Arrow: 1.21 – The Undertaking

WALTER!!!!!!

Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system… what an episode. No island,but we did get a pretty good look at life before the island and finally get to hear what “the undertaking” is.

“The Undertaking” = Malcolm Merlyn has a god complex = John Barrowman is a god.

Who would want to kill this man?

So Malcolm wants to level the Glades. In a very Outbreak move, he’s planning on doing so with everyone still there. I think we can all agree, great plan! Who on earth wouldn’t go along with this genius? Enter the wet towel aka, Robert Queen. come on Robert. You don’t want to obliterate an  entire neighborhood and it’s inhabitants? Well, spoiler alert… perhaps you shouldn’t take the Queen’s Gambit to China. Just a thought. It is nice to finally have a reason behind the list. First it was penance for Robert’s killing of the briber, now it’s vengeance for Robert’s death. Seems rather poetic.

Speaking of Queen’s Gambit- oh boy Oliver was even more of a sleazebag than previously thought. It’s one thing to sneak off with your girlfriend’s sister but to do so right after agreeing to move in with the girlfriend? Oh and to put a cherry on that douchebag sundae, yes please call the sister and tell her to take a lap while you say goodbye to your girlfriend.

Last week, Diggle finally got (rightfully so, in my humble opinion) tired of Oliver’s crap and left and now this week poor Felicity is the child of divorce trying to get her parents to get back together. Poor Felicity, stuck in the middle. If she ends up going to summer camp and finding her long lost twin, I might have to call bullshit on this whole story line but for now, it’s still good.

Pensive Diggle is pensive

Of course being the somewhat meddlesome chick that she is (women in general seem to have this problem of not letting things go), she heads on over to Diggle’s house. How on Earth she doesn’t just smack him and tell him to go work it out with his boyfriend, I do not know. She is a stronger woman than I because that’s pretty much what I was screaming at the TV.

You have to feel for Felicity though – here she is, used to just being behind the computer outside of the one time she ended up with a bomb around her neck and now she ends up at the casino and of course her cover is blown. Perhaps it’s time that Oliver realize that Felicity is not the best in the field. Call me crazy, just a thought. Although had she not gone into the casino, we would have missed out on the most awkward exchange ever. I love those moments where you say something, realize it sounds pervy, try to fix it, make it worse and then just give up. Of course she did have a modicum of success in the casino but it did lead to me thinking Walter was dead which is just awful. How could they do that to him? Malcolm promised Moira he’d be okay! WHY?!?!

But wait! He might be in Bludhaven (!!!!) so let’s go check it out Oliver!

Of course Oliver knows how to parachute out of an airplane onto a small roof. To suggest otherwise is just ridiculous. Of course his incredible aerial prowess led to perhaps my favorite moment of this week. Walter returns!!!

After so long of them not even mentioning it, I was pretty certain that we were never going to see Walter again.  Very “out of sight, out of mind” but Walter has been on my mind since he took that syringe to the neck. But alas, he has returned and all is right with the world again. Yay Walter!

Moira and Walter have been reunited so it seems like a good time for Laurel and Tommy (who is apparently feeling right at home at his father’s company) to hit the skids for real. I didn’t really think Tommy would say anything about Oliver to Laurel but then again I didn’t think he’d go off crying little a whiny baby after finding out Oliver’s secret either so apparently I’m clueless when it comes to Tommy. I also never thought I’d feel badly for Laurel, because she’s annoying, but she’s having a rough first season. Dead cheating boyfriend comes back to life, assaulted a couple of times in her own home, Mom gets hopes up about alive sister, hopes dashed, promising new relationship, broken up with, non-dead cheating boyfriend tells her he loves her… that’s a lot to process in 21 episodes. Perhaps she should just put on some fishnets and hit the town.

Of course the most important relationship in the show has been righted – that’s right, Oliver and Diggle have buried the hatchet and just in time because this box is on its way to Starling City and nothing good can come of it.

Overall, a great episode. I loved finally hearing what the undertaking actually is, appreciated them further explaining the list, and really like that Walter is back. I’m very much looking forward to the new few episodes and seeing how they wrap up this first season. For ‘The Undertaking’ , I’m going to have to go with a four out of five.

Had a certain Ted Kord actually been a part of this episode as opposed to just mentioned in passing, this would have easily been the best episode of the season because let’s face it, Blue Bettle joining Arrow would be pretty kick ass.

Until next time Arrow fans!

Arrow: 1.08, “Vengeance”

I think Arrow has finally decided to just go ahead and embrace the “so bad it’s good” mentality. This is not a bad thing though. Sometimes “so bad, it’s good” actually ends up being the most enjoyable types of entertainment. However, minus the reveal of the “Well Dressed Man” as Tommy’s father and the return of Walter, last week was a bit lacking. Helena Bertinelli wasn’t all that riveting, Oliver was delusional in his “justice vs. vengeance” non-argument, and there wasn’t nearly enough John Diggle.

Thankfully Diggle returns this week in ‘Vengeance’, because Oliver needed his ass handed to him. What part of “secret lair” is hard to understand? Why not just have an open house at this point? Bake some cookies, put out a cheese ball, and invite the whole neighborhood why don’t you?

Oliver likes Ritz with his cheeseball

Best line of the entire episode though came from that chick that shouldn’t know his secret in the first place. I damn near aspirated my coffee when after Oliver tries to get Helena to learn how to be a proper vigilante from him she says “Thanks for the coffee… and the sex, but I’m not interested.” Someone call Hallmark, I think we’ve got a winner here! Actually this entire episode was one fabulously ridiculous line after another.

• “You should be in the Olympics” John Diggle to Oliver who is working out… again
• “Street cred” both Helena and Oliver utter this without a trace of irony
• “I don’t speak Chinese so I’m going to assume you said goodbye.” Helena before she shoots a member of the Triad

Okay, the last one was fantastic. It was one of those things that you certainly didn’t expect in the middle of a fight scene which made it a thousand times funnier. I am a little peeved that like Boardwalk Empire (how many times this week have you seen a correlation made between Boardwalk Empire and Arrow?) they talk about this huge war and how it’s going to tear the city apart and it’s all over in one nice and neat scene. The Triad (with the kick-ass China White making another appearance) storms Bertinelli’s house and that’s it? That’s a war? Perhaps I’ve been watching too much Gangland but that seemed a little weak.

“You have failed this city”

Speaking of Chinese in the show, there is a tumblr user who watches the show and posts the translations of the Chinese spoken there. You can find her blog here. Shameless plug time: while you are on tumblr anyway, might as well go ahead and follow Grizzly Bomb as well.

Helena became Huntress even though they never called her that, unless I missed it. We got to see her girl out on the color of her outfit (purple of course) but we saw a bad girl quality when it came to the unintentional double date with her and Oliver and Tommy and Laurel. She was the one who suggested they have dinner with them and then she got all pissy when she found out who they were. Come on Helena, don’t be like that, you are giving us girls a bad name. It was fun to see her and Oliver go hunt down Anthony Venza together though.

I’ll admit that I thought Oliver was going to win out over Helena and she was going to see the err of her ways and turn to the Force. I was wrong. So wrong that when we saw Helena standing over father, crossbow aimed at him, I was taken aback. Come on now, taking down his business is one thing but now you want to flat out kill him? I’m with Oliver on this one, put him in jail, no need to go off and revenge kill your dad.

Random, but I really hope I’m not the only person that thought immediately of Bryan Adam’s 1991 power ballad, “I Do It For You” from Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves when Mr. Bertinelli was begging his daughter not to shoot him. I fully expected Kevin Costner to come walking from the woods. Actually now that I think about it, that would have been awesome.

Subplots? No real big surprise, Walter doesn’t trust Moira. Well if he did, the trust was fleeting because Felicity comes and shows him an image that he knows he’s seen before and he ends up finding a book that looks exactly like Oliver’s book of names and it is filled with names as well! Ahhhhh! What does this mean? Will Walter confront Moira? Will she tell him about Merlyn/Well Dressed Man? Will he leave again? Will he and Felicity join up and become super sleuths together? Yes please. Felicity is easily the most entertaining person on this show. She needs more air time and I’m hoping this detective bit with Walter will do just that.

The whole Tommy and Laurel thing is just a means to an end (that end somehow being Tommy an antagonist and Laurel and Oliver together) so I refuse to get emotionally invested in that. That being said, Laurel needs to shut her mouth. It was absolutely none of her business if Tommy went to Oliver for a job or not. Then to bring it up at dinner? That’s dirty and results in one of the most awkward double dates I’ve watched in recent memory. Yikes.

As for Diggle? I think he’s going to end up with his sister-in-law. Not only did he give a telling look her way when he was talking to Oliver about the “right one” but she made a point of saying she was his “ex-sister in-law”. I’m interested in seeing how that plays out. If for no other reason than to hear them talk more about what a bad neighborhood this immaculate and relatively beautiful fast food restaurant is in. I don’t think he’s going to leave Ollie, no matter how much he says he is. At least he better not.

Overall, great episode. Like I said, I think they have decided to just own the cheesy dialogue and ridiculous story lines and I think it makes for a better show in the long run. There’s only one episode left until the hiatus and I’m sure it will be a good one. This week was lacking John Barrowman and Yao Fei, but made up for it with Felicity and Diggle so let’s stick with a four out of five rating.

Until next time Arrow fans!