Arrow fans were thrown for a loop Thursday night after reports surfaced that The CW series had cast the Black Canary.

The Pact’s Caity Lotz has, in fact, been tapped for a recurring role on Arrow’s second season, but she won’t be playing Dinah Drake, TVGuide.com can exclusively reveal.

“There’s been a bit of misinformation printed out there and what I would say is, yes, Caity Lotz is joining the show in a recurring role and we’re really excited,” executive producer Andrew Kreisberg tells us. “She’s a tremendously talented actress. The character she’s playing is really the beginning of the story of the Black Canary.”

The fact that Lotz’s character, whose name Kreisberg declined to reveal, has a connection to the Black Canary has worried fans who believed that Katie Cassidy’s Laurel Lance would fill that role, as the comics dictate. But Kreisberg wants to set the record straight. “The character that Caity is portraying is the beginning of the Black Canary story and we’re really excited for the fans to go on the journey with us,” he says. “So much of our show is about defying expectations, meeting expectations and exceeding expectations, and we really want our fans to experience the show by watching it and enjoying it and enjoying all the twists and turns and surprises the way we intend.”

Kreisberg likens the Black Canary’s journey to other characters that the show has already introduced with a twist. “Everything about our show is about origins and evolution,” he says. “When we met Deathstroke, everyone automatically assumed it was Slade Wilson [Manu Bennett] in the mask, but then we revealed we met Slade Wilson later. With Tommy [Colin Donnell], we thought that that was Merlyn, but Tommy was really the beginning of the Merlyn story because we saw how it evolved to John Barrowman and beyond. Oliver [Stephen Amell] himself, when we first meet him, he’s not the Green Arrow yet. The series itself is an evolution of this character.”

As for what this means for Laurel, Kreisberg says, “Everyone knows that Laurel Lance is the Black Canary. That’s the way it is in the comic books, but how we get from A to B is the story of our show. In the same way that Oliver, when we meet him, is the vigilante, but this season he’s going to becoming the Arrow, that’s the step of his journey to eventually becoming the Green Arrow. Laurel Lance right now is a lawyer with a lot of heart and a lot of humanity and courage. But it takes more than that to put on the mask and go out and fight crime. Our series is the evolution of that. People will see how Caity Lotz fits into Laurel’s journey along the way. For us, it’s very emotional and surprising and exciting. I would say to everybody, we haven’t let you down so far. Keep going on this ride with us.”

Are you a little relieved? Hit the comments with your thoughts on this casting!
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Will Laurel feel a sense of guilt over her role in Tommy’s death and possibly second-guess her decision to choose Oliver over Tommy?
Gugggenheim: Definitely she’s going to feel some fairly overwhelming guilt because people, particularly like Ross and Rachel, can argue whether or not [Laurel and] Tommy were on a break when Laurel slept with Oliver in the penultimate episode. The thing that’s pretty much indisputable is the fact that Laurel, by sleeping with Oliver, chose Oliver over Tommy and yet it was Tommy who came to save her. She feels an enormous amount of guilt over, “Did I pick the wrong guy?” These will all be things we’re exploring in Season 2. The reason we did it wasn’t just to end the season on an impactful note. It really was to create all sorts of different stories and dramatic conflicts in Season 2.

Do you think this could be a catalyst for Laurel to maybe put on a pair of fishnets?
Guggenheim: [Laughs] It’s a catalyst for her to do a variety of different things. It’s going to drive a lot of what Laurel does in Season 2, both good and bad. Tommy’s death will reverberate through the cast of characters and will affect the changes and choices that Oliver makes and that Thea makes. It’s going to affect everybody. It’s not like you’ll never hear Tommy’s name never uttered again. If anything, Tommy is a larger presence in death than he was in life.
Credit: Tvguide