Please don't read any further if you're not all caught up.
Goodbye Laurel Lance/The Black Canary (Katie Cassidy). Assistant distract attorney, daughter, lover, friend and vigilante. Laurel has been a main character since the inception of the show, initially following her comic book counter part in being the main love interest for Oliver Queen/Green Arrow (Stephen Amell). In four seasons we have seen Laurel forge a relationship with Oliver's best friend, Tommy Merlyn (Colin Donnell), only to lose him and slowly delve into a downward spiral which led to her alcoholism. The death, resurrection, death again and second resurrection of her sister probably didn't help her angst. In season four we've seen her officially join team Arrow after taking on the Canary mantle left by her sister, Sara Lance/Canary/White Canary (Caity Lotz), finally portraying the character that the writers initially intended her to be. So her death has got to have some impact right? Well...
She didn't quite start out as the strongest character on Arrow but somehow the character has still diminished over time so it didn't feel like a huge loss. This isn't me bashing Katie Cassidy at all because I have found her enjoyable in other things, but her character has been mostly sidelined from the major arcs of the show up until this season when she joined the crew. Even in the scenes she's had this season it has felt like she's more of a glorified extra rather than a crucial member of the team. She was supposed to be the female lead but has been displaced by the arrival of Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) who's taken over the role as the main love interest, as a hacker she is also an integral part of the team. Another issue is Sara, her sister, becoming the canary before herself. I did enjoy the character and it seems that some have fanboy-ed hard over her and making Laurel seem pale in comparison and again diluting Laurel's screen time. They were given a Canary they seemed to love so early on, do they really need Laurel anymore?
Taking all this into account the death of the character isn't particularly shocking as the writers haven't known what to do with her for quite some time. Arrow's quality has dipped slightly in the last couple of seasons and this may be seen as an attempt to invigorate the show but it feels to me that the writers no longer wanted to make attempts to give Cassidy material to work with. She hasn't seem like a three dimensional character in a while, if the writers actually wanted to challenge themselves and shock audiences they would've killed off a more prominent and integral characters like Diggle (David Ramsey) or Felicity but they were both ruled out fairly early on. That would've truly been a game changer for the show but they chose one of the most disposable characters which doesn't particularly have an impact story wise.
Her absence won't go unnoticed as she does have relationships with other characters in the show, the most obvious being Quentin Lance (Paul Blackthorne). Quentin was initially opposed to vigilantism in Star City/Starling City and being Laurels father her was also opposed to everything Oliver Queen. Over time he has become a constant ally to team Arrow which this season has reinforced as he has thrown away his career and may possibly face prison time. His personal life hasn't been a bed of roses as his wife left him, Sara keeps dying, he's a recovering alcoholic and now he's lost Laurel who was the one constant in his life. While I was watching Laurel's death I felt nothing until Quentin appeared, the look on his face when he realised she'd gone almost broke me.
On paper this death seems more important than it really is, in the comics she may be Oliver's one true love and the Black Canary but in the show she is not. We have Felicity for Oliver and the spare Canary with Sara so we didn't really need Laurel anymore, I actually feel the writers saying that it would be the death of a major character is an insult to the audiences. They should've done their jobs and built up a character we care about and then her death would've had more meaning. I should feel empathy for her when I see her dying, not just for the people connected to her. So was it shocking? No.
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