Thea's Got A Secret, But Can She Keep It?

Hey, remember that time on Arrow when Oliver was keeping a huge secret from everyone? Actually, that's pretty much how every episode of Arrow has played out since the very beginning. Whether Oliver was hiding his true identity, or his afternoon activities, or the mysterious motives of his family, he always had a secret. For a long time, he kept the real events of his father's death from his sister, Thea. Then, he kept the secret of Thea's real father from her, too. Those are honestly enough secrets to drive any family insane, but now there are only two Queen family members left, and you'd think they'd band together. However, now Thea's got some secrets of her own: she knows her real father — Malcolm — is still alive, and she's keeping that from Oliver. Plus, she hasn't revealed to Oliver the fact that she was actually with Malcolm on Corto Maltese. And wait, there's more: Thea's still in contact with Malcolm. Maybe this is just giving Oliver a taste of his own medicine, but regardless, how long can Thea keep her daddy secret from Oliver?

If she's anything like Oliver in this regard, she can hold onto that secret for a very long time. Maybe even at least three seasons. But while Thea and Oliver both have the same blood (or, half blood) pumping through their veins, they are very different. It's still hard for me to look at Thea and not see a wild teenager still recovering from the death of her father and the presumed death of her brother and trying to forge a new path for herself. While Oliver can be very guarded, Thea isn't like that. She's friendly and personable, and there's a reason she's able to run Verdant with such ease. Honestly, I could easily see Thea ascending to the Queen Consolidated throne one day, if she manages to really prove herself on the business side of things.

But then again, she's clearly still got a little bit of that "wild" streak in her. She did blindly follow Malcolm halfway across the globe if only to prove to herself that she wasn't weak. Thea might be on her way towards ultimate strength of both mind and body, but she's not there yet. So while it's conceivable that she could keep her secrets for a while, I have a sinking feeling she's going to slip up eventually. She's going to try to keep everything bottled up inside, but she's not Oliver. Oliver is very good at pushing people away, while Thea draws them in close. She's going to let her secret slip, and maybe that's what will ultimately push her toward the dark side, or bring her into Team Arrow.

So how long will she be able to keep this charade up? I'm going to put my money on at least until the mid-season finale. As the CW announced the finale will be December 10th. Arrow will, of course, end on some huge epic cliff-hanger, and if this had been discussed a month ago, I would have said that the death of Sara Lance would have been the mid-season blowout. But, that happened in the first episode of the season. How can Arrow top itself yet again? Easiest way would be for Thea's secrets to all spill out, and turn brother against sister.

Image: Cate Cameron/The CW; starlingcitygifs/tumblr