In tonight’s episode of Arrow, “Deathstroke,” Dr. Anthony Ivo returns for his first appearance since game changer “The Promise.” We recently chatted with the man behind Ivo, Dylan Neal, who teased what’s coming up in “Deathstroke” as well as next week’s “The Man Under the Hood,” and we could not be more excited about his upcoming arc!
When we last saw Ivo, things weren’t necessarily going his way, but things are about to get interesting when he re-enters the story. “Ivo had a bit of a bad run in there with Slade in ‘The Promise’ where Ivo had his hand chopped off. In these next two episodes, Ivo is really going to try and make the case to Slade that he needs him because only Ivo understands the Mirakuru that is in Slade, and what is making him basically superhuman. Ivo has spent his entire life researching and studying Mirakuru and so his case is that it would be best for Slade to keep Ivo very close, to help him in his ideas and plotting.”
Dylan didn’t disclose many details about this arc but he did share the following: “You won’t see too much of Ivo in [Episode] 18, but in [Episode] 19 there’s a really big turning point for Ivo, just like the big turning point in “The Promise” for Ivo and Slade that I think the fans will be excited for.”
Although Ivo is perceived as a villain on Arrow, he didn’t have nefarious intentions at the start. We discussed this aspect of Ivo, and Dylan remarked, “Ivo’s a complicated guy and has a lot of conflicting emotions going on. The genesis of his research that we’ve seen is that he’s been trying to cure his wife from basically Alzheimer’s or Dementia. We saw that finally revealed in “The Promise” when he tried to talk to his wife and she couldn’t even remember who he was.” He went on to say, “[Ivo’s] coming from a very altruistic place. The conundrum for him has always been that for the ultimate results he needs, he’s going to have to do some nasty things, like experimenting on people in a cruel way. So he’s slipped off into the dark side in pursuit of his personal goals, and he will manipulate anyone ultimately to get his own way, and that’s what he was doing frequently with Sarah. He definitely had an affection for her and a need for her but if she was going to get in his way, he would be done with her.”
Dylan wasn’t sure exactly what was in store for him on Arrow when he signed on to play Ivo, but it sounds like he is definitely enjoying it. “It’s been a fun ride. They didn’t know how many episodes that they were going to use me originally, and I didn’t get any instructions really on what they wanted from Ivo and that first episode, I was kind of just taking steps in the dark as to what they might want from this character. I had looked him up in the DC lore to see who this guy was, and it’s been really fun to play him on Arrow so far, and great working with the cast – Manu, Stephen and Caity.”
Catch Dylan Neal’s return to Arrow in “Deathstroke,” and don’t forget to tune in to next week’s “The Man Under the Hood.” Arrow airs on The CW Wednesdays at 8/7c and at 8pm ET on CTV in Canada.
Photo Courtesy of The CW
