In the first season, Oliver returns to Starling City and is reunited with his mother Moira ( Susanna Thompson), his half-sister Thea ( Willa Holland), and his friend Tommy Merlyn ( Colin Donnell). The series follows billionaire playboy Oliver Queen ( Stephen Amell), who claimed to have spent five years shipwrecked on Lian Yu, a mysterious island in the North China Sea, before returning home to Starling City (later renamed 'Star City') to fight crime and corruption as a secret vigilante whose weapon of choice is a bow and arrow. Stephen Amell stars as Oliver Queen, with principal cast members Katie Cassidy as Laurel Lance, Colin Donnell as Tommy Merlyn, David Ramsey as John Diggle, Willa Holland as Thea Queen, Susanna Thompson as Moira Queen, and Paul Blackthorne as Quentin Lance. The showrunners for this season were Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Kreisberg. The series is based on the DC Comics character Green Arrow, a costumed crime-fighter created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp, and is set in the Arrowverse, sharing continuity with other Arrowverse television series.
The first season of the American action television series Arrow premiered on The CW on October 10, 2012, at 8:00 pm (ET) and concluded on May 15, 2013, with a total of 23 episodes, after the network ordered a full season on October 22, 2012.
