Arrow nicely reverses roles on both of its leads, now by necessity due to an FBI investigation that is focused on Oliver. Dig is now the Green Arrow, although not a particularly good facsimile of him. It's not because of Dig's nerve tremor, but rather the fact that the Green Arrow doesn't shoot any arrows on the missions Team Arrow has been doing. Like the defenses put up by Oliver, Quentin, and Rene last episode about the picture of Oliver being a vigilante, the team has to know this kind of scrutiny is coming, and it is confirmed here with Agent Watson's "conspiracy board" that connects each member of Team Arrow.

 

That warrants some watching in the coming episodes of the season. The new setup with Dig now leading the team as the Green Arrow first is a success, then Team Arrow fails in their first encounter with Onyx Adams and her team of operators with designs on stealing a deadly nerve gas from Kord Industries, resulting in a crisis of confidence in what the leadership is doing. For the large part, it isn't Dig's injury that causes the myriad of failures in the team's first battle with Onyx's crew. Instead, he freezes on making a decision in the field, unsure if he's going to make the right one. Rene is the one on the team who sees things clearly, and would have made the right decision (or at least a decision). He's worried about Dig leading the team down the drain, so he goes behind Dig's back to Oliver to get him to give the new Green Arrow a pep talk of sorts.

 

The pep talk does occur, but the show cleverly reverses the optics of its own premise. In fact, the episode intentionally echoes the show's first season here, all by having Oliver find Dig "brooding" (something both Oliver and the show knows a lot about) in the bunker. Like what Dig did for Oliver/the Hood in keeping him grounded and preventing him from losing himself with every doubt and mental anguish he's suffered through the years, Oliver is able to speak from experience in order to get Dig to function as a leader again.

 

 

I had the strong suspicion that the show and its writers would go back on its decision to make Dig the Green Arrow, have both him and Oliver completely abandon their plan in order to re-establish the status quo, but they surprisingly stick with it. There are going to be kinks along the way, but they can deal with it and make it work. Which is why the final scene that reveals Dig taking some kind of mysterious black market drug to control his tremor, is so stunning. It stinks of desperation on Dig's part, and will likely come back to haunt him in the future.