Arrow: 6 Reasons Why Laurel's Death Was Actually A Good Thing
4. It Was A Payoff
After Season 4 spent seventeen episodes building up to the big death and dropping all kinds of foreshadowing, Arrow needed to follow through and kill off somebody who'd been around for a while.
The second half of Season 4 seemed to be leading up to a Lance ending up in the grave for Oliver to mourn, and Laurel really had to be the one to die if there was going to be a payoff on Damien Darhk's threats throughout the season. Darhk flat-out told Quentin that he'd kill Laurel if Quentin disobeyed. Quentin disobeyed, so Darhk killed Laurel. He just had the added benefit of killing off the Black Canary at the same time.
Laurel unfortunately didn't get the chance to go out in a blaze of glory, but part of the reason why her death worked for the overall narrative is that there was so little ceremony to it. Damien Darhk was a very bad guy, so he wasn't going to let her get out one last Canary Cry to free her friends. He murdered her in an ugly way that paid off on the build from the entire season to that point. It was a good beat of storytelling in a season that had gone off the rails with absurd baby mama drama, and it proved that Arrow could still follow through on big promises.