After almost an entire season of build-up, tonight’s “Arrow” finally revealed which team member dies and ends up in the grave that was introduced in the Season 4 premiere: Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy), aka Black Canary — a character that many comic book fans likely thought was safe, given Black Canary’s iconic status in the DC Comics universe.

Executive producers Marc Guggenheim and Wendy Mericle, along with Cassidy and her co-star Paul Blackthorne (who plays Laurel’s father, Quentin Lance), sat down with reporters earlier this week to discuss the shocking events of the episode, which saw a newly escaped Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough), stab Laurel as payback for her father’s earlier betrayal. After it seemed like doctors had managed to stabilize Laurel at the hospital, she shared a heartfelt scene with the other members of Team Arrow, and confided something in Oliver (Stephen Amell), before she began coding and ultimately died. Below, the producers explain how they came to this decision, and Cassidy recalls her emotions while filming her final scenes, and what she hopes her character’s legacy will be.

This group interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Katie, can you talk about the emotions of shooting your death scene, and the last scene you shot?
Cassidy: I found out that this was the choice, creatively, that was going to be made and obviously I talked to Marc and Greg and Wendy and I actually had found out right before the court scenes – that day we shot in the court.

Blackthorne: And that’s when you told me, yeah.

Cassidy: Which was hard. I remember I was like “okay, I need to put this on the backburner for now,” because I had a huge day of all legal jargon and a lot. But it actually worked out really well because in the next episode, 19, I’m actually in the episode and it’s a lot of flashbacks. And emotionally it’s interesting because that scene that you see when I’m in the hospital and I say goodbye, I say to the team, “I never wanted this, I was thinking up giving up the Black Canary and I couldn’t do it,” honestly, that scene was definitely so real, shooting it, because it was my saying goodbye to the team … So it definitely wasn’t difficult for me to get to that emotional point. For sure it was hard, but it was very real and it was good, it was genuine. And then the last scene I think I shot was… we had to do a reshoot, actually, of when I actually die, when Darhk stabs the Black Canary, and that was a week after, I think? That was the very last scene that we shot, and it was so weird because I remember we had broken for lunch, we came back – I was running to set and putting on my jacket and my gloves and they were just calling me to set to show wrap me, and I didn’t know I was done and it was just sort of a bit of a shock. But it was good, I feel like there was no other way I would want it to go.

Blackthorne: Can I just add something? In terms of, when you find out news like this, it’s rather annoying and very devastating and all the rest of it – you’re going to lose a cast member such as Katie, but at the same time, it was such a shock, certainly to me and I think to everybody, when the news came out, that you’re thinking “god, we’re right in the middle of this thing and it was shocking. What’s it gonna be to the audience?’’ and in terms of fantastic story, as awful as it is that Black Canary’s the sacrifice, in terms of story, it’s like wham – and if that’s not what story’s about, then what is it about? So in terms of the element of this story, it’s an amazing turn to throw at the audience and people aren’t expecting it, and it’s fantastic. If it shocked us that much, what’s it going to do to the audience? It’s great story.
Credit: variety.com
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Katie has one more episode of Arrow to do that will be flashbacks, and it will air on April 27th, 2016.

Say goodbye to a beloved member of Team Arrow on when Arrow returns with all-new episodes starting Wednesday April 27th on The CW

I’m not ready for this, not ready at all.