I just finished Arrow 1x12 "Vertigo"...and I'm officially on Team Olicity.
So, in 1x12, Oliver gets injected with the drug Vertigo and he's kinda wigging out, and there is this ADORABLE scene where he goes to Felicity to get her to find out information on the drug for him. Aside from all of Felicity's dialogue and delivery being A++++, there is this moment when Oliver just kind of chuckles because of what she says, and it's all kinds of adorable, and yeah. They just spark. I see it and it's effortless, whereas the stuff with Laurel is heavy.
Plus, I don't like girls like Laurel who string guys along, which is totally what's happening with Tommy. She's still OBVIOUSLY hung up on Ollie, and he's doing the right thing by not getting involved (at this point, anyway), and even encouraging her to move forward with Tommy, but it's just annoying. Just admit what you want, and even if you can't or won't tell Ollie how you feel, at least have the decency to cut Tommy loose. It's just wrong and mean. Especially because Tommy is CRAZY ABOUT HER.
Speaking of Tommy, when they revealed that Malcolm is his father, I was like OH SHIT. So yeah, that's scary. Good intrigue. I like how the show surprises me with those little twists. They aren't like GASP OUT LOUD things like TVD used to be, but it's still good TV.
I really enjoyed the Helena storyline, too. Good actress, interesting character, and I liked the connection Oliver had with her. It made sense to me, both why he was drawn to her, and why he kept trying to save her. And I liked that she wasn't really interested in being saved.
I went looking at the fanfiction tags on AO3 just to confirm my suspicions that the Oliver/Digg ship would be a thing (even though both are obviously heterosexual, but that never stops fandom, of course), but I was GROSSED OUT TO THE MAX to discover the Oliver/Thea stories! God, what is wrong with people! Seriously!
Speaking of Thea, she's my biggest problem with the whole show. I've never believed she's 17-18 at all. I like her fine, and her relationships with both her mother and Ollie are interesting, but I wish they'd just made her older.
Shallow remarks: I love that Oliver has PERFECT STUBBLE ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Like, for reals, it gets me in my ovaries, every time. And watching him work out is just soft core porn, yup, yup.
There have also been three TVD crossovers here, Stephen, of course, played Brady in S2; and Kelly Hu has been recurring (Pearl from TVD) and in 1x12 Tessa showed up! I was very excited to see her, I loved her, but she doesn't appear to be batshit crazy on this show, so she might not be as enjoyable.
I'll be back when I've seen more!