If last week’s episode was about Team Arrow 2.0 learning to trust Oliver, then this outing was about Oliver learning to trust his new team. We’ve been with Oliver for five years now, so it’s no surprise he has an incredibly hard time putting faith in his team — to be fair, they don’t give him much reason to. But overall, this was an important step for the group in its development.
Flashback: Five years ago
Before Oliver can learn to trust his team, he needs to learn to trust the Bratva, a.k.a. the Brotherhood. Oliver is still upset his success led to the deaths of several innocent men. Anatoli tells him he needs to trust Bratva, and reveals one of those men was a killer and his death was for the mother of one of his victims. Furthermore, the only chance Oliver has to take down Kovar is if he has the Bratva as his army. Basically, his only option is to stick with initiation.