Yeah. This was big. I think it’s fair to say, without any disrespect to any of the other actors we’ve killed off — and lord knows there’s probably enough to spin off another show! — this is clearly theArrow-Laurel-Dies-Katie-Cassidy biggest one we’ve done.
TVLINE | What were the arguments for and against the death being Laurel?
The argument against it was the fact that we all love Katie. We love working with Katie, we love having her on the show. We love the fact that she plays Black Canary. [Another reason is] quite frankly the fact that there would be some corners of the Internet who in a season where Oliver got engaged to Felicity would interpret this as us choosing a side in the “shipper wars.” With respect to that last point, we felt like we had told the Oliver/Laurel love story in Season 1, and we had no intention of getting them back together. We never felt like we had to kill off Laurel to put an end to that story.
“The shock value is good” and gives the writers’ room “a jolt,” she continued. “It’s such a turn in the story that it gives them so much more to do and places to go with it. Otherwise, I feel like shows can get stale.”