In an upcoming episode of Arrow, Katie Cassidy finally becomes the Black Canary.
The CW recently released pictures of Cassidy fully dressed in the Black Canary costume.
In the hit series, Sara Lane (Caity Lotz), the sister of Laurel Lane (Cassidy), was the original Black Canary. Arrow‘s second season finale hinted about Cassidy’s upcoming hero gig. Sara left Starling City to rejoin the League of Assassins. She gave Laurel the Black Canary’s tradmark leather jacket. Sara’s death was revealed on the season 3 premiere. Her death led to Laurel’s season 3 story-arc, which revolves around avenging Sara’s death.
In the last episode of Arrow, “The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak,” Laurel began to train with Ted “Wildcat” Grant (J.R. Ramirez), a boxer and former vigilante. Cassidy spoke with Access Hollywood about training for the series.
“I’m working out and training at least 2-3 hours a day, and sometimes I’m on set for 12-15 hours, so it gets really tiring, but it’s so worth it.” Cassidy continued by saying, “I’m so happy, and I’m having a blast, and it was really crazy one day when I woke up and all of the sudden I had biceps! I was like ‘Oh, okay, I have shoulders and biceps and this is awesome!”
According to TVLine, the training was to fulfill her “comic book trajectory,” a detail revealed by Arrow‘s Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim.
Cassidy will complete her Black Canary transition in Arrow season 3 episode 10, “Left Behind.” This is the midseason premiere of the series, which airs in January 2015.
The Arrow winter finale airs on Dec. 10.
Access Hollywood also spoke to Cassidy in 2012 about Arrow‘s premiere. She told them about her excitement over becoming part of the comic book world, and her hopes for becoming the Black Canary. “Yeah. That would be awesome. Doing like an action film or TV has always been something that I wanted to get involved with and this is a really good opportunity and we’ll see if it happens.”
Arrow airs Wednesday nights on The CW at 7:00 PM CST