Arrow's Echo Kellum: Tonight's Close Call With Prometheus Will Test Curtis's Relationship To the Team

12/07/2016 07:02 pm EST

Echo Kellum will take center stage tonight when his character is caught squarely in the middle of the action on the midseason finale of Arrow, titled "What To Leave Behind."

That "epic" midseason finale puts Curtis in personal danger, it was recently revealed, as Prometheus goes after him in his personal life due to his ties to the Green Arrow.

That, of course, isn't entirely surprising since we know at this point that Prometheus has a personal mean-on for Oliver Queen following his rampage through the Star City underworld in season 1, and that he's got a sleeper agent -- Artemis -- embedded with Team Arrow, so he almost certainly knows who everyone on the team is.

What does this mean for Curtis and his husband, who at this point doesn't yet know that he's married to Mr. Terrific?

"I definitely think it's going to be something that's unavoidable for Curtis and his husband to deal with, at the point where Prometheus actually does that," Kellum told ComicBook.com. "You're going to see where they are, what they decide to do from there, and where Curtis decides to go from there, in terms of if he can be a functional member of the team and stuff like that. It's oging to be a lot of emotional stuff to deal with, but what's happening is a really interesting journey for Curtis and I think when people see the final outcome of the decisions that are going to be made and the path that we're on toward our season finale, they're really going to dig it."

That was a recurring theme in our conversation; Kellum kept going back to the idea that Curtis was going to be tested in a way that cuts all the way down to the bone, and asks: can he do this? If there is to be a Mister Terrific after the midseason break, it will be a version of the character who's tempered in steel.

"One of two things are going to happen: it's either going to make the team dynamic worse, or it will strengthen the relationship. You can't have it both ways," Kellum said. "When something like that happens, especially to somebody's personal life, it definitely has a huge effect on whether they dig in or retreat, and that's something we're going to explore in the season finale."

Even a more introspective Curtis, one who's been beaten down by Vigilante, almost blown up by Dominator tech, and then stalked by Prometheus in three consecutive episodes, can't totally shake the irrepressible optimism that has made Kellum -- best known for his comedy work before Arrow -- the right pick for the role. Kellum says that it's not about being naive, but about finding the level that feels true to him and giving Curtis some space to work his sense of humor into the show.

"One of the tenets that I've taken with me since I've been studying comedy is the truth of it -- that there's truth in comedy," Kellum said. "I think in a lot of Curtis's lighthearted nature and his optimistic way that it is humorous but there's a lot of truth in it. I think it's important to not just be going for jokes but to be honest with the character. He tends to put his foot in his mouth a lot with his quips and stuff like that, but I think he's trying to bring some levity to a situation in a way that helps me relate to him."

But there's no guarantee that anybody will make it through a season of Arrow, especially one where a heavily-armed and mass-murdering villain has everyone's secret identities in his back pocket and Artemis's alarm codes for the Arrowcave in his arsenal. Kellum says that he feels reasonably confident that Curtis won't end up a notch on Prometheus's bow, but that he still rifles eagerly through scripts to see what happens.

"You never know, man. These writers are constantly surprising us and coming up with things that you never thought would occur," he said. "I'm always reading the scripts like 'Oh, boy. Do I survive?' and I'm thankful for every episode I get to do."

Arrow airs Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW. "What To Leave Behind" will debut tonight.

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