Full spoilers for Arrow continue below.
There's a new Green Arrow in town. After deciding to spend more time with his son on Arrow, Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) handed over his green hood to trusted ally John Diggle (David Ramsey), who has been by his side since the very beginning.
While everyone, including Ramsey himself, assures fans that Diggle going green is temporary, it has changed the structure of Team Arrow dramatically. It's also changed Diggle himself, who was revealed to be using drugs in an effort to keep the nerve damaged he received in the Season 5 finale under control. For the man that was always the moral backbone of Arrow, resorting to narcotics to keep up with his vigilante work feels like a very dark turn.
IGN spoke with Ramsey about these changes Diggle has faced and where they will take him -- and those around him -- in the coming episodes. He also digs into what his wife Lyla's (Audrey Marie Anderson) rection will be, his limited involvement in the upcoming crossover and what, exactly, is going on between Diggle and Dinah Drake (Juliana Harkavy).
"I think his mindset is the mission. We've always kind of seen a John Diggle who is kind of the moral compass. But his mindset going forward is that he'll do anything to complete the mission. We've always seen a John Diggle that will do anything to complete the mission until you reach that moral line, then maybe we have to stop, slow down and think about this for a little bit. He's had that conversation many times with Oliver, even Felicity, and on multiple occasions with his wife.
"That seems to be lost on this version of Diggle and it is about keeping the charade up because of the mission and because of the mantle and responsibility that's been thrust upon him. For whatever reason, it takes him to the place where he's willing to compromise his morality and continue the charade and continue to go deeper and deeper into the drugs."
"I think the Green Arrow mantle means more to him than we think it does. The writers have already hinted at this and they've shown us that part of John Diggle, whether it's the mantle or Green Arrow or not, this is now his mission. The city is just as much his as it is Oliver's and the mission is now as much his as it is Oliver's. We saw it last year with the aliens in the crossover. Within that paradigm, as you remember, they put Team Arrow in an alternate reality where we live out our best lives. The best version of John Diggle, for John Diggle, was as the Green Arrow. This mantle means much more to him.
"You're going to see more of that idea played out in the season. This is not just being a decoy. This is something that he really, really takes very seriously and wants -- not necessarily to wear the hood, but to be the protector of the city, above and beyond the Spartan mythos he's creating. This is not something that is my backstory that I'm making up, this is something that the writers have already hinted with the Dominators last year. We'll see that played out in the season."
"That's going to be interesting when Lyla comes back. She'll have something to say and will be none too pleased about the fact that her man is now someone else. He's not John Diggle. Again, where we're taking this -- the mission being compromised, him compromising himself, him compromising his teammates by keeping up this charade -- speaks, again, to what he feels about this mantle. That will play itself out to his wife eventually, to his team eventually and, obviously, to Oliver. That's going to be a few episodes away. He gets to a place where his health is compromised. There will be a lot of problems with his choices. He's competent and capable as a leader but the drugs take their toll."
"I'll tell you, straight out. We talked about, "Wow, there's major chemistry between David and Juliana! There's major chemistry between John and Dinah! What are we going to do?" Honestly, it's come to this: Now when we're blocked in a scene, "David, you've over there. Juliana, you're over there. And as we're interesting, perhaps you guys aren't interacting as much." It isn't something that is necessarily being written to. I think it's two strong characters that have chemistry with each other. Naturally, when you see that on camera, the camera picks up eye shifts and a lot of different things that get interpreted as, 'Oh, what's happening here?'
"Listen, I know that the writers are not trying to put them together. [Executive producer] Wendy [Mericle] has said that publicly, that she's not. As far as I know, as of now, Lyla's not going anywhere and that would be the only way that would occur. There isn't, as far as I know, an affair down the road. So what we're seeing on-camera, as much as I'd love to say there's something brewing there and the writers are picking it up in editing and picking it up in camera work, no. It's just two actors that are bouncing off each other. And it's fantastic."
"Supergirl is much more involved than last time. ... I'm not heavy in 608, which is the crossover episode. So that was the episode I got to be in the editing bay with James Bamford and watch our 608 crossover episode, which again I'm not heavy in. ... [Supergirl star] Melissa [Benoist], I think it just fantastic. The way she and Oliver, particularly, get to play with each other and play within the scenes, is just great. It has a great balance of all the action and even comedy. It's just really well-crafted, well-done and well-written."
Chris E. Hayner is a freelance writer who loves horror movies and thinks he could be friends with Freddy Krueger. Follow him on Twitter at @ChrisHayner.
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