Arrow season 6 loses major cast member

It was somewhat expected that this was going to happen, but on Thursday night’s new episode of Arrow it was finally official: Willa Holland is leaving the show.

The moment that Oliver told Thea that she should leave with Roy on the last new episode before tonight, it was pretty clear that this was probably coming. It happened tonight, and Holland is now officially gone. That doesn’t necessarily mean that she is going to be gone forever, but for now it doesn’t appear that she’ll be an integral part of the series.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, show executive producer Marc Guggenheim confirmed the news by explaining how this exit came about:

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. Look, we love Willa, we love working with Willa, we love the character of Thea, we particularly have always loved Thea’s relationship with Oliver. That relationship is one of the things that we deviated from the comic book early on. It was one of the very first major creative decisions we made in terms of adapting the Green Arrow comic for live action television. So it’s always been an incredibly important, critical part of the show for us.”

The producers ultimately honored Holland’s request and found a great way to write her out that felt real to her journey and the person that she is. Bringing her back into Roy’s orbit made perfect sense. They had the relationship that was at one point integral to the series.

Ultimately, getting Guggenheim’s feedback puts a lot more of the show into perspective. Our disappointment is that they didn’t really find a way to properly utilize Thea in her limited screen time the past season or so.

Are you sad to see Willa Holland leaving Arrow? Be sure to share some of your thoughts in the comments!

Meanwhile, be sure to like CarterMatt on Facebook in the event you want to get some other insight on the series. (Photo: The CW.)