Emily Bett Rickards was still on hiatus between seasons of Arrow when she read the first script to Season 5. The actress told Comicbook.com at San Diego Comic-Con that she read it while sitting by a pool at a friend's birthday weekend, and she was blown away.

"I was like, 'Yo man this is so crazy!'"Rickards said with a laugh of her first reaction. She's excited to see how it all plays out, and promises it's full of action - and plenty of changes. "It starts with action, obviously, and there are lots of new characters, and the dynamic is different. It’s just different. Reaching season five, we’re going to hit 100 episodes, and there’s freedom in that!"

The actress is ready to see how Felicity reacts to everything she's been through in the last couple of seasons, and said that despite starting with the character as the light-hearted side of Team Arrow, she knows Felicity has to change.

"I had asked for her to be the light and comic [character] that she was in season one, and that’s selfish, because the problem with that is, that’s what I like to play as an actor, and that’s great, but she’s got a lot of scars now. Literally, she has scars!" Rickards said of how she'll change in season five. "We’ve been talking a lot about the trauma that she’s wearing, the guilt she’s wearing on her shoulders everyday; as much as you can keep it light, she’s definitely bottling things up. Does she go to therapy? I don’t know! Does she have nightmares? Absolutely! She’s definitely in a very dark world, and trying to keep that light, I would like to see it shown how she deals with it, because everyone deals with their own demons. It doesn’t matter what they are. Sometimes showing that is important."

Arrow season five kicks off on The CW in October.