This week’s episode of “Arrow” was bittersweet, as it put Thea Queen at the helm, and Roy Harper was also by her side. Fans were thrilled to see Roy and Thea fighting side by side, but at the end of the episode Thea and Roy left to go on a mission with Nyssa al Ghul, and Thea said goodbye to Oliver and Star City.
It appears that Willa Holland is indeed done with her role as Thea Queen, and executive producer Marc Guggenheim told EW that she had requested to be written out of the show.
“At the end of season 4, Willa had come to us and basically said that she would like some more time for herself, and would like to reduce her role on the show. And we did, we reduced the commitment that she was making to us in season 5, and carried that over in season 6. Season 6 is the end of her contract, and going into season 6, with all of us knowing it was the end of her contract, Willa expressed the desire to move on, not re-up. She expressed a desire to be written out at a certain time in the season, which is around episode 16, so we accommodated her on that front as well.”
Thea Queen has been part of “Arrow” since the beginning, so it’s definitely not easy for fans to say goodbye.
In regards to whether or not Thea Queen will return someday, Guggenheim insisted that the decision is completely up to Willa Holland.
“Really, honestly, it’s totally up to Willa. One of the things that I love about Arrow — and I think this is true for the other superhero shows as well, but I think Arrow‘s really shown a capacity for it — is no one is ever gone. Even the characters who have been killed off are never gone. People can come back in a variety of different ways here. In Thea’s specific example, there’s a whole storyline left to explore. We haven’t started thinking about how to do it in season 7 or beyond. I think we know Willa’s just finished Arrow, she’s looking to see what other opportunities are out there for her. But I love this idea of Thea, Roy, and Nyssa making an unlikely trio, exploring a different part of the Arrow-verse, a different corner of the Arrow-verse. It would be a shame not to revisit it. At the same time, we’ve also shown that we can tell Arrow-verse stories in other mediums: animated, comic books, and prose novels. There are those avenues open to us as well. So I don’t know what the future holds, but there are potentials out there.”
“Arrow” will return with a new episode next Thursday on the CW.
