Arrow: Meet The Huntress

Ever since the news leaked that Jessica de Gouw would be appearing in the CW’s Arrow as DC comic character The HUntress (aka Helena Bertinelli) the one thing all fans needed to know was, “What’s she gonna look like?” Entertainment Weekly has posted the answer, with the first image of de Gouw in costume.

Helena’s family has deep ties in the corruption to which The Arrow has sworn to put an end. Her father, Frank Bertinelli (Jeffrey Nordling), is a notorious mobster. Helena may not have a list of targets like The Arrow does, but her mission is certainly born out of rectifying the wrongs that she perceives her family to have done in the past. And in that way, the two may find more common ground than they expected.

Executive producer Andrew Kreisberg tells LA TV Insider Examiner that both Helena and Oliver have crusades born our of their “pain and loss” and that for the first real time with Arrow , we’d get to see an origin story of sorts for The Huntress.

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“[She and Deadshot are] really popular, iconic DC characters who haven’t really been given their proper due in mediums other than the comics. So for us as writers and creators and fans, what was most exciting for us was to take some of these lesser-known characters and put the Arrow spin on them.

“She’s a darker version of Oliver, and it puts his actions and his motivations into relief for him…The whole reason for bringing the Huntress on, it isn’t to throw in a new DC character, although she’s really cool; it’s about having an emotional effect on Oliver. When we meet him in that storyline, he’s lonely; he’s feeling a little lost; and then comes into his life this girl who’s sort of a darker version of him that he thinks he can save.”

De Gouw describes her as, “She’s a force. She’s a force of nature, and not only the Huntress, but Helena is pretty sassy in her own right. She’s pretty ruthless. She’s certainly not as controlled as she possibly could be. I mean, she’s a vigilante of sorts and in her own head she justifies the choices she makes. If you’re going to question everything you do, then why do it in the first place? She can be pretty full-on, but in her head it’s all justified.”

The character will make her debut in episode eight, "Vendetta", and according to Kreisberg, she will appear in “two episodes for now, but we definitely hope we see more of her. We certainly set her up as an interesting foil for Oliver and we’re excited to see where else we can take her."

• Read our Arrow reviews