What we’re going to start to see, in the first season, is that Oliver’s biggest threat is himself. He’s coming back from the island with post-traumatic stress disorder. He has to have that, based on what he saw on the island. We’re presenting a damaged individual. He’s somebody who is, for lack of a better word, a ticking time bomb. We get to see him do super things, but we’re also going to get to see him fall, every once in awhile, and see him fail. I hope that really human element will connect people to him, he said.
Queen is stranded on an island for five years in the pilot and it’s not an easy thing to get over. It weighs on him to have to present himself differently. It would be easy, if he could come back and say, at the first family dinner, “Hey guys, FYI, I have a list of people in the criminal underworld that I’m going to obliterate, and I’m not a skilled archer and this huge list of other things.” That would be easier than presenting himself as the person that he was before, especially because the person that he was before was a jerk. He was an entitled jerk.”
Amell says he’s not even sure how long Oliver Queen’s list is, but it’s not a short one. If you just had a finite list, you’d be like, “Oh, I’ve got one more guy on the list. Can’t find him!” We’re not married to any type of storytelling technique. He doesn’t have to cross out a name on the list in Act 5 of every episode, but I would assume that it’s a pretty long list.
And when asked about the appearance of other DC characters, Amell had this to say: Yeah. There’s a clear lineage with Katie’s character, Willa’s character and Colin’s character. We showed the Deathstroke mask. I would assume we will see Deathstroke, either on the island or otherwise. In Episode 2, we have China White. In Episode 3, we have Deadshot. The guys that are writing the show are huge comic book fans and they’ve just been waiting to pull from the DC universe, so we’re going to do that, all the time.
Arrow stars Amell as Oliver Queen, Colin Donnell as Tommy, Willa Holland as Thea Queen, with Susanna Thompson as Moira Queen and Paul Blackthorne as Detective Quentin Lance.
The show premieres on Wednesday, October 10th at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
