Laurel Lance (Earth-1)

For her mother of the same name, see Dinah Lance.

Dinah Laurel Lance
Biological Information
Status	Alive
General Information
Occupation	Assistant district attorney of Starling City Legal aid attorney at CNRI (formerly)
Family	Quentin Lance (father) Dinah Lance (mother) Sara Lance (sister)
Actor	Katie Cassidy

"We don't need to go outside the law...to find justice."

—Laurel Lance^[src]

Assistant District Attorney Dinah "Laurel" Lance (born 1985) is one of the two assistant district attorney, working under Kate Spencer, the district attorney, and formerly a legal aid attorney. She is the daughter of Quentin Lance and Dinah, the older sister of Sara Lance, the ex-girlfriend and love interest of Oliver Queen, the ex-girlfriend of the late Tommy Merlyn, and the best friend of Joanna De La Vega. Sometime in the past, Laurel had a romantic relationship with Oliver until he was unfaithful to her by cheating on her with her sister, Sara. Laurel was a part of a group called the City Necessary Resources Initiative, or CNRI, that helped people in need. She is also a former supporter of The Arrow and is now working with the DA to capture him.

Biography

Laurel is a lawyer and worked for a legal aid office until she became an assistant district attorney. 5 years prior to the pilot, her sister Sara dies in a violent shipwreck which also stranded Oliver on a remote island. After a while she forgives him, and they become best friends again. She was involved with Tommy while Oliver was assumed dead, and was again until he left her when he find out that she and Oliver still had feelings for each other.

Season 1

In "Lone Gunmen", She and Tommy give their relationship another try.

In "An Innocent Man",

Oliver and Laurel kiss.

In "Damaged", Laurel and Oliver kiss. She admits that she still has feelings for him but makes it clear that nothing can ever happen between them. Moira Queen requests her to be Oliver's lawyer on his insistence. She argues with her father when she chooses to defend Oliver in his trial.  She tells her father that he can't blame Oliver for Sara's death, or the fact that her mother left them afterwards.

In "Legacies",

In "Muse of Fire",

In "Year's End",

In "Burned",

In "Vendetta",

In "Vertigo", When Thea gets in legal trouble to get her out of a long jail sentence, Laurel gets her father to get her a deal, and as part of her plea bargain, Thea will work at CNRI.

In "Betrayal", When she calls The Hood, she unwittingly helps her father track him down and is furious with him as it gets her kidnapped. The Hood saves her, but this causes a strain between Laurel and her father. After this, The Hood told her goodbye.

In "The Odyssey",

In "Dodger",

In "Dead to Rights", Laurel gets a visit from her mother, telling her that she thinks Sara may still be alive.

In "The Huntress Returns",

In "Salvation", Laurel proves that Sara is indeed dead. 

In "Unfinished Business",

In "The Undertaking",

In "Darkness on the Edge of Town",

In "Sacrifice", Laurel visits Oliver at the Queen Mansion and is told to stay out of the glades at night.  That night at CNRI, her father calls her to get out as he knew she was there which Laurel still doesn't listen too.  During the earthquake, she is trapped under the rubble but Tommy arrives in time to rescue her before the entire building collapsed.

Season 2

In "City of Heroes", Laurel is now assistant district attorney, because CNRI was destroyed in the Undertaking. During the mayor's event, it is interrupted by The Hoods. One of the members threatens the DA, but Laurel takes him down. Immediately after, one of them points a gun at her before she can do anything else. Her father, now demoted to officer rank, tries to ask her questions about the attack but his boss intervenes. Oliver arrives and they talk about how she regrets sleeping with him, feeling that she cheated on Tommy. Later, Laurel meets Oliver again at Tommy's grave. They agree on being friends, and she tells Oliver how she is going to help the DA take down Arrow, still unaware that Arrow and Oliver are one in the same.

In "Identity", Laurel makes plans to catch The Hood.

In "Broken Dolls", she is almost murdered but is saved by The Arrow and The Canary.

In "Crucible", Laurel is having a hard time from recent events, and is drinking heavily, almost getting arrested. Both Oliver and Quentin attempt to get through to her but fail. The Canary, who is revealed to be Laurel's younger sister Sara, is shown to be looking over her older sister.

In "League of Assassins", Oliver takes her out for dinner in order to protect her from the Assassins pursuing her sister Sara. Afterwards, she makes a pass at Oliver, who gently refuses her and makes clear that he just wanted to be there for her as a friend, not reignite their romance. Tearfully, she then asks him why everyone in her life seems to end up running away from her. After Oliver leaves, she downs some pills.

In "State v. Queen", Laurel is appointed lead prosecutor in the Moira Queen case to replace ADA Donner, who had been poisoned with Vertigo. While reviewing the case notes, she discovers Donner's "trump card" (that Malcolm Merlyn is the father of Thea). Disturbed by what she found, she tries to convince Moira to protect her family by not taking the witness stand, warning that she is obligated to prosecute the case to the best of her ability and will be forced to present Donner's evidence in court if Moira testifies. 

When Moira does testify, Laurel reveals that Moira and Malcolm had an affair (but does not reveal that Thea is Malcolm's daughter) and makes a strong case for a guilty verdict. When she encounters Oliver immediately after mercilessly cross-examining Moira, she first tries to avoid him, and is distraught and guilt-ridden at having had to so brutally attack his mother's character in court.

Personality

Her anger towards Oliver for getting her sister killed made her harsh towards him, at first.

Laurel is hard working, and fights hard to get what she wants. She is a great lawyer and lives to stand up for the innocent and what is right, despite the corruption in Starling City. She can be feisty and doesn't like to be told what to do. Laurel is attracted to troublemakers, as shown when she dated both Oliver and Tommy. She gets annoyed when her father tries to get in the way, always forming his opinion of her boyfriends, even though it almost never changes her mind. Laurel is tough and knows how to take care of herself. She takes risks, like contacting Arrow, and can't resist saving people from tough situations, from when Tommy and Oliver were going to get beat up in the night club Poison, to innocent people on trial.

However, she has a big heart and tends to see the best in the people around her. This is shown in "Damaged" where Oliver states that she should hate him for what he did to her and her sister, but she did not. She even wants to get along with her father again, after he used her as bait for The Arrow, even though stating that it will take some time. She is also one of the few people seeing the good person Oliver is inside, even through the snob-front he presents on the outside, the other one being Raisa, his housemaid.

Abilities

• Skilled hand-to-hand combatant: Laurel received extensive hand-to-hand combat training. This is because her father made her take self-defense classes. Still, she is nowhere near the level of Oliver and all the other felons he goes up against as The Arrow.
• Expert lawyer/Detective: These help Laurel to use the system of the court to her knowledge. It also makes her look at every aspect before making up her mind, and to see the bright side of everyone.

Appearances

Season 1 "Pilot" "Honor Thy Father" "Lone Gunmen" "An Innocent Man" "Damaged" "Legacies" "Muse of Fire" "Vendetta" "Year's End" "Burned" "Trust but Verify" "Vertigo" "Betrayal" "The Odyssey" "Dodger" "Dead to Rights" "The Huntress Returns" "Salvation" "Unfinished Business" "Home Invasion" "The Undertaking" "Darkness on the Edge of Town" "Sacrifice" Season 2 "City of Heroes" "Identity" "Broken Dolls" "Crucible" "League of Assassins" "State v. Queen" "Three Ghosts" Comics Arrow Chapter 1: "Time's Arrow" Chapter 14: "Call to the Bar" Chapter 18: "Keep 'Em Coming" Chapter 26: "Lapse"

Trivia

• She is efficient with firearms as she has a gun permit, and also has used a shotgun to protect herself in "Home Invasion".
• Being the daughter of a police detective, she learned how police badges were serialized.
• Dinah Laurel Lance is Black Canary in the original comic. She possesses the meta-human ability of a super sonic scream, which she can deploy to shatter objects and incapacitate her opponent. This ability is called the "Canary Cry".
• In the DC Comics, she is Oliver Queen's wife.       
• During San Diego Comic Con 2012, the show's producers said that Laurel will become Black Canary "later than you hope, but sooner than you expect".
• In "Damaged", When Oliver and Laurel go alone to talk, Laurel mentions to Oliver that she wore fishnets to a Halloween party they attended together in 2005. This is a reference to Laurel's comic book alter ego's costume, Black Canary.
• At first, Laurel has mixed feelings about The Arrow, stating that he goes against everything that she was taught, but she feels he is still doing good. This is evidenced when she, in a moment of shock, accidentally and impulsively calls him a killer with no remorse but defends him when she's reminded of her statement.
• When she sees The Arrow in "Burned", Oliver (under the guise of The Arrow) tells her that he heard what she said to her father, calling him a killer, with no remorse. She apologizes to The Arrow for what she said.
• She begins to trust The Arrow later, shown In "Betrayal", where she's more frightened by her father charging out with a gun than with The Arrow for holding a blade to her neck.
• Laurel is mentioned to be a bad cook, with the only thing she is actually capable of making is macaroni and cheese.
• She mentions her sister owning a black canary, which references to her comic book alter ego's costume, Black Canary.
• In "Darkness on the Edge of Town", Laurel and Oliver become a couple again.
• Laurel rarely calls Oliver by his nickname "Ollie".
• In "City of Heroes", Laurel breaks up with Oliver again, she has also lost faith in the vigilante known as The Arrow.
• In "Identity", It is revealed that the reason why Laurel lost faith in The Arrow, is because when she went into CNRI, she sees that Tommy is already dead, but saw The Arrow leaving, jumping to the conclusion that he left Tommy to die so he can go and kill Malcolm Merlyn, instead of asking The Arrow his side of the story.
• Laurel's current anti-Arrow sentiments may be partly rooted in guilt over what she feels might be her part in Tommy Merlyn's death.
• In "Broken Dolls", Laurel finally admits to herself, and to her father that the only reason why Tommy was at CNRI, because she was too stubborn to leave when she had the chance, and was trying to blame The Arrow for something that was not his fault, because she didn't want to face her own guilt. She now blames herself for Tommy's death, it is unknown if Laurel will become The Arrow's supporter again.
• In "Crucible", Laurel has become an alcoholic, possibly do to her guilt for getting Tommy killed, even though it was not her fault. She also started abusing prescription pills, as well, as she has been seen quite a few times taking them.

Gallery

Promotional images

Season 1

Season 2