Trust has been a major theme in the last two episodes of Arrow. After recruiting a new team, Oliver quickly loses said team due to his inability to trust them and vice versa. His Bratva (Russian) style training tactics didn’t really help either. Only able to trust himself, Oliver is forced to face Ragman, the lone survivor of Havenrock who is out for revenge.

Amartech, the company offering to help with a health event for Mayor Queen has been doing some dirty dealing. One of which was giving Damien Dhark the bombs that blew up Havenrock. Hence why Ragman is slowly taking out members of the company. The CEO gets a taste of his fury when she is meeting up with Tobias Church. Oliver joins in the fight and let’s Church almost kill him in hopes of recruiting Ragman to team arrow. He is successful as Ragman saves his life.

After Church’s encounter with The Green Arrow, Prometheus confronts Church and tells him to lay off The Green Arrow; he wants him for himself.

We also got to see Diggle in action. Unfortunately he and his unit are ambushed by his lieutenant who are stealing the last known bomb. The young solider is killed and Diggle is taken hostage. He is then thrown into a cell with Floyd Lawten aka Deadshot. Well a hallucination of Deadshot.

Lyla visits Diggle and he tells her he isn’t well. He feels he deserves to be punished for killing his brother and clearly has severe PTSD because of it. Lyla then turns to Oliver for help; she wants him to break Diggle out of prison.

Mayor Queen hires Quentin as Deputy Mayor and that causes a political frenzy. Luckily Thea is there to handle it on Oliver’s behalf and puts that reporter in her place. Putting his trust in Quentin, Oliver realizes he needs to do the same with the new team.

Team Arrow assemble!… errr suit up. I’m gonna leave the catch phrases to Mr. Queen.

The team: Oliver, Evenlyn Sharp (Starfire), Curtis Holt (Fair Play), Rene Ramirez (Wilddog) and Rory Regan (Ragman) team up to take down Derrick Samson played by Cody Rhodes. Samson is a stardust dealer who was first attacked by Sharp and Wilddog and falls into chemicals becoming practically indestructible. The stardust drug mixed with the chemicals changed his body composition giving him enhanced strength and the inability to feel pain. Samson steals a molecular device in order to make everyone else like him and take back Star City from Church.

In action Curtis is saved by Rory when he is trying to disassemble a bomb. The Green Arrow also figures out how to make Samson immobile; he slices his tendons. Score 1 for new team arrow! As a reward Oliver shows the recruits the arrow cave.

This episode also showed us how Oliver gained his definition of trust. We are taken back to Russia where Oliver is mid-initiation into Bratva. He gets the team of guys he is with to work together to ring the bell. Next thing he knows they are all shot and killed. Oliver is then asked to trust Bratva and Anatole. He hesitates but later learns that all the recruits except himself were criminals who escaped justice. Oliver is then cut on his back by his Bratva brothers showing his trust in them not to kill him with his back turned.

Felicity puts her faith and trust in Rory not to kill her when she tells him the truth about Havenrock. She was the one who diverted the bomb from a highly populated area to the smaller region of Havenrock. Rory looked heart broken when he told her. Will this be too much for him? Will he leave team arrow? Will he seek revenge against Felicity even though it wasn’t her fault?

Felicity’s other half Billy Malone (Detective Malone) summons the Green Arrow with a fake B&E radio call. He then goes on to tell Oliver about Prometheus.

There was a lot of great comic relief in this episode. Curtis provided most of it a usual but Felicity and Oliver had some zingy one-liners. Especially the mention of hockey masks. Great TMNT Casey Jones reference.

Next Week

Oliver attempts to break Diggle out of prison but the new team is preventing him from doing so.

Church is planning something big and the team goes after him.

SIDEBAR: CROSSOVER PALOOZA (aka Flash-Arrow-Legends-Supergirl crossover) IS COMING!

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The post ‘Arrow’ Recap: “A Matter of Trust” appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Arrow — “Legacy” — Image AR501a_0060b — Pictured: Prometheus — Photo: Bettina Strauss/The CW — © 2016 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Season 5 of Arrow premiered last night [Wednesday October 5^th]. “Legacy” showed us the many faces of Oliver Queen: Oliver Queen as the Green Arrow, Oliver Queen as Star City’s Mayor and Oliver Queen as an assassin in Russia. We’ll start off discussing Oliver Queen as the Green Arrow.

Star City is being run by a solo Green Arrow, armed with new arrows, specifically a bomb decoder or computer and a parachute. There are also new emerging vigilantes trying to help our hooded hero, however Mr. Queen doesn’t want to create a new Team Arrow. He believes Thea and Diggle will come back.

Later in the episode Oliver must come to terms with the fact that Team Arrow is no more. Luckily for Oliver, Felicity has been looking into the new vigilantes popping up all over the city. She convinces Oliver to recruit and train them after Curtis is attacked by two thugs doing re-con. Curtis also demands to join Team Arrow to which Oliver agrees.

This couldn’t come at a better time as a new sharp shooter has just arrived in Star City. Meet Prometheus (not related to the DC Comic characters, this is Arrow’s own original character). Prometheus has an axe to grind with Oliver and will be stirring up some trouble in Star City for the vigilante. The question remains who is this villain and what did Oliver do to piss him off? As season 5 is tied to season 1, could this be a character we have seen before or could this be Mr. Kover? The man Oliver is seeking in Russia.

“Legacy” gave us another look into Oliver’s past. This time he is in Russia in some sort of fight club, killing for sport. On the hunt for a Mr. Kover, Oliver kills a man during a fight and is captured by Bratva. Thankfully an old friend and member of Bratva, Anatole, comes to Oliver’s aid and stops him from being killed. Oliver is then brought into another fight by Anatole and begins his initiation into Bratva. That is if he survives the 7-on-1 match.

Mayor Oliver Queen also did some bidding in this episode. He called out SCPD for being corrupt during their gala and said he was hesitant about setting up an Anti-Crime Initiative (a task force of sorts) within the department because of it. Now that Captain Lance no longer runs the unit, corruption and crime within in the force has increased significantly. Fortunately Captain Lance makes his return to Star City in time to see his daughter’s, Laurel “The Black Canary” Lance, commemorative statue. However, he is in no shape to run the department or anything else for that matter. Lance has once again fallen off the wagon after Donna Smoak left him. Oliver does convince Lance to come to the ceremony but it is quickly cut short thanks to Tobias Church and crew; they open fire at the service and take Oliver hostage in hopes to drag out the Green Arrow. If they only knew they had him in their possession already.

Oliver insults Church and gets himself isolated from the group. An SCPD officer takes him to a separate room and punches him in the face a few times. Oliver warns the officer about the dangers of hitting him again. The officer laughs as he believes the mayor to be zipped tied to the chair. Oliver shows the officer his now free hands and proceeds to kill the officer in order to keep his secret. Thea aka Speedy briefly comes out of retirement to help her brother only to arrive when he is killing the SCPD officer. Needless to say she was not pleased.

The duo escape and come back to where Oliver was held in order to rescue the other hostages taken by Church. This time Oliver has back up in the form of Speedy and 4 brave and loyal SCPD officers, hand selected by Detective Malone; a man Lance knows is squeaky clean, he doesn’t even double park, and trust worthy. After successfully saving the hostages and escaping before the building blew up, Oliver announces the start of the ACI, which is to be led by Detective Malone.

Church also gathers all of Star City’s criminals for a meeting, asking them to assemble and work together as one under one chain of command, presumably him. However, it seems like his reign of this team won’t last too long, especially with Prometheus in town. It won’t be long before he comes knocking on their door.

Other exciting things “Legacy” brought us:

We finally learned what Laurel made Oliver promise: “Please don’t let me be the last canary, that way a part of me will always be out there with you.” AWWWWW!!!!!!!

Felicity has a new man, ACI team member Officer Benton.

New CG which looks amazing and really added to the episode overall.

Next Week:

Training day for the new recruits

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The post Arrow Season 5 Premiere Recap: “Legacy” *SPOILERS* appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.