This season of Arrow began at a grave. It was a flashforward, but it was clear Oliver was mourning the loss of one of the major characters on the show. Well, the show finally caught up, and a major character died in last night’s episode of Arrow—this time (supposedly) for good. Spoilers!
With only two days to retirement Deciding to put on her Black Canary outfit one last time before giving it up to focus on being the district attorney, Laurel Lance was killed by Damien Darhk while trying to keep him from escaping during a prison riot he instigated.
If you’re wondering why Oliver and the Arrow Gang just don’t try to resurrect Laurel, it seems that’s not an option, for some reason.. According to showrunner Marc Guggenheim, “Death does not mean goodbye on any of these shows, but we made a creative choice and we’re sticking to it.”
The first part alludes to the fact that besides showing up in next week’s episode of Arrow in Flashback, she’ll also guest-star shortly on The Flash as her Earth-2 doppelganger Black Siren, as well as appear in the CW Vixen animated series. Also, it would be super-easy for the time-traveling Legends of Tomorrow to pick her up somewhere along her timestream and join their crew, although that’s purely speculation at this point.