Seemingly everyone who was a fan of Arrow hated Laurel's death. I don't think that's a word taken too lightly, though it's a judgment admittedly based on only a few immediate online reactions to the aftermath of "Eleven-Fifty-Nine." Actions and threats were thrown around, mostly in the area of never watching the show again. If that's true of a "vocal minority," to use the words of one of the show's own producers, they missed a heck of an episode here. One that played almost like a tribute or requiem to the character of Laurel Lance and the legacy of the Black Canary as well.   

 

 

Personally, while I didn't like the manner in which the Black Canary was dispatched, I think the writers had to make this choice and stick with it. This episode had to be the proof that Laurel Lance is, indeed, dead. In effect, we are all Captain Lance here. We're all trying to desperately find a way to bring Laurel back from the dead. Arrow has spent the past four seasons telling its fans -- conditioning them even to a point -- that death in its world has no permanence. Well, guess again on that front.

 

Captain Lance tries with all his might throughout the run of the episode to think of any solution he could. Asking Nyssa to bring Laurel to the Lazarus Pit in Nanda Parbat... that was destroyed by Nyssa herself. Pleading with Oliver to find some way to bring his last daughter back. Because, well, can you blame him? He's seen Oliver and Sara return from the dead (Sara twice!). He's seen Thea returned from the dead, or rather, the almost-dead. Malcolm, Ra's al Ghul, Slade Wilson. Nearly everyone worth a damn has returned from the dead.

 

And yet, it slowly dawns on him (and us viewers going along with) that Laurel won't come back. There's no way. At least, none that we're going to see in the short-term future. It doesn't hit Captain Lance until Laurel's funeral, and that whole scene feels like the culmination of the entirety of sadness and grief that has somehow permeated the whole episode. This is, in all likelihood, the absolute saddest episode of Arrow that has ever been done. That huge feeling shows in the face and sorrow and grief that is conveyed on Paul Blackthorne's face during the funeral. It was heartbreaking, powerhouse dramatic acting. He was the MVP of the episode, and I don't think it was even close.

 

The show really sells it, and maintains that tone throughout. The power of that grief is undeniable, and even Oliver succumbs to it. For once this season, the flashbacks were masterfully interwoven with the present day narrative, which is something the series has had trouble with since the middle of the second season. The flashbacks don't look at the time Oliver spent on Lian Yu again, but rather go back to a time right after Tommy has died in the Undertaking of Starling City's Glades neighborhood.

 

The parallel is quite potent, as it taps into the same emotions present in Laurel's death, all of which gives us one last chance to see Laurel alive again. The opening scene is quite effective at switching up expectations, as I thought it was diving right into mourning Laurel's death. Instead, Laurel gets up and eulogizes Tommy. It drives home the permanence of his death as well as her death. As we get into the meat of the episode, the sadness and grief and self-loathing do get to be a bit too much, even as it's fitting with the overall tone, but it does also provide us with that nice edit of Oliver hearing Laurel's voice in the morgue and then transitioning to another flashback.

 

All of the grieving for Laurel and remembrance of what the Black Canary brought to both the show and Team Arrow doesn't leave a whole lot of room for the plot involving an impostor Black Canary. She is taking out revenge on Ruve Darhk and the Green Arrow for letting her parents die in the Reddington Industrial gas chamber executions from months ago. Frankly, if it were not for the recap that kicked off the episode, I would have forgotten completely about Reddington. Also because the show has gone on so many hiatuses in the meantime that there's just no room for that subplot to get imprinted into my memory. So the revenge subplot was largely useless, though it does get one throughline to the larger plot of mourning Laurel by having Oliver admit that Laurel was the true Black Canary, and a hero worth honoring. The impostor was just another reminder of what Laurel added to all of the lives of Team Arrow. That's a legacy worth leaving for Laurel, I think, which gives hope that the writers can stick the landing on this somewhat unsatisfying season thus far. Even as the show is still committed to leaving Laurel's body in the ground.