Green Arrow and the Canaries Showrunner Jokes About Failed Pilot After LA Law Casts Juliana Harkavy

By Jenna Anderson

The CW's Arrowverse of television shows has grown and evolved in some major ways over the years, with an ever-growing number of spinoffs and potential offshoots. One of the few that ultimately did not come to fruition was Green Arrow and the Canaries, which would have followed the ongoing adventures of Mia Queen / Green Arrow (Katherine McNamara), Laurel Lance / Black Canary (Katie Cassidy) and Dinah Drake / Black Canary (Juliana Harkavy). The project aired a backdoor pilot during the eighth and final season of Arrow before ultimately being cancelled in the summer of 2020 — but it looks like a some of its cast and crew will be reuniting for the upcoming revival of L.A. Law. On Tuesday, it was announced that Harkavy in the lead role of Yvette Cabrera in the ABC pilot, which is co-written and executive produced by Arrow alum Marc Guggenheim. On Tuesday, Guggenheim joked that Harkavy's casting is part of his "master plan" to transform L.A. Law into Green Arrow and the Canaries "ship of Theseus" style.

Harkavy will play Yvette, a savvy attorney and "legal badass" who is pitted against Alana (Hari Nef) in an unexpectedly controversial case that makes headlines. Their courtroom battle is complicated by the fact that they used to be lovers. The unresolved issues of their past relationship cause a lot of friction between these two, but there's also undeniable sexual chemistry as well. When Yvette is appointed a new partner in Alana's law firm, their relationship may prove increasingly complicated, to say the least.

While Harkavy's role will undeniably be different from Green Arrow and the Canaries, there's still the lingering question of when and how that pilot's different storylines could ultimately be explored. 

"There are burning questions," Guggenheim explained to TVLine in 2020. "Certainly, the backdoor pilot ended with the cliffhanger of William's abduction. And I do think we owe answers to a lot of those moments and questions."

"My instinct would be to try to answer those questions in the form of, like, a comic book tie-in — which is not to say that it couldn't be done on the other shows," Guggenheim continued. "When you're dealing with another time period, the year 2040 in this case, the only show that could handle that or really deal with those questions is Legends [of Tomorrow]. [But that] is a tricky bit of business since the tonal mashup between Legends and Canaries is so very different. On the other hand, you've got Sara, who is sort of the connective glue there…."

"I look at these things as 'quality problems," Guggenheim concluded. "I love the fact that we now have a universe of shows that allows us to ask ourselves these questions and explore different things and answer questions from different shows, but we also have comic books as an outlet, as well."

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