10 Radical Ideas To Save Arrow
2. Stop F*cking With Black Canary!
If, as the showrunners insist on telling us, Laurel is genuinely dead, then can we have the other Canary back, please?
Arrow’s already done the Canary switcheroo before, when the show brought back Laurel’s supposedly dead sister to be the a*s-kicking Canary. As Sara Lance, Caity Lotz had all the chemistry with Stephen Amell that poor Katie Cassidy didn’t. Problem solved, right? No - because then they had Sara killed (temporarily) to make room for Laurel to take on the Canary mantle in tribute to her sister.
Unfortunately, Katie Cassidy never really worked as a superhero: she’s never stopped being endearingly gauche in the costume and clumsy-looking in fight scenes. But killing her? Another Canary bites the dust. And poor Quentin Lance - how many times has he mourned one of his daughters now?
It’s baffling to me that Arrow’s showrunners think that niche, geeky fan service for lesser baddies like the Clock King, the Calculator, Double Down, the Bug-Eyed Bandit or the Demolition Team is something to be pursued every season and at all costs, but that providing fandom with a properly realised version of the legendary Green Arrow/Black Canary team-up is somehow a step too far.
Time to stop messing with a DC comics mainstay, people. Either commit to a Canary-less Arrow completely, with all the fanboy grumbling that this decision entails, or have Sara return to help Team Arrow beat Dahrk in the finale and, guilt-ridden at abandoning the amateur version to be killed, become the proper Black Canary.
Caity Lotz is by far the better Canary, and Legends Of Tomorrow is a rolling ensemble: it doesn't need her. Moreover, it makes perfect storytelling sense: Thea's already proven that Darhk's vampiric powers don't work on things brought back by the Lazarus Pit. Speedy and Sara are the ones who need to kill Darhk, not Oliver.
But either way, we need Arrow to sh*t or get off the pot, and right now. Either bring back the Black Canary, or keep her off the show for good. No more of this halfway house nonsense.