Harkavy hints at what’s ahead for Dinah on ‘Arrow’

When Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy) was killed during the fourth season of The CW’s “Arrow,” it seemed that the show was moving past the prospect of having a Black Canary among the cast. But that turned out to be far from the plan. Halfway through Season 5, the show introduced Juliana Harkavy as Dinah Drake, a meta whose abilities matched those of Black Canary. Oliver (Stephen Amell) brought her onto the team, but she didn’t have a lot of time to get used to her new role before the threat of Prometheus (Josh Segarra) became the focus of Team Arrow.

“The time they had together on Lian Yu definitely brought them together as a team,” Harkavy says of how Dinah has settled in to the team in the six months between Season 5 and Season 6. “She’s also been fighting, training and had time to develop her craft. It’s been six months together and six months getting stronger.”

Here, Harkavy tells Variety how Dinah feels in taking on the Black Canary mantle fully, her a new rivalry with Black Siren (Cassidy) and where she’ll fit in during the four-part crossover between all CW DC shows. The following is an edited transcript.

A: She does. Dinah really honors the fact that he was one of the first people to take her in. They have a close friendship, and they’re a team, so when one person is affected, everyone is affected. She takes it upon herself to make sure he’s OK and and get to the bottom of what’s happening.

A: She is. I think that’s partially why she wants to get to the bottom of what’s going on with him. She knows that she — or anyone on the team — could get hurt if something’s wrong with him.

A: Because Dinah did take up that mantle — and she is so connected to Lance’s daughter — I think there is a paternal relationship with him. I think he gets a sense of closeness from Dinah because there are similarities to Laurel.

A: It definitely doesn’t die down. There is a lot of bad blood between Siren and Canary. It’s fun to watch those fights — they’re very charged because of the history of where they came from and what they’ve been through. People who like those fights can definitely come to expect more of them, and they’ll get bigger and better.