Arrow Promotes Kirk Acevedo to Series Regular for Season 7
Not only is Arrow‘s Ricardo Diaz simply down and not out, he may be back bigger than ever.
TVLine has confirmed that Kirk Acevedo, who in Season 6 recurred as Oliver Queen’s adversary, has been promoted to series regular for Season 7 (which airs on a new night, Mondays at 8/7c, starting Oct. 15).
The upgrade was first noted by Green Arrow TV.
After tormenting Oliver and his loved ones for much of Season 6, Diaz was nearly nabbed during a season-ending skirmish, but Laurel/Black Siren’s well-intended attempt to offer an assist instead (ugh) allowed the crime boss to slip away.
Diaz “is going to come back in a different way than we saw last season,” new Arrow showrunner Beth Schwartz promised during our Fall Preview Q&A. “He’s going to be more of the Dragon [character from DC Comics]. We’re going to to see a different side of him I think the fans will be excited about.”
Elsewhere on the Arrow Season 7 casting front, Colton Haynes is back as a series regular, playing Earth-One’s Roy Harper; Katherine McNamara (Shadowhunters) will recur as Maya, a scrappy street fighter and thief; Miranda Edwards (The Magicians), Michael Jonsson (Van Helsing) and Holly Elissa (Whistler) will play the Longbow Hunters known as Silencer, Kodiak and Red Dart; and Michael Jai White, Cody Runnels and Vinnie Jones are back to dog imprisoned Oliver as Bronze Tiger, Derek Sampson and Danny “Brick” Brickwell.
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But…why? I hate to say this but Diaz was not a good villain. Hopefully they write him better in S7 because S6 was terrible.
Agreed!
I agree as well
Right? If there was any villain I would love to see again, it would be my favorite smirking psychopath, Adrian Chase. I was half cheering for him through the end of season 5 lmao. But a Diaz return? Ugh, not so much.
Completely agree with you, Liz. Season 6 was horrible. I’m not thrilled to see that we’ll have more of this boring villain. I like Kirk Acevedo in other projects, but this role is pretty bad.
This exactly. I loved him in Fringe, he was great as Charlie. Ever since then, though, the only thing I’ve seen him cast as is lackluster villains. The Diaz character is such a cardboard cutout, I can’t even. SMH.
He’s a GREAT actor and better than the scripts he was given.
Given that Arrow and the Flash are “Earth-1”, I’m puzzled by the need to describe Colton Haynes as “Earth-1’s Roy Harper”.
Because there had been gobs and gobs of speculation that Colton would be coming back as another Roy, which would explain why he is Thea-less. That is why.
I second that. The Roy Harper that’s always been on the show has always been from Earth-One.
I am out. Show use to be one of my favorites but last season terrible story arc and the fact that the we are now getting the same villain as last season has turned me off the show
Hopefully the writing for him in S7 is much better because I think the show really suffered having him as a big bad last year in the second half.
I love Acevedo. I really dislike this character. Maybe there will be some character shift that will help.
I’m not thrilled about this, but if they include him in the credits as “and Kirk Acevedo as Al Pacino,” at least I could get a laugh out of his constant bellowing.
Awesome; they promote arguably the worst big bad in the show’s history to regular status. Geez…
I love the show but terrible decision.
Yep. Not very happy about this.
Arrow just keeps compounding the horrible. He needs to be gone along with Team Annoying. These characters add nothing to the show but annoyance. Diaz wasn’t even an entertaining villain. Instead of moving away from this crap that didn’t work, Arrow is like here, have a second dose.
Terrible decision. Season 6 was a mess for a lot of reasons, but Diaz was one of the worst parts of the show. I was on the fence about continuing for season 7 at all as it was, but this news is kind of a nail in the coffin for me.
If they had to bring back a villain, it should be Damian Darkh. Even though I wasn’t a fan of the “magic” season 4, I thought Neal McDonough hit it out mof the park as an Arrow big bad.
NO!!!
Damian Darkh was a good psycho villain, yes. But we’ve definitely seen enough of him. No need to make him a never ending story like Malcom Merlyn.
Why, God, why?!?!
I’d honestly be happy to watch the show with just Oliver, Felicity, Laurel, Roy, Diggle, Lyla and a new LGBT character. The newbies need to be gone along with the boring villains.
I agree! Dare I suggest Sin?! But also, Thea, who obviously isn’t going to be involved. Arrow used up both of its best villians in the first 2 seasons, then gave us Ra’s and Darhk who would have been decent villians for far later seasons. They also gave up on the case of the week/list story of the first season which could have probably lasted through the flashback seasons.
I hated how Sin just vanished. I would like to see her back for an arc, but not as a villain or to be killed off needlessly.
Ok, does anyone actually want this? I was so annoyed that he didn’t die last season. I watch Arrow mostly due to the fact that I watch all of the Arrowverse shows and don’t like to miss things. But, I may only be watching crossover events that include Arrow now this season.
Wow. What a way to kill the excitement for this season. Terrible character! I was hoping he would have been dealt with by episode 2…
He was a terrible villain, like, an actual idiot who lucked into things working. I still can’t believe they centered his whole reveal as some “mastermind” around a plan where he helped the guy he was framing build a bomb to blow up the city he was trying to take over without a way to stop it, or a way to escape. An actual moron.
The show made a lot of missteps in S6, but Diaz was by far the biggest. Bad choice by Beth IMO – I’m sad his stench is carrying on into the new season.
Ugh, he’s awful. He’s easily the worst big bad they’ve ever had. This gets me far less excited about the season now.
Diaz was the worst part of a season that had me wanting a whopping three supporting characters dead—Dinah, Rene and Curtis—and that’s saying something. Doubling down on him seems like a bad idea, but that’s Arrow for ya. Here’s hoping they manage to make him less awful – the bar is very low.
UGH. I thought Beth was turning things around but this is a terrible decision. He was one of the worst parts of S6. Dreadful.
Man diaz make me mad foreals lol wish
Oliver will start taking down this bad dudes for good no more 2nd chances
This makes me sad. I don’t know if Roy being back is going to be enough to keep me interested if the villains are bad and NTA is still on their high horse.
Acevedo’s character was the worst part from last season and FF’ed the bulk of his scenes. I guess that will continue with the new season (mind you I did like him in Fringe just not on Arrow). Still a bit iffy with the new season in general.
i suppose it was done in order to make acevedo available for the entire season, but…. why?
diaz is a horrible, petty villain, the worst and least interesting so far. which is a shame cause acevedo is a great actor who deserves better than this.
.
i feel like the show is so out of touch with their audience, they have absolutely no idea what the fans do and don’t like.
Horrible character and the actor mumbles so bad on the show. He’s just not good at all. Why would they promote him as series regular when most people who watch didn’t like him? His plot just doesn’t even make sense. Hopefully the term is used loosely and he’s really not in all episodes.