WARNING: MAJOR PLOT SPOILERS FOR "ARROW"
At the start of Arrow’s fourth season, there was a brief scene that took place several months in the suture, showing Oliver at a funeral while looking solemnly at a grave. This scene foreshadowed that one of the characters from the show was going to bite the dust leading to all sorts of speculation. Well, eighteen episodes later, we finally found out who was in the grave. In what was a shocking episode with an even more shocking ending, the occupant of the grave is…Laurel Lance aka the Black Canary. Let’s look at how this came to be.
Summary: In the most recent episode of Arrow, “Eleven-Fifty-Nine”, Damien Darhk has Malcom Merlyn fetch him the idol that gives him power so he can lead a prison break. Merlyn brought Darhk the idol, which was in Team Arrow’s possession, but it was still missing a piece for Darhk to be able to use it. Meanwhile, Team Arrow (minus Felicity of course), is doing everything they can to prevent Darhk from escaping prison and they even enlist the help of Diggle’s brother, Andy. However, Oliver begins to distrust Andy after things seem suspicious and tries to confront him, but Diggle walks in on the confrontation, disappointed with Oliver. Later, when Oliver, Thea, Laurel, Diggle, and Andy go to the prison to try and stop a prison break that’s in process, Darhk holds Andy at gunpoint causing the others to surrender…only to have Andy willingly give Darhk the last piece of the idol and betray Team Arrow. After receiving the idol, Darhk quickly gets back his powers and uses one of Oliver’s arrows to stab Laurel in the gut. After being taken to the hospital, Laurel briefly recovers only to die a little bit after confessing to Oliver the feelings she’s held onto.
This was a bold move by the showrunners. They killed off the Black Canary, who, in the comics, is fated to marry the Green Arrow. Many fans have already expressed their anger for killing off Laurel and some still hold on hope that the death was a hoax. Normally, this wouldn’t be too hard to believe. Arrow has been notorious for bringing back characters who were presumed dead. Sara Lance and Oliver Queen are the two most memorable examples. But Arrow’s executive producer Marc Guggenheim has already confirmed to multiple sites that this death will stick and that there was no way they were going to fake this one since they already did the same to Roy Harper in season 3. Katie Cassidy, who portrayed Laurel Lance in Arrow has even tweeted her goodbye already.
With all that being said, this death will have a huge toll of what remains of Team Arrow. As season four closes out, here are my predictions on how each team member will handle Laurel’s death.
Felicity Smoak
Since Felicity is technically no longer on Team Arrow (although, she’s still a big part of the show), I thought I’d do her first to get it out of the way. Even though Felicity and Laurel never really had much of a close relationship, the death will still have an impact on Felicity’s character. After all, Felicity is one of the most (if not the most) emotional character on the show. At face value, it’s hard to tell what she’ll do directly, but this may encourage her to try and become the beacon of hope that was spoken about in the last episode. This may even be the birth of Smoak Technologies, which was seen in the sister show, Legends of Tomorrow.
Thea Queen
Laurel was like a sister to Thea, even before they became vigilantes. The common connection between the two of them was Oliver and they never really let his poor choices put a wedge in between them. With that in mind, I do believe that Thea will take the death pretty hard. One thing to remember is that before Laurel died, Malcom told Thea that since she no longer has her bloodlust (a monster like desire to kill), that she will never beat him. Another thing to remember is that Malcom was involved with helping Darhk escape from prison. Thea may feel that had she killed Merlyn that Laurel may still be alive. It’s very likely that she’ll try to kill Malcom before season 4 ends.
Quentin Lance
Can’t this poor guy get a break? He’s already had to deal with his other daughter, Sara, dying multiple times and now his other daughter is dead too. He may not be an official member of Team Arrow, but he still deserves some sympathy, especially with how sad he looked when he saw Oliver in the hospital and knew right then and there that his daughter was gone. His reaction following the death will be what most fathers want to do after his daughter is killed: go after the killer. In these last five episodes of season 4, we could possibly see an emotional showdown between Quentin and Darhk.
John Diggle
I think what Diggle said in the hospital before Laurel died will stand true: he will never forgive himself. He may feel personally responsible for her death, especially since Andy had played the biggest role in Darhk getting his powers back. Had he listened to Oliver about Andy and had he not been so blindsided by what looked like a miraculous recovery from his brother, then Laurel would be alive. As seen in the promo for the next episode, he’s already out doing crazy things, including attacking Darhk’s wife. But will he kill Andy? Well, if Andy weren’t Diggle’s brother, then I’d say yes, definitely. But killing your own brother seems harsh even for Arrow. And even if Diggle wants to kill Andy, Oliver might prevent him from doing so to protect him from the darkness that Oliver keeps talking about. Then again, this is Arrow and anything can happen.
Oliver Queen
We do know one thing for certain: He’ll want to kill Darhk. He was seen saying it during the grave scene we’ve been teased with all season. But Oliver’s a pretty emotional character, so this death will have the biggest impact on him, especially considering that Laurel admitted her feelings to him on her deathbed. Arrow will never be the same again without Laurel, and Oliver will be forced to understand that. Also, given his current romantic state (newly single) and Laurel’s dying confession, we may see Oliver’s romance life go on hiatus for a while, which would be unusual for his character since for pretty much the whole series, he’s had an active romance life. But this also would make sense because the Black Canary is the Green Arrow’s one true love. Now that she’s dead, he may not find anyone who can replace what they once had in season 1. It’s impossible to tell if he’ll remain single for the rest of the series, but certainly for the rest of the season, he won’t be getting involved with anyone (at least in the present day storyline). This could also spell the permanent end for the Olicity (Oliver/Felicity) pairing.
Arrow returns with all new episodes Wednesday, April 27th at 8pm on the CW.
