ARROW Season 4 Episode 19: Copycat Canaries and Grief Stricken Goodbyes


So in the wake of Laurel’s death I had many many questions. Thankfully, this week’s ARROW answered some of them. Chief amongst them, “Do people now know Laurel was the Black Canary?”

She was brought into the ER in full Black Canary costume, by the Green Arrow no less. But thankfully the doctor who worked on her has decided to show the up most discretion, keeping the manner of Laurel’s admission to ER a secret. Ruvé Adams’ administration puts out a statement that Assistant DA Laurel Lance was killed during Damien Darhk’s escape from prison whilst serving a disposition. This seems to have everything all wrapped up, until a copycat Black Canary attacks some thugs in the middle of a minor arms deal and snatches their wares.

Paul Blackthorne once again knocks it out of the park as Captain Lance. First devastated by the loss of his daughter (again), we see him switch between desperation and manic hope when he hears of the Black Canary sighting. Quickly though, Team Arrow determine that someone stole Laurel’s sonic device from her belongings at the hospital and has modified it for their own use.

The new Black Canary turns out to be teen prodigy Evelyn Sharp, whose parents were killed by HIVE. She dislikes the Green Arrow for failing to stop Darhk, but seemingly idolises the Black Canary though not enough to stop her from taking up arms and attempting to kill people in public, thus destroying her legacy. Thea and Alex are having a nice dinner when just as he’s about to tell us why he got into politics and maybe give his character some development, Baby Canary busts in, screaming the place down and goes to shoot him for “working with them,” i.e. Ruvé Adams and by extension HIVE. Thea manages to fight her off for now, saving Alex’s life for the time being, which is good because my gut tells me there’s still time for a revelation regarding him in the last few episodes. 

Felicity uses her skills (she literally presses two buttons) to find everything they need to know about Evelyn Sharp, including her academic record, background and motivation and sets her facial recognition program to sweep all the cameras in the city to find her, like the (miraculously) walking plot device she is. Diggle blames himself for Laurel’s death, specifically for believing his brother over Oliver’s warnings. Despite his team telling him over and over that it’s not his fault, he allows his anger to fuel his decision to go after Ruvé Adams solo. I’m not 100-percent on this, but I’m pretty sure he switched out his tranquiliser gun for a real pistol when he was about to shoot her, only to be stopped by the Green Arrow at the last second, allowing Adams to escape. 

Adams, who knows full well Laurel was the Black Canary, uses the twin opportunities of Alex being attacked by the New Canary and her own dance with death courtesy of Spartan, who she knows is John Diggle, to declare war on vigilantes on Star City, getting the D.A. to issue arrests warrants for them (like they wouldn’t already be wanted). As Team Arrow rushes to stop Evelyn Sharp from ruining their good work and The Black Canary’s legacy, Adams seems almost perversely open to the idea of Sharp attacking her in public, thus destroying the vigilante’s image in the eyes of the people forever. Oliver is able to talk Sharp down from executing Adams in full view of all her supporters, basically citing “What would the Black Canary do?” Sharp manages to evade capture however as it’s fairly obvious Baby Canary is not a one off, but a replacement for Laurel on the show, who in future will have her own story to tell. Perhaps this is the showrunners way of dealing with the whole Green Arrow/Black Canary dynamic? Yet another new Canary, this one much too young to Oliver to be romantically involved with, so the shipping wars can finally come to an end. 

The flashbacks this week weren’t to the island, but to 2013 and the aftermath of Season 1, when Laurel was still alive and hopeful of a brighter future with Oliver, which is weird because if you watch the show, which this flashback relies on you having done so, you know Oliver exiled himself back to Lian Yu between Seasons 1 and 2. Sure enough, we see Laurel pull Oliver out of his grief, specifically over the death of Tommy Merlyn, only for him to abandon her to go find himself on the island again — please see Season 2 Episode 1 to see how that worked out for him. In all though, it was good to see Laurel in a different context, a different time, her final on screen moments being both heartwarming and heartbreaking, rather than her writhing on a hospital bed until her heart gave out. The flashbacks also explained the issue of how Laurel had the old photo of herself that we all thought Oliver had in his possession. Unless I missed something, I thought that didn’t make sense last episode. 

Speaking of continuity errors, we finally come full circle to the grave scene, with Laurel’s funeral. Oliver reveals publicly with his eulogy that Laurel was the Black Canary, thus preventing Baby Canary from besmirching her name any more than she has (though she was present, sneakily watching the funeral of her idol. I told you, her story isn’t over yet.) Barry Allen turns up as we saw 6 months ago, but curiously, he has his speed powers, which currently on THE FLASH he doesn’t, so yeah, great scheduling there CW, is it really that hard to get the episode in order?

Written by Nick Whitney, ARROW Beat Writer -- Click here to read Nick's posts


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