Smallville - ''Finale''

Spoiler Level: High As It Gets

As I've mentioned before, I have to wait until Tuesday mornings for the WB.com to post the latest episodes. Normally that's not a problem, but in this case, the wait's been driving me nuts. I've been going out of my way to avoid everyone's reviews. Finally I decided not to wait any longer, and purchased the episode through Amazon.

I've just finished watching it.

My immediate reaction? A decent ending... but not 100% satisfying.

The satisfying:

* Apokolips looked fantastic. I mean, every shot of Apokolips is just pure gold.  This is Apokolips brought to life.  I never thought Smallville would attempt anything like this.

* At long last, the return of Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor.

* Some very beautiful montages of the ten year journey we've had with this show.

* Clark being an inspiration to Ollie.  As I've stated in the last few episodes, this is a Clark Kent that I can believe is Superman, and it leads to his being an inspiration to everyone in the world's time of need.

* Clark having reconciled his past and his destiny, his humanity and his Kryptonian heritage.

* Clark finally flies!

* The music, and not just the John Williams music; Louis Fabre's Blur/Superman theme that's been used for the end credits since Season 8 gets a lot of use in here, until it finally gives way to the all-out John Williams score.  A fantastic way to show Clark taking that final step.  And the swoosh effect on the closing producer credits was great.  I only wish they had kept on going and done the entire closing credits in that style to the John Williams music, but in this modern age of "squish the credits to the side while we run another commercial" it probably wasn't worth spending the extra money on.

* Getting to see The Suit in action.

The unsatisfying:

* Ten years and we get NO money shot of Tom Welling standing tall in the costume, cape blowing in the breeze behind him?!?  Really?!? Once he gets the suit, all the shots with his face are from the neck up so you don't see the costume; all the shots of the costume are from a distance so you don't see his face.  Doctor Fate got a full-body shot in his costume.  Superman should have gotten a full-body shot in the costume.

* Darkseid's final battle being in Lionel's body. Yeah, that really didn't work for me.  Not quite as unsatisfying as Doomsday, but still a disappointment.

* I've been asking for years how they were going to get around Luthor not recognizing Superman as Clark Kent right away; I thought they were going to just go with the fact that yes, Luthor knows in this version.  But instead, they bring out the old memory-wipe ploy.  Ahhh, I should have expected the old memory-wipe ploy. I could live with that if it just wiped out his memories of Clark; but it didn't.  It wiped out all his memories. So, umm, if every single memory of his life has been wiped out, then that means he went from a total amnesiac to President of the United States in 7 years?!? Not to mention, if everything that happened to him in this series is gone, then what's his motivation?

It's a shame really, because this show just got better and better over the last three years, and I feel like they slipped a groove at the end.  Nowhere near as badly as Star Trek: Enterprise did, mind you; this is an okay ending, but it's just okay, and the previous years have shown me that they could have delivered.

And so, we close the book on Smallville.   It may have been a bumpy ride, but overall there were more highs than lows. I'd like to thank Home of the Nutty one last time for the screen caps, and all the folks who worked on the show for striving so hard to entertain me.   Thanks to everyone involved.

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This episode is available to watch for free (with commercials) at http://www.cwtv.com/cw-video/smallville/. Amazon is still only charging the regular 1-episode price even though it's a double length episode.

Smallville - ''Prophecy''

Spoiler Level: High

As I write this, the final episode is still three days away from airing, and I won't get to see it for another week.  But by the time this post goes live, it will have already aired.  So the observations and speculations I'm going to make may be kind of pointless, but what the heck!  I'm going to go ahead and make them anyway.

I was hoping that Clark would get the suit at the end of this episode, and then the two hour finale would be like the two hour premiere of most Superman shows, with him establishing himself in Metropolis as Superman.  And for a minute there it really looked like that was what was going to happen, with Clark returning to the Fortress of Solitude and telling Jor-El he's ready. But then he pulls the crystal, the lights go out, and he walks away, leaving the suit behind him.  Aww, rats.

And along those lines, it occurs to me that the Fortress of Solitude has been anything but.  Clark never gets to be alone when he goes there, he's always got to deal with Jor-El being all over his back!

The story itself was okay, although it does suffer from some classic Poor Smallville Judgment that we haven't seen in a while.  Oh what the heck, let's make all the wrong choices, just once more for old times' sake! Lois's fear of Toyman hurting Clark now that he's powerless makes sense, but really, it never occurred to her (a) she could simply woosh over to him and protect him like he always protects her, and (b) once she put herself under his control he wouldn't make her do terrible things?!? I get the emotion they were going for, but the logic just makes it one of those scenes were you yell at the screen, "Are you kidding me?!?" especially since they've been doing so much better avoiding this kind of scene over the last two years.

Now Lois's saying she can't marry him because it's not fair for her to take him from the people who need rescuing, while sad, makes more sense.  It's also a bit frustrating because we've already seen it play out in the comics and Lois & Clark, but hey, for a new audience it's something that needs to be shown.  We of course know that Clark needs to have at least moments of a normal life and not be Superman 24/7 or even he starts to crack under the pressure and that Lois will learn this soon enough... and it'll have to be soon, since there's only one episode left.

And ohhhh, that wonderful Legion of Doom sequence!!! Captain Cold!!  Black Manta!! Solomon Grundy!! Looking comic book perfect!!! Oh, how sweet it is. (Not to mention that Toyman's little mind-control toys looked like Starro.) I doubt we'll see them in the finale; I think this is more to establish that just as the Justice League is coming in to their own (and did you notice that Clark actually referred to them as "the league" this time?), their rogues gallery has come together as well, and the stage is set for the never-ending battle between good and evil.

And lastly, with this episode Smallville beats out Stargate SG-1 to become the record holder for longest running science fiction show in US TV history. (Unless you count the two-hour "Absolute Justice" episode as two episodes, in which case last week's episode was the record breaker.)  While I feel Stargate SG-1 was a much better show overall and is far more deserving of the title, Smallville has grown into a great show.  Congratulations, Smallville.

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Thanks, as always, to Home of the Nutty for the screen capture.  And as always, this episode is currently available to view for free (with commercials) at http://www.cwtv.com/cw-video/smallville/.  At least it was as of this writing; with "Finale" being two hours, I don't know for sure!

Smallville - ''Dominion''

Spoiler Level: Highish

See, now this is why I still don't feel like I can watch Smallville with my 11-year-old daughter in the room.  This episode had a lot of blood.

Slade Wilson has turned up back in the outside world (so we're told-- we never see him), so Ollie comes back to join Clark in the Phantom Zone to figure out how he escaped.  While there, we learn that the spirit of the original General Zod has merged with the body of the clone Major Zod, so now he's just one Zod with a whole lotta hate.  That may sound a bit convoluted, but it actually works quite well for me.  And apparently Darkseid has given Zod the power to rule the Phantom Zone. So Zod spends his time making the inhabitants of the Phantom Zone fight each other to the death for his entertainment.

I'm glad to see Ollie back, because I felt the show was always stronger with him.  It's also nice to see they haven't forgotten about him being Omega marked by Darkseid, and used it to the full extent here by giving us a reason to believe that Ollie might have really been turned against Clark.  The reference to Orion having defeated Darkseid was also very nice, and finally getting Clark into a red cape was fantastic.

Sadly, showing so much blood and so many gruesome details during the combat (such as the blade coming out of Clark's back) really turned me off.  It just felt over the top and really unnecessary.

Lois pulling a gun on Tess also seemed a bit out of place; did she really need to go that far to get Tess to agree with her? Since Lois wasn't able to keep Tess at gunpoint for three weeks and Tess and Lois willingly  took shifts, I'd say obviously not.

Thanks as always to Home of the Nutty for the screen capture!

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This episode is still available to watch for free (with commercials) at http://www.cwtv.com/cw-video/smallville/.

Smallville - ''Booster''

Spoiler Level: High

Booster Gold and Blue Beetle!  And not just the new Blue Beetle, but Ted Kord too!  I always love Geoff Johns episodes.

With this episode, Clark has really turned a corner.  First off, he spent all his public time rockin' the glasses.  While I don't necessarily agree with the bumbling Clark persona-- the comics have done just fine without it for over 20 years now-- I'm happy to see him establishing his secret identity.  Secondly, we got that absolutely wonderful scene of Clark changing in the phone booth.  And lastly (and most importantly), Clark doesn't talk down to Booster Gold and lecture him like he used to lecture Green Arrow, he inspires him.  That's the way Superman should be.

As usual, thanks to Home of the Nutty for the screen caps.  (Sadly, there was no scene in the episode of Booster, Beetle and Blur all together.) And also as usual, this episode is still available to watch for free at http://www.cwtv.com/cw-video/smallville/.

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Smallville - ''Kent''

Spoiler Level: High

A nice follow-up to "Luthor," and I like the parallels with the title names.  I'm not quite sure all of the logic regarding the mirror box was consistent with how it was portrayed in "Luthor," but if you don't think about that part too closely it's an enjoyable episode.

I guess I assumed that the series would have Martha Kent coming back to the farm, since the Superman mythos usually has Clark in Metropolis with his mom on the farm.  But that doesn't really work with Martha being a senator now, so this way works well for the show.  The thought of the farm not being in the Kent family at all actually makes me a little sad, but hey, at least they didn't blow it up.

The idea that Clark Luthor is only evil because he was raised by Lionel Luthor instead of Jonathan Kent and Jor-El certainly makes this a different take on Ultraman-- I don't recall Jor-El being addressed in any of the Crime Syndicate stories I've read, but I'll bet in his universe he sent Kal-El to Earth to conquer it.  That's obviously not intended to be the case here, as we're left with the hope that Jor-El will put Clark Luthor on the straight and narrow.

I also really like how Clark Kent is becoming the kind of character that inspires people to be better, such as he did with Earth-2 Jonathan and, eventually, Clark Luthor. That's the kind of character that Superman is meant to be.

And damn, Tess's dress was distracting.

Thanks, as always, to Home of the Nutty for the screen captures.  And as always, as of this writing, this episode is available to watch online (with commercials) for free at http://www.cwtv.com/cw-video/smallville/.

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Smallville - ''Scion''

Spoiler Level: High

WOW.  Just wow, wow, O-M-what- the-G WOW.  That was awesome.  I did not see that coming at all.

The Superman comics actually had a storyline where Lex died and cloned himself a new body, so when Smallville brought in the young cloned Lex I was cool enough with it already.

But the fact that Smallville was showing me Conner Kent's origin while sneakily mixing it in with the Lex Clone story fooled me completely.  I never expected it to take this left turn into him being Superboy, but it fits so perfectly.  Out of all the actors they've had playing Lex since Michael Rosenbaum left the show, Lucas Gabreel seemed the least like him, and it struck me as kind of an odd choice-- until this episode, when he makes the perfect Superboy.  When I was watching it I though that was their plan all along, but now that I've looked the actor up, I see that he played Lex in a flashback episode in 2006, so they were actually going for consistency.  So the fact that he makes such a great Superboy is a very nice bonus.

And in another case of my being unobservant, I didn't realize he was the same actor that played Ryan in the High School Musical films until just now when I looked up his name.  This, despite the fact that my daughter has played those movies about a gazillion and one times.

It'll be interesting to see where the show goes with him from here.  On the one hand, they've set things up so he should be in the rest of the season; on the other hand, this is his fourth episode, and guest stars on shows seem to only be able to appear for four episodes.  (Why is that, anyway?  I've noticed it on a lot of shows, not just Smallville.  It's like if they appear more than four times a season, then they have to be considered semi-recurring characters, which I assume would also mean they get paid more.  Which is all complete and utter speculation on my part; anyone know if I'm on the right track, or is there another reason for it? But I digress.)  So will we be seeing more of Conner Kent, or will he suddenly be busy the next few episodes?

And lastly, we now have a month long break before Smallville starts its final five episodes.  It's looking more and more like we're going to get the Voyager ending, and not get to see Clark in the suit until the last scene of the last episode.  I hope I'm wrong; what I'd really like is for the Darkseid storyline to be wrapped up in the penultimate episode, and then have the final episode be all about Clark going public as Superman and the world's reaction to it-- the kind of episode that's usually a Superman show's first episode.  But even though they've been doing some fantastic stuff these last few years, this is still Smallville, after all, so I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high.

Smallville - ''Fortune''

Spoiler Level: Medium- High

Oh, come on now.  They should have gone all the way and just called it "Hangover." 

Which is not necessarily a bad thing, mind you.  Imitation -- be it homage or rip-off -- can be a great thing if done well.  For example, Stargate SG-1 deliberately played off of the Groundhog Day concept in the episode "Window of Opportunity," and it's one of my favorite Stargate episodes of all time.

And this episode does it well enough.  It's very humorous and yet still manages to stay very Smallville.  The gang heads out for Lois & Clark's bachelorette / bachelor parties, not knowing that their champagne has been been spiked with something that even effects Clark, and they wake up the next morning with no idea what's happened to them.  The farmhouse is just full of bizarre items that Clark's obviously gathered from all over, including traffic signs, the logo off of the top of LexCorp tower, and a lemur.  Oh yeah, and he and Chloe are both wearing wedding rings.

I actually think it would have worked a little better if they hadn't tried to work in the typical Smallville plot with bad guys, but it's hard to say "it should have been funnier" when you have Green Arrow in a brawl wearing a chorus girl outfit.  No lie.  I guess that's kind of the point of Clark's life-- even when he's drunk he can't stop himself from getting involved and helping people.  And watching him try to do his "woosh" thing while hung over and literally running into brick walls was great.

I'll save from revealing how Clark was able to get drunk, as well as if and/or who actually wound up married.  Suffice to say that the way those elements of the story were handled worked very well for me.

And lastly, it looks like Chloe is leaving for good this time.  I guess she was back only for a four-episode stint, which is a common format for guest stars.  I'm glad she was back in the opening titles for it.  Maybe she'll still appear in the following episodes over a view screen.  But now that Clark's story is coming to a close, the final parts of his childhood are all going to be left behind, and that includes Chloe.  And I absolutely loved, loved, loved the line about the new people she's met and intends to help out next.

As usual, I want to thank Home of the Nutty for their fantastic Smallville screen caps.

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As of this writing, this episode is still available to watch for free (with commercials) at http://www.cwtv.com/cw-video/smallville/, or it can be purchased at the links below.

Smallville - ''Masquerade''

Spoiler Level: High

After what feels like a very long break, we've finally returned to the Darkseid storyline with Desaad getting the center stage.  The actor they got to play him wasn't bad; stick Steve Byers in a purple robe, and he's got a long enough face that it would work.  And he's certainly got Desaad's sadism down.

I also absolutely loved the scene between Chloe and Oliver when they're locked up in a trunk, and all Oliver wants to do is sort out their relationship.  Chloe says, "Really?  Now?" and I'm thinking, sure, why not now, it's not like either of you are going anywhere for a while.  Plus it really made Ollie feel more endearing.  He went through hell with Chloe gone, and now that he has her back he's totally serious about her.

But of course, the big part of the show for me was watching Clark finally take that next step and donning the glasses -- for keeps, this time.  Now that the Vigilante Registration Act has been repealed Clark's started taking the Blur global, and he's... wait a minute, the VRA was only a law in the United States.  If anything, it would have made sense for him to go global as the Blur while the VRA was in effect!  "Okay, it's illegal for me to save anyone in the US, but nobody seems to mind when I save them in Canada!"

Okay, forget that piece of logic for a moment... now that he's taking the Blur global, people are starting to connect him with the Blur, so he's decided the time for a disguise has come. 

At first I was wondering why he was explaining everything to Lois all over again since he was talking about having seen his future self wearing glasses last episode, and then I realized, no wait, that was Martha he was talking with about it.  It's all new to Lois.  I don't really care for the approach of "Clark Kent is just a name.  The Blur is who I am."  I was always more of a fan of the 90's approach-- as Dean Cain's Clark said, "Clark Kent is who I am.  Superman is what I can do."  But hey, if Smallville wants to go with the more classic approach, I can live with that.  At least for, say, the next 8 episodes.  And besides, Clark's still growing, he may find that he feels differently in the future.

Lastly, I want to give a shout-out to Home of the Nutty (dot-com) for this week's screen capture.  You can always tell when I use their screen captures instead of making my own, because (a) they look much nicer, and (b) they don't have that giant "CW" logo in the corner that I get due to watching it online.  Thanks, guys!

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As of this writing, you can still watch this episode for free (with commercials) at http://www.cwtv.com/cw-video/smallville/, or you can buy it from Amazon at the links below.  Buying it through these links helps support ICE, so if you're going to buy it anyway, please consider doing it from here.  Yes, I'm back to trying the advertising thing again.  As you may or may not have noticed, I've been working with a few friends to expand the whole "It's Called Entertainment" thing to be more than just me, and cover a wider variety of topics, and the advertising might help fund it and help it grow.  Or maybe just pay for a few DVDs for us to watch.  At any rate, it's still a work in progress, so have patience with us.  But I digress.  Here's the Amazon links:

Smallville - ''Beacon''

Spoiler Level: High

The Earth-2 Lionel Luthor finally makes his move, seizing control of Luthorcorp and uniting with Lex's young clone. Lionel starts out trying to pull his usual smarmy double-talk, but luckily no one buys it for a minute so he resorts to just being straightforward for the rest of the episode.  Which is good, because we know this Lionel is totally evil, so as a viewer I'm not buying it either.  The whole "I care about my family and I want to make amends" shtick doesn't really work with Lionel-2, because there's no way to believe he might be sincere on any level.  I can't blame him for trying because, after all, he is Lionel Luthor, but I'm glad he quickly gave up on it.  Seeing Lionel and young Lex standing united as flat-out bad guys was much more enjoyable.

Similarly, now that Chloe's back Tess feels like a lost character again.  She starts off being distrusted by Lois, which I felt was pretty unfair of Lois since she knows at this point that Tess is at the very least on Team Clark and at most a member of the Justice League.  She's caught with her hand in the cookie jar (or more literally with her hand in Clark's trunk of Kryptonian knick-knacks), giving Clark a guilty look when he catches her doing it.  And then there's the final scene, where Clark, Ollie & Chloe re-open Watchtower (again) and Tess is nowhere to be seen, because she's busy deciding whether or not to kill Alexander.  It's a shame, because she was doing so well the rest of the season.  Although she does have that great moment where she tries to show Alexander that it's never too late to turn to the light.

It's great to see Martha Kent back again, and seeing her champion Clark's cause from the political angle.  And it's even better that she's inspiring Clark to take those final steps to becoming Superman-- it looks like the glasses are going to be coming for good next episode. In the Silver Age version of the Superman mythos Clark has outlived both John and Martha Kent, so with Smallville being down to their last 10 episodes Martha is no longer bulletproof, which helps create some real drama on whether she's going to survive or not.

So all in all, while it really wasn't up to the quality of the rest of the season, it certainly had some very good moments that I've waited a long time to see, and was enjoyable overall.

Smallville - ''Collateral''

Spoiler Level: High

Oh.  Okay, the flash of light wasn't Hawkman being reborn, or the light of the New Gods rising to fight the Darkness... it was a trap by the government to catch all the unregistered "vigilantes."  The VRA somehow knew where the heroes were going to bury Hawkman and figured that their time of mourning would be the perfect time to jump them.  Wow, and I thought the Westboro Baptist Church was harsh.

What we get from there is an homage to The Matrix, as our heroes are plugged into a virtual world where they can be controlled. It works well enough as a story, and it's great that the show finally lets Clark fly for a moment, even if it is only in the VR world.

And best of all.. the return of Chloe!!  She's right back in the opening titles and everything!  I'm very pleased.  And while it would have been heartwarming if Clark could trust her right away like Ollie did, I thought Clark's distrust of her makes sense; as someone pointed out, her judgment was pretty screwed up during the whole Doomsday season, and hey, this is Smallville, where people do The Wrong Thing all the time for the lamest of reasons.  Clark realizing his double standard in not trusting Chloe for not telling him all her secrets also worked well, and is another sign of how he's finally growing this season.

It's kind of odd seeing Green Arrow and Black Canary together and yet Green Arrow's in love with Chloe instead.  And along those lines, it'll be interesting to see how things play out with Tess now that Chloe's back.  Tess has finally found her place, and I'm hoping the two of them can work together instead of against each other.  I'm assuming Chloe's new role is going to be leading the Suicide Squad, leaving Tess free to still be Watchtower.  We'll see how it goes.

Smallville - "Icarus"

Spoiler Level: Atomic


"I don't know if they'll have time to have him come back as Death- stroke before the season ends, but I hope they get to."  - Fer, two episodes ago.

Well, that didn't take long!

Michael Hogan plays an unlikeable military leader with an eyepatch!  Is he prefect for the part of Deathstroke, or what?!?  It's a shame he and Dr. Hamilton didn't get any scenes together.

Well granted they never called him Deathstroke the Terminator, but now he's got the sword, the enhanced strength and the healing abilities!!  That's Deathstroke, man.  I never expected that from Smallville.  Awesome.

Okay, starting at the beginning...

Clark and Lois are now officially engaged.  My first reaction when he pulled out the ring a few episodes back was "isn't it a bit early for that step?" but after having a while to think about it I've decided it isn't, considering this is the show's last season.  It shows that Lois & Clark being married has entered the social consciousness as one of the key elements about Superman.  And since it's one of my favorite aspects of the modern Superman, that makes me very, very happy.

I also love any time Hawkman is featured prominently or we have a lot of heroes in one place, so having Hawkman and Stargirl at their engagement party was awesome, not to mention Black Canary getting a few lines on a video monitor and the cameos of the hoodies of Aquaman, Impulse and Cyborg at the end.

Very nice super-hero line up, but I have two little fan nitpicks:

First and foremost-- Kara is actually listed as Supergirl.  And secondly, they have photos of everyone in their secret identities, but they had to use a drawing of  Olliver Queen, the only one who's out to the public?

And speaking of which, the crowd turning on Olliver was a very good scene.  It showed how when we get worked up, all it takes is the accusation to be treated as guilty.  The woman that Olliver rescued was nowhere to be found, probably because she was just as afraid of Ollie as the crook was.  And once the crook said he was the one being victimized, Ollie was automatically guilty in the eyes of the people, because he'd been branded a terrorist.

I would say that the anti-hero furor is getting unbelievable, but the characters are recognizing that fact for themselves-- going from heroes to vigilantes to terrorists in the eyes of the public over such a short time indicates that "the Darkness" is responsible.  I also appreciated that the episode was willing to show how the anti-terrorist attitude, while valid in some cases, can be taken to the extreme and abused by those who want to use that fear for their own ends.

The only thing I didn't like is the whole "the public has turned against us, so we need to all go into hiding" thing.  Huh?  The Justice League is just going to give up and hide their heads in the sand?  It would seem to me that now is the time that you need to stick together more than ever, with Watchtower being your safe haven.  That whole part just didn't make any sense to me.  And besides, it's not like any of them quit on their own anyway, so why not plan on still working together?

Which brings us to the biggie.  The smackdown between Deathstroke and Hawkman.  Wow, what a fight.  Hawkman breaking through the glass window was fantastic, and the no-holds-barred fight was just breathtaking.  Hawkman's mace going through the floor where Deathstroke's head had been a second earlier shows he's not holding back, and I'll be honest, I never thought for a second that Deathstroke was going to win... which made it all the more shocking when he did.  And wow, that scene of Hawkman chasing down after Lois with his wings ablaze was really amazing.

So Clark zaps Deathstoke into the Phantom Zone.  Didn't see that coming either.  I'm not sure how well that's going to play out for him either; General Slade Wilson was still a part of the US military, who seemed to be fully behind everything he was doing.  This is only going to increase his being viewed as a terrorist.

And lastly, the funeral.  Very well represented, considering they couldn't (or didn't) get all the actors back, but still wanted to have all the heroes represented.  And I'm sure the flash of light from the glowing pyramid at the end was meant to say that the reincarnation process has begun again.  Perhaps we haven't seen the last of Hawkman.


However, we have seen the last of Smallville until the end of January.  As of this writing, this episode is still available for viewing for free (with commercials) at http://www.cwtv.com/cw-video/smallville/.

Smallville - "Luthor"

Spoiler Level: High

I was wondering why Clark was being "Dick Clark" again at the beginning of this episode.  I mean sure, it's been a given that the Luthors were evil, but it felt like he was being overly harsh to Tess just to drive home the point that she couldn't share her new-found secret that she's really Lena Luthor with him.  But once Clark got zapped to Earth-2 I realized it was all set up so Clark could learn that just because Tess was born a Luthor doesn't mean she's got evil in her DNA.

In this take on the Superman doppelganger Ultraman, the entire universe isn't necessarily an evil opposite, and there's no good Alexander Luthor.  Its main diverging point is that Lionel Luthor found baby Kal-El instead of John & Martha Kent, and raised him as Clark Luthor.  There's no Crime Syndicate versions of the other heroes; Ollie is still something of a hero, although a questionable one, as he's been buying up land in Smallville and kicking out the owners so he can harvest as much Kryptonite as possible to fight Ultraman.  (And really, if ever there was a time to show Ollie with his goatee, this was it.  Talk about a missed opportunity.)

The universe Ultraman comes from in the comics has at various times been the Antimatter Universe, Earth-2, Earth-3, and probably a bunch of other ones I don't remember, so I'm quite happy with Lois referring to the Smallville version as Earth-2.  I'm generally a fan of stories of alternate timelines and parallel universes in general, and while the Smallville Earth-2 may not be a complete "evil opposite" universe, it is definitely a darker, dirtier place, so it works great for me.

One thing, though...

Based on the ending, Earth-2 Lionel must have gotten the Mirror Box off of Ultraman once he returned to his own universe and Earth-2 Ollie zapped him with the Kryptonite window again.  But we've seen that the Mirror Box always switches you with the location of your doppelganger.  Which means that a three-year-old corpse showed up in the Earth-2 Watchtower... and Earth-2 Lionel arrived buried in Earth-1 Lionel's coffin, and would have had to dig his way out.  Icchhhkk. 


As of this writing, this episode is available to watch for free (with commercials) at http://www.cwtv.com/cw-video/smallville/.  I'd also like to give a long-overdue thanks to homeofthenutty.com, which is an excellent screencaps site and where I've been getting all of my Smallville screencaps for my reviews.  These guys capture every single facial expression of every single scene, and I've never ever had a problem finding the image I wanted!

Smallville - "Patriot"

Spoiler Level: High

This show has just gotten better and better.  They've even started handling Aquaman right!  Okay, they still call him A.C., but he's married to Mera, he's lost the surfer dude attitude ("Did Mera teach you that new vocabulary?" I love it!), and although they didn't get into his origins in detail he said Mera has shown him his true origins-- which leaves things wide open for Atlantis.  And Mera kept using his Atlantean name, Orin!  Fan-freakin'-tastic.

I also loved that he seemed to be out for protecting the seas, and was somewhat disappointed to learn that the oil rig he blew up wasn't an oil rig after all but a super-hero holding cell.  Oh well.

And Michael Hogan isn't just typecast as a somewhat off-the-rails colonel, he's Slade Wilson.  Didn't see that one coming.  He's got the eyepatch by the end and there's lots of x-rays of his skull... I wonder if his brain's been enhanced?  I don't know if they'll have time to have him come back as Deathstroke before the season ends, but I hope they get to.  It would be a shame to have such a wonderful set-up and not get to use it.  And it would be even better if Cyborg gets to be in the episode where he returns!  Maybe it could end with Cyborg taking some teen heroes under his wing and starting his own team...

The bits with Lois becoming part of the team were also very, very welcome.  It didn't even occur to me that Lois and Tess weren't aware that each other were both in on Clark's abilities.  Once again, this season takes the annoying "we're having a conversation where we both can't admit to what we know" Smallville standard and turns it into something amusing.  This final season has been a great pay-off for sitting through this show for the past 10 years.

Smallville - "Abandoned"

Spoiler Level: High

Wow, this show had so many cool fanboy moments I barely know where to start.  Not only do we get Lois & Clark's Lois Terri Hatcher playing Smallville's Lois Lane's mother, but we also get Supergirl Helen Slater playing Clark's mother Lara in the same episode!  And as if Granny Goodness and her Female Furies weren't enough, we get a bonus bit with Desaad and the return of Godfrey, setting up for Darkseid. (And hopefully Apokolips!)

And in another interesting twist, we discover that Tess Mercer is actually Lena Luthor.  Well, okay, Lutessa Lena Luthor.  For me, this actually felt very right, and only serves to increase her finding her place as a character, and is probably a step they should have taken from the beginning.  She was introduced as a replacement for Lex when Michael Rosenbaum left the show, her name being a tribute to Luthor's sidekick Miss Tessmacher from the movies and Luthor's bodyguard Mercy from the comics.  But it felt like they were never quite sure what to do with her;  she's a bad guy, then she might be a good guy, no she's a bad guy, she's a Checkmate agent...  now she's a former Luthor, a tortured soul abandoned by an evil family, trying to make amends for the bad things she's done in her life.  This is a very good angle with a lot of options.

And lastly, this episode inspired me to make my first Smallville LOL.

Smallville - "Ambush"

Spoiler Level: High

Finally, Clark is wearing his new Blur costume while he actually does super hero stuff!  I hadn't noticed before that he's slicking his hair back as the Blur.  Doin' the Dean Cain thing of reversing Clark & Superman's hairstyles.  Although now that I think about it, George Reeves always had his hair slicked back too.  Hmm, maybe it's just a TV Superman thing.  Or a TV Superman and/or Blur thing in this case.

(Which reminds me of something my mother-in-law said to me the other day:  "Why is Superman not Superman on Superman?"  And she raises a good point that hadn't occurred to me: to the more casual viewer, all the Superman elements are in place except Superman himself.  Clark Kent spends most of his time in Metropolis, working at the Daily Planet with Lois Lane while being a super hero, and has even got a bunch of super friends. So to the casual viewer it looks like this show isn't about his childhood anymore, so why is he still not Superman?  All the more reason why I feel he should become Superman before the season ends.)

I always like Michael Ironside.  He plays a good tough guy, so he makes a good Sam Lane.  And the idea that he pushes Lois's boyfriends to find out how much they mean to her was a good touch.

Vigilante Registration Act?  Isn't that Marvel's shtick?

Tess is working out better as the Watchtower base than she has in past seasons.  Her convoluted past gives her a believable inside knowledge on just about everything.  I feel like I finally understand her motivations and she's finding her place on this show.

And last but not least, a final farewell to the Talon.  Had this been Season 6 I would have assumed that Clark could have rebuilt it before the town woke up for breakfast, but since this is the final season, I think this was the Talon's send-off.  And another Smallville door closes...

Smallville - "Harvest"

Spoiler Level: High

A good character episode.  The main plot was pretty predictable-- from the moment the little girl rode Lois into town and told her they were getting ready for their harvest, I realized this was a take on The Wicker Man.  But what was really good about this episode was watching Lois & Clark talking to each other and getting everything out in the open.  The beginning scene where  Lois finally learns that all the strange things that have been happening to her over the years have pretty much all been tied to Krypton was great.

And I could be wrong, but if there's a contaminant in the water and you're using it on your crops, doesn't that mean the contaminant is now in the soil?  So Clark should have been buried in Blue Kryptonite Soil, right?  Maybe I'm wrong.  I should ask a soil expert.  Paging James Cassidy!

The scenes with Alexander becoming Lex were also great.  Once again, the actor seems to have gotten Michael Rosenbaum's inflections down, which is even more impressive since he's a child actor.  I'm hoping this means that Rosenbaum will eventually return for the end of the series.

Smallville - "Isis"

Spoiler Level: HUGE

YES!!!! Yes, yes, yes, yes, a thousand times YES!!!!  They had it all set up, they had Clark all ready to tell Lois the truth about himself, and they played it in the total Smallville style-- by the end of the episode Clark now had a million "very good reasons" to change his mind by the end of the episode and tell her "Never mind."  They even had me believing they were going to wimp out again.  And then Clark goes and does it!  WOO-HOO!!!! 

It also shows how the concept of Lois & Clark as a team, with Lois knowing who he is, has become such a strong part of the Superman mythos that they felt it had to be included before the series ended.  Which so totally, totally makes me happy.

Not to mention how cool it was to have Isis back on TV for the first time since 1977.  I also find it cool that this TV version of Isis is based on the current comic book version of Isis, which in turn was created as an homage to the original TV version of Isis featured in the The Shazam!/Isis Hour TV series, who was actually created by Filmation. TV imitates comics imitates TV.  You gotta love it.

One odd thing about the episode:  Clark comes up with the new Blur costume with the red jacket, and then runs around doing total Blur stuff without changing into costume in this episode.  Why?

Cool fanboy moments:  The Dagger of Teth-Adam was a real thrill, and the yellow energy ropes made me giddy at the taste of what a live action Green Lantern Corps/Sinestro Corps battle would look like! 

Smallville - "Homecoming"

Spoiler Rating: High

Woah!  This episode was so good, I assumed it must have been written by Geoff Johns!  (Well, that and because of the Legion tie-in.) Kudos to Brian Peterson & Kelly Souders.

I had very low expectations for this episode; and the opening teaser played right in to them.  A return to Smallville High, a return of a classic freak of the week, people with resentment towards Clark.  Ho-hum.  An understandable look back at the show's beginnings in the show's final season.

But what the episode actually was was so much more and so much better.  Brainiac returning as the Legion's Brainiac 5!  And in typical Smallville fashion, he's wearing a green shirt.  And through Brainiac we see not only how far Clark has come (wow, did Tom Welling really look that young in the first season?), but we get a glimpse of  the future Superman we've been waiting for him to become.

Now, I did want to smack Clark upside the head when he was trying to explain to the Lois of 2017 that he was from the past.  He started off well -- "I'm from another time" is pretty straight-forward-- but once she wasn't getting it, he could have straightened the whole conversation out with, "No, I mean a second ago I was in the year 2010." So seeing Future Clark was a very welcome relief.  And seeing him look like "Clark Kent," with the glasses, the swept-back hair and the suit and trenchcoat was even better.

I have always been a big, big fan of the "Lois knows Clark is Superman" approach.  When I was growing up, Lois was always in the dark and spent most of her time trying to figure out how to prove Clark was Superman, always ending with "Well I feel foolish, I can't believe I thought you could be Superman."  In fact, what got me to become an avid reader of  Superman was when I read "Death of Superman" and realized that Lois now knew and they were engaged.  With Lois knowing, she could be more of her own character, with her own goals often (but not always) coinciding with Clark's.  She becomes his support and his motivation, and she humanizes Clark as a character.  So I am so, so glad that the glimpse of 2017 showed the two of them moving forward towards this.  This is what I loved about Superman.

I also loved, loved, loved that Clark's angst is the darkness he needs to leave behind.  That's always been one of my biggest gripes about Smallville; angst is Batman's shtick, not Superman's.  Once again, a supporting character is saying everything to Clark that I've wanted to.

And Chloe's actually off of the opening titles now?  This thing with her being gone is running a lot longer than I expected it to.  Maybe she's off filming something else?

Smallville - "Supergirl"

Spoiler Level: High

Hmm.  This is an interesting take on Darkseid.  I guess I should have expected a typical Smallville interpretation, but after the great job they've been doing with Hawkman and Darksieid's shadowy teaser, I actually was expecting a big rocky guy who could shoot Omega Effect beams from his eyes and his origin would all be about Apokolips and the New Gods.  Instead he possesses people's bodies after he plants a Dark Seed of doubt in people's Dark Side.  Eh, it's only episode 3.  The season is still young.

On the one hand I love seeing Kara going public with her powers, and that her costume is getting so close to what it should be.  On the other hand, the fanboy in me chafes at Supergirl showing up before Superman.  Oh, sure, she doesn't have the S or the cape yet and Lois has dubbed her Übergirl instead (and I really did love the "MAID OF MIGHT!" headline on the Daily Planet), but still, for the purposes of the story she's leading the way and being an inspiration to Clark instead of vice-versa.

But it's still freakin' Supergirl vs. Darkseid, so I'm not really complaining.  ;)

Smallville - "Shield"

Spoiler Level: High

...or, come back tomorrow, where we learn that cwtv.com posted the next episode this morning!

Lots more comicy goodness; this week it's Deadshot, Cat Grant and the Suicide Squad.  I'm a bit disappointed that Deadshot didn't keep his red eye target thingie, but hey, at least he had it for his introduction.  Very happy about that.

Poor Michael Shanks, once again in a dusty tent going on about Egyptian Gods.  Seems he can't get away from it.  You could tell he was using Hawkman's more stoic and angry attitude as opposed to Daniel Jackson's enthusiastic rambling, but come on, it was scene straight out of Stargate, the deck was stacked against him-- how could I not think of him as Daniel in that scene?  But the conversations between Carter Hall and Lois Lane were great; Carter not pulling any punches about knowing Lois is talking about Clark (which is very refreshing for Smallville), and all the details about Hawkman's origins, totally consistent with his current portrayal in the comics.  Very, very nice indeed.

I also enjoyed Clark's coming to the conclusion that not only is he going to need to step out into the light, he's going to need to show his face when he does it.  The fact that they've been unwilling to put Clark (permanently) in glasses really does make it ridiculous that everyone won't just recognize him right off the bat; hopefully this means they'll be putting him in glasses soon.  (Okay, who's got money on it being in the last episode?)