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‘Arrow’: Is Thea Becoming the ‘New Moira’?

If this past week’s episode of Arrow titled, ‘The Sin-Eater’ left you hanging with one thing for sure, it is that Oliver and Felicity are not the only ones headed towards the darkness.; more recently, Oliver’s sister Thea has also joined those ranks.

Granted, we should have seen the darkness growing inside Thea for awhile now. This past season, quite literally, after she had to deal with a blood lust as a result of her Lazarus Pit resurrection. Thea’s trouble’s have always been a problem from the very first episode of Arrow.

In Season One, after learning her brother and father had died, Thea succumbed to a life of scandal, drugs and underage drinking. From that point forward, Thea’s life continued to be a life of chaos. She felt so broken after learning that Moira and Oliver were hiding the fact that Malcolm was her father from her, that she distanced herself from everyone. This lead to her training under Malcolm, learning the League’s fighting techniques. I know for those of you who have been following Arrow since the beginning, I don’t have to walk through all five seasons of Thea’s character development. Essentially, Thea went from a fragile flower to a villain to a hero and now she’s just a mix of everything. I would definitely have to say that Thea has had one of the most amazing character developments that I have ever seen on the show.

'Arrow': Is Thea Becoming the 'New Moira'?
Image: The CW
For a good majority of this season, Thea has been the one keeping Oliver’s head on his shoulders; not to mention, Lance’s as well. She’s been portrayed as this extremely strong, mature character… but how long can Thea keep playing the role of the alpha female; or at least the heroic one?
This past week, we got an extreme glimpse at the path Thea is starting to take; when she crossed a line… to the extreme. We’ve known for a while now that Thea has never been a fan of Susan Williams, the reporter who originally kept focusing on destroying Oliver’s reputation but is now somehow his new girlfriend. (Well, at this point who knows if that is even still the case). Despite Thea’s dislike for Susan, she would keep it professional by either avoiding her or by being civil… until now.
Thea essentially destroyed Susan’s life by planting false reports on Susan’s laptop (via Felicity) that resulted in Susan losing her job. We’ve seen Thea do some pretty wicked acts before (i.e killing Sara in Season 3), but this time she wasn’t being mind controlled by Malcolm or because she was fighting a blood list.  This act was purely Thea herself, out of her own will and deed. Sure, she thought she was ‘justified’ and doing the right thing after she discovered Susan was gathering evidence about Oliver’s past, and the fact that he is The Green Arrow.
'Arrow': Is Thea Becoming the 'New Moira'?
Image: The CW
Oliver mentioned to Thea that by inflicting ‘harm’ on Susan Williams concerned him, because just like Moira, Thea made a decision that impacted someone’s life… and a bad one. For so long, Moira preached that every decision and every lie she made was to ‘protect’ her family. (Although those of us with a conscious would argue that Moira made some pretty wicked decisions, like not stopping Malcolm from murdering her first husband, Robert).
Even after Malcolm was ‘killed’ and she was no longer under his thumb, she still continued to make some morally questionable decisions, and this time on her own will… just like Thea. Thea was also once under Malcolm’s influence but now, no longer.
Does this mean that Thea could be headed down a similar path, like Moira? I mean… Moira WAS her mother. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.
With Felicity and Diggle recently making some morally questionable decisions, could we see Thea going down a similar path? It wouldn’t really be a surprise. The threat that Prometheus presents is very real, and the damage he is causing with every day that passes has continued to spread. He doesn’t even have to be there! We haven’t seen Prometheus in an episode since the mid-season finale, ‘Who Are You?’, but his name has come up every episode since then.
As we see Oliver fighting to stay in that ‘light’, Thea is headed in the opposite direction. It’s almost as if the two siblings are in a ying and yang kind of a situation. For right now, all we can do is sit back and wait to see what happens… but I myself, am personally worried for Thea; and I’m really hoping Oliver can bring her back into the fold. Come back to us, Speedy!
Arrow will return on Wednesday, March 1st at 8PM/EST on The CW.

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