Suits LA Confirms that Stephen Amell’s Onscreen Characters Are Doomed to Have Daddy Issues

Stephen Amell takes up his next big TV role as Ted Black in Suits LA. Yet, it appears he’s about to be typecast for the rest of his career – not as the man who needs to save his city, but by playing characters with serious daddy issues.

Ted stomps around in Suits LA, showcasing an air of no-nonsense confidence and swagger. Yet, there’s something else that lingers beneath the surface: A resentment toward his father (played by The Flash actor Matt Letscher). While it’s still unclear why there’s so much animosity between father and son, it’s at the point where Ted doesn’t even want to sit with his father in his last moments. Instead, he leaves him to die alone in a hospice. 

Despite this move, the viewer notices that Ted struggles with the demons of his past, and he needs to come to peace with the relationship (or lack thereof) that he had with his father. It affects the way he interacts with people, and the abandonment issues are on full display, especially in terms of how he reacts to his best friend Stuart Lane’s (Josh McDermitt) betrayal in the merger and the defection of his pseudo-protege Rick Dodsen (Bryan Greenberg).

Related: All Major Actors & Cast List for Suits

Surprisingly, the daddy issues appear to be a central theme of every major character that Amell plays on television. Let’s look at Amell’s first starring role as Oliver Queen in Arrow. Oliver loses his father, Robert (Jamey Sheridan), after their yacht is sabotaged and Robert sacrifices his life to save Oliver. This event weighs down heavily on Oliver, who makes a Batman-esque vow to make his father proud by saving his city. In the process, though, Oliver discovers that Robert wasn’t the wonderful man he portrayed himself to be and had a closet filled with many skeletons. Like with Ted, Oliver acts out toward those around him, because he struggles to come to terms with who his father really was.

In Heels, Amell plays Jack Spade, who tries to keep his father Tom’s (David James Elliott) dream of the Duffy Wrestling League alive. At his core, he’s a good man and works himself to the bone, but he is haunted by his father’s legacy and the way in which Tom ended his life. This creates tension between Jack and his brother, Ace (Alexander Ludwig) as they both haven’t come to terms with what happened to their father. At one point, Jack’s failure to deal with his daddy issues almost results in the end of his marriage and the deterioration of the relationship with his brother.

Whether it’s Amell that’s drawn to or his agent who pushes him to take these types of parts, it’s interesting to see how the major characters he plays have similar daddy issues. Now, as Ted in Suits LA, he appears to be doomed to repeat the same role over and over again.