‘Arrow’ Promotes Kirk Acevedo to Series Regular in Season 7

Arrow‘s latest foe just might be here to stay.

According to a new report from Green Arrow TV, Kirk Acevedo has been promoted to a series regular for the show’s upcoming seventh season.

As audiences will remember, Diaz debuted as a drug kingpin during the show’s sixth season, who gradually joined Cayden James’ (Michael Emerson) supervillain team, and eventually succeeded him as the primary foe for Team Arrow. Over the course of Season 6, Diaz proved to be a unique interpretation of his comic counterpart, Richard Dragon, although that apparently will change a little this year.

“You know, what I really like about our interpretation of Richard is, he’s very grounded,” executive producer Marc Guggenheim told ComicBook.com last year. “He’s not a flamboyant big bad, he doesn’t wear a costume, he really is a crimelord sort of in the Tobias Church model. For Tobias we only really saw him for about five episodes, so we were excited about the prospect of doing a cool, gritty crime lord, but for a longer period of time. We’ve never really done that on the show before, so it’s different.”

By the end of last season, Diaz had been able to essentially take over Star City from the criminal underground, and managed to survive almost drowning in a lake in a fight against Laurel Lance/Black Siren (Katie Cassidy). As the final moments of the finale showed, Diaz was planning on coming back with a vengeance, something he will do with his Longbow Hunters in tow.

Now that Diaz is expected to play a larger role in Arrow‘s seventh season, it sounds like fans might have a bit of a reason to be worried about the ensemble’s circumstances.

“The idea now is: If Oliver’s in prison, is he actually more protected than the team?” Emily Bett Rickards, who plays Felicity Smoak, explained in an interview earlier this year. “The rest of the team is all going to be in danger as well. Where that puts Felicity and William, I mean, we can only do so much to protect them.”

Are you excited to see Diaz be a series regular in Arrow‘s seventh season? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

The season seven premiere of Arrow, which is titled “Inmate 4587”, will debut on Monday, October 15th, at 8/7c on The CW.