Arrow Season 4: 5 Ups And 6 Downs From 'Canary Cry'

4. ​Quentin Lance’s Grief

Arrow Season 2 Episode 19 Canary Cry
The CW

Paul Blackthorne is regularly one of the best things about Arrow. The guy is simply a phenomenal actor whose presence can’t help but devour any scene he’s in.

Whilst seeing Blackthorne’s Quentin Lance arriving at the hospital to find his dead daughter last week certainly pulled on the heartstrings, seeing Captain Lance’s grief play out here made for some excellent TV.

What was even more clever of the show was how initially we saw Quentin flat-out refuse to believe that Laurel was dead dead. After all, he’s seen his other daughter, Sara, return from the grave twice, including one particular dip in one of Ra’s al Ghul’s Lazarus Pits. As such, Quentin believes that there’s a way to bring Laurel back from the dead, even going as far as to bring Nyssa al Ghul to Star City in order to reanimate the corpse of Laurel.

Paul Blackthorne was on absolute fire this episode – well, apart from the shockingly-bad hair piece worn during Tommy’s funeral – and his performance was likely the very best part of Canary Cry.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks/Saints, Jamie Hayter, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.