Present Day Queen Theory

I posted this at the bottom of my 4 Queens Theory, but want to do a separate post after what we learned in s3e7

Soo I believe that MISTY may be first and only queen in a new 25 year cycle…I can’t stop thinking about when Lottie and Nat are at the beehives in s2 and Lottie says “when the new queen bee is born she stings all the unborn queens”

Misty was the one who encouraged all of them to come to the cult in s2 and ultimately caused Nat's death.

As for Lottie's death, it seems clear AnTai being in Manhattan was a red herring, and I think Shauna's DNA match could also be a red herring...Shauna immediately picked up that it was found under Lottie's nails even though Misty said nothing about where she got the sample, so she could have another reasonable explanation for her DNA being there, and ran away to find Alex bc she's terrible at confrontation and does not think things through rationally like Misty does... HOWEVER, here's where I'm open to also arguing that CALLIE could also be the new queen (if Callie/Shauna did kill Lottie), as Callie shooting Lottie at the cult was the precipitating event for turning the hunt from Shauna to Nat. But it would be hilariously meta if the writers did what Misty did and had Misty draw everyone’s attention to Lottie’s death to throw our scent off her as a suspect.

I also feel very strongly that Misty retrieved the DAT tape from Nat's storage unit. The assumption that the tape is from someone who knew Shauna in the past, but not present, comes from the envelope being labeled "Shauna Shipman" not "Sadeki" but there are MULTIPLE instances this season where Misty angrily refers to Shauna as SHAUNA SHIPMAN ("thank you for opening my eyes, SHAUNA SHIPMAN")...we all know YJ loves to keep us speculating and I just think it would be amazing that we're all over here theorizing about Melissa/Alex/Walter sending the tape when the culprit causing the most chaos could be right in front of us!

It would make too much sense for Misty to want a queen role after all these years, especially with how instrumental she was to their survival with no queen role in the wilderness. Plus we know Misty moves in silence and plots thoroughly. They treated her like garbage then and still do now. And Misty is motivated by external validation. “Very on brand” for her.