to deliver grandiose speeches about love and what needs to be done, and lost a lot of what made the character so great in the first place.
While I think some criticisms of the character (and actress Emily Bett Rickards) are little harsh, it is clear the writers have struggled here. They need to ensure Felicity's role is important without it completely dominating everything, and that she can retain that goofball charm and humour that helped make her so appealing. And even then, it's only part of the problem solved.