Arrow star Stephen Amell previews Oliver and Thea's reunion and new dynamic.

Arrow type TV Show network The CW genre Superhero

Arrow is staging a long-awaited Queen family reunion in its latest episode.

Original cast member Willa Holland returns as Oliver’s (Stephen Amell) younger sister Thea Queen in Tuesday’s Katie Cassidy-directed episode, “Leap of Faith” After two years spent destroying Lazarus Pits and fighting the Thanatos Guild with Nyssa (Katrina Law) and Roy (Colton Haynes), Thea reunites with her brother and helps him investigate the withholding Monitor (LaMonica Garrett), which takes them on an Indiana Jones-like adventure in Nanda Parbat.

Even though they haven’t seen each other in two years, it feels as though no time has passed, as you can see in the exclusive sneak peek above that shows them fighting some of Talia al Ghul’s (Lexa Doig) students together. The same can be said of Amell and Hollland, who picked up right where they left off when the cameras started rolling.

“It’s like riding a bike,” Amell tells EW of working with Holland again. “It was like she had never really gone. Our first day on that episode, it was mostly just her and I out walking in the forest, so to speak. We just dropped back into our old ways.”

Watching Thea and Oliver fight together is also reminder of how much the former has evolved since Arrow began. Initially introduced as a rebellious teenager, Thea quickly developed into one of the show’s strongest and most grounded characters, and eventually became one of Star City’s hooded heroes. Even though the pilot revealed her nickname was Speedy, which she shares with one of Green Arrow’s sidekicks in the comics, the writers didn’t initially plan on turning her into a vigilante like her brother.

“Where the character went, that kind of surprised all of us,” says Arrow consulting producer Marc Guggenheim. “We gave her the nickname Speedy more as a nickname more than anything else. We never said like, ‘Oh, for sure, we’re going to put her in a suit.'”

While Thea has proven time and time again that she can handle herself, that hasn’t stopped Oliver from being over-protective at times. According to Amell, knowing what she’s been through the past two years will help Oliver finally star trusting her completely.

“I think that we finally just cement the fact that Oliver considers her to be her own person and he trusts her implicitly,” says Amell. “He still wants to protect her but what she says goes because she has not been chilling on a beach. She’s been battling and she’s acquitted herself really well. I’m glad he finally came around right in the nick of time.”

Arrow airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on The CW.

This post has been updated.

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