Several notable developments occurred in this week’s Arrow, as Felicity made a big confession, Curtis suited up for the first time, and Lyla approached Oliver with a big request.

Felicity and Ragman

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Vigilante

Lyla, John and John Jr.

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Prometheus Rising

Prometheus in Arrow.

Mr. Terrific

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Deputy Mayor Lance

Getting Meta

Cody Rhodes in Arrow.

Arrow executive producer Marc Guggenheim discussed these plotlines and more, and where various Season 5 storylines are going as the season continues.At the end of the episode, Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) revealed to Rory, AKA Ragman (Joe Dinicol), that she was responsible for the death of his family (and indeed, his entire hometown) and Guggenheim said that moving forward, “I feel like [Rory’s] got a very human reaction. He kind of reacts to it the way I think you might expect him to, but not in this overblown way. I think it's very grounded and very human. We talked a lot about that storyline and Rory's point of view and Felicity's point of view.”Interestingly, Guggenheim revealed this storyline was happening thanks to fan reaction, remarking, “It's funny… I will say, not always, but a lot of times you write something and you do a storyline and it has the, not the opposite, but a very different reaction than the one you expected. I think we were all taken aback, not in a bad way, but just surprised that there was so much sort of outrage over Felicity's actions in [episode] 421. You know, that people were upset at Felicity somehow for saving Monument Point at the expense of Havenrock. It was fun to actually get a chance to articulate the anti-Felicity point of view and the pro-Felicity point of view. It made for a very interesting moral dilemma, and we had a chance to play with that.”“A Matter of Trust” introduced Adrian Chase (Josh Segarra) onto Arrow, a character known to DC Comics fans as Vigilante. Said Guggenheim, of Adrian’s trajectory, “[Episode] 507, it's where we show our cards the most, I think, in terms of Adrian's character. I think what's kind of fun about the way we're writing Adrian and the way we're portraying Josh's character is we're writing with the knowledge that the audience has a certain amount of comic book knowledge. And again, if they don't, if you're not a comic book fan, it'll fly over your head and it's totally fine. It's like an adult joke in a Pixar movie. If you are familiar with the comic, then you'll probably interpret certain scenes in a very specific way, and that's sort of fun for us. I don't think we've ever done it in this fashion before, used what I call their comic book trajectory, their comic book destiny, as part of the storytelling.”This episode of Arrow acknowledged that Diggle and Lyla now have a son, John Jr., rather than a daughter, Sara, thanks to Barry Allen changing the timeline over on The Flash. So will they discover this bizarre fact? Guggenheim’s simple reply was, “I always say that on Arrow there is no secret that doesn't eventually get discovered.”As for Lyla’s plan for Oliver to break Diggle out of jail, Guggenheim said, “Oliver and Felicity both have interesting reactions and they're not necessarily on the same page, let's put it that way. They don't see eye to eye on Lyla's plan.”While Prometheus has been introduced as the main villain for Season 5, he’s not directly come onto Oliver’s radar yet. Guggenheim explained the slow burn approach was deliberate, noting, “I would say that it’s probably [episode] 506 when things really start to kick into a higher gear. It's a 23 episode season, and if every episode -- this is true for all the shows, especially when you've got a big bad that's being introduced in the first episode -- it's like how do you strike that balance between it becoming the Prometheus show and it becoming incredibly repetitive and teasing it out? 506 felt very right to us because 505 feels like the end of a chapter as it often is on Arrow. 506 kicks things into another gear.”While Curtis got to go into the field for the first time in “A Matter of Trust,” he’s not a full-fledged superhero just yet. Said Guggenheim, “I think he's still got a way to go on his journey. For one thing, that's not the final costume. We decided to give some of the recruits what we call proto-costumes. You've got to earn the final one. And as I've been saying from jump and as Oliver likes to say, in terms of all these characters becoming, or being, vigilantes, Curtis has the farthest to go. I think the evolution of Curtis from comic relief and sidekick to butt-kicking superhero, that's a big throw in my opinion. The only way I think to do it properly is to watch him try and watch him fail. And then watch him fail, and watch him fail, and watch him fail. It's going to be a real struggle for him as we go through the fifth season.”Quentin Lance is now the Deputy Mayor, but Guggenheim stressed his path “Is definitely not an easy one. I think Thea's decision to make him Deputy Mayor, it's very noble on her part, but it's also very naive given the amount of demons that Quentin is wrestling with. It's not going to be as simple as, ‘Oh, you've got a new job title!’ It’s gonna get a lot harder before it gets easier. It's Arrow, so... probably stands to reason!”Between the name of the drug in the episode being called “Stardust” as a nod to guest star Cody Rhodes’ former wrestling alter ego, to Oliver saying he liked Wild Dog’s hockey mask on the heels of Stephen Amell playing Casey Jones, “A Matter of Trust” had a lot of meta humor in it.Said Guggenheim, of these inclusions, “I'm like, ‘It's got to be called Stardust!’ With the hockey mask, I just said to the writers, 'If we don't do some hockey mask joke then it's a missed opportunity and we should all be fired.' I think it was [Arrow writer] Emilio Aldrich who came up with doing it in the elevator the way you see. Stephen was totally embracing of it. I emailed him like, ‘We have to do a hockey mask joke,’ and he's like, ‘Oh, absolutely!’ That stuff is fun.”Guggenheim added, “I love doing meta humor, as long as it doesn't become too distracting and it's sort of subtle. If you know who Cody is and you know that his wrestling identity was Stardust, then you get a little charge out of that, and if you don't the episode plays totally fine.”He said they brought up the idea with Rhodes beforehand, explaining, “We talked to him about it because we wanted to make sure he was comfortable with it and everything. Cody was amazing. He's a joy to work with. I leave you guys to your own opinions, but I think people who go into this episode expecting to see a professional wrestler in an acting role are going to be really blown away by the quality of his acting. I think he really holds the screen incredibly well. He's charismatic and an enormous amount of fun. I was very, very pleased with the fact that we was willing to come and play, having that throw down between his character and Stephen's character, it's art repeating life. Or life-ish!”

Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheEricGoldman , IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at Facebook.com/TheEricGoldman