Spoilers for recent events in The CW's DC Universe are below.
Arrow is definitely the darkest of the three DC TV shows on The CW, and it looks like some of that darkness will soon be spreading over to The Flash. The recent death of Arrow's Laurel Lance – also known as the Black Canary – will take its toll on Team Flash when Laurel’s living doppelganger, known on Earth-2 as Black Siren, pops over to Earth-1 for an episode of The Flash. According actor Carlos Valdes, Cisco Ramon will have a particularly memorable and morbid reaction to Black Siren’s arrival.
Cisco reacts in a pretty unexpected way. There’s a little bit of a morbid shock, because the characters have an awareness to the fact that Laurel Lance is dead. That death had some effect on these characters in this world. So to see Black Siren, more than anything, is a shock to the senses. To know that someone relatively close to you is dead and to see a version of them still alive would be harrowing and jarring for anyone. There’s a bit of disturbance there in terms of seeing her like that again.
Carlos Valdes’ reveal to EW that Cisco would be especially affected by Laurel’s death makes sense. Cisco and Laurel had some special one-on-one interactions when he perfected her sonic Canary Cry device for her in a crossover last season. Considering that Barry showed up at the graveyard following Laurel’s burial, this won't Team Flash’s first reaction to her death, but their combined reactions to Black Siren showing up could actually be far more compelling than the normal mourning route.
Black Siren won’t be the first doppelganger of a fallen friend that Cisco has encountered. During his trip with Barry to Earth-2, he crossed paths with a villainous version of Ronnie Raymond known as Deathstorm. Of course, there may be a big difference for Cisco between seeing a version of Ronnie on a different Earth and seeing a different version of Laurel on his own Earth. Laurel Lance 2.0 doing villainous things on his home turf will likely be harder for Cisco to process than evil Ronnie on Earth-2. If things weren’t so serious with Damien Darhk and H.I.V.E. over in Star City, I’d recommend Cisco calling up Oliver for some advice, as the archer may not have experience with Earth-2 doubles just yet, but he does deal with a lot of dead people showing up very much alive.
Now that Zoom has Barry’s speed and every advantage when it comes to crossing between Earths, it's a lot harder for the good guys to win on Earth-1, and it looks to be no easy feat to stop Black Siren and her army of metahumans coming to Central City. Black Siren may have been a heroine in the comics, but the Flarrow-verse has shown repeatedly that comic canon does not direct the plot of the shows. Laurel 2.0 as a villainess could certainly add to the morbidity of her appearance on The Flash.
We’ll see Black Siren in action with Cisco on The Flash on May 17 at 8 p.m. ET on The CW. Check out our schedule of summer TV premiere dates to see when other shows will be returning to the airwaves.
