ThoughArrowhas had some great success in the back half of this season with the Prometheus storyline (which has not only reinvigorated the series, but has brought things back to Season 1 in an unexpectedly great way), it has still been on shaky ground when it comes to the team other than Oliver, specifically The Two Dinahs. WhenKatie Cassidy’s Dinah Laurel Lance was killed off, rather unceremoniously, fans wondered if there would be a new Black Canary. Indeed there was (which Craig Byrne argueswas a good thing), in the form of Tina Boland a.k.a. Dinah Drake (Juliana Harkavy). But this all sent the fandom into a tailspin, especially since Cassidy signed a deal soon afterwards to be a guest onFlashandLegends of Tomorrow.
Now, it looks like she’s going to be back on Arrow in full force, but not as Laurel. Instead, Black Siren (an Earth-2 version of Laurel who first showed up onThe Flash) is going to be back in a larger role. We saw her briefly this season onArrow, as part of Prometheus' game against Oliver, but she was pretty quickly locked up. But if there’s one thing the CW-verse loves it’s a redemption story, so having Black Siren as a member of the team – or even just working against it – might be a good addition.
Arrow EPMarc Guggenheimsaid in a statement that,
“One of the things that most excites us about Arrow is that we go where the story takes us. Last year, the story took us to the tragic death of Laurel Lance. This year, our midseason finale reintroduced us to Laurel’s doppelgänger, Black Siren. We were so taken by Katie’s fearless interpretation of this character that we knew her story was not yet finished. We couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome Katie back to Arrow as Black Siren. Though as her appearances on Arrow and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow this season show, she never really left the family.”
Like Rip Hunter onLegends of Tomorrow, sometimes a character is just better when they’re one of the bad guys. Maybe Black Siren will join Team Arrow ultimately, maybe she will just stay a villain, but either way the brief time we’ve spent with her over the last season or so have shown she has a lot of potential to be an interesting addition to the rogues gallery at the very least.
What do you think of this development? Are you happy to have Cassidy back in theArrowranks? (And do you think this means that Dinah Drake won’t be sticking around much longer, or can the show support both Dinahs moving forward? And what will Quentin Lance think of it all??)
