The CW’s Arrow

The CW has a knack for finding unusually attractive people to play superheroes, and the women that love them. It appears that they’ve struck gold once again with the anti-hero series, “Arrow” Now in its second season, “Arrow” tells the story of billionaire playboy, Oliver Queen, and his journey back to redemption.

Queen, played by Stephen Amell, has spent the past five years on an island after his boat sinks in the middle of nowhere. His father, Robert Queen, played by Jamey Sheridan, a business associate, and his girlfriend’s sister (He’s cheating. Bad billionaire) are also on the boat when it goes down.

The sister is presumed dead, but his dad and business guy survive. As they twist and toil on a life raft, food is running thin, and won’t feed three people. Oliver’s dad makes the executive decision to kill his partner, and then turn the gun on himself. But before the old man pulls the trigger, he gives his son a list of dirty corporate business associates and tells him to make it right.

For the next five years, Queen basically gets his ass kicked and tortured. He is taken in by some unsavory characters, gets caught, escapes, and then gets caught again. The silver lining in the cloud is that the hellish experience turned him into a killing machine.  His choice of weapon, Bow and Arrow.

Fast forward to the present, and Queen is back on the billionaire scene with a new-found hate for the world in general. His family doesn’t know him, and now he’s stuck with this list and armed with some fancy ninja skills. So, what’s a broken rich kid to do? Become a vigilante. Duh.

“Arrow” takes viewers through Queens love/hate relationship with himself. With every person he eliminates from the list, he makes a little more sense of his world. Killing and ruining corporate pirates is his catharsis. There are some great twists and turns in the storyline, like the love/hate relationship with Queen’s ex-girlfriend, Laurel Lance, played by Katie Cassidy.

I mean he was cheating on her with her sister, and she died on his boat, so I can’t blame the girl for not throwing the guy a party. Although, there are still feelings looming underneath the surface.

But wait. You can’t forget mommy dearest, Moira Queen, played by Susanna Thompson, who has an air hangar of dirty secrets that will soon come to light.

“Arrow” is a well crafted adventure into the conflicted mind and soul of Oliver Queen. And the disarmingly attractive women don’t hurt either.

The entire first season of “Arrow” is on Hulu, Netflix, and pretty much any other streaming media. I went on a four-day binge, burning through 22 episodes. The new season is also rolling on the CW,  every Wednesday at 9pm est.