Thea Queen is one of the few characters still left standing since the pilot of Arrow. She is the sister and last living family member of Oliver Queen – unless you count his ten year old son that was an issue but has never been spoken of since. As of late, Thea has not been around much.
Last season’s finale featured Diggle and Thea putting down their masks after the demise of Damien Dhark, leading for the wave of new cast members to flood the first half of the season. While Artemis and Rag Man have since been written out Wild Dog and Mr Terrific look to be hanging around indefinately. Add to that a third Black Canary and the cast budget at Arrow is looking pretty slim.
As a result Willa Holland – the actress behind Thea Queen – agreed to appear in fourteen episodes out of twenty-two this season. She’s still there for the premiere and the crossover and the big gun control episode but it means she doesn’t have to go through the motions when the episode doesn’t necessarily focus her. It’s likely she might be brought back into the fold of Team Arrow for the next season but for now it’s been sporadic to see Speedy.
Fans have noticed. Executive producer Wendy Miracle stated,
She’s headed in a direction that’s very similar to where her mother was before she was killed in season 2. I’m actually really excited about her storyline, because we’re taking her to a place where she’s been dealing with all of these issues the same way Oliver has, with her bloodlust and with other elements of her past, and this season’s going to find her in a similar place, but for very different reasons. There’s gonna be a great scene coming up between Oliver and Thea that’s one of my favorites on the show.
Now if this means diving back into the bloodlust storyline again in an uninventive way, count me out. If it means building Thea up to the ruthless, compelling character her mother way absolutely count me in. Her drug addiction demons behind her, Thea has been kicking goals in her professional life over the last few seasons. She ran Oliver’s mayoral campaign and does the majority of the heavy lifting while he juggles superheroics.
A turn in that direction would bring the show in a cool full circle moment as the flashbacks finally conclude. It also indicates quality over quantity in the case of Thea and Willa.
