Hi everyone. I'm new to this, but the challenge earlier to come up with a way that Lauren could work in S3 got me thinking, so I thought I'd share. It's weak, but would this work for any of you?
The Mirakuru guy that killed/hospitalized Quentin at the end of S2 was there for Laurel. Quentin is either dead or long-term severely injured. S3 starts with Laurel feeling enormous guilt over this (& Tommy), and vowing that she will make herself strong, even invulnerable, so no one will ever again suffer to protect her (she could also be shown to be aware of how many times she has been a DiD). We see her lawyering by day and training (maybe with a sensei sent by Sara??) by night. This is all played in a dead-eyed, "angry at the world but especially herself" kind of way, which the actress could probably pull off.
We see her being a good, effective lawyer trying to put away the bad guys, and sometimes succeeding, but regularly see them get away because the "system" is in some way faulty. She calls in Team Arrow to deal with these ones, and this is pretty much her only interaction with them, as she is not physically up to the task of helping them yet.
Her mother, meanwhile, has returned to Starling City because Quentin is dead/hospitalized, and we see convincing love/support between them during the season. At the end of S3, she fails to convict one final violent woman-hating criminal (not her fault, some problem with the "system") who then then kills her mother. This lead to Laurel abandoning the law completely as a solution & going after bad guys herself as a VERSION of the Canary, with the approximate physical skill-set of e.g. the Huntress, not the same skill level as Oliver or Sara.
This would all have to happen in a "show, don't tell" way to be even remotely plausible. Of course this also works best if Quentin dies, but nobody wants that!
