Arrow: Easter Eggs and Other Things You Might Have Missed in "A Matter of Trust"

A MATTER OF TRUST

"A Matter of Trust" is the name of a Billy Joel song.

That probably doesn't seem like much on its own, but anybody who follows Arrow executive producer Marc Guggenheim knows that he's a huge Joel fan.

Arrow Ep.503 in production. (I may or may not have been responsible for the title.) @BenSokolowski @gregorythesmith pic.twitter.com/grg97JkT5f

— Marc Guggenheim (@mguggenheim) July 27, 2016

Of course, it's not just as simple as "I like the song." Like when they use Springsteen song titles for the second-to-last episodes of each Arrow season, the title fits in thematically with the subject matter of the episode.

STARDUST

Stardust, the name of the drug in this week's episode, has some special resonance for guest star Cody Runnels, also known as Cody Rhodes, the WWE Superstar formerly known as Stardust.

Rhodes/Runnels no longer works for the WWE, and retired his Stardust character shortly before he left, but the supervillain-inspired character DID square off against Arrow star Stephen Amell at SummerSlam last year.

CODY RUNNELS

He's Runnels here, not Rhodes, in the opening credits.

That's likely becuase he doesn't actually own the trademark to "Cody Rhodes," his stage name with the WWE. Since Rhodes's father was Dusty Rhodes, he and his brother took on the family name when they came into professional wrestling. Now that he's no longer a member of the WWE family, he might not have easy access to his actual family's stage name.

Even if there's no legal barrier to him using it, Runnels may have just decided that since most wrestlers eventually end up using their real names when they get non-wrestling acting gigs, it's best to start early.

JOHN JR.

This is the first on-camera reference to John Diggle, Jr. in Arrow.

Last week on The Flash, fans learned that John Diggle, friend and former bodyguard to Oliver Queen, has a son -- and that was a surprise.

Not surprising in the Oliver Queen "I slept with somebody eleven years ago and now they have a ten-year-old" kind of way, but in the "hey, wasn't that kid a daughter not that long ago?" kind of way.

That's right: Barry Allen's excellent "Flashpoint" adventure through time created the unintended consequence of giving John Diggle a son -- John Diggle, Jr. -- rather than the daughter -- Sara Diggle -- fans got to know after she was born in season 3 of the hit CW drama.

The change could tie into the events of a fan-favorite episode of DC's Legends of Tomorrow (titled "Star City 2046") from last season. When Connor Hawke -- the Green Arrow who succeeded Oliver Queen in the comics -- was introduced on Legends, there was a pretty big difference between his comic book version and his TV take: rather than being Oliver's illegitimate child, Connor's given name was John Diggle, Jr.

That story took place thirty years in the future, and it seemed like, timeline-wise, it might be a tight fit since John hadn't yet had a son, but it was an alternate timeline that the Legends were actively working to make sure never came to pass, who whatever, right?

Does the existence of John Diggle, Jr. mean that the dangerous, miserable future of that Legends episode could come to pass? Or will it play into future seasons of Arrow? Only time -- heh -- will tell.

After his appearance on Arrow last year, Divergent actor Joseph David-Jones said that while they hadn't talked specific plans, there was some chatter about bringing Connor back, in spite of his reality seemingly being altered by the events of "Star City 2046."

"I know that a couple of the writers are trying to push to get me back in there, because they really do like what happened with the episode," David-Jones said. "I know that they're trying to put me back in there but I don't know what they're going to come up with or what even is going to happen with Connor Hawke, but I know they've been talking about potential different outcomes of it because they are plan on cycling out some of the cast from the ship. So I don't know what's going to happen, or if that timeline is still set until they actually do go back to the past."

The biggest possibility, though, isn't so much whether we might see a recognizable Connor Hawke on board the Waverider on Legends, but how this change might impact John Diggle and, by extension, Arrow.

There are a few possibilities, of course: Diggle's life is hanging in the balance right now, so the first and far-and-away least likely scenario would be that John Diggle, Jr. might somehow enter the Team Arrow picture to replace Dig, who might find himself out of the picture when he's court martialed and thrown into a deep, dark hole. Besides the obvious problems of a small child somehow being involved in his father's court martial, though, it seems pretty obvious that freeing Dig will not be back-burnered and will instead be the op undertaken by Lyla Michaels and Oliver Queen (and objected to by Felicity) in next week's Arrow.

Another possibility could be that John Diggle, Jr. could become Green Arrow -- in the future.

That could impact the show in the sense that, following this year, the flashback device that Arrow has leaned on since the premiere will end, with Oliver's time on Lian Yu wrapping up in the Season 5 flashbacks. Ever since the first introduction of William -- Oliver's illegitimate son on Arrow -- there have been some fans who have speculated about the possibility of flash-forwards giving audiences a taste of the future of Star City and the Green Arrow legacy, with Connor Hawke as the hero.

A third, and probably the most likely, impact on Arrow will be cultivating a distrust of the superhuman community when Diggle and Lyla learn that their child's life has been forever altered by the poor decisions of Barry Allen. This could play heavy into the crossover, where we already know that Wild Dog doesn't like superheroes.

DEADSHOT

Deadshot, a member of the Suicide Squad and the deadly assassin long thought to have murdered John Diggle's brother, showed up in a vision to Dig this week, haunting him for killing Andy himself last season.

Of course, a lot of fans had already guessed that maybe Michael Rowe's character was a hallucination, given that characters like Shado and Tommy have appeared post-mortem in visions to Oliver when he was under similar levels of stress, and given that any credibility to rumors that Deadshot and other characters were pulled from Arrow to accommodate the Suicide Squad movie would dictate that while a sequel is in active development, it's unlikely they'd be allowed back.

SUSAN WILLIAMS

Susan Williams is, in the comics, the sister-in-law of Hal Jordan, one of Earth's Green Lanterns.

Created by John Broome and Gil Kane in the early days of the Silver Age Green Lantern titles, Susan was a bit of a rabble-rouser then, too; she ended up in a relationship with one of the Jordan brothers while digging around into who Green Lantern was.

Much later, she would learn, of course: Hal.

At this point it's not clear that she even knows the Jordans, but any tie to the Green Lantern mythology tends to get Green Arrow fans excited.

THE VAT OF CHEMICALS

Wow...falling into a vat of chemicals off a scaffolding while fighting the hero. That's the backstory for your villain?

That seems...oddly familiar.

ADRIAN CHASE

Adrian Chase is introduced this week. The hot-headed, good-looking district attorney is actually better known as Vigilante in the comics.

Created during Marv Wolfman's time on the New Teen Titans, Vigilante in the comics is a former New York district attorney who's set on the path of justice after hsi family is killed by the mob. The CW describes him similarly: Chase is "Star City's new district attorney and an ally of Mayor Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), who aims to clean up the streets through the legal system."

While in the comics, Vigilante tends to be fairly similar to Wild Dog in his aggressive, brutal approach to fighting crime, he's a more complex and layered character. Chase is only one of the people to use the name Vigilante; he would eventually be consumed with guilt over his own abandonment of the rule of law, and would take his own life. Later, another Vigilante would take his place.

In the season premiere this year, fans got a look at Vigilante (inset, above) as he appeared in a "police sketch" from character co-creator George Perez.

YOU HAVE FAILED THIS CITY

While we hardly ever call out "You have failed this city" -- Oliver's season 1 catchphrase -- it seemed relevant for a couple of reasons.

First of all, as the series's flashback device starts to wind down, parallels between season 1 and season 5 are starting to emerge all over the place. Going back to "you have failed this city" is a pretty good indicator that Oliver's entire character is being set up to parallel those events.

Second, the prevalence of Oliver's father's book -- containing the names of the people he used to try to kill, and who had failed the city in his father's view -- seems to underscore the fact that it's been a while since we heard this yelled at a perp.

LETHAL WEAPON

Just so it's been said, yes, we noticed the Lethal Weapon reference.

Usually we don't point it out when there's an overt, stated reference (that's not really an Easter egg), but when we ignore pop culture references, we tend to get lots of comments reminding us not to forget them.

Anybody seen the new Lethal Weapon TV show? Any good?

TERRY SLOANE

This week, we finally got to see Curtis suit up, going into the field in his Mister Terrific costume for the first time.

He hasn't yet identified himself using the "Mister Terrific" name, although he did namecheck Terry Sloane -- the Golden Age Mr. Terrific from the comics -- as his inspiration (and the inspiration for the "Fair Play" jacket he wears).

Terry Sloane, the original Mister Terrific, is referenced as a beloved wrestler, whom Curtis looks up to as a hero. That's likely a wink-and-a-nod reference to Cody Runnels, who played Derek Sampson in tonight's episode, who is a professional wrestler.

In the comics, Sloane -- the first Mister Terrific -- was a businessman and university professor. He was created by Charles Reizenstein and Everett E. Hibbard, first appearing in 1942's Sensation Comics #1. His niece, the villain named Roulette, will appear on Supergirl later this season.

Michael Holt, the second Mister Terrific and the one Curtis is most clearly patterned after (including the leather "Fair Play" jacket, although yes, that's a tribute to a green, canvas "fair play" jacket worn by Sloane) first appeared in 1997's The Spectre #54 and served as a member of the Justice Society from the late '90s until 2011's Flashpoint reboot.

A version of Michael Holt had his own comic book series for about a year after that reboot, but it was cancelled due to low sales not long before Curtis Holt started to appear on Arrow.

COOL GUYS DON'T LOOK AT EXPLOSIONS

I realize this is an old action movie trope -- but when a trope becomes so prevalent there's a whole song about it...

...maybe it deserves to be called out.

Not even in a bad way. Just in a "hey! We saw you do that!" way.

It's particularly funny becuase this episode is so genre-savvy, with references to previous roles from Runnels, Amell, and even a CSI: Miami-style crime scene pun from Curtis.

"I THINK IT'S COOL"

When Artemis challenges Wild Dog's choice of mask -- "what kind of vigilante goes out in a hockey mask?" or something like that -- Oliver defends Rene's choice, saying that he thinks it's "cool."

Of course Oliver thinks vigilante-ing in a hockey mask is cool; in another meta-moment, that's more about Stephen Amell than Oliver Queen.

Amell played Casey Jones -- basically Wild Dog, but with a hockey stick instead of a gun -- in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows earlier this year.

ARROWCAVE

Yep -- Curtis calls it the Arrowcave.

I believe Harley Quinn would have words with thee, Mister Terrific.