Arrow's writers have some 'splaining to do.
Warning: spoilers for Arrow's midseason finale ahead!
Arrow ended 2016 on an eventful note, with Oliver Queen learning more about his current enemy, Prometheus, and the entire team suffering a series of tragic setbacks. But easily the biggest twist in "What We Leave Behind" came at the very end, as Ollie was confronted with Laurel Lance, seemingly alive and well following her death at the hands of Damien Darhk.
That's one way to leave viewers hanging for the next month. But how is it possible that Laurel returned? Are the Lance sisters simply immune to death at this point? Scroll down to read five theories for what might be going on, as we argue the evidence for and against each one.
Flashpoint
The most obvious explanation for Laurel's return is that it's another side-effect of Flashpoint. Barry Allen caused a number of changes to the timeline when he created and then destroyed the Flashpoint universe. Most of those changes have been confined to the Flash realm, though we did learn that Barry accidentally morphed baby Sara Diggle into John Diggle, Jr. Who's to say that's the only way Team Arrow will be affected?
Flashpoint had a clear effect in terms of characters living and dying. Barry restored the normal timeline in order to save Wally West, and in the process inadvertently caused the death of Cisco's brother, Dante. It stands to reason there were other deaths and resurrections that Barry isn't even aware. Laurel could be one of them.
We see two main holes with this theory, however. If Barry rewrote history so that Damien Darhk never killed Laurel, why does everyone still remember her death? Other than Barry, everyone's memories should have adjusted to reflect the new timeline. And also, it's been months since the events of Flashpoint now. Why would Laurel have waited so long before making her presence known? Why would she put her friends and family through that level of emotional torture?
The Lazarus Pit
The Lazarus Pit is a pretty convenient plot device whenever a dead character needs resurrecting. We saw that in Season 4 when Team Arrow used a pit to bring Sara Lance back to life. If one Lance sister can cheat death by taking a bath in a magical hot tub, why not the other?
The Lazarus Pit could also explain why Laurel has been in hiding all this time. Resurrection via the pits has consequences. The longer someone is dead, the more insane and unstable they become when they're brought back. Laurel may have been in hiding until she could regain control of her mind.
The problem with this theory is that the Lazarus Pits are supposedly all destroyed. And while it's not difficult to work around that issue by revealing that not all of the pits were eliminated (that happens all the time in the comics), there's a reason the Lazarus Pits were taken off the board in the first place. Death needs to have weight and finality in the Arrow-verse. If our heroes can simply trek to a Lazarus Pit every time one of their own kicks the bucket, then what's the point?
The Multiverse
As Jay Garrick reminded Barry Allen in this week's Flash, there's a multiverse of infinite worlds out there. Many of those worlds contain alternate versions of our favorite Arrow-verse characters. It seems there as as many Harrison Wells as there are stars in the sky.
We could definitely see this Laurel being a refugee from another world. It's worth noting that Earth-2's Laurel appeared in The Flash's second season. Dubbed "Black Siren," this Laurel has quite the mean streak, but also innate sonic scream powers that brings her a little more in line with the comic book source material. We could easily see this being Earth-2 Laurel, seeking a new life on Earth-1 following Zoom's defeat.
There is a concern that focusing on the multiverse concept would work against Arrow's darker, more grounded approach in Season 5. On the other hand, the show hasn't entirely moved away from the more colorful DC elements this year. Team Arrow did participate in the Invasion crossover, after all. And it helps that Earth-2 Laurel is already living on Earth-1. When last we saw her, she was still a prisoner in STAR Labs. Perhaps she escaped and is now looking to Oliver and company for asylum? That could create some interesting new drama between Team Arrow and Team Flash when the former group learns that the latter has been keeping this secret.
Or maybe Prometheus freed Black Siren, knowing full well that the return of Laurel Lance would make Ollie's recent trials that much harder to deal with? And if he did, that gives viewers some idea of his capabilities. No mere archer vigilante could infiltrate one of the most secure facilities on the planet and avid being detected by the Flash.
The Legends of Tomorrow
Barry Allen isn't the only hero with a habit of playing fast and loose with the timeline. The Legends have managed to wreak a little havoc of their own, despite being charged specifically with preventing time aberrations from taking hold. Recently, it was revealed that Professor Stein accidentally created a daughter after encountering his younger self. Who knows what other changes the team has accidentally caused?
In this case, it might not even be an accident. Sara has tried on multiple occasions to kill Damien Darhk and prevent Laurel's death. She eventually accepted the fact that it's not her place to meddle with time in that way, but would it be so difficult to believe that she fell back into old habits? Maybe she'll finally succeed in killing Darhk at some point in Legends' second season, finally undoing Laurel's death.
Maybe she doesn't even have to. When last we saw Darhk on Legends, the '80s-era version of the character learned that HIVE's Project Genesis is doomed to fail and that he'll die soon after. He agreed to join forces with Reverse-Flash in an effort to rewrite his own future. If Darhk never winds up returning to his present and continuing his work on Genesis, he'll never battling Team Arrow and killing Laurel. He may have just accomplished Sara's goal for her.
This still brings up the same problem as the Flashpoint theory. If Darhk altered the timeline by departing with Reverse-Flash, why haven't anyone's memories adjusted accordingly? On the other hand, Darhk going off the reservation could result in all sorts of temporal paradoxes the Legends will have to contend with in the months ahead. The normal rules of cause and effect as far as time travel goes in the Arrow-verse may no longer apply.
A Dream Sequence
Occam's razor states that the simplest solution to a problem is usually the correct one. With that in mind, is it more likely that Laurel actually returned from the dead, or that Ollie simply imagined seeing her? He went through quite the emotional gauntlet over the course of "What We Leave Behind." Between that and getting drunk with Susan Williams, Ollie seems in just the right state of mind to start hallucinating about his dead ex-girlfriend. Especially having just experienced a false reality where he was engaged to Laurel in the Invasion crossover.
Ollie may have had a little extra help in that regard. It's been established by now that Susan is not to be trusted. She has a working relationship with Prometheus and seems to be using her romance with Ollie as a chance to further manipulate him. Perhaps she spiked Ollie's drink with some sort of hallucinogen? We couldn't help but notice that the camera lingered on her liquor tray a bit longer then necessary (particularly on a bottle of Russian vodka that probably has ties to Ollie's time in Russia).
This theory is the most plausible, sure, but we also hope it's wrong. It seems a little cruel on the part of the writers to drop such a major bombshells and make fans wait weeks to see the resolution, only to reveal that Laurel's return was a red herring. If Laurel is back, she needs to actually be back. The hallucination explanation would be a cop-out. The fact that other characters seem to know about her return in the promo for Arrow's return seems to hint this is unlikely as well.
How do you think Laurel Lance is back from the dead? Sound off in the comments!
Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.
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