The New Recruits Assemble in Our Arrow Episode 5.02 Recap

It’s time for Oliver Queen to recruit his team, so he finds Wild Dog still roaming the streets and offers an open invitation. As Oliver prepares for his recruitment training, where he plans to not reveal his identity, he and Felicity briefly exchange about the cop killed by an arrow and a sword at the end of last week’s episode but quickly forget about it. Meanwhile, Diggle is on a base in Latvia where he’s going to lead a squad to steal a WMD. He delivers a pep-talk to an apprehensive soldier and the episode’s theme to us: leadership.

Back in Star City, Oliver and Thea meet with the heads of Amertek to secure financing for an open clinic for children, which they agree to. Ollie tells Thea about his recruitment plan, which should give him more Mayor time. That night, Curtis, Evelyn, and Ramirez all show up and are given the objective of getting past Oliver and ringing a bell, the same thing the Bratva used as his own initiation. They are unable to do it. Elsewhere, the VP from Amertek is walking home when a mummy-looking guy wraps him up. The company is worried this is just the beginning though and wants to pull out of the clinic event but agrees to stay when Oliver promises extra security. Back in Latvia, Diggle leads the charge to find the bomb, but his team is ambushed.

Oliver brings the recruits together again to try and ring his bell, taunting them for not knowing the “goal of the exercise.” Felicity pulls him aside to show him surveillance of the mummy-looking guy and to ask his plan for the event: use the recruits, naturally. They walk around as it wraps up (get it? A mummy pun) and just in time for Quentin Lance to arrive, Ragman himself appears to attack the Amertek President. Oliver chases him off but not before Wild Dog manages to get a sample of his bandage. Back in the lair, Oliver yells at the recruits but gets a thorough lashing himself from Felicity before he goes to City Hall to lick his wounds. Diggle patches up his apprehensive soldier and they find out his superior’s plan isn’t to take the bomb and disarm it but to steal it and use it.

Felicity goes to see a detective at the SCPD (Have we met him? Am I going crazy? Who is this person? Did Flashpoint do this?) to look into the Ragman… rag, and later has the unfortunate news of telling Oliver that the recruits quit; except for Curtis, who tells Oliver himself. Ollie goes back to the cave to sulk where she returns to use her true super power, making Oliver open his eyes. He can’t keep acting like this is his Bratva initiation because the recruits didn’t see him as a real person. Elsewhere, Thea happens to see the Amertek President meeting with Tobias Church… about selling some weapons. Diggle’s superior reveals they’re stealing the bomb to use on meta-humans (at least that’s how it sounded) before killing the apprehensive soldier in front of John.

Thea tells Oliver what she saw and Felicity puts it all together off screen, revealing the Ragman’s rag is 2000 years old and highly radioactive (meaning traceable) and that Amertek is selling weapons to get themselves out of bankruptcy. Oliver decides to go to the meet alone, but when he gets there finds Ragman trying to get in on the action too. Though he has a chance to kill the president of Amertek (and confronts her about the missile that exploded over Haven Rock in Season 4), he stops to save Oliver from Tobias Church, who was super close to ending him. Ragman and Oliver meet on the roof where he unmasks and reveals his origin – his father hid him in these bandages when the bomb was coming and they saved him, and powered him up. They also agree to partner up.

Diggle wakes up in Latvia and finds the rest of the men in his unit have everything prepared to frame him for what happened, including killing his soldier and stealing the bomb. Whoops! Quentin comes to see Thea at City Hall and (ahem) cops to drinking again, so in order to get him back on the wagon she does the unthinkable and offers him a job, which he accepts. Later the recruits all return and Oliver changes his tune, unmasking in front of them to build up the trust between them. Also, Tobias Church exits a club only to be attacked by Prometheus, telling him that if he kills the Green Arrow, he’ll die.

You can check out a preview for the next episode along with new photos below!