The CWThe mystery of who Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak are mourning is starting to give the Arrow cast some anxiety.
"People like myself who were once late to set are no longer late. When people tell you, 'Hit your mark,' and you have a creative suggestion, maybe you don't want to suggest it this time," David Ramsey jokes with E! News. "No, some of that I say in jest, but some of that is kind of true in the sense that you try to push that to the side of your mind as an actor, but of course you're thinking about it. And we're all talking about it. We talk about it on set, like, 'Who could that be?'"
They're not the only ones. Ever since the season four premiere stunned us with a flashforward to Oliver (Stephen Amell) mourning in a cemetery alongside Barry Allen (Grant Gustin), fans have been feverishly speculating over who could be six feet under. Last week's episode made clear that Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) was still among the living, but there are still plenty of candidates for the show to sacrifice on their quest to break our hearts—including Ramsey's John Diggle.
"We all know that there's a mark on everyone's back except for Oliver and Felicity. We get it, we know it. But as actor's, we have to do the work and we have to continue to do justice to the characters and the script," he adds. "Look, I haven't bought the house yet. I didn't buy it. I didn't buy the house. When I found out at the beginning of the season, I had plans to buy something, it didn't happen. You just never know, you never know."
Ramsey tells us the cast still doesn't know who's safe and who's not—and it's seriously reminding him of an old gig. "I feel like I'm back on Dexter, man. It was the same type of thing. You just go to the back of the script," he says, flashing back to his 2008-09 stint on Showtime's serial killer thriller. "You have to read the whole script on Arrow because you might die in the middle of it. So, no one knows yet, but yes it's that same type of, there's a little bit of angst, a little bit of anxiety in the air. And now, I think the producers have publicly said we'll know before the end of the season, so it's like, OK, we're in episode blah-blah now and we've only got five more. So, any day now...But, no matter who it is, I'm going to hate seeing anybody go. And of course, I love playing Diggle, so we'll see what happens."
Before anyone says goodbye, there's still half a season to air, beginning with tonight's Diggle-centric episode. A shadowy organization with ties to Diggle and his H.I.V.E.-brainwashed brother Andy (Eugene Byrd) comes to Star City, forcing John to weigh just how much he can trust his imprisoned bro. "There's a run-in that Andy and Diggle, when they were in special forces, [had with] the organization called Shadowspire. Andy obviously had some run-ins and some dealings with them. Diggle made the decision pretty early on that, they made it pretty clear that they're pretty nefarious and Diggle kinda went in the opposite direction. Andy didn't," he previews. "The backstory is another place where we're showing how really on two opposite sides of the fence Andy and John were. What I like about the episode is that ultimately...there's some reconciliation. You really do see how these guys are similar. This episode really shows why they love each other and how similar they are."
The episode may offer a glimmer of hope for the future of Diggle's relationship with his brother, but Ramsey warns us that we shouldn't get to comfortable. "I think in the episode, we see another side of Andy. We see why Diggle has held out hope. This is more of the Andy that he knew. We see why he loves him and why he thinks he was always a great guy. Why his death—or his supposed death—means what it means to Diggle, because we really see the heroic Andy and the similarities just in terms of how righteous they both can be. That's really the person that John Diggle knew," he says. "But as it is on Arrow, any time there's a happy [moment,] any time people are riding off into the sunset, we know it won't last...Even thought there's some ray of sunshine by the end of this episode, my sense is that the rain is coming."
When Shadowspire puts Diggle's wife Lyla (Audrey Marie Anderson) in danger, he'll not only need his brother, but the support of the entire Arrow team. But with Felicity understandably sidelined after her shooting, they're facing an uphill battle. "I think it's difficult," Ramsey says of the team's reaction to Ms. Smoak's absense. "I think that the team loves Felicity, and Felicity loves the team. I think that struggle is obviously a logistic struggle because there's a lot that we depend on. Felicity remotely opens a government-secured building from a remote satellite! She can do extraordinary things that the team, without her, we have to use our brute strength to do. So there's a big core element that's compromised when she's compromised. I think the team sympathizes with her. Diggle, particularly."
Ramsey continues: "I think for Diggle, he's always been the protector of Oliver and Felicity, the team in general. Even when Oliver left at the beginning of this season, he was carrying on with the team, with Canary and Speedy, as the protector, right? So, that's always been his role. I think, for him, he sees not just a physically vulnerable part of the team, but an emotionally-crippled part of the team. So, I think his heart really goes out. A lot of fans have been talking about the relationship between Diggle and Felicity. I hope that's part of what the writer's explore a little more, as they did in the second season."
Provided he's not the one in the grave, of course.
Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on the CW.