John Diggle learned in Arrow Season 2 that H.I.V.E. was the organization that hired Deadshot to kill his brother, but since then, he’s been in the dark about the reasons why Andy was murdered. That changed last week when Quentin Lance discovered that while Andy was in Afghanistan, his shady dealings apparently were getting in the way of H.I.V.E.’s operations, thus necessitating his assassination. Needless to say Diggle was heartbroken to learn this, but there’s more to this story than meets the eye. Later on in Season 4, fans will find out what Andy was up to during that time, and that means actually seeing him in person.
While talking about Diggle grieving over both why his brother was killed and the “idea” of who his brother really was, executive producer Wendy Mericle informed EW that we’ll get to see Andy again in flashbacks. Mericle said:
He doesn't know Andy's point of view. He's never heard Andy's side of the story. We’ll definitely be seeing Andy coming up in future episodes and we’ll get some pretty shocking answers about what happened to him.
When Arrow began, Diggle was under the impression that Andy had been accidentally killed while protecting his client, but Deadshot corrected him in the Season 2 episode “Keep Your Enemies Closer,” saying he intentionally killed Andy on H.I.V.E.’s orders. With Damien Darhk and H.I.V.E. arriving in Star City to tear it down, Diggle’s efforts to learn the truth were reignited, but then he learned from Lance in “Haunted” that Andy had been a crime lord in the Middle East while serving in the army. No other details were provided, but with a revelation this big, it seemed likely that it would be revisited at some point this season. This is one plot point that needs more exploration.
Repeated mentions aside, Andy’s only actual appearance on Arrow has been in the flashbacks of the Season 3 episode “The Return,” when he (played by Eugene Byrd) and John were the security detail for Tommy Merlyn’s birthday party. Since the Lazarus Pit has been rendered useless by Nysaa al Ghul, we knew Diggle wouldn’t take a page out of Laurel Lance’s book and revive his long-dead brother, but seeing how Andy got involved in these events through flashbacks is preferable to just having his tale being told by other people. Who knows, maybe Andy isn’t really the bad guy Darhk and these papers label him as. Maybe he was somehow framed as a crime lord, or if he really was involved in illegal activities, perhaps he redeemed himself shortly before dying, which would ease Diggle’s mind.
You can catch new episodes of Arrow Wednesdays at 8 p.m. EST on The CW.
