Although Green Arrow is traditionally paired with Black Canary romantically in the comics and other media, in the TV series Arrow, Emily Bett Richards’ Felicity Smoak filled that position. Initially introduced in Season 1 character loosely based on a minor Firestorm character. Felicity soon became one of Arrow’s most popular protagonists and the love of Stephen Amell’s Oliver Queen’s life. It’s been five years since Arrow concluded and Rickards last played Felicity, and she gave a great reason for why she’s down to reprise her breakout role someday.
The actress is currently doing the press rounds for the 2025 movie release of Queen of the Ring, where she plays professional wrestler Mildred Burke. One of Rickards’ stops has been Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum, and during her conversation with the title host, she started off by expressing her willingness to revisit Felicity as follows:
Probably, yeah. I want to give Felicity her flowers, to be honest.
Emily Bett Rickards said this when Michael Rosenbaum asked she would agree to reprise Felicity Smoak if Arrow was revived as either a movie or a six-episode limited series. Following her recurring stint in Season 1, Rickards was upgraded to series regular in Season 2, stayed in that position into Season 7, then was absent from Season 8 until the series finale. While segments of the Arrow fanbase were polarized towards Felicity (though that can be said about other characters on the show), the actress would nonetheless be game for the opportunity to portray her in a slightly more positive light. As she explained:
I’m so grateful for the fandom, but there are things that I wish that Felicity stood up for more. And I think that she did, just off screen. I love Felicity. I’m not doing it for Arrow or really the fans. I’d be doing it for Felicity. And then everybody else gets it just as a side effect!
In the final minutes of Arrow’s series finale, Felicity Smoak walked through a portal to the afterlife created by Mar Novu in 2040 to reunite with Oliver Queen in the afterlife, just like she’d done in the alternate future shown in the pre-Crisis multiverse. Even assuming this is truly the end of the character’s story and not just another alternate future, there’s plenty of time that can be explored between then and where we left off with her in the series finale. If they can find a way for Stephen Amell to return as Oliver, Felicity will be a piece of cake.
As for how she feels about Arrow overall these days, Emily Bett Rickards told Michael Rosenbaum that she still looks back on the show itself and Felicity Smoak fondly, though that’s not to say she didn’t have some criticism to share:
I’m still so grateful for not only Arrow, but for Felicity. I’m really proud of who Felicity was, and I think she got a little lost in the later seasons, and I wish I could have changed that for her, but I wasn’t a writer.
Rosenbaum followed up by asking if Rickards ever spoke her mind and shared with the Arrow writers about what she thought should happen to Felicity, to which she answered:
I did, but I think I’d be better at it now. I think I’d be clearer now, so part of it is me not being as clear as I wanted to be and feeling rushed. You know, I think TV is fast and it’s rushed, and it’s an impossible task, I think the showrunners are doing the best they can when you’re doing an show that’s 23 episodes a season.
After Arrow ended, Stephen Amell reprised Oliver for an episode of The Flash’s final season, and David Ramsey reprised John Diggle in that series too, as well as made guest appearances in Supergirl, Batwoman and Superman & Lois. The Flash brought the Arrowverse’s main continuity to an end in 2023, Superman & Lois concluded the franchise as a whole last year, and now the majority of live-action upcoming DC TV shows are set either in the DC Universe or the shared universe spawned by The Batman. But maybe there will come a day when DC is interested in revisiting Arrow, and if/when that happens,
Until then, you’re welcome to stream Arrow and many of the other Arrowverse shows with your Netflix subscription. Otherwise, get your fill of DC film and TV content by paying for a Max subscription.
