This week on Arrow the twin menaces of Tobias Church and Prometheus took a backseat to the rise of yet another designer drug plaguing Star City. When Oliver (Stephen Amell) tries to track down one of the drug’s top producers, his protege Wild Dog (Rick Gonzalez) tries to take the matter into his own hands, transforming the criminal into supervillain who cannot feel pain. Meanwhile, John Diggle (David Ramsey) is incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit and forced into a confrontation with his old nemesis, Floyd “Deadshot” Lawton (Michael Lowe). More of Oliver’s time with the Bratva is also revealed as Anatoly (David Nyckl) guides him to the next step of his brutal initiation.
A Matter of Trust is more lighthearted than this season’s previous installments. Pro-wrestler Cody Rhodes is quite satisfying as the amped-up drug dealer Sampson: a fun, scenery chewing villain-of-the-week who is quite entertaining despite clearly not being any kind of longterm threat. The show even gives a seeming nod to this episode’s guest star when Curtis (Echo Kellum) waxes about his own love of professional wrestling. Another clever-inside joke comes toward the end when Oliver expresses his enthusiastic approval of Wild Dog’s wearing a hockey mask as part of his super hero getup. (Amell portrayed the hockey mask-wearing Casey Jones in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.) It’s also refreshing to see a glimpse of the old, nasty Thea Queen (Willa Holland) from seasons 1 and 2 when she is forced to show her claws against an unscrupulous television reporter.
After a solid first two episodes for the fifth season A Matter of Trust feels like a step in the wrong direction. The biggest disappointment is the seeming return of Deadshot, only to have him be revealed as a hallucination of the traumatized Diggle. It felt like an unfair tease, to say the least. It would have been better to let the character lie than to waste his appearance on such a tired, overused trope. While it is good to see Diggle begin to truly process the death of his own brother by his own hand, this was a clumsy way to do it.
Another problem with the episode is that the theme of Oliver and Wild Dog fighting and making up over and over is quickly getting old. At least when he followed this cycle with Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) the dramatic quality made up for the repetition. In this case it just feels like padding. This padding means that the episode rushes through too many things that are actually important: Felicity’s confession to Ragman about her involvement in the nuclear strike, Quintin Lance’s appointment as deputy mayor, Ollie’s Bratva time, even Diggle’s breakdown over his brother’s death. It all feels rushed and mentioned in passing, none of it having the gravitas it deserves. Then there is the lack of Tobias Church (Chad Coleman). There is suddenly the grim possibility that he is what is holding this season together as his absence is keenly felt.
The episode ends on a high note with Lyla Diggle (Audrey Marie Anderson) enlisting Oliver in her mission to rescue her imprisoned husband. If Diggle gets back on the team, hopefully Arrow will fly true again.
