Last night’s Arrow gave viewers the chance to get to know a Felicity faced with uncertainty and insecurity.

This article contains spoilers so if you haven’t seen the Arrow episode “AWOL”, please do not continue reading.

When someone is in an accident that leaves them physically damaged, they begin to question their usefulness as a person. Such is the case with Arrow’s Felicity Smoak.  After her shooting by Darhk’s men, Felicity is now paralyzed from the waist down.  Now Felicity fears that she will be a burden to the man she loves and of no longer use to her crime fighting friends.

Felicity begins hallucinating (due to her medication) about the version of herself from five years ago when she was a goth computer hacker. Viewers were introduced to this Felicity in “The Origins of Felicity Smoak” last season. This goth Felicity basically taunts our Felicity about how she is not the woman she was and that she will lose Oliver the same way she lost the use of her legs and that the best thing would be for her to return to the computer hacker she used to be.

The use of the hallucination was an excellent choice of the writers.  Felicity wouldn’t share her feelings of fear and doubt with the team.  Plus in Felicity’s mindset right now she’s a failure, so goth hallucination was the perfect representation of these feelings.

Kudos to Emily Bett Rickards.  These two versions of Felicity were so well acted that you’d think they are being played by two different people.  Like Oliver, Felicity has her own demons to conquer, and I hope she’ll be able to do so without sinking further into depression.

What did you think of Arrow and Felicity?  Sound off in the comments.  Or tweet @thenerdygirlexpress and @stacyamiller85 .