1.21 The Undertaking Oliver’s mission in 2013 was the hunt for Walter, who we learn has now been missing for six months. It amused me when Thea mentioned how long it’s been since anyone talked about her missing step-father, as it’s been a worry for viewers, too. Eventually, with Felicity helping Oliver in the field work while he and Diggle work out their issues, Oliver finds Walter and sends him back to his family. In the process, he learns of his mother’s part in the kidnapping, but has yet to work out how he’ll deal with Malcolm. I guess his concern is Tommy, since he’s had no problem quickly dealing with evildoers before. If anything, though, all of this is less interesting than what’s happening in the flashbacks. We’ve already been told much of what we’re being shown, but seeing it play out adds some context to a lot of the relationships that weren’t quite ringing true for me before. For example, seeing Moira as the carefree woman she used to be was jarring in the best possible way, as we learn that Oliver isn’t the only one who changed while he was stuck on the island. Laurel, too, was just a girly college student trying to make her bad-boy boyfriend commit, rather than the slightly hardened and serious woman we’ve known her to be. But Tommy isn’t having any of it, telling his ex this week that she belongs with Oliver. His only scene saw him suited up and doing business deals, and even Laurel comments on how much like his father he looks. We all know that Tommy is headed in a less than heroic direction, but at least we got to know Malcolm a little better this week, too. The main point of the episode was to establish Malcolm’s evil plans and the motives behind them, and we learn that he wanted to level The Glades after more restrained methods had proven useless. He believes himself to be the hero, much like an almost equally-grey Oliver, and I can see Tommy buying into that. Everyone in The Undertaking had lost something to the area, and his plan was to eliminate it completely and start over. You can see how he arrived there, despite the mass murder, and has waited many years for the proper technology to become available. That technology is the ‘Markov Device’, which comic book fans will relate to Brion Markov aka Geo-Force – a superhero who can control the Earth. Malcolm wants to instigate a ‘natural’ disaster to wipe out The Glades without anyone tracing it back to him and, if the closing shots are anything to go by, he’s pretty close to enacting that plan. Read Caroline’s review of the previous episode, Home Invasion, here. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
