Recap: ARROW Delivers An After-School Special on Trust

Episode 503 “A Matter of Trust”
Written by Ben Sokolowski & Emilio Ortega Aldrich
Directed by Gregory Smith

[photos: The CW]

This week, it’s all about trust issues. Trusting the new hero team. Trusting the new civil team. Reporters trusting politicians. Politicians trusting reporters. Bratva trusting no one…

And Billy Joel’s nowhere in sight.

Training for Team Arrow 2.0 continues, with the recruits watching as Green Arrow (Stephen Amell) is out in the field collecting intel on a new drug that’s hit the streets, something called “Stardust”. He gets a name and a sample, and the team learns that “Information is the currency of our business,” as Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) points out.

Only information isn’t enough for Wild Dog (Rick Gonzalez). He’s got a good idea about the neighborhood where all this is going down, see, and he’s pretty sure he can suss out the location of the source. Only Ollie doesn’t trust his team yet, because it’s the beginning of the episode and we haven’t had the “Moral of the Story” flashbacks yet.

Wild Dog, of course, goes half cocked and tracks down the location anyway, taking Evelyn (Madison McLaughlin) along — but it’s totally just recon — until he decides to start shooting up the place. The resulting fire-fight compromises the whole “recon” thing, puts Rene and Evelyn in danger, and throws number-one suspect Derek Sampson (Cody Runnels) into a vat of chemicals.

That’s going to leave a mark.

That one incident fires off multiple story tracks. Oliver has to deal with an irate new District Attorney Adrian Chase (Josh Segarra), who was using Sampson to build a case against the whole Stardust distribution network, a case now compromised by these new vigilantes. Oliver also has to deal with his team not following orders — both Team Arrow 2.0 and Thea (Willa Holland), who hired Quentin Lance (Paul Blackthorne) after Ollie told her not to do that very thing. And Sampson is just “mostly dead” after hitting that vat of chemicals. Now he’s up and about with super strength, and he’s decided to move in on Tobias Church’s territory.

Remember, Church has already had a visit from Prometheus, a bit of information that made its way to Felicity’s new beau, Detective Billy Malone (Tyler Ritter, looking and sounding more like his father all the time…). Malone scores a couple of points by warning the Green Arrow about Prometheus. Even though no one knows his name yet.

Meantime, news reporter Susan Williams (Carly Pope) is blowing up the airwaves with criticism of the mayor’s office, both because Oliver seems to be absent a lot of the time, and because it seems his staff is running things behind his back. At first, Thea thinks she can schmooze a little and get Williams to walk back some of her comments, especially as it concerns the rumored hiring of drunk Quentin, but when Thea reveals that Oliver didn’t even know Lance had been approached, Williams runs with that ball and it all comes crashing down around the Queens.

Now Oliver has to do damage control on two fronts: fixing the problem with the new drug on the streets and the crime kingpin wannabe, plus cleaning up the mess at City Hall.

We get our first look at Mr. Terrific in costume this episode, plus an in-show explanation for “Fair Play” emblazoned on his jacket: it was the slogan for a wrestler admired by Curtis (Echo Kellum), and so it’s a piece of merchandising for a wrestling star of yore. Curtis also has noticed Felicity flinching every time Rory (Joe Dinicol) mentions Havenrock, and once he understands what she’s going through, tell her that at some point she’s going to have to tell Rory what’s what, that she diverted the nuke to save millions of lives.

Rory doesn’t take it so well.

Based on his first encounter with Sampson 2.0, Oliver has figured out the direct approach isn’t going to work, so his fighting the brute is mainly cover so the rest of the team can plant a bomb at the drug lab, after which Ollie cuts Sampson’s tendons so he can’t move. This leaves the guy ready for pickup by the cops, along with a destroyed lab.

On the civic side of things, Oliver calls a press conference to announce that his team can make decisions and act on his behalf because they have his full trust and support, including Deputy Mayor Quentin Lance.

The moral of the story: Bratva can teach you how to trust others in only a few flashbacks to Russia. Anatoly (David Nykl) tells Oliver that Bratva is all about trust. Brotherhood. To not trust is to court death.

In the meantime, John Diggle (David Ramsey) is back in the U.S. under lock and key, and after telling Lyla (Audrey Marie Anderson) what happened, finds himself in his cell with the very much alive Floyd Lawton (Michael Rowe), only after a few encounters do we learn that it was all in Dig’s mind. Is he going crazy with guilt over killing his brother? And even though Lyla thinks they can fight the charges, John feels he should stay in prison for killing his brother.

So, of course, Lyla asks for Oliver’s help for a jailbreak.

 

Arrow airs Wednesday nights at 8/7c on The CW.