Season 5 Episode 2 of Arrow, titled The Recruits has Oliver looking for just that—new recruits. He seems skeptical about his newfound allies though, and this episode the new team has to deal with a villain and an unexpected ally. Josh provides the recap, then both Josh and Violet share their thoughts about the episode.
- His thoughts on The Recruits, Episode 502 of Arrow
- Her thoughts on Arrow, Season 5 Episode 2: The Recruits
This second episode of season 5 of Arrow opens with Oliver, as Green Arrow, chasing down a vigilante being called Wild Dog. Wild Dog is in pursuit of a criminal, but Oliver takes down Wild Dog. Wild Dog then complains about Oliver letting the culprit get away, but Oliver then takes down the criminal with ease. Oliver leaves a note with a time and location for Wild Dog to meet him tomorrow.
Back at the base, Oliver and Felicity discuss their new recruits, and Oliver is emphatic that he and Felicity need to disguise themselves, as they don’t know if they can trust the new recruits.
The new recruits arrive at HIVE’s old headquarters, and Felicity decided the mask was not necessary for her. Green Arrow begins training though, and provides a pretty brutal initiation. The recruits, Evelyn Sharp, Rene Ramirez (Wild Dog), and Curtis are told they have to get past Green Arrow and ring a bell. Oliver makes sure that none of them make it.
The recruits get heated, thinking Oliver is going too hard on them. But Oliver insists he has to, because Laurel died doing what they want to do. When asked why they are even doing this, Oliver states, “The goal of the exercise is to determine the goal of the exercise.”
After a round of this training, Oliver has to do some mayoral duties. He has managed to negotiate with a large company, AmerTek, to cover expenses of a free medical clinic Oliver is trying to get going. Surprised by the quick answer, Oliver is happy that the company has decided to help out. But the CEO, Janet, insists there needs to be good security.
Unfortunately, their luck goes bad quickly when a figure with strange tentacle looking things attacks one of the AmerTek people. Janet wants to pull out, but Oliver says that they will accept the liability of any concerns that happen during the event. Thea thinks this is a risky move.
Back with Felicity, she thinks the team should be put on security detail as well, to provide extra help. Oliver says, “They’re too green!” but in the end agrees to it.
So, at the event the team is dressed as helpers of the event, and they hear Oliver in their ear. They ask where he is, when we see him all suited up in his formal suit, playing nice with the AmerTek people. As you would suspect, the event is attacked, and Oliver manages to get into his Green Arrow suit, and tries to pursue the “Ragman” villain. He gets away, and Green Arrow chews out Wild Dog for trying to engage him. Wild Dog managed to get a sample of the fabric from the Ragman though.
Back at HIVE headquarters, Green Arrow chews out the team some more, and Felicity tells him he needs to calm down.
Then we learn about Felicity’s new boyfriend, Billy Malone. He seems to be a cop, and Felicity has to do a little lying to get him to analyze the piece of fabric from Ragman. The two have a kiss, which surely broke a lot of people’s hearts given she seemingly has moved on from Oliver.
Back at the Arrow Cave, the recruits seem to have abandoned Oliver, which has made him a little gloomy. Felicity tells Oliver that he basically needs to be more positive with his training, rather than negative. Oliver talks about how in the Bratva, he never knew anyone’s name, so there was no worry about loss, since you didn’t really know anyone. Felicity seems touched that Oliver shared information about his time in Russia.
Meanwhile, CEO Janet has proven she is not one to be trusted—offering to sell a lot of weapons to Tobias Church.
Team Arrow begins to put a lot of things together after the fabric is analyzed. AmerTek apparently had a Genesis Bomb go off, which ruined their stock, and this clinic was a hope to be a good PR move for the company. Meanwhile, the weapons sale was supposed to help with the company’s financial woes.
Oliver crashes the weapon sales party, and also showing up is Ragman. He tells Janet that she killed everyone in Havenrock except for him. Felicity hears this and is broken up—because she was the one who redirected the nuke last season to Havenrock from Monument Point.
During the fight, Oliver gets into trouble, and Ragman helps him out, which allows Janet to get away. After the fight, Oliver and Ragman talk, and Ragman says he has to avenge his father. It looks like Team Arrow has a new recruit. The new recruits also have come back to training, and Oliver decides to reveal he is Oliver Queen.
We also find that the archer who killed Conahan at the end of last episode is still in town. This mystery archer attacks Tobias and tells him that the Arrow is his to kill, and if Tobias does it first, then he will come back for him.
Also, Detective Lance has been battling his own demons. It seems he left his post when Ragman broke into the medical clinic, and Thea notices he might be drunk. Later in the episode, Thea tries to help Lance out by giving him the Deputy Mayor job.
Diggle’s Mission Isn’t Going Well
Meanwhile, Diggle is still in the military, on a mission. Things go sideways for him, though. His mission was to collect parts from the nukes that went off at the end of last season, so Chechens can’t get their hands on them. But Diggle is betrayed when another group of soldiers Diggle thought was working with him come in, and wind up killing all of Diggle’s men, making him the fall guy.
Flashbacks: Oliver’s Harsh Time in Russia
Meanwhile, we see Oliver in a flashback in Russia, being trained in a similar way for the Bratva that he is training his new recruits. He and a group are forced to try to ring a bell. It doesn’t go well then either, but eventually those recruits begin to work together, thanks to Oliver’s suggestion. This works well, and Oliver rings the bell—but then things go sideways. The Bratva trainers execute all recruits except for Oliver.
His Thoughts on Arrow, Season 5 Episode 2: The Recruits
So, I have to say that I agree with Oliver at the beginning of this episode on a lot of things Felicity was giving him grief about. One, hiding his identity should be a considered a high priority with these new recruits. Oliver should know first hand that these vigilantes aren’t always the good guys, and aren’t always as sane as you would like. Knowing his identity, and the fact that he is mayor of the city opens up a big opportunity to either out who Green Arrow is, or even worse, a ploy to kidnap the mayor would be a way to take out the city’s leadership, and the one hero would could save it. I really don’t agree with the idea of revealing his identity to the group. I am curious if the show will come up with a storyline where a “new recruit” infiltrates the Arrow group to learn his identity.
I am curious to see how this Ragman character goes. He seems a bit cheesy, but perhaps he can be done well in the show. I am also curious about this new archer in town. I wonder what beef he has with Oliver?
As for Diggle, it looks like his stint in the military might be coming to an end. It sounds like either he is going to be a man on the run, or have to deal with a court martial and hope to be proven innocent.
Overall, this episode was not great but not bad either. It was right down the middle. It set up some possibilities in the future for good stories, so let’s hope that those work out well.
Her Thoughts on Arrow, Season 5 Episode 2: The Recruits
I’m glad that Oliver is taking the time to train these new recruits. I think he still feels guilty about Laurel and that looking back realizes that he should have trained her properly from the beginning rather than refuse to train her, causing her to take matters into her own hands. Then suddenly she was a part of the Arrow Team, even though she didn’t really know what she was doing, other than having taken some boxing lessons. I still don’t think she could have developed to be as good as the show was portraying her to be, in such a short amount of time, and without the proper training. But I am not going to rehash that again, as I’ve complained about it enough throughout the years. In any case, I hope that this season takes a realistic approach with training the new team members, especially Curtis, who has had pretty much zero combat experience compared to Wild Dog and Evelyn Sharp, who have actually gone out on the streets and fought, even if they weren’t all that great at it.
I was a bit surprised that Felicity had no interest in concealing her identity, and that Oliver so quickly changed his mind and ended up revealing his own identity by the end of the episode. It’s one thing to not be so tough on the recruits, and would have been easy enough to ease up on them and train them more effectively, while it’s another to go ahead and let them know who you are. He hasn’t known these people long enough to be sure that he can trust them. I think they should have had to earn his trust before revealing himself.
I’m not sure sure how I feel about these new recruits yet. I’d rather have Diggle and Thea back. Oh, by the way, remember last episode when I mentioned that it seemed like they had taken to referring to Diggle as John all of a sudden? Well, this episode they were back to calling him Diggle again! It’s probably because there were different writers for each episode. So, the writers need to get on the same page and be consistent with each other.
Scenes from Arrow, Season 5 Episode 3: A Matter of Trust
Preview of Season 5 Episode 3 of Arrow
