Checkmate takes one drastic step further to learn the Blur's identity
Our episode opens up with a group of tuxedo and cocktail dress wearing attendees join a celebration at a local club. Waiting there is one familiar face, Ray Sacks! The District Attorney from "Idol" who tried to toss Lois off a rooftop. Yes, it's great to know the justice system this man fought so hard to uphold is tirelessly working to get the innocent out of prison.
In the middle of the celebration, a fake cake has been made for Sacks with a Playboy bunny waiting inside for him. So who should pop out but...you guessed it...Lois! Yes, Sacks is apparently blind as freakin' bat to be completely ignorant to the fact that the woman responsible for his incarceration is right in front of him! No, instead he's speaking with a delivery boy who has a photograph he wants very desperately.
While Lois is showing the party goers the bunny hop, Clark appears, astounded that his girlfriend is there. One furious Lois therefore decides to not pull him off privately but rather DECK HIS FACE IN! How is her hand not broken? Surprisingly, Smallville will actually tell us.
Well, the Daily Planet reporters have their brawl splashed all over the tabloids where it is seen by the Planet's new editor who fires them both for their actions.
Cut to yesterday...yes, Smallvile's non-chronological episode is at hand. Lois and Chloe meet over coffee where she says Clark has a big date planned for them that night and she thinks it's time to admit they love each other. She also thinks this means they're going to cut away any secrets they're holding back.
Chloe is upset by this and goes to the Kent house to confront Clark about this decision. She argues that it's a stupid idea, but Clark says he wasn't planning on telling her he's the Blur. Instead he wants her to share her secret. Yes ladies and gentlemen besides the abilities of heat vision, superspeed and leaping tall buildings in a single bound, Clark Kent is also a cunning mastermind.
Of course a split second later Clark decides "Hey, remember that idea of telling Lois that I'm the Blur you said was stupid? Let's try that!" So he walks off comparing Ollie and Chloe's relationship to his and Lois' that having no secrets makes a good coupling. See to some extent this is a logical conclusion, except that Chloe argues that Ollie and Chloe have a duty to protect. Lois is a valuable character to Clark's life, no argument there, the only thing she has a duty to is her job and helping the Blur in his intentions.
At the Planet, Clark and Lois meet each other in the elevator where they realize they can't hold in their urges any longer. So naturally they decide to join the "500 Feet High Club". Or sorry, now it's the "400 Feet High Club". Now it's the Ground Level Club. Now it's Out of Service.
Well Clark and Lois find the newspaper is surprisingly busy this morning. You know even for a journalism student, I never really noticed until now that the Daily Planet should be a lot busier for Metropolis' number one newspaper. Apparently the Planet is having a series of editors rotating around lately with Tess Mercer having vanished. Clark and Lois find that they are now forced to share a desk due to their new editor Franklin Stern, the same man who we know will eventually fire them.
Stern has them share a desk because he thinks their relationship is dangerous because they spend so much time reeling in "the big fish" that they don't bring in the daily catch. Clark argues that they've both handed in big stories, but Stern won't listen to them. Instead he claims he has a bigger story for them. Ray Sacks has just been released early even after nearly receiving a life sentence. He sets up a contest between them to see who can land the story first. The loser loses their job.
Wow, Stern. You're an idiot. I don't mean "That's a dumb decision" or "You must have smacked your head on the bedpan when you woke up this morning". I mean you must be one friggin' imbecile to deny the facts in front of you.
Lois and Clark have proven their worth in writing for the Daily Planet, even while they were handling their relationship. Need I remind you, Lois Lane is the person that has received front page articles more than once? Including one on a team of superpowered vigilantes that apparently nobody knew about for decades! They have continuously pulled more secrets from under the rug and are likely pivotal reporters needed for a newspaper in the age when online journalism is accelerating faster and faster. Furthermore, they have never demonstrated at any time during this season that their office romance has proven damaging to the Planet.
And yet despite all of these reasons, Stern doesn't just believe that only Lois or Clark deserve to remain on the staff, but that apparently they have never written anything bigger than a politician getting out of prison.
IM-BE-CILE!
At LuthorCorp/Queen Industries (I don't even remember which company is supposed to be which after their merger) Chloe is downloading data from a computer when Tess walks in. Chloe asks why she isn't underground and Tess says that while she may be MIA out in public, she's still CEO.
Because that makes even a lick of sense! Yeah, I'm handling my company from behind a desk. No shareholders meetings, office galas or interviews for me to boost our corporation's publicity. You'd be fired in a nano second!
They batter amongst each other about Chloe's relationship with Ollie and Tess' romance with Zod and Chloe warns Tess that Zod is bound to be power-hungry. Especially due to the fact that he actually has powers. She says she's been watching Tess (creepy, but not surprising) and warns her to be careful.
Back at the Daily Planet, Clark and Lois are looking at their shared computer to find out that Sacks is being thrown a welcome home party at a place called Maxwell's. The two decide to split up to cover better ground in their work. Lois then goes into an elevator where she calls the Blur to ask for his help in dealing with Sacks.
At Watchtower, Chloe has apparently been using Ollie's money to upgrade the place's defences. How many times does she steal behind her boyfriend's back? She also mentions that she has satellites monitoring the Fortress of Solitude in case Zod goes back. Proving once again that a human being with advanced computer skills has better defence methods than the Artificial Intelligence of a deceased Kryptonian scientist that has the abilities of time travel and gateways to parallell universes!
Meanwhile Sacks is offering a million bucks for anybody who gets a photo of the Blur's face. They manage to track him to a local pizza place that he's been frequenting. That's precisely where Lois decides to confront him, believing the Blur will protect her. Sacks decides to send one of this thugs to kill her. But Clark comes in to save her as the Blur and Sacks puts the pedal to the metal. Lois thanks him for saving her and answering her call, to which Clark realizes that Lois had called someone else posing as the Blur. Lois thanks him for giving her the greatest purpose she's ever had in her life and Clark speeds off after a momentary pose beneath a HUGE full moon. You gotta wonder how the front page the next day isn't Clark and Lois being fired, but a killer tsunami with the moon effecting the tide like that! But a pizza boy has been able to take a picture of the Blur with his camera phone and darts off before Lois can take care of him.
Clark arrives on the scene to ask who she's calling and tells her he believes she's been keeping a secret of contacting the Blur behind his back. He asks if she even knows who she's talking to, warning her that what she's dealing with is dangerous. Lois thinks that Clark wants to know who the Blur is just to save their job, proving that Lois has a morality beyond her cunning reporter lifestyle.
What we receive here is some of the finest written scenes this entire season. Just when Clark believes that telling Lois his secret is the only way he'll get her to trust him, she says she's sure the Blur is dying to tell her his identity. "But how could anyone who cares about me put me in that kind of position? If I knew his true identity then any lowlife with hopes of hurting him would come after me."
Wow, just when Clark thinks he can just tear the wall down a whole freakin' mountain jumps in front of him. There really is nothing that he can do here. And the best part is, it's not him saying it! It's the very person who in any other situation would be saying some crap like "No, our love will work out in the end". Lois is being realistic. She knows Clark is worried about her safety and if she knew the Blur's secret, it would be jeopardized. There's nothing Clark can do but walk away or let Lois do it.
Back at Watchtower, Clark tells Chloe that contacting Lois as the Blur was a mistake and now someone is posing as him. They use Lois' phone to try and figure out who has been calling her. They manage to intercept a phone call where Lois asks for the Blur to stop the pizza boy from giving his digital photo to Sacks at the party. Clark realizes where he needs to go.
Lois therefore finds the fake cake outside where the girl who's supposed to be the dancer has yet to arrive. We can all figure out where this goes from here. What I find hilarious is that the place Lois claimed would be harder to break into than the White House has just been so easily infiltrated by any girl that bats her eyelashes at the security guard. Clark also gets into the party and overhears the delivery boy talk to Sacks about the photo. We're reshown our opening scene from different perspectives, only this time we realize Lois purposely faked a punch at Clark to get a chance at crushing the delivery boy's camera phone. Clark leads Lois away and Sacks tells the delivery boy they didn't need the photo anyway. The guy is dragged off while a figure stands on the balcony above with a black chess piece insignia on his suit.
At the Daily Planet, Clark and Lois are packing up their things because they've been fired! Well it seems I was wrong people, their so-called idiot editor was right all along! Lois and Clark's relationship did indeed lead to damaging the Daily Planet.
But wait! Wasn't that employment-terminating assginment the one Stern gave them and Stern decided to turn into a contest between two reporters trying to keep each other's jobs! The same assignment that just got both of these hardworking journalists fired instead of one of them?!
IM...BE...CILE!!!
Of course both of them are upset, but Lois in particular for Clark crashing the party when she was supposed to be taking care of the situation herself. Lois says the slug was just a distraction to destroy the picture and says she's upset over Clark's sudden interest in trying to find out who the Blur is and nothing he says will make a difference. Once again, awesome writing.
Lois ends up getting kidnapped by the same Checkmate people who dragged away the pizza boy. Turns out that they're all being hooked up to some freaky machine that's reading through their minds run by Checkmate agent Maxwell Lord.
Lord is a character from the DC Comics who worked with Checkmate and also was a big figure in helping the Justice League with their publicity. The great thing about his character though was that he had spent all his years trying to gather information on the League, playing the role of an ally who would help them out in order to eventually bring their downfall. But here, that's just full out ignored for the most part aside from overall intentions. There's no suspense and there's no attempt at making him look like a good guy. He just pops in at the last minute to read Lois' mind with his telepathy.
Lord tells Sacks that his machine is designed to put together the memories of those who have seen the Blur's face in partial doses (in the shadows, behind a curtain, etc). He's using his powers to see into them, telling Sacks that his intentions are different than Checkmate's. Waller wants to assemble the heroes, he wants to get rid of all the metahumans. Because he is one, he notes that he is a hypocrite, but that he knows how dangerous they are.
Now this is what I don't understand. If Lord can take all of these memories from people with his powers, why doesn't he simply piece together the memories in his own head? Why does he need to organize them through the use of technology? All he'd need to do is store the useful images in his head and chuck out the useless ones. Using this machine is entirely pointless, as we will soon discover.
At Watchtower, Clark and Chloe find out Lois is kidnapped by thugs. They find out that Maxwell Lord was the one who pulled Sacks out of prison and Clark goes to find him. At the club, he knocks Sacks unconscious and realizes that he is a Checkmate agent.
Down below, Maxwell tries to pull the memories from Lois' head but realizes that she's subconsciosly trying to fight his powers. Clark tells him to stop from the shadows and Maxwell tells him he'll destroy every memory in Lois' head if he comes any closer. Clark figures out what Maxwell's machine is for and says that none of them knows who he is. Maxwell agrees and tells him that Lois is protecting her memories of him because he thinks she loves the Blur. Clark decides to smash the machine and take Maxwell down (even though Lord just warned him that he'll turn Lois' brain cells to syrup if he took another step closer) and Lois wakes up in the room.
She sees Clark's "S" symbol and trenchoat reflected on a TV screen in front of her and realizes the Blur is there only a couple of feet behind her. Tempted as she is, Lois says she can't know who he is because it would mean he couldn't protect Metropolis anymore. Both heartbroken, their hands touch and he realizes why he can't tell her the truth. Clark speeds off and Lois is left in tears.
At a phone booth, Lois picks up a phone call from the Blur. The real Blur this time, not Zod. Clark tells her from behind the phone that there's a reason he asked her to come to the phone booth instead of by cellphone. He can't contact her anymore because it's too dangerous. He tells Lois this will be their last phone conversation. Lois protests that she doesn't care about the risk and that working with him is the most important part of her life. The Blur says she must have something more important (implying Clark) but Lois says it's about more than what she wants when she's with him. Clark realizes then how far he's let the Blur persona take both of them and says he won't call again. Through sadness, he warns Lois that if anyone calls claiming to be him, she can't believe them. He also says he'll watch over her before saying goodbye.
Maxwell manages to receive a get out of jail-free card, but it remains short lived. He's taken into a limousine where he's greeted by a women in red to which he replies, "So it's true. The Red Queen does exist."
Up on the Daily Planet rooftop, Clark surprises Lois with the romantic dinner he promised her earlier. Lois asks why she lied to him about the Blur's phone calls to which Clark says that they agreed to keep some secrets from each other. This at least shows that behind their stern, armour-hard willpowers and determinations, Lois Lane and Clark Kent remain (pardon any pun on the latter) human. They question their decisions, even when they know they were the right choice.
Lois says that the Blur called her saying they're done, but Clark assures her he's still there for her. Lois tells Clark it's not right for her to ask him to be okay with what's happened between her and the Blur. She says it was like she finally had a calling to something greater. She wonders if asking for anything more than her duty to helping people was selfish to which Clark says he understands. For a third time, Clark is on the tip of spilling the beans but pulls back at the last minute. Instead, he asks Lois a simple question. "I guess with him gone, the question is...am I enough?"
What we are left with here is a DYNAMITE analysis of Clark and Lois' relationship. People have long debated over whether it's the Superman or Clark Kent side that Lois Lane fell in love with and we have never really received a concrete answer. Torn between these two sides has never been more heartbreaking with these characters. Bravo! This is the perfect way to end the episode.
CRITICAL NOTES
Gil Bellows as the new character of Maxwell Lord was portrayed nicely. A sophisticated figure, but a rebelliousness of his own. It also didn't help he was introduced so late into the episode.
Blu Mankuma's portrayal of Franklin Stern was a man who was confident, but perhaps a little overconfident. What he was given, he certainly worked with. But what he was given was apparently an idiot. Clark and Lois have already proven their worthy of their press passes, you don't stick them into a cage with a single knife and expect one of them to emerge alive!
Tom Welling and Erica Durance brought their characters to life so magnificently this episode. Their scene toward the end where Lois and Clark can only hold each other's hand was most definetely a highlight. Welling couldn't utter a single word and really could hardly move in that scene without his character ruining the scene. He pulled it off exactly as it should have been.
Direction was very nicely captured in most cases, particularly when it came to action.
The writing for this episode was absolutely stunning when it came to analyzing Lois and Clark's relationship. Not only does this writer understand how their romance works and how Lois respects the Blur to the point of love, they're able to form their yet-to-be legendary romance into a solid sub plot. This would leave any Superman fan stumped as to how this problem will be resolved.
RATING: 9/10
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Smallville Absolute Justice Review
Two superhero generations are about to collide
Since we're nearing the end of Season 9, I figure I can go a bit out of order when it comes to episodes this season. So let's take a look at what is undoubtedly going to be Season 9's unforgettable TV Movie, Smallville: Absolute Justice.
The episode begins with Chloe Sullivan contacting Clark about trying to regroup with the rest of the Justice League. However the power begins to go out all around the area and she runs into a man with a glowing staff named Sylvester Pemberton. He tells her that he knows all about Watchtower and her "special friends" and alludes that he knows a couple of similar people himself. Before he can go into detail, they are interrupted when it suddenly gets much colder. Pemberton panics and stuffs Chloe into a dumpster, where she sees ice and lights flash all over the place. When the chaos is over, Pemberton lies dying from his wounds and warns Chloe that others like him will be targeted now. With one last breath he utters the word "Check".
At Metropolis General Hospital, Clark arrives to see Chloe who is being checked for her wounds and the police are questioning her about Pemberton's murder. Chloe manages to copy data from Pemberton's phone before the cops send her off and Clark sees a young teenager who is upset over Pemberton's death. He tries to help her, but because of his Daily Planet press pass he is mistaken for wanting an interview and the girl tells him he can shove his tape recorder up, up and away. Chloe informs Clark the last person Pemberton talked to was a man named Wesley Dodds.
In an apartment, Dodds dreams about the attack that left Pemberton dead and therefore dawns a fedora and gas mask. Okay, let's see where he's going with this. Right after putting on the costume, he's confronted by Pemberton's icy killer who addresses him as "The Sandman" and tells him "it's time to put you to sleep."
Yeah, his puns aren't that clever. But come on, give the guy at least one line of dialogue!
Oliver then arrives at Watchtower where Chloe has been trying to call the Justice League together, but of course no reply. I find it interesting that leadership of this team seems to have shifted almost unofficially to Chloe while Oliver simply follows orders and comes whenever she whistles for him. She's even managed to hack into the League's e-mail where Ollie tries to reassure him that his messages with Black Canary are "purely platonic".
Reference alert! And you can expect a lot of that this episode, since it's been written by comic book writer Geoff Johns.
Chloe realizes that Pemberton's belongings have been stolen by the blonde teenager, who Watchtower identifies as Courtney Whitmore. Ollie is instructed to go and steal it back, not as Green Arrow, but as himself! Because apparently a billionaire playboy is so inconspicuous a persona to use as a thief.
Clark goes to Dodd's apartment but finds himself too late to stop him from being killed. Written in Dodd's blood, his final act was to write "JSA" on a turned over table.
Dodd's body is taken to the morgue where Emil Hamilton inspects it. He confirms ice was the method of murder, but that is has human DNA within it that didn't belong to Dodds', which spells out a metahuman is responsible. In a room decorated to resemble a chess board, the killer lays out a number of photos taken of Whitmore, Pemberton, Dodds and several others he has on his hit list.
Back at the Daily Planet, Clark and Chloe go through the newspaper archives to figure out what Dodds and Pemberton had in common. They all have a criminal record and were said to have worked with a number of others in this supposed criminal organization. Pemberton was accused of stealing from his own corporation, while Dodds was arrested at a student riot. We're then introduced to other members of their organization.
Al Pratt, a physics professor who assaulted police. Ted Grant, a heavyweight champion. Jay Garrick a research scientist. Alan Sco...
Hold on a second! Back in the episode "Run", Bart had the name "Jay Garrick" on one of his fake IDs! Are we seriously not going to make any connection there? Clark was right there in the room! In fact he was the one who read the name out loud!
Alan Scott is another name, the CEO of a broadcasting company with an usual green lantern shaped ring on his finger. Abigail Hunkle follows, an elderly woman who is dragged away from what seems to be a kitchen. Clark and Chloe realize that there's substantial lack of evidence in their charges and that aside from their criminal records they don't see much connection. They find a name in Carter Hall, an archeologist who was also on Pemberton's call list. Clark and Chloe begin to question just what kind of team this was.
Clark ventures off to the museum Carter works in where he runs into Mr. Hall to inform him that Pemberton and Dodds are dead. We're then shown a homeless man in the back of the room clutching a bag while whispering to himself DC reference after DC reference. His name is Dr. Kent Nelson. Carter tells Clark he didn't answer Pemberton's calls and hasn't talked to him or Dodds in years. Of course Clark's instincts tell him Hall is hiding something, or rather Kent in particular. He uses his X-ray vision to look inside the bag to see a helmet that he's talking to. Surprisingly, the helmet looks right freakin' at him when he realizes its there! Carter tells Clark to get lost, which he promptly does. Carter tells Kent that they need to handle their problems on their own, but Kent says maybe they shouldn't this time.
On the other side of Metropolis, Ollie finds Courtney who has stolen Pemberton's light staff. Like a clever thief, she's holding stolen police evidence in the middle of BROAD DAYLIGHT! Ollie tries to convince her to hand the staff over because he wants to find out who Pemberton's killer is, but before Courtney can respond, Kent Nelson pops in to flash the light in Ollie's face and vanish with Courtney.
Ollie and Chloe go to Pemberton's car, the Star Rocket Racer. Yes, that's actually a comic book reference so don't think that was Chloe, Ollie and Clark, but the entire Justice League. Because Pemberton knew who they were, they assume Courtney does as well because she followed him around.
At the museum, Courtney runs into Hall who takes the light staff out of her hands and tells her to go home to her stepfather. Courtney thinks that Carter knows as much as she does who the killer is and they need to do something. Carter tells her no, pointing at Kent and how he is right now. Courtney says she'll go to the Justice League for help, but Carter says they aren't even a real team. Courtney then hits a hard note on Carter's conscience when she asks "What would Shiera have done?"
Uh, don't you mean "What would Jesus do?"
Outside the Daily Planet, Chloe tells Clark that Pemberton knew their identities and passed on this information to his old playmates before he was killed. Chloe also informs him that the method of death by ice led her to the name of Joar Mahkent, who years ago was a cryogenic hitman who went by the name "Icicle". He's currently in Met Gen in a coma from severe injuries he received years ago. After all that's happened, Clark wonders if he's truly there.
At the museum, Carter tells Kent that they're going to need "him", which Kent is instantly terrified of because he's referring to the head in the bag. He says he wishes how he could remember his life before "him", which is revealed to be someone by the name of Doctor Fate. When Fate came in, he caused Kent to forget all about his previous life including his wife Inza. Kent believes Fate caused him to scare his family away, but Carter assures him he still has a family. This is enough to strengthen Kent who takes out the gold helmet out of the bag, puts it on his head and is surrounded by mystical energy. Eventually he is transformed from psychotic hobo to practically a cross between Darth Vader and a Power Ranger. This is Doctor Fate, ladies and gentlemen and he addresses Carter as "Hawkman". With the good doctor back at his practise, Carter unveils a secret compartment containing a helmet, a mace and a pair of wings and says it's time to get to work.
Chloe and Clark go to Met Gen to see the Icicle, who is just as comatose as his medical charts say he is. However, Doctor Fate has broken into the room where he's sucking information from the snowman's noggin'. Clark tries to stop Fate, who upon contact is able to see the future of our Kryptonian with the sight of a red cape flying in the wind and realizes Clark's destiny.
Okay, not only are they using archive footage but that's a pretty cheap way of him knowing all that from one flicker of crimson fabric! Either that or anybody who wears a cape in the future with psychadelic lights around them must be an all-powerful god of a superhero and you know, not some teenager at a Halloween Party with a strobe light!
Well Fate realizes who Clark is and warns Chloe that her fate will be the same as his own. He then kidnaps Clark through magic and they teleport away together. Chloe panics and sends Green Arrow to find Clark, but instead runs into Courtney now dressed in a patriotic costume. He thinks she's making herself a target and he comes down to stop her, but after an argument is taken down by, who else? The Icicle!
No, no, not the one we just saw in a coma. This is a different Icicle, one complete with more lame puns than Arnold Schwarzenegger's portrayal of Mr. Freeze. Now that is pretty hard to beat.
Courtney fights off Icicle II, claiming herself to be "Stargirl". She's nearly killed by a hail of icicles when Green Arrow saves her, but like half the people in Smallville, she's ungrateful for him saving her life. Instead Carter flies in as the winged Hawkman to take care of Arrow for ruining their ambush. He then drops him off in the safest way possible...by chucking through the Watchtower's stainglass window.
Wow dude, there's teaching the guy a lesson and then there's just being a tool for the sake of being one.
Anyway Chloe goes to help Arrow when Hawkman warns them to back off in a deep gravely Batman voice before flying off. Chloe takes care of Ollie's wounds, feeling discouraged that these people know so much about the League and they know nothing of them. Ollie though has pulled a slight of hand and was able to grab a shuriken from Hawkman while he was in flight. Chloe realizes that it's from the same museum Clark went to earlier and tells Oliver to go in after him while making a phone call to John Jones for help.
Clark wakes up in the museum where he goes through the "artifacts". They are really memorabilia of Hawkman's ex-colleagues (Green Lantern's lantern, Flash's helmet, Wildcat's fighting gloves etc), which leaves him puzzled. He goes over to a wall where he finds a painting somewhat resembling that of DaVinci's The Last Supper except it contains superheroes. Steadily he connects the dots and realizes that the "criminal organization" from before is in fact the Justice Society of America.
Now this is part in the episode shows a very nostalgic and emotional moment where we see all that the Society members had to sacrifice during their careers and see the faces behind the costumes. This is also where the episode really brings to full its whole "Watchmen" feel to it where we see two generations looking back on each other and working together. You'll get a lot of that this episode.
Hawkman, Doctor Fate and Courtney enter the room to confront Clark. Apparently the Doc brought Clark there because "his path is righteous". Clark asks why they've been watching the League, to which Courtney replies Pemberton originally wanted a new Society with the members left along with the new generation. Of course Hawkman brings out the "I don't like change!" old guy side out and says that they'll just make the same mistakes the Society did in the past. In the midst of their arguing, Ollie breaks in without his hood and fires an arrow at the painting of Hawkman.
First of all, why are you bother firing it at the painting? "Yeah! Take that! That's...that's gonna be you in like...two seconds! Yeah!" Second, just because some of them know who you are doesn't mean there isn't the chance somebody in the room won't! For goodness sake, I'm surprised Icicle never thought of breaking into their headquarters all along!
Ollie is upset that Hawkman chucked him through the Watchtower's window, to which Carter sneers "I hope I didn't make you cry!" Through some pretty harsh banter, Ollie finally makes his move but ends up slammed onto the table by Hawkman with a mace chucked at his face. Of course because Hawkman apparently has the reflexes of anybody in slow motion (only in regular motion), Ollie pulls out his crossbow and points it his head. John Jones arrives at the meeting and says "I hope it's not too late to say we come in peace."
If that was a bad alien joke, that was a really bad alien joke.
What's awesome about this scene is that before the TV movie premiered, Geoff Johns said Arrow and Hawkman wouldn't get along together and this is definetely his word fulfilled to the letter. Could you imagine Doctor Fate locking these two in a room and saying "You can come out when you've both thought about what you've done?" They'd have killed each other before the lock even snapped!
Back around the Justice Society's table, Hawkman says the murder of their teammates is their business and tells the League to take a hike. They of course don't budge and say that they're making it their business. This then follows into the classic John Jones monologue. He says the reason he didn't leave Earth back when he had powers was because he believed in hope for the future. Humanity's capacity for violence is great but there capacity for hope is greater than any he's ever encountered.
John...what in Rao's name are you talking about?!
This subject could not be more randomly squeezed into the conversation. Here they are talking about a murderer and that the League shouldn't be involved in their priorities and he just goes into this whole speel about hope! It's like he's just been waiting for like an hour thinking "Awww man, I just wanna go into a whole speech about hope! Hope is good! Yeah, cookies are good too! Hey, I'll talk about cookies next!" This feels so out of context when spoken, but of course you'll find out later that his speech is necessary for Clark to learn about himself.
Clark says the League isn't going anywhere and we cut to Lois Lane at the Daily Planet. Yes, because this is technically a Smallville Two Parter, Erica Durance appears in the second half. She mistakes a guy with glasses to be Clark and also alludes to her secret ambitions for mud wrestling along the way. I smell the next water cooler story at the office!
Lois ends up at her desk where a black and white package is on her desk saying "The truth will set you free" and containing the profiles of the Justice Society members. Tess of course comes in trying to take the package from her but Lois reminds her who's name was on it from the sender and has her boss slinking away.
Because she's Lois Freakin' Lane! Dang! Erica Durance is on fire this episode, even for a character so spicy, and she only stepped through the door less than five minutes ago!
Back at Men Gen, Icicle II goes to visit Icicle I where it's revealed that he is the latter's son. He wants revenge on the Society for putting his pappy into a cold slumber and then treats us with an icy tear of regret. Reminding us again just which lame ice themed villain we'll be comparing him to for the next hour!
At the museum, the Society says that they broke up in the past because the government wanted them to work as agents, once again a Watchmen reference. The Society said "no" and so the government started to uncover their identites and frame them for crimes, which eventually led to them quitting when they couldn't fight back anymore. Courtney reminds Carter that they have a plot to get on with and that there's still living members of the Society who will be targeted by the Icicle next. So they FINALLY agree to work with the League and try to figure out where Icicle might be next. Chloe wanders into the scene to say that Icicle has been spotted near the hospital visiting his dad and that his powers will likely require recharging from liquid nitrogen. She says she'll need their computer to find the nearest nitrogen depot, to which we're shown their really beat up computer with the punch hole cards.
Oh yeah, 'cause they're old, right? Okay, I admit that was a clever joke. But seriously, with Watchtower's network Chloe could probably figure out the name of the kid who poured paint on her dress back in kindergarten! Don't tell us she can't find a freakin' nitrogen depot!
Back at the Daily Planet, Tess finds her office broken into with her computer fizzing in and out and a white chess piece left on her desk. Yeah, because whoever left it there must have thought "Hey! You know what would REALLY freak her out? Having her computer flicker in and out while she looks at that chess piece! I mean I know it's probably going to be a HUGE inconvenience to her job and totally irrelevant to what I'm supposed to be doing, but I just can't resist adding to the coolness factor!"
At Watchtower, Courtney and Chloe are apparently taking a break from their life and death mission where Courtney divulges into how she joined the Society. Her stepdad used to be Pemberton's old sidekick Stripesy and she found Pemberton's old equipment at the house one day. Well why was Stripsey holding his partner's outfit all these years? Eventually Courtney got hooked into the Stargirl role. She tells Chloe that she needs to lighten up with the Watchtower being so dark and brooding and says that the old museum used to be where the Society members would have Thanksgiving with their kids.
Yeah! Because a little kid is just the perfect person you want trusting your secret identity to! Geez, no wonder the government found your secret identities out! You probably bribed their sons and daughters with Pop Rocks for crying out loud!
Chloe and Courtney are contacted by Ollie and Hawkman. I say Ollie instead of Arrow because he TAKES OFF HIS GLASSES AND HOOD! Yeah, he's on a building rooftop but there's absolutely no reason he should be taking off his disguise! You're a superhero, you idiot! How can Hawkman of all people not be berating him for this?
Well Chloe made a call to Icicle II with the ruse that his dad's condition is worsening to get him to go to the hospital. Ollie and Hawkman argue to the point where Hawkman even tells Ollie to just plain-old "Shut up". Ollie wants to know why Icicle would have waited all these years to get back at the Society for what they did. Of course Hawkman has no answer.
Back at the museum, Doctor Fate has asked Clark to stay for a minute. Because their most powerful member should be hearing a little bit of something he's already going to know years down the road when their members are getting killed off one by freakin' one! Fate tells Clark that the useless hope monlogue John spoke of earlier wasn't useless at all, because Clark is the hope he was talking about! Fate says that Clark will be the one to lead his generation of superheroes in the future, which reminds him of the Legion of Superheroes visit back last year. Fate decides to be more specific then they were of their warnings and says that one day Clark will defeat his ultimate opponent Lex Luthor. Clark says that Lex is dead and Fate changes the subject.
What the...?! He just said he would be specific! Yeah, I get everyone who was worried Lex was gone for good now is expressing a sigh of relief, but you can't just do that when Fate said he wasn't going to be vague about it!
Anyway Fate alludes that Clark will lead a "silver age" of heroism. I know that's supposed to be poetic to the DC Comics, but for anyone unfamiliar, isn't that a kind of sting to Superman! "Yes, you'll be the silver age, because we were the golden age. Because, not to toot my own horn here, but we were freakin' GODS!"
Fate also references that Clark's future will be fulfilled when people look up to the sky to see him with hope, alluding that Smallville is liking to end with Clark not only in the costume we know but taking off for the first real time. Meanwhile Lois has broken into the museum with the info she's given and Clark runs off even after Fate says that she is "The Key".
Oh no, why is there always someone to has to be "The Key"? Can't somebody just be "AK-47" for once? It makes things go so much faster!
Anyway Fate tells Lois that he sees her future and that "you are the one he will need. He is the one you will need." Of course, a reference to Superman, or as he put it "the sentient power". The awesome thing here is that the way it's spoken it doesn't sound like Fate's saying that just for the sake of a comic book reference, his tone is serious and it almost sounds like a grave warning that these two are equals and they'll need each other if they're going to get through what's ahead.
Back at the black and white room, Icicle II is greeted by a woman named Agent Waller, his employer. She warns him that he's making this too personal in getting revenge on the Justice Society. Icicle II has apparently been in contract for killing people on behalf of the organization she works for, Checkmate. Eventually she caves in and says she'll let him finish what he started.
Clark goes to the Daily Planet, once again the only member of the team not going out to do something about this Icicle guy. Need I remind you that he could probably search every possible nook and cranny of Metropolis in about ten minutes tops and yet Chloe has John, Ollie, Carter and the Doc going out to find Frosty?
Clark catches Tess rummaging through Lois' desk, searching through her files. Apparently her usual "lackeys" for doing that kind of task have the day off. Clark takes the files out of Tess' hands, only to look through them himself. He tells Tess to get lost, apparently not giving a crap that anybody who may be watching them might think "Dude, is he telling his boss to take a hike?" Tess warns Clark that whatever Lois is involved in is way over her head.
Lois eventually runs into Clark and tells him she received classified information from an unknown sender about superheroes like the Blur. Clark insists that she let him join her, but she gives a polite "no" this time around for ditching her at breakfast. She also tells him how Icicle II was in juvenile hall but that the government pulled some strings to get him out. The real good stuff is when she says that every one of the super-baddies the Justice Society ever fought now has been released by the feds. Clark realizes that they're being collected.
At a nitrogen depot, John Jones and Doctor Fate (well at least you're putting ONE all powerful being into action) go searching for Icicle II. Fate is interested in John for sacrificing his powers to save Clark back in Season 8. Fate says that John sees what he does in Clark and relates to the Martian in many ways. He tells him that his powers became too much and eventually he lost his family. Fate then decides to open some old wounds and asks John about his family back on Mars before they were killed; his wife and daughter. John admits it so and Fate realizes he misses his family.
Well, duh! Of course he's going to miss his family when you just brought up their DEATHS!
John and Fate are confronted by Icicle II, but Fate uses his magic to turn John back into his Martian form momentarily before knocking him unconscious. Icicle II takes this oppurtunity to jam an icicle through the magician's chest, killing Nelson but with the Helmet of Nabu still whispering. Icicle II realizes the potential power and takes it away.
At Met Gen (geez, you people sure LOVE your hospitals this episode), Hamilton looks over John who is supposedly in some strange of metamorphosis. Clark and Courtney go to visit, finding out Hawkman has gone rogue to bring Icicle II down for killing his friend. Courtney says she wishes Hawkman would find Icicle II first, to do what she can't even though she knows it's wrong. Clark reminds her it is wrong and it's up to her to correct her generation from the mistakes of the past. Courtney says he reminds her a lot of Pemberton back when he was alive.
Back at the Daily Planet, Lois is rummaging through files when she's confronted by Agent Waller. She says she hired Lois because of her in depth and investigative reporting. She gives Lois a communicator and tells her she'll be in touch.
Icicle II goes back to Met Gen (yes, because THAT'S A NEW LOCATION) to visit his old man with the Helmet of Nabu. He tells him that this will give him the power to take down the Justice Society once and for all and then wishes him goodbye, realizing his father's condition has worsened. Icicle II then pulls the plug on his dad, puts the helmet on his head and screams.
Now here's something I'm wondering, if the helmet's supposed to be able to do all this crazy stuff, why doesn't Icicle II just put it on his dad's head and heal him? I mean hypothetically, couldn't it work? Here he'd not only have his father back, he'd be much more powerful and they'd BOTH get to take down the Justice Society for what they did to them. But no, we have to be all moody!
At the museum, Carter is furious and Ollie says they should regroup with the others before taking on Icicle II for what he did to Doctor Fate. Ollie knows that Carter is dangerous when angry, but Carter doesn't listen and loads up on weapons. Ollie sees a scratched Hawkman-like mask in a glass case with a female dummy's head and realizes the connection and thinks she was the reason Carter crossed the line and shut the team down. Carter reveals she was Shiera Hall/Hawkgirl, his wife who was killed in battle. Apparently Carter and Shiera were born eons ago and were cursed to be reincarnated throughout eternity and watch each other die after falling in love. After losing everyone around him, Carter welcomes getting killed so that he can be reunited with Shiera. Ollie says that he also went through a stage of wanting death, but reminds him that people need him. Steadily they come onto common ground and decide to rejoin with the team.
Hawkman flies Arrow to Watchtower to regroup with Chloe, Stargirl and Clark dressed in his Blur trenchcoat. ABOUT FREAKIN' TIME! They realize they can't break apart anymore and...son of a gun...Icicle II pops in (literally) with much stronger powers with the Mask of Loki, I mean Helmet of Nabu on his head.
The League and Society take Icicle II on all at once, all of their weapons seemingly powerless against the helmet. Icicle is just about to freeze Stargirl when John Jones flies in to save the day, his powers not only returned but evolved! Icicle says he thought he killed John, but the Martian replies "I'm Mars sole survivor. There's a reason for that."
Uh, no Icicle you didn't kill him. You didn't even touch him. You just saw him lying on the ground motionless. Idiot.
Anyway, the League and Society take Icicle II down and Hawkman knocks the helmet off his head. When it does, we somehow go from night to day outside the Watchtower. I guess Icicle decided to screw with daylight for the sake of having a dark atmosphere for his final showdown.
At the museum, Hawkman is hanging off his wings when Clark goes to visit him. He tells Clark he doesn't do this job for glory or vengeance and the League isn't what he thought it was. Carter says Clark needs to start trusting them more but that they'll make mistakes. He says he has the capacity to break the chains holding him down and when he does, the future Doctor Fate spoke of will be fulfilled. Clark asks if Carter will stop his hero job and he says "no". Is that just the word of the day? Hawkman and Courtney are going to find the old Society members and train their children and students how to become heroes. Courtney then comes in and asks Clark what they call his team, to which he replies "a work in progress".
Yes, in a TV special where it's just reference after reference after reference after FREAKIN' REFERENCE, Smallville just has to keep one last big tribute under wraps. Needless to say, they've earned it.
At Watchtower, Chloe is greeted by a gust of wind and turns to face Clark, only to find John Jones. He expresses regret that Doctor Fate sacrificed his life to give him his powers back, but says the Helmet of Nabu will one day find a new host to become the next Doctor Fate. He tells Chloe that now that he's put the "super" back into superhero, he won't let his powerless experience go to waste. Now he'll use every tool he's got. Ollie steps in to invite them to dinner to which Chloe and John accept, giving hope that the League will start to lighten up about their superhero alter egos.
Let's just hope they're not on break when Darkseid hits our doorstep.
At the Daily Planet, Lois has gotten her story put on the front page "Who was the Justice Society of America?" She says the writer's names could have read Clark's name next to hers, forgetting that he had begged her for that earlier. Lois also tells him how Doctor Fate had spoke of her future and "the sentient power". Clark asks if she believes in fate, to which she replies "Only the kind you make happen."
Gushy, but not the worst romantic dialogue I've heard these two share.
Back at Checkmate, Icicle II is held hostage with his head all screwy from putting the helmet on. Dude, you don't just slap a mystical object onto your scalp and think there's going to be zero side effects! Waller comes in to tell him that he didn't fail his mission, but that his real objective was to get the Justice Society back into the game. She wants the old and current generation of heroes to come together to stop the "apokolips" that's headed for Earth.
And yes, according to the writer Geoff Johns himself, the line is supposed to be written in that manner. You didn't think I threw that Darkseid reference up there for nothing, did you?
Anyway Waller says Icicle's usefulness is over with and pulls a gun on him to say "Welcome to the Suicide Squad" another DC comic reference. Surprisingly, Icicle welcomes the bullet which he receives at about 200 miles per hour aimed for his closest cranium. Waller exits the room to greet her fellow Checkmate agent...Tess Mercer!
Dude, that's not surprising. Don't you know Tess has made it her number one priority to join as many evil organizations as humanly possible? In fifteen minutes she has a joint meeting with a doomsday cult and the Walt Disney corporation!
CRITICAL COMMENTS
We have a lot of great examples of new characters brought to life. Britt Irvin portrays Courtney Whitmore as a girl who enters the superhero business young, but still has her share of experience. She's not too "let's make this a happy time", she does have some decent moments of taking things as grim as they are.
Michael Shanks embodies a very dark, gritty portrayal of Carter Hall, a believable representation of the Society's leader. Where his performance dropped was his choice of what has now been known as the Christian Bale Batman Voice. Aside from his first couple of scenes in the first parter and last scene in the second parter, he doesn't drop the voice even when he's out of costume!
Brent Strait as Doctor Fate is most definetely the character who is shown uniquely different from his comic book persona, but retains the same gravitas he's known for. We see a very sympathetic light to who he is long before he is killed and every line broken in both his roles as Nelson and Fate are awesome.
Pam Grier as Amanda Waller is shown as a woman who takes charge from her very first appearance. She's able to come down to the same level as our other cast members, but for the most part you can feel her as intimidating even from behind the scenes.
Wesley Macinnes has a couple of sympathetic moments with his character of Icicle, but much like the now Governor Schwarzenegger, the puns are what kills him. Not to mention we've seen characters seeking for daddy's approval or vengeance before on Smallville and there's not that much creativity to him.
The rest of the cast brings their roles exceptionally well to the table, with everyone finding someone they can relate to.
RATING: 9/10
Geoff Johns shows his finest Smallville script yet with Society and lets viewers know just why he's so good at what he does. Glen Winter's direction of the first part is primarily just steady build up, but shows a good number of fine moments. Tom Welling's second part is where we're able to see the tension grow tighter with every scene that plays onward.
Since we're nearing the end of Season 9, I figure I can go a bit out of order when it comes to episodes this season. So let's take a look at what is undoubtedly going to be Season 9's unforgettable TV Movie, Smallville: Absolute Justice.
The episode begins with Chloe Sullivan contacting Clark about trying to regroup with the rest of the Justice League. However the power begins to go out all around the area and she runs into a man with a glowing staff named Sylvester Pemberton. He tells her that he knows all about Watchtower and her "special friends" and alludes that he knows a couple of similar people himself. Before he can go into detail, they are interrupted when it suddenly gets much colder. Pemberton panics and stuffs Chloe into a dumpster, where she sees ice and lights flash all over the place. When the chaos is over, Pemberton lies dying from his wounds and warns Chloe that others like him will be targeted now. With one last breath he utters the word "Check".
At Metropolis General Hospital, Clark arrives to see Chloe who is being checked for her wounds and the police are questioning her about Pemberton's murder. Chloe manages to copy data from Pemberton's phone before the cops send her off and Clark sees a young teenager who is upset over Pemberton's death. He tries to help her, but because of his Daily Planet press pass he is mistaken for wanting an interview and the girl tells him he can shove his tape recorder up, up and away. Chloe informs Clark the last person Pemberton talked to was a man named Wesley Dodds.
In an apartment, Dodds dreams about the attack that left Pemberton dead and therefore dawns a fedora and gas mask. Okay, let's see where he's going with this. Right after putting on the costume, he's confronted by Pemberton's icy killer who addresses him as "The Sandman" and tells him "it's time to put you to sleep."
Yeah, his puns aren't that clever. But come on, give the guy at least one line of dialogue!
Oliver then arrives at Watchtower where Chloe has been trying to call the Justice League together, but of course no reply. I find it interesting that leadership of this team seems to have shifted almost unofficially to Chloe while Oliver simply follows orders and comes whenever she whistles for him. She's even managed to hack into the League's e-mail where Ollie tries to reassure him that his messages with Black Canary are "purely platonic".
Reference alert! And you can expect a lot of that this episode, since it's been written by comic book writer Geoff Johns.
Chloe realizes that Pemberton's belongings have been stolen by the blonde teenager, who Watchtower identifies as Courtney Whitmore. Ollie is instructed to go and steal it back, not as Green Arrow, but as himself! Because apparently a billionaire playboy is so inconspicuous a persona to use as a thief.
Clark goes to Dodd's apartment but finds himself too late to stop him from being killed. Written in Dodd's blood, his final act was to write "JSA" on a turned over table.
Dodd's body is taken to the morgue where Emil Hamilton inspects it. He confirms ice was the method of murder, but that is has human DNA within it that didn't belong to Dodds', which spells out a metahuman is responsible. In a room decorated to resemble a chess board, the killer lays out a number of photos taken of Whitmore, Pemberton, Dodds and several others he has on his hit list.
Back at the Daily Planet, Clark and Chloe go through the newspaper archives to figure out what Dodds and Pemberton had in common. They all have a criminal record and were said to have worked with a number of others in this supposed criminal organization. Pemberton was accused of stealing from his own corporation, while Dodds was arrested at a student riot. We're then introduced to other members of their organization.
Al Pratt, a physics professor who assaulted police. Ted Grant, a heavyweight champion. Jay Garrick a research scientist. Alan Sco...
Hold on a second! Back in the episode "Run", Bart had the name "Jay Garrick" on one of his fake IDs! Are we seriously not going to make any connection there? Clark was right there in the room! In fact he was the one who read the name out loud!
Alan Scott is another name, the CEO of a broadcasting company with an usual green lantern shaped ring on his finger. Abigail Hunkle follows, an elderly woman who is dragged away from what seems to be a kitchen. Clark and Chloe realize that there's substantial lack of evidence in their charges and that aside from their criminal records they don't see much connection. They find a name in Carter Hall, an archeologist who was also on Pemberton's call list. Clark and Chloe begin to question just what kind of team this was.
Clark ventures off to the museum Carter works in where he runs into Mr. Hall to inform him that Pemberton and Dodds are dead. We're then shown a homeless man in the back of the room clutching a bag while whispering to himself DC reference after DC reference. His name is Dr. Kent Nelson. Carter tells Clark he didn't answer Pemberton's calls and hasn't talked to him or Dodds in years. Of course Clark's instincts tell him Hall is hiding something, or rather Kent in particular. He uses his X-ray vision to look inside the bag to see a helmet that he's talking to. Surprisingly, the helmet looks right freakin' at him when he realizes its there! Carter tells Clark to get lost, which he promptly does. Carter tells Kent that they need to handle their problems on their own, but Kent says maybe they shouldn't this time.
On the other side of Metropolis, Ollie finds Courtney who has stolen Pemberton's light staff. Like a clever thief, she's holding stolen police evidence in the middle of BROAD DAYLIGHT! Ollie tries to convince her to hand the staff over because he wants to find out who Pemberton's killer is, but before Courtney can respond, Kent Nelson pops in to flash the light in Ollie's face and vanish with Courtney.
Ollie and Chloe go to Pemberton's car, the Star Rocket Racer. Yes, that's actually a comic book reference so don't think that was Chloe, Ollie and Clark, but the entire Justice League. Because Pemberton knew who they were, they assume Courtney does as well because she followed him around.
At the museum, Courtney runs into Hall who takes the light staff out of her hands and tells her to go home to her stepfather. Courtney thinks that Carter knows as much as she does who the killer is and they need to do something. Carter tells her no, pointing at Kent and how he is right now. Courtney says she'll go to the Justice League for help, but Carter says they aren't even a real team. Courtney then hits a hard note on Carter's conscience when she asks "What would Shiera have done?"
Uh, don't you mean "What would Jesus do?"
Outside the Daily Planet, Chloe tells Clark that Pemberton knew their identities and passed on this information to his old playmates before he was killed. Chloe also informs him that the method of death by ice led her to the name of Joar Mahkent, who years ago was a cryogenic hitman who went by the name "Icicle". He's currently in Met Gen in a coma from severe injuries he received years ago. After all that's happened, Clark wonders if he's truly there.
At the museum, Carter tells Kent that they're going to need "him", which Kent is instantly terrified of because he's referring to the head in the bag. He says he wishes how he could remember his life before "him", which is revealed to be someone by the name of Doctor Fate. When Fate came in, he caused Kent to forget all about his previous life including his wife Inza. Kent believes Fate caused him to scare his family away, but Carter assures him he still has a family. This is enough to strengthen Kent who takes out the gold helmet out of the bag, puts it on his head and is surrounded by mystical energy. Eventually he is transformed from psychotic hobo to practically a cross between Darth Vader and a Power Ranger. This is Doctor Fate, ladies and gentlemen and he addresses Carter as "Hawkman". With the good doctor back at his practise, Carter unveils a secret compartment containing a helmet, a mace and a pair of wings and says it's time to get to work.
Chloe and Clark go to Met Gen to see the Icicle, who is just as comatose as his medical charts say he is. However, Doctor Fate has broken into the room where he's sucking information from the snowman's noggin'. Clark tries to stop Fate, who upon contact is able to see the future of our Kryptonian with the sight of a red cape flying in the wind and realizes Clark's destiny.
Okay, not only are they using archive footage but that's a pretty cheap way of him knowing all that from one flicker of crimson fabric! Either that or anybody who wears a cape in the future with psychadelic lights around them must be an all-powerful god of a superhero and you know, not some teenager at a Halloween Party with a strobe light!
Well Fate realizes who Clark is and warns Chloe that her fate will be the same as his own. He then kidnaps Clark through magic and they teleport away together. Chloe panics and sends Green Arrow to find Clark, but instead runs into Courtney now dressed in a patriotic costume. He thinks she's making herself a target and he comes down to stop her, but after an argument is taken down by, who else? The Icicle!
No, no, not the one we just saw in a coma. This is a different Icicle, one complete with more lame puns than Arnold Schwarzenegger's portrayal of Mr. Freeze. Now that is pretty hard to beat.
Courtney fights off Icicle II, claiming herself to be "Stargirl". She's nearly killed by a hail of icicles when Green Arrow saves her, but like half the people in Smallville, she's ungrateful for him saving her life. Instead Carter flies in as the winged Hawkman to take care of Arrow for ruining their ambush. He then drops him off in the safest way possible...by chucking through the Watchtower's stainglass window.
Wow dude, there's teaching the guy a lesson and then there's just being a tool for the sake of being one.
Anyway Chloe goes to help Arrow when Hawkman warns them to back off in a deep gravely Batman voice before flying off. Chloe takes care of Ollie's wounds, feeling discouraged that these people know so much about the League and they know nothing of them. Ollie though has pulled a slight of hand and was able to grab a shuriken from Hawkman while he was in flight. Chloe realizes that it's from the same museum Clark went to earlier and tells Oliver to go in after him while making a phone call to John Jones for help.
Clark wakes up in the museum where he goes through the "artifacts". They are really memorabilia of Hawkman's ex-colleagues (Green Lantern's lantern, Flash's helmet, Wildcat's fighting gloves etc), which leaves him puzzled. He goes over to a wall where he finds a painting somewhat resembling that of DaVinci's The Last Supper except it contains superheroes. Steadily he connects the dots and realizes that the "criminal organization" from before is in fact the Justice Society of America.
Now this is part in the episode shows a very nostalgic and emotional moment where we see all that the Society members had to sacrifice during their careers and see the faces behind the costumes. This is also where the episode really brings to full its whole "Watchmen" feel to it where we see two generations looking back on each other and working together. You'll get a lot of that this episode.
Hawkman, Doctor Fate and Courtney enter the room to confront Clark. Apparently the Doc brought Clark there because "his path is righteous". Clark asks why they've been watching the League, to which Courtney replies Pemberton originally wanted a new Society with the members left along with the new generation. Of course Hawkman brings out the "I don't like change!" old guy side out and says that they'll just make the same mistakes the Society did in the past. In the midst of their arguing, Ollie breaks in without his hood and fires an arrow at the painting of Hawkman.
First of all, why are you bother firing it at the painting? "Yeah! Take that! That's...that's gonna be you in like...two seconds! Yeah!" Second, just because some of them know who you are doesn't mean there isn't the chance somebody in the room won't! For goodness sake, I'm surprised Icicle never thought of breaking into their headquarters all along!
Ollie is upset that Hawkman chucked him through the Watchtower's window, to which Carter sneers "I hope I didn't make you cry!" Through some pretty harsh banter, Ollie finally makes his move but ends up slammed onto the table by Hawkman with a mace chucked at his face. Of course because Hawkman apparently has the reflexes of anybody in slow motion (only in regular motion), Ollie pulls out his crossbow and points it his head. John Jones arrives at the meeting and says "I hope it's not too late to say we come in peace."
If that was a bad alien joke, that was a really bad alien joke.
What's awesome about this scene is that before the TV movie premiered, Geoff Johns said Arrow and Hawkman wouldn't get along together and this is definetely his word fulfilled to the letter. Could you imagine Doctor Fate locking these two in a room and saying "You can come out when you've both thought about what you've done?" They'd have killed each other before the lock even snapped!
Back around the Justice Society's table, Hawkman says the murder of their teammates is their business and tells the League to take a hike. They of course don't budge and say that they're making it their business. This then follows into the classic John Jones monologue. He says the reason he didn't leave Earth back when he had powers was because he believed in hope for the future. Humanity's capacity for violence is great but there capacity for hope is greater than any he's ever encountered.
John...what in Rao's name are you talking about?!
This subject could not be more randomly squeezed into the conversation. Here they are talking about a murderer and that the League shouldn't be involved in their priorities and he just goes into this whole speel about hope! It's like he's just been waiting for like an hour thinking "Awww man, I just wanna go into a whole speech about hope! Hope is good! Yeah, cookies are good too! Hey, I'll talk about cookies next!" This feels so out of context when spoken, but of course you'll find out later that his speech is necessary for Clark to learn about himself.
Clark says the League isn't going anywhere and we cut to Lois Lane at the Daily Planet. Yes, because this is technically a Smallville Two Parter, Erica Durance appears in the second half. She mistakes a guy with glasses to be Clark and also alludes to her secret ambitions for mud wrestling along the way. I smell the next water cooler story at the office!
Lois ends up at her desk where a black and white package is on her desk saying "The truth will set you free" and containing the profiles of the Justice Society members. Tess of course comes in trying to take the package from her but Lois reminds her who's name was on it from the sender and has her boss slinking away.
Because she's Lois Freakin' Lane! Dang! Erica Durance is on fire this episode, even for a character so spicy, and she only stepped through the door less than five minutes ago!
Back at Men Gen, Icicle II goes to visit Icicle I where it's revealed that he is the latter's son. He wants revenge on the Society for putting his pappy into a cold slumber and then treats us with an icy tear of regret. Reminding us again just which lame ice themed villain we'll be comparing him to for the next hour!
At the museum, the Society says that they broke up in the past because the government wanted them to work as agents, once again a Watchmen reference. The Society said "no" and so the government started to uncover their identites and frame them for crimes, which eventually led to them quitting when they couldn't fight back anymore. Courtney reminds Carter that they have a plot to get on with and that there's still living members of the Society who will be targeted by the Icicle next. So they FINALLY agree to work with the League and try to figure out where Icicle might be next. Chloe wanders into the scene to say that Icicle has been spotted near the hospital visiting his dad and that his powers will likely require recharging from liquid nitrogen. She says she'll need their computer to find the nearest nitrogen depot, to which we're shown their really beat up computer with the punch hole cards.
Oh yeah, 'cause they're old, right? Okay, I admit that was a clever joke. But seriously, with Watchtower's network Chloe could probably figure out the name of the kid who poured paint on her dress back in kindergarten! Don't tell us she can't find a freakin' nitrogen depot!
Back at the Daily Planet, Tess finds her office broken into with her computer fizzing in and out and a white chess piece left on her desk. Yeah, because whoever left it there must have thought "Hey! You know what would REALLY freak her out? Having her computer flicker in and out while she looks at that chess piece! I mean I know it's probably going to be a HUGE inconvenience to her job and totally irrelevant to what I'm supposed to be doing, but I just can't resist adding to the coolness factor!"
At Watchtower, Courtney and Chloe are apparently taking a break from their life and death mission where Courtney divulges into how she joined the Society. Her stepdad used to be Pemberton's old sidekick Stripesy and she found Pemberton's old equipment at the house one day. Well why was Stripsey holding his partner's outfit all these years? Eventually Courtney got hooked into the Stargirl role. She tells Chloe that she needs to lighten up with the Watchtower being so dark and brooding and says that the old museum used to be where the Society members would have Thanksgiving with their kids.
Yeah! Because a little kid is just the perfect person you want trusting your secret identity to! Geez, no wonder the government found your secret identities out! You probably bribed their sons and daughters with Pop Rocks for crying out loud!
Chloe and Courtney are contacted by Ollie and Hawkman. I say Ollie instead of Arrow because he TAKES OFF HIS GLASSES AND HOOD! Yeah, he's on a building rooftop but there's absolutely no reason he should be taking off his disguise! You're a superhero, you idiot! How can Hawkman of all people not be berating him for this?
Well Chloe made a call to Icicle II with the ruse that his dad's condition is worsening to get him to go to the hospital. Ollie and Hawkman argue to the point where Hawkman even tells Ollie to just plain-old "Shut up". Ollie wants to know why Icicle would have waited all these years to get back at the Society for what they did. Of course Hawkman has no answer.
Back at the museum, Doctor Fate has asked Clark to stay for a minute. Because their most powerful member should be hearing a little bit of something he's already going to know years down the road when their members are getting killed off one by freakin' one! Fate tells Clark that the useless hope monlogue John spoke of earlier wasn't useless at all, because Clark is the hope he was talking about! Fate says that Clark will be the one to lead his generation of superheroes in the future, which reminds him of the Legion of Superheroes visit back last year. Fate decides to be more specific then they were of their warnings and says that one day Clark will defeat his ultimate opponent Lex Luthor. Clark says that Lex is dead and Fate changes the subject.
What the...?! He just said he would be specific! Yeah, I get everyone who was worried Lex was gone for good now is expressing a sigh of relief, but you can't just do that when Fate said he wasn't going to be vague about it!
Anyway Fate alludes that Clark will lead a "silver age" of heroism. I know that's supposed to be poetic to the DC Comics, but for anyone unfamiliar, isn't that a kind of sting to Superman! "Yes, you'll be the silver age, because we were the golden age. Because, not to toot my own horn here, but we were freakin' GODS!"
Fate also references that Clark's future will be fulfilled when people look up to the sky to see him with hope, alluding that Smallville is liking to end with Clark not only in the costume we know but taking off for the first real time. Meanwhile Lois has broken into the museum with the info she's given and Clark runs off even after Fate says that she is "The Key".
Oh no, why is there always someone to has to be "The Key"? Can't somebody just be "AK-47" for once? It makes things go so much faster!
Anyway Fate tells Lois that he sees her future and that "you are the one he will need. He is the one you will need." Of course, a reference to Superman, or as he put it "the sentient power". The awesome thing here is that the way it's spoken it doesn't sound like Fate's saying that just for the sake of a comic book reference, his tone is serious and it almost sounds like a grave warning that these two are equals and they'll need each other if they're going to get through what's ahead.
Back at the black and white room, Icicle II is greeted by a woman named Agent Waller, his employer. She warns him that he's making this too personal in getting revenge on the Justice Society. Icicle II has apparently been in contract for killing people on behalf of the organization she works for, Checkmate. Eventually she caves in and says she'll let him finish what he started.
Clark goes to the Daily Planet, once again the only member of the team not going out to do something about this Icicle guy. Need I remind you that he could probably search every possible nook and cranny of Metropolis in about ten minutes tops and yet Chloe has John, Ollie, Carter and the Doc going out to find Frosty?
Clark catches Tess rummaging through Lois' desk, searching through her files. Apparently her usual "lackeys" for doing that kind of task have the day off. Clark takes the files out of Tess' hands, only to look through them himself. He tells Tess to get lost, apparently not giving a crap that anybody who may be watching them might think "Dude, is he telling his boss to take a hike?" Tess warns Clark that whatever Lois is involved in is way over her head.
Lois eventually runs into Clark and tells him she received classified information from an unknown sender about superheroes like the Blur. Clark insists that she let him join her, but she gives a polite "no" this time around for ditching her at breakfast. She also tells him how Icicle II was in juvenile hall but that the government pulled some strings to get him out. The real good stuff is when she says that every one of the super-baddies the Justice Society ever fought now has been released by the feds. Clark realizes that they're being collected.
At a nitrogen depot, John Jones and Doctor Fate (well at least you're putting ONE all powerful being into action) go searching for Icicle II. Fate is interested in John for sacrificing his powers to save Clark back in Season 8. Fate says that John sees what he does in Clark and relates to the Martian in many ways. He tells him that his powers became too much and eventually he lost his family. Fate then decides to open some old wounds and asks John about his family back on Mars before they were killed; his wife and daughter. John admits it so and Fate realizes he misses his family.
Well, duh! Of course he's going to miss his family when you just brought up their DEATHS!
John and Fate are confronted by Icicle II, but Fate uses his magic to turn John back into his Martian form momentarily before knocking him unconscious. Icicle II takes this oppurtunity to jam an icicle through the magician's chest, killing Nelson but with the Helmet of Nabu still whispering. Icicle II realizes the potential power and takes it away.
At Met Gen (geez, you people sure LOVE your hospitals this episode), Hamilton looks over John who is supposedly in some strange of metamorphosis. Clark and Courtney go to visit, finding out Hawkman has gone rogue to bring Icicle II down for killing his friend. Courtney says she wishes Hawkman would find Icicle II first, to do what she can't even though she knows it's wrong. Clark reminds her it is wrong and it's up to her to correct her generation from the mistakes of the past. Courtney says he reminds her a lot of Pemberton back when he was alive.
Back at the Daily Planet, Lois is rummaging through files when she's confronted by Agent Waller. She says she hired Lois because of her in depth and investigative reporting. She gives Lois a communicator and tells her she'll be in touch.
Icicle II goes back to Met Gen (yes, because THAT'S A NEW LOCATION) to visit his old man with the Helmet of Nabu. He tells him that this will give him the power to take down the Justice Society once and for all and then wishes him goodbye, realizing his father's condition has worsened. Icicle II then pulls the plug on his dad, puts the helmet on his head and screams.
Now here's something I'm wondering, if the helmet's supposed to be able to do all this crazy stuff, why doesn't Icicle II just put it on his dad's head and heal him? I mean hypothetically, couldn't it work? Here he'd not only have his father back, he'd be much more powerful and they'd BOTH get to take down the Justice Society for what they did to them. But no, we have to be all moody!
At the museum, Carter is furious and Ollie says they should regroup with the others before taking on Icicle II for what he did to Doctor Fate. Ollie knows that Carter is dangerous when angry, but Carter doesn't listen and loads up on weapons. Ollie sees a scratched Hawkman-like mask in a glass case with a female dummy's head and realizes the connection and thinks she was the reason Carter crossed the line and shut the team down. Carter reveals she was Shiera Hall/Hawkgirl, his wife who was killed in battle. Apparently Carter and Shiera were born eons ago and were cursed to be reincarnated throughout eternity and watch each other die after falling in love. After losing everyone around him, Carter welcomes getting killed so that he can be reunited with Shiera. Ollie says that he also went through a stage of wanting death, but reminds him that people need him. Steadily they come onto common ground and decide to rejoin with the team.
Hawkman flies Arrow to Watchtower to regroup with Chloe, Stargirl and Clark dressed in his Blur trenchcoat. ABOUT FREAKIN' TIME! They realize they can't break apart anymore and...son of a gun...Icicle II pops in (literally) with much stronger powers with the Mask of Loki, I mean Helmet of Nabu on his head.
The League and Society take Icicle II on all at once, all of their weapons seemingly powerless against the helmet. Icicle is just about to freeze Stargirl when John Jones flies in to save the day, his powers not only returned but evolved! Icicle says he thought he killed John, but the Martian replies "I'm Mars sole survivor. There's a reason for that."
Uh, no Icicle you didn't kill him. You didn't even touch him. You just saw him lying on the ground motionless. Idiot.
Anyway, the League and Society take Icicle II down and Hawkman knocks the helmet off his head. When it does, we somehow go from night to day outside the Watchtower. I guess Icicle decided to screw with daylight for the sake of having a dark atmosphere for his final showdown.
At the museum, Hawkman is hanging off his wings when Clark goes to visit him. He tells Clark he doesn't do this job for glory or vengeance and the League isn't what he thought it was. Carter says Clark needs to start trusting them more but that they'll make mistakes. He says he has the capacity to break the chains holding him down and when he does, the future Doctor Fate spoke of will be fulfilled. Clark asks if Carter will stop his hero job and he says "no". Is that just the word of the day? Hawkman and Courtney are going to find the old Society members and train their children and students how to become heroes. Courtney then comes in and asks Clark what they call his team, to which he replies "a work in progress".
Yes, in a TV special where it's just reference after reference after reference after FREAKIN' REFERENCE, Smallville just has to keep one last big tribute under wraps. Needless to say, they've earned it.
At Watchtower, Chloe is greeted by a gust of wind and turns to face Clark, only to find John Jones. He expresses regret that Doctor Fate sacrificed his life to give him his powers back, but says the Helmet of Nabu will one day find a new host to become the next Doctor Fate. He tells Chloe that now that he's put the "super" back into superhero, he won't let his powerless experience go to waste. Now he'll use every tool he's got. Ollie steps in to invite them to dinner to which Chloe and John accept, giving hope that the League will start to lighten up about their superhero alter egos.
Let's just hope they're not on break when Darkseid hits our doorstep.
At the Daily Planet, Lois has gotten her story put on the front page "Who was the Justice Society of America?" She says the writer's names could have read Clark's name next to hers, forgetting that he had begged her for that earlier. Lois also tells him how Doctor Fate had spoke of her future and "the sentient power". Clark asks if she believes in fate, to which she replies "Only the kind you make happen."
Gushy, but not the worst romantic dialogue I've heard these two share.
Back at Checkmate, Icicle II is held hostage with his head all screwy from putting the helmet on. Dude, you don't just slap a mystical object onto your scalp and think there's going to be zero side effects! Waller comes in to tell him that he didn't fail his mission, but that his real objective was to get the Justice Society back into the game. She wants the old and current generation of heroes to come together to stop the "apokolips" that's headed for Earth.
And yes, according to the writer Geoff Johns himself, the line is supposed to be written in that manner. You didn't think I threw that Darkseid reference up there for nothing, did you?
Anyway Waller says Icicle's usefulness is over with and pulls a gun on him to say "Welcome to the Suicide Squad" another DC comic reference. Surprisingly, Icicle welcomes the bullet which he receives at about 200 miles per hour aimed for his closest cranium. Waller exits the room to greet her fellow Checkmate agent...Tess Mercer!
Dude, that's not surprising. Don't you know Tess has made it her number one priority to join as many evil organizations as humanly possible? In fifteen minutes she has a joint meeting with a doomsday cult and the Walt Disney corporation!
CRITICAL COMMENTS
We have a lot of great examples of new characters brought to life. Britt Irvin portrays Courtney Whitmore as a girl who enters the superhero business young, but still has her share of experience. She's not too "let's make this a happy time", she does have some decent moments of taking things as grim as they are.
Michael Shanks embodies a very dark, gritty portrayal of Carter Hall, a believable representation of the Society's leader. Where his performance dropped was his choice of what has now been known as the Christian Bale Batman Voice. Aside from his first couple of scenes in the first parter and last scene in the second parter, he doesn't drop the voice even when he's out of costume!
Brent Strait as Doctor Fate is most definetely the character who is shown uniquely different from his comic book persona, but retains the same gravitas he's known for. We see a very sympathetic light to who he is long before he is killed and every line broken in both his roles as Nelson and Fate are awesome.
Pam Grier as Amanda Waller is shown as a woman who takes charge from her very first appearance. She's able to come down to the same level as our other cast members, but for the most part you can feel her as intimidating even from behind the scenes.
Wesley Macinnes has a couple of sympathetic moments with his character of Icicle, but much like the now Governor Schwarzenegger, the puns are what kills him. Not to mention we've seen characters seeking for daddy's approval or vengeance before on Smallville and there's not that much creativity to him.
The rest of the cast brings their roles exceptionally well to the table, with everyone finding someone they can relate to.
RATING: 9/10
Geoff Johns shows his finest Smallville script yet with Society and lets viewers know just why he's so good at what he does. Glen Winter's direction of the first part is primarily just steady build up, but shows a good number of fine moments. Tom Welling's second part is where we're able to see the tension grow tighter with every scene that plays onward.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Smallville Upgrade Review
Red Kryptonite returns to Smallville
Bear with me, the signal flickered in and out a couple of times while watching the episode which meant some dialogue was garbled or not heard at all.
The episode begins with Lois Lane having snuck into a secret lab that Tess Mercer has scientists working on an ‘upgrade’ of some kind, which involves red and green kryptonite. Security however manages to catch on and before the upgrade can be aborted, a lab accident happens of course! Their test subject manages to escape and Lois ends up setting off an explosion in the lab. She outruns the fire like she’s Megan Fox and then plummets down a shaft into darkness. Speaking of Megan Fox, Brian Austin Green is there to catch Lois Lane, returning as the character of John Corben a.k.a. Metallo.
After the credits, we’re led into Lois being woken up by Clark making out with her in bed. Lois wonders a) how Clark got into the apartment and b) how the heck she got into the apartment as the last thing she remembers is the explosion. Clark sees a cut on her arm and wonders what she’s been up to, but Lois reassures him it’s nothing. They proceed to make out, so you know what means! Yep! Lois gets a phone call from the Fake Blur a.k.a. Zod and the mood is crushed.
This is the great thing about Lois and Clark dating now, at least now the tables have turned or been at the least shared with the two of them having their “Be back in a minute, gotta save the world routine”. This is how we know that these two are equals, even with superpowers in the mix.
Lois thanks the Blur for her save last night, to which Zod shrugs off as if he were responsible. He apparently was the one to send her to the lab in the first place. Lois then goes downstairs where she finds Corben himself, who says that he thought she saved him. Here Lois shows sympathy for him when she realizes he has a chip that the scientists were using to control him. Corben then tells Lois that his Kryptonite heart needs a refueling.
This is where we sort of take a detour from the DC Comics. The reason Metallo has a Kryptonite heart in the comics (aside from the fact he’d love to see Superman pumped with as much radiation as possible) is because Kryptonite serves as a permanent power source for him. Here, it’s a battery pack except in liquid form. Lois therefore floors it and takes him to get help.
Meanwhile Clark tries to figure out where Lois was last night and has Chloe track down the location. When he gets in however, he is exposed to red kryptonite gas and his persona quickly shifts. DUH-DUH-DUH!!!!
Clark promptly returns to Watchtower where he finds out that massive amounts of Kryptonite have been dug up and he thinks Tess is responsible, intending to make her pay. Chloe however confesses she is the one who is hoarding the Kryptonite, due to her fear that the Kandorians will rebel. Clark thinks that all the meteor rock has his name on it and says Chloe and Oliver have betrayed him, before burning the House of El symbol into the wall of Watchtower, declaring war on her.
Corben manages to break into Chloe’s crate full of Kryptonite and recharges while Clark goes to destroy it. He finds Corben and is nearly beaten when Zod comes in to save the day. Yeah, ZOD of all freakin people. Zod blows up the crate with Corben inside and Clark just smiles.
Clark manages to track down Zod and is furious he didn’t tell him about his powers. Wait a second, he was smiling right before the commercial! Zod defends his secrecy, reminding him that Chloe and Oliver have weapons ready to kill him while he is his only equal. Eventually Clark caves to this argument. What do the two Kryptonian buddies decide to do? Have some fun!
Huh. My thinking was inclined you know, revenge? Like the revenge you were talking about five minutes ago? Apparently not because we’re off to Seattle! Clark and Zod have a little conversation about Jor-El and Clark mentions the Fortress of Solitude. He offers to take Zod there, but before they leave, he decides to mess with weather by turning their rain into snow with his freezing breath.
Why is he doing this? Plot convenience of course!
Meanwhile, Lois finds the destroyed shipping crate Corben was in. He’s alive due to his cybernetic implants, but of course, his skin is perfectly free of burns! Instead, he’s naked! Yeah, because we just had to figure out a way to put some sexual tension into this episode, even when it's completely unnecessary. Anyway, Corben blames the Blur for the explosion and Lois tells him it couldn’t have been the Blur. They then realize they need to get Corben out of the city.
Back in the lab, Chloe finds Tess who has come to figure out what happened and they realize red Kryptonite is responsible for Clark’s behavior. They form a brief alliance together where they realize that Seattle has received a blizzard. Told you that it was plot convenience! Using satellite photos they discover that Clark and Zod are responsible because they find them on top of a building. Chloe puts the pieces together and realizes Zod has powers and figures out Tess already knew this.
See, Chloe’s logic has justification, but how does she know Clark didn’t carry Zod up to the top of the tower? The image shown of them doesn’t imply Zod has powers. He’s been able to get into Clark’s head without them before, so he might have been able to persuade him to let him talk to him. Argument aside, it's only a small leap of faith.
On the other side of town, Lois and Corben are getting ready to leave because her dad has a contact named Vale. Reference alert! Vale is the scientist who turned Corben into the Austrian accentless destructo-bot we know in the comics.
Anyway, Corben thanks Lois for the assistance and helps a lady on the bus with a bag. Of course because Tess has people everywhere (and I mean everywhere) the lady reactivates the chip and sends him heading right back for the lab he broke out of. Lois chases after him.
Up at the Fortress, Clark welcomes his “brother” Zod home. You know, since the real Zod is supposed to be like 50 years old and evil, I think the term “psychotic uncle” suits him more.
Now this is where it gets really irritating. Here we are with Clark telling Zod he’ll take him to his father and of course because Terence Stamp’s name wasn’t in the “guest appearance credits”, we get no voice of Jor-El. Of course Zod’s reasoning is “Jor-El doesn’t like me”. Silly Zod, it’s not that he doesn’t like you. It’s that you killed him, his wife and practically his whole freakin’ civilization!
Furthermore, where is the Fortress’ security system that we saw when Chloe wandered in back in the episode "Arrival?!" You know, the same security system that didn’t stop Lex Luthor from bringing the whole thing to the freakin’ ground back in Season 7! Yeah, you could argue that because Zod has powers now he could get past them, but we’ve seen that Jor-El’s had precautions for dealing with his own son if he ever went rogue!
Say, that’s kind of like…RIGHT FREAKIN’ NOW!
Well Zod bickers about Jor-El having the Kryptonian Bible called the Book of Rao and hiding it somewhere on Earth, because it contains all the knowledge in the universe and that story arc from the episode goes about as far as the end of this sentence.
So Chloe and Tess manage to wind up their tin soldier and send him to stop Clark and Zod before they do something stupid. Chloe thinks Clark headed for the Fortress so she cuts the feed off to make sure Tess doesn’t know the location. But then Lois breaks into the lab and confronts Tess, wanting to know where Corben is. Chloe manages to sedate her cousin and take her out while Tess cleans up the lab from Lois ever finding it.
Up at the Fortress, Corben materializes through what we can only assume to be through the Kawatche Caves and confronts the two Kryptonians with his Kryptonite heart. They manage to freeze Corben with their breath, but it doesn’t last long and he breaks out with his mind control chip gone. After knocking Zod aside, Corben pulls out a Kryptonite knife and tells Clark that because he’s doing this for a friend (yeah, the same "friend" who made you dance like the puppet you are) he won’t kill Clark as much as he wishes he could. Instead he tells him “sometimes you don’t know when you need to be saved”, jabs him with the green Kryptonite and therefore cancels out the red in him. Corben leaves the Fortress, Clark is cured and Zod is gone.
Corben later confronts Lois again where I can only assume he’s about to leave Metropolis. He thanks her for her help and they share a tender moment, but Lois says she has someone who she really cares about. Corben says the man is lucky and then heads off.
This is probably one of the first times we’ve seen a future Superman villain be played so sympathetically in the series, retain their dark flaws and yet still look hopeful for the future. After Toyman, Doomsday, Lex and Parasite you gotta get tired of them practically having the words “I’ll get you next time, Gadget” on the tips of their tongues. In some ways, I think it would be a more tragic and yet understandable way to leave the character as is and let fans figure out for themselves how he turns into the supervillain we know.
Clark talks to Chloe at the Watchtower where he apologizes for his actions and tells her that her Kryptonite arsenal was what saved mankind in the future. Oh yeah, you mean the same Kryptonite arsenal you let “Blast ‘Em in Half Zod” blow to kingdom come?! Good to know our future looks good, Superman! Well anyway, he goes into Chloe and Lois’ relationship, saying they’re almost like sisters and we get into him seeing Zod as the closest thing he’s had to a brother.
Didn’t Clark say almost the exact same thing about Davis Bloome? I mean not only is this one season ago, but it’s Zod’s own son! This metaphorical family seems to growing pretty quickly for one Clark considers so small!
Back at Zod’s warehouse, he and Tess are making out, once again for unexplained reasons. They’re still in partnership and she lies to him with photos that imply Clark is leading a secret rebellion within the Kandorians. Zod takes the bait and he realizes something has to be done. He takes the Kandorians to the Fortress of Solitude where once again Jor-El does NOTHING to stop them and Zod uses his blood for what we assume to be him giving them their powers.
CRITICAL COMMENTS
Brian Austin Green definitely shows a lot of depth to his character, here showing him in a more sympathetic light. In the end he’s the hero, which is a big change from the guy we saw in the season premiere. It felt sad to see all the stuff happening to Corben.
All the main cast members also do their usual good jobs, though Tess only seems to appear midway through the episode.
When it came to writing, that’s where the episode suffered. There were a decent chunk of things that don’t make sense and for a longtime viewer such as myself, I’m able to point them out quite easily. Direction was well done, but it’s still in the shadow of an episode like Checkmate.
RATING: 7/10
Bear with me, the signal flickered in and out a couple of times while watching the episode which meant some dialogue was garbled or not heard at all.
The episode begins with Lois Lane having snuck into a secret lab that Tess Mercer has scientists working on an ‘upgrade’ of some kind, which involves red and green kryptonite. Security however manages to catch on and before the upgrade can be aborted, a lab accident happens of course! Their test subject manages to escape and Lois ends up setting off an explosion in the lab. She outruns the fire like she’s Megan Fox and then plummets down a shaft into darkness. Speaking of Megan Fox, Brian Austin Green is there to catch Lois Lane, returning as the character of John Corben a.k.a. Metallo.
After the credits, we’re led into Lois being woken up by Clark making out with her in bed. Lois wonders a) how Clark got into the apartment and b) how the heck she got into the apartment as the last thing she remembers is the explosion. Clark sees a cut on her arm and wonders what she’s been up to, but Lois reassures him it’s nothing. They proceed to make out, so you know what means! Yep! Lois gets a phone call from the Fake Blur a.k.a. Zod and the mood is crushed.
This is the great thing about Lois and Clark dating now, at least now the tables have turned or been at the least shared with the two of them having their “Be back in a minute, gotta save the world routine”. This is how we know that these two are equals, even with superpowers in the mix.
Lois thanks the Blur for her save last night, to which Zod shrugs off as if he were responsible. He apparently was the one to send her to the lab in the first place. Lois then goes downstairs where she finds Corben himself, who says that he thought she saved him. Here Lois shows sympathy for him when she realizes he has a chip that the scientists were using to control him. Corben then tells Lois that his Kryptonite heart needs a refueling.
This is where we sort of take a detour from the DC Comics. The reason Metallo has a Kryptonite heart in the comics (aside from the fact he’d love to see Superman pumped with as much radiation as possible) is because Kryptonite serves as a permanent power source for him. Here, it’s a battery pack except in liquid form. Lois therefore floors it and takes him to get help.
Meanwhile Clark tries to figure out where Lois was last night and has Chloe track down the location. When he gets in however, he is exposed to red kryptonite gas and his persona quickly shifts. DUH-DUH-DUH!!!!
Clark promptly returns to Watchtower where he finds out that massive amounts of Kryptonite have been dug up and he thinks Tess is responsible, intending to make her pay. Chloe however confesses she is the one who is hoarding the Kryptonite, due to her fear that the Kandorians will rebel. Clark thinks that all the meteor rock has his name on it and says Chloe and Oliver have betrayed him, before burning the House of El symbol into the wall of Watchtower, declaring war on her.
Corben manages to break into Chloe’s crate full of Kryptonite and recharges while Clark goes to destroy it. He finds Corben and is nearly beaten when Zod comes in to save the day. Yeah, ZOD of all freakin people. Zod blows up the crate with Corben inside and Clark just smiles.
Clark manages to track down Zod and is furious he didn’t tell him about his powers. Wait a second, he was smiling right before the commercial! Zod defends his secrecy, reminding him that Chloe and Oliver have weapons ready to kill him while he is his only equal. Eventually Clark caves to this argument. What do the two Kryptonian buddies decide to do? Have some fun!
Huh. My thinking was inclined you know, revenge? Like the revenge you were talking about five minutes ago? Apparently not because we’re off to Seattle! Clark and Zod have a little conversation about Jor-El and Clark mentions the Fortress of Solitude. He offers to take Zod there, but before they leave, he decides to mess with weather by turning their rain into snow with his freezing breath.
Why is he doing this? Plot convenience of course!
Meanwhile, Lois finds the destroyed shipping crate Corben was in. He’s alive due to his cybernetic implants, but of course, his skin is perfectly free of burns! Instead, he’s naked! Yeah, because we just had to figure out a way to put some sexual tension into this episode, even when it's completely unnecessary. Anyway, Corben blames the Blur for the explosion and Lois tells him it couldn’t have been the Blur. They then realize they need to get Corben out of the city.
Back in the lab, Chloe finds Tess who has come to figure out what happened and they realize red Kryptonite is responsible for Clark’s behavior. They form a brief alliance together where they realize that Seattle has received a blizzard. Told you that it was plot convenience! Using satellite photos they discover that Clark and Zod are responsible because they find them on top of a building. Chloe puts the pieces together and realizes Zod has powers and figures out Tess already knew this.
See, Chloe’s logic has justification, but how does she know Clark didn’t carry Zod up to the top of the tower? The image shown of them doesn’t imply Zod has powers. He’s been able to get into Clark’s head without them before, so he might have been able to persuade him to let him talk to him. Argument aside, it's only a small leap of faith.
On the other side of town, Lois and Corben are getting ready to leave because her dad has a contact named Vale. Reference alert! Vale is the scientist who turned Corben into the Austrian accentless destructo-bot we know in the comics.
Anyway, Corben thanks Lois for the assistance and helps a lady on the bus with a bag. Of course because Tess has people everywhere (and I mean everywhere) the lady reactivates the chip and sends him heading right back for the lab he broke out of. Lois chases after him.
Up at the Fortress, Clark welcomes his “brother” Zod home. You know, since the real Zod is supposed to be like 50 years old and evil, I think the term “psychotic uncle” suits him more.
Now this is where it gets really irritating. Here we are with Clark telling Zod he’ll take him to his father and of course because Terence Stamp’s name wasn’t in the “guest appearance credits”, we get no voice of Jor-El. Of course Zod’s reasoning is “Jor-El doesn’t like me”. Silly Zod, it’s not that he doesn’t like you. It’s that you killed him, his wife and practically his whole freakin’ civilization!
Furthermore, where is the Fortress’ security system that we saw when Chloe wandered in back in the episode "Arrival?!" You know, the same security system that didn’t stop Lex Luthor from bringing the whole thing to the freakin’ ground back in Season 7! Yeah, you could argue that because Zod has powers now he could get past them, but we’ve seen that Jor-El’s had precautions for dealing with his own son if he ever went rogue!
Say, that’s kind of like…RIGHT FREAKIN’ NOW!
Well Zod bickers about Jor-El having the Kryptonian Bible called the Book of Rao and hiding it somewhere on Earth, because it contains all the knowledge in the universe and that story arc from the episode goes about as far as the end of this sentence.
So Chloe and Tess manage to wind up their tin soldier and send him to stop Clark and Zod before they do something stupid. Chloe thinks Clark headed for the Fortress so she cuts the feed off to make sure Tess doesn’t know the location. But then Lois breaks into the lab and confronts Tess, wanting to know where Corben is. Chloe manages to sedate her cousin and take her out while Tess cleans up the lab from Lois ever finding it.
Up at the Fortress, Corben materializes through what we can only assume to be through the Kawatche Caves and confronts the two Kryptonians with his Kryptonite heart. They manage to freeze Corben with their breath, but it doesn’t last long and he breaks out with his mind control chip gone. After knocking Zod aside, Corben pulls out a Kryptonite knife and tells Clark that because he’s doing this for a friend (yeah, the same "friend" who made you dance like the puppet you are) he won’t kill Clark as much as he wishes he could. Instead he tells him “sometimes you don’t know when you need to be saved”, jabs him with the green Kryptonite and therefore cancels out the red in him. Corben leaves the Fortress, Clark is cured and Zod is gone.
Corben later confronts Lois again where I can only assume he’s about to leave Metropolis. He thanks her for her help and they share a tender moment, but Lois says she has someone who she really cares about. Corben says the man is lucky and then heads off.
This is probably one of the first times we’ve seen a future Superman villain be played so sympathetically in the series, retain their dark flaws and yet still look hopeful for the future. After Toyman, Doomsday, Lex and Parasite you gotta get tired of them practically having the words “I’ll get you next time, Gadget” on the tips of their tongues. In some ways, I think it would be a more tragic and yet understandable way to leave the character as is and let fans figure out for themselves how he turns into the supervillain we know.
Clark talks to Chloe at the Watchtower where he apologizes for his actions and tells her that her Kryptonite arsenal was what saved mankind in the future. Oh yeah, you mean the same Kryptonite arsenal you let “Blast ‘Em in Half Zod” blow to kingdom come?! Good to know our future looks good, Superman! Well anyway, he goes into Chloe and Lois’ relationship, saying they’re almost like sisters and we get into him seeing Zod as the closest thing he’s had to a brother.
Didn’t Clark say almost the exact same thing about Davis Bloome? I mean not only is this one season ago, but it’s Zod’s own son! This metaphorical family seems to growing pretty quickly for one Clark considers so small!
Back at Zod’s warehouse, he and Tess are making out, once again for unexplained reasons. They’re still in partnership and she lies to him with photos that imply Clark is leading a secret rebellion within the Kandorians. Zod takes the bait and he realizes something has to be done. He takes the Kandorians to the Fortress of Solitude where once again Jor-El does NOTHING to stop them and Zod uses his blood for what we assume to be him giving them their powers.
CRITICAL COMMENTS
Brian Austin Green definitely shows a lot of depth to his character, here showing him in a more sympathetic light. In the end he’s the hero, which is a big change from the guy we saw in the season premiere. It felt sad to see all the stuff happening to Corben.
All the main cast members also do their usual good jobs, though Tess only seems to appear midway through the episode.
When it came to writing, that’s where the episode suffered. There were a decent chunk of things that don’t make sense and for a longtime viewer such as myself, I’m able to point them out quite easily. Direction was well done, but it’s still in the shadow of an episode like Checkmate.
RATING: 7/10
Monday, April 12, 2010
Smallville Escape Review
Vengeful spirits, villains make alliances, Bed and Breakfasts!!!
The episode begins with Clark about to leave Metropolis for vacation while John Jones takes over his patrol. He tells Chloe that while he's out of town she should hang out with Bart Allen who's stopping by Metropolis.
Yeah, because I'm sure that's exactly what a "grieving" widow needs, a speeding teenager hitting on her with every pickup line in the book!
Well it turns out Chloe has plans already while Clark goes to the Daily Planet to pick Lois up for a weekend getaway he has planned for them. Naturally, Lois has packed about ten times more than needed, but Clark assures her they're going to a Scottish Bed & Breakfast outside of town that he hopes she'll enjoy. Because apparently one look at Lois screams "forget internet access and monster trucks, nature is calling us!"
So who should be at this Bed & Breakfast just as Clark and Lois are on there way over? Why Chloe and Oliver! I smell me some shennanigans!
When Clark and Lois arrive at the inn, they learn their room has been given away because they arrived late and Ollie snagged the last room without a broken water pipe. Clark asks the innkeeper if he can fix it for her, which she strangely allows. How does she not consider the possibility that he knows absolutely NOTHING about fixing a pipe and won't make the problem worse just because he wanted a bed for the night? Well regardless, while our mild mannered plumber uses his heat vision to seal the pipe, Lois has torn the painting of a Scotsman in the inn's lobby.
Unknowingly, this releases our "Baddie of the Week", which is a ghostly apparition that possesses a young woman making out with her boyfriend and gives her a distinct white streak through her hair. She lures her boyfriend away, putting a new addition to our dusted off list "Guys on Smallville Who Think They're Getting Lucky But Instead Are Promptly Dismembered".
Lois is told in the meantime by the innkeeper the story of the Scotsman she scratched. Apparently the man is a tool-of-a-relative to the innkeeper who murdered his sister, Siobhan McDougal and sent her to the underworld where, according to legend, she inherited mystical strength and hatred. Lois thanks her for the exposition...I mean, history lesson...and goes off to the room with Clark.
Clark and Lois head off to bed for the night, where they share a moment that allows the chemistry between them to flare. This is just a prime example of why Clark and Lois work so well as a couple, but tragically, will likely never have a good relationship until he becomes the Man of Steel. Back when Clark and Lana were dating, half of their scenes together required dialogue to support their tension. With Clark and Lois, all you need is a silent LOOK and the viewers are sold.
But before Clois fans can get their weekly satisfaction, a scream is heard and Clark and Lois rush to find out what happened. They manage to bump into, you guessed it, Blonde 1 and Blonde 2: Ollie and Chloe.
Yes, this is the season's romance episode. Funny, I thought it would be in the Season 9 episode set on VALENTINE'S DAY, but that one wasn't that good either. Well you can expect action to be at a minimum in this edition, because instead we explore deeper into the love lives of these couples.
Sedatives or cyanide, people?
The next morning, Lois is upset Chloe never told her she's dating her ex and Clark says she should leave it be. Chloe and Ollie join them for breakfast where we're introduced to long talk of innuendos and references to the board game Clue.
Shockingly, Lois approves of Chloe and Ollie, but her cousin assures her that all their relationship is about is "having fun". So what does that make you, Chloe? Ollie's arm candy?
Meanwhile Clark warns Oliver to take care of her, which the green archer assures him won't be a problem. After what seems like an eternity of romance sub plots, Chloe gets into an argument with Oliver over buying her a gift. Wow, that's pretty ungrateful. Anyway, she walks off into the forest where she finds the body of the woman's now raisin-like lover and ends up becoming possessed by the spirit herself.
Back at the inn, Clark and Lois agree to take their relationship to the next level. Clark goes off to the shower where he's...singing. How I wish I was kidding. He's singing about Lois in the suggestion that they're about to put on some Barrie White when he gets back to the room. Somehow I never had the picture of the same character who battled Doomsday, General Zod and Lex Luthor, would one day grace us with his vocal capabilities while bathing.
Chloe however manages to cut the symphony short and tries to flirt with Clark, both of them stark naked in the bathroom. Lois catches them in the act where she's dressed in an outfit that must either be that of a gypsie or pirate. This would disturbingly imply that Mr. Kent has a fetish for the wardrobes of either Esmerelda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame or Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean.
Hey, Keira Knightley never wore anything that...colourful!
But before Lois can leave, she winds up possessed by the spirit and tries to lure Ollie away into the woods. Chloe, back to the norm, realizes something is up and starts her detective work. She claims she doesn't remember anything during her possession.
Meanwhile, Major Zod is flying around Metropolis when he gets contacted by Tess Mercer. They meet at the Kent Barn, where they start making out. Okay, I guess you just have to roll with it. Tess then discovers that the bullethole Zod should have from Conspiracy is nowhere to be found, and therefore shoots him only to see him untouched, along with the leather glove he's wearing while catching the bullet. Normally someone should question why Tess had a gun with her before she knew Zod's powers returned, but need I remind you of four simple words:
This is Tess Mercer.
Anyway, with his secret exposed to her, Zod grabs Tess by the throat to try and keep his powers under wraps. Tess reveals though that she came prepared with a kryptonite rock. Now this is when you ask why she had this object before she knew Zod had superpowers. However, she gets Zod to kneel before her (wow, that's like beating Shaq senselessly through a basketball hoop) and then they start making out after their little spasm.
Huh?!
This then follows into them taking their passions to the bedroom. Because...
WHAT?!
Okay, suddenly Tess and Zod have become two identical sides of Xenia Onnatopp! "Oooh, you're gonna pull Kryptonite on me? You naughty girl!" I mean I've heard of fetishes when it comes to torture, but all these two show is how much they hate each other. There's opposites attracting and then there's insanity! This is makes as much sense as Clark and Lex bashing each other's heads throughout the seasons, then one of them realizing that through their heated rivalry, they somehow have feelings for each other, which would not work even if the two were homosexual. This makes no freaking sense, nor does the execution of how these two end up together!
Back at the inn, Clark and Chloe try to piece together what happened with her possession and they get on the topic of...oh you've gotta be kidding me...Lois and Clark's sex life. Clark tells Chloe that his former problem of "expressing his love" (which I remind you, only seems to happen when Smallville feels like it) is no more. Why do you ask?
Do you really have to ask me?
Alright fine, brace yourself. Apparently part of Jor-El's training with Clark has included...how to control himself...in the bedroom. Because as implied in "Wrath", Clark having sex with a human would probably lead to Lois in a full-body cast.
I think a part of my soul just ate itself!
Smallville, please! I really don't want to know about the sex life of these characters! Yes, I admit that Tom Welling, Erica Durance, Justin Hartley, Allison Mack, they're all attractive individuals. But when it comes to a show about aliens and super powers, it's creepy when you're even scratching the surface! Now I've got the horrible, HORRIBLE image of Jor-El teaching our future Superman how to treat a woman privately. If you weren't begging for a non-romance plot to be focused on this episode, you certainly will be now!
Clark and Chloe talk to the innkeeper to learn deeper about the Scottish legend of the painting. They figure out that the spirit possessing the women is none other than Siobhan McDougal herself. No! You think? Apparently after coming back from the underworld, Siobhan received a dreadful cry as a spirit that would kill people and became known as the Silver Banshee. While Clark realizes the Banshee is controlling Lois, Chloe figures out that if they burn the painting she escaped from, she'll go back to the underworld.
Clark confronts the Banshee who has escaped from Lois' body to unleash her deadly scream against Ollie. She uses her scream on both of them, but Clark seems to be able to fight through it. Now think about this for a second. Black Canary, a metahuman, was able to make Clark Kent's ear BLEED with her sonic scream. The Silver Banshee is a mystical, undead being who screamed at him, yet somehow isn't able to make Clark's ears bleed then. Clark has demonstrated greater vulnerability to magic than metahuman abilities, so how is it that Banshee's screams are less powerful than Black Canary's?
Well Chloe is able to save Clark by burning the painting, sending the Silver Banshee back to the underworld. Chloe and Oliver talk some more and realize they have stronger feelings than they originally thought, while Clark and Lois go back to the Talon to try and pick up where they left off...in the bedroom.
THANKFULLY, Lois is interrupted by a phone call from someone who claims to be the Blur. In actuality, it's Zod who is using Clark's voice changer and an America accent to make himself appear as her saviour.
CRITICAL COMMENTS
Performance wise, Odessa Rae is able to pull off the dual roles of the innkeeper and Silver Banshee with convincing acting in both roles. In fact, I could have sworn the Silver Banshee was played by Erica Durance by the sound of her voice at the episode's climax. The main cast is also able to work nicely with their roles, in some ways reminding long time viewers how much of a "social show" Smallville used to be.
Writing wise, this episode reveals more than we need to know about these couples. This is usually what happens in every Smallville season's "romance episode", but even some of the characters themselves are incredibly uncomfortable discussing it.
The episode begins with Clark about to leave Metropolis for vacation while John Jones takes over his patrol. He tells Chloe that while he's out of town she should hang out with Bart Allen who's stopping by Metropolis.
Yeah, because I'm sure that's exactly what a "grieving" widow needs, a speeding teenager hitting on her with every pickup line in the book!
Well it turns out Chloe has plans already while Clark goes to the Daily Planet to pick Lois up for a weekend getaway he has planned for them. Naturally, Lois has packed about ten times more than needed, but Clark assures her they're going to a Scottish Bed & Breakfast outside of town that he hopes she'll enjoy. Because apparently one look at Lois screams "forget internet access and monster trucks, nature is calling us!"
So who should be at this Bed & Breakfast just as Clark and Lois are on there way over? Why Chloe and Oliver! I smell me some shennanigans!
When Clark and Lois arrive at the inn, they learn their room has been given away because they arrived late and Ollie snagged the last room without a broken water pipe. Clark asks the innkeeper if he can fix it for her, which she strangely allows. How does she not consider the possibility that he knows absolutely NOTHING about fixing a pipe and won't make the problem worse just because he wanted a bed for the night? Well regardless, while our mild mannered plumber uses his heat vision to seal the pipe, Lois has torn the painting of a Scotsman in the inn's lobby.
Unknowingly, this releases our "Baddie of the Week", which is a ghostly apparition that possesses a young woman making out with her boyfriend and gives her a distinct white streak through her hair. She lures her boyfriend away, putting a new addition to our dusted off list "Guys on Smallville Who Think They're Getting Lucky But Instead Are Promptly Dismembered".
Lois is told in the meantime by the innkeeper the story of the Scotsman she scratched. Apparently the man is a tool-of-a-relative to the innkeeper who murdered his sister, Siobhan McDougal and sent her to the underworld where, according to legend, she inherited mystical strength and hatred. Lois thanks her for the exposition...I mean, history lesson...and goes off to the room with Clark.
Clark and Lois head off to bed for the night, where they share a moment that allows the chemistry between them to flare. This is just a prime example of why Clark and Lois work so well as a couple, but tragically, will likely never have a good relationship until he becomes the Man of Steel. Back when Clark and Lana were dating, half of their scenes together required dialogue to support their tension. With Clark and Lois, all you need is a silent LOOK and the viewers are sold.
But before Clois fans can get their weekly satisfaction, a scream is heard and Clark and Lois rush to find out what happened. They manage to bump into, you guessed it, Blonde 1 and Blonde 2: Ollie and Chloe.
Yes, this is the season's romance episode. Funny, I thought it would be in the Season 9 episode set on VALENTINE'S DAY, but that one wasn't that good either. Well you can expect action to be at a minimum in this edition, because instead we explore deeper into the love lives of these couples.
Sedatives or cyanide, people?
The next morning, Lois is upset Chloe never told her she's dating her ex and Clark says she should leave it be. Chloe and Ollie join them for breakfast where we're introduced to long talk of innuendos and references to the board game Clue.
Shockingly, Lois approves of Chloe and Ollie, but her cousin assures her that all their relationship is about is "having fun". So what does that make you, Chloe? Ollie's arm candy?
Meanwhile Clark warns Oliver to take care of her, which the green archer assures him won't be a problem. After what seems like an eternity of romance sub plots, Chloe gets into an argument with Oliver over buying her a gift. Wow, that's pretty ungrateful. Anyway, she walks off into the forest where she finds the body of the woman's now raisin-like lover and ends up becoming possessed by the spirit herself.
Back at the inn, Clark and Lois agree to take their relationship to the next level. Clark goes off to the shower where he's...singing. How I wish I was kidding. He's singing about Lois in the suggestion that they're about to put on some Barrie White when he gets back to the room. Somehow I never had the picture of the same character who battled Doomsday, General Zod and Lex Luthor, would one day grace us with his vocal capabilities while bathing.
Chloe however manages to cut the symphony short and tries to flirt with Clark, both of them stark naked in the bathroom. Lois catches them in the act where she's dressed in an outfit that must either be that of a gypsie or pirate. This would disturbingly imply that Mr. Kent has a fetish for the wardrobes of either Esmerelda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame or Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean.
Hey, Keira Knightley never wore anything that...colourful!
But before Lois can leave, she winds up possessed by the spirit and tries to lure Ollie away into the woods. Chloe, back to the norm, realizes something is up and starts her detective work. She claims she doesn't remember anything during her possession.
Meanwhile, Major Zod is flying around Metropolis when he gets contacted by Tess Mercer. They meet at the Kent Barn, where they start making out. Okay, I guess you just have to roll with it. Tess then discovers that the bullethole Zod should have from Conspiracy is nowhere to be found, and therefore shoots him only to see him untouched, along with the leather glove he's wearing while catching the bullet. Normally someone should question why Tess had a gun with her before she knew Zod's powers returned, but need I remind you of four simple words:
This is Tess Mercer.
Anyway, with his secret exposed to her, Zod grabs Tess by the throat to try and keep his powers under wraps. Tess reveals though that she came prepared with a kryptonite rock. Now this is when you ask why she had this object before she knew Zod had superpowers. However, she gets Zod to kneel before her (wow, that's like beating Shaq senselessly through a basketball hoop) and then they start making out after their little spasm.
Huh?!
This then follows into them taking their passions to the bedroom. Because...
WHAT?!
Okay, suddenly Tess and Zod have become two identical sides of Xenia Onnatopp! "Oooh, you're gonna pull Kryptonite on me? You naughty girl!" I mean I've heard of fetishes when it comes to torture, but all these two show is how much they hate each other. There's opposites attracting and then there's insanity! This is makes as much sense as Clark and Lex bashing each other's heads throughout the seasons, then one of them realizing that through their heated rivalry, they somehow have feelings for each other, which would not work even if the two were homosexual. This makes no freaking sense, nor does the execution of how these two end up together!
Back at the inn, Clark and Chloe try to piece together what happened with her possession and they get on the topic of...oh you've gotta be kidding me...Lois and Clark's sex life. Clark tells Chloe that his former problem of "expressing his love" (which I remind you, only seems to happen when Smallville feels like it) is no more. Why do you ask?
Do you really have to ask me?
Alright fine, brace yourself. Apparently part of Jor-El's training with Clark has included...how to control himself...in the bedroom. Because as implied in "Wrath", Clark having sex with a human would probably lead to Lois in a full-body cast.
I think a part of my soul just ate itself!
Smallville, please! I really don't want to know about the sex life of these characters! Yes, I admit that Tom Welling, Erica Durance, Justin Hartley, Allison Mack, they're all attractive individuals. But when it comes to a show about aliens and super powers, it's creepy when you're even scratching the surface! Now I've got the horrible, HORRIBLE image of Jor-El teaching our future Superman how to treat a woman privately. If you weren't begging for a non-romance plot to be focused on this episode, you certainly will be now!
Clark and Chloe talk to the innkeeper to learn deeper about the Scottish legend of the painting. They figure out that the spirit possessing the women is none other than Siobhan McDougal herself. No! You think? Apparently after coming back from the underworld, Siobhan received a dreadful cry as a spirit that would kill people and became known as the Silver Banshee. While Clark realizes the Banshee is controlling Lois, Chloe figures out that if they burn the painting she escaped from, she'll go back to the underworld.
Clark confronts the Banshee who has escaped from Lois' body to unleash her deadly scream against Ollie. She uses her scream on both of them, but Clark seems to be able to fight through it. Now think about this for a second. Black Canary, a metahuman, was able to make Clark Kent's ear BLEED with her sonic scream. The Silver Banshee is a mystical, undead being who screamed at him, yet somehow isn't able to make Clark's ears bleed then. Clark has demonstrated greater vulnerability to magic than metahuman abilities, so how is it that Banshee's screams are less powerful than Black Canary's?
Well Chloe is able to save Clark by burning the painting, sending the Silver Banshee back to the underworld. Chloe and Oliver talk some more and realize they have stronger feelings than they originally thought, while Clark and Lois go back to the Talon to try and pick up where they left off...in the bedroom.
THANKFULLY, Lois is interrupted by a phone call from someone who claims to be the Blur. In actuality, it's Zod who is using Clark's voice changer and an America accent to make himself appear as her saviour.
CRITICAL COMMENTS
Performance wise, Odessa Rae is able to pull off the dual roles of the innkeeper and Silver Banshee with convincing acting in both roles. In fact, I could have sworn the Silver Banshee was played by Erica Durance by the sound of her voice at the episode's climax. The main cast is also able to work nicely with their roles, in some ways reminding long time viewers how much of a "social show" Smallville used to be.
Writing wise, this episode reveals more than we need to know about these couples. This is usually what happens in every Smallville season's "romance episode", but even some of the characters themselves are incredibly uncomfortable discussing it.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Smallville Checkmate Review
EPISODE SUMMARY
The Checkmate Organization makes it's second move against the Justice League:
The episode "Checkmate" begins with Amanda Waller, the head of the secret organization, contacting Tess Mercer to get back to her duties as "The White Knight" in order to bring down Green Arrow and take him in. She uses a secret passageway in the Daily Planet office to slip down into the streets wearing a disguise. Yes, I am aware this is a reference to the Adam West Batman TV Series. At least in this incarnation, the fact that she had a dufflebag with her explains her ability to appear in a costume next scene. A very complicated and perhaps painful method of changing her attire, but more believable than simply sliding down a pole and leaving the audience to assume a thousand pairs of robotic hands are responsible for your choice of wardrobe.
After staging a brawl with other Checkmate agents, Arrow is captured with Tess ending the intro with the official Mercer's So Awesome It Kills You Liner: "Checkmate."
Of course Ollie's disappearance has startled Chloe and Clark (particularly the latter as anyone to know the meaning of "Chlollie" can guess) who decide to investigate. The only thing is, one of the League's members is actually at the crime scene without contacting Watchtower. Phil Morris returns as John Johnes/Martian Manhunter to pick up evidence about Checkmate, while warning Clark not to interfere. Of course he's as vague as possible to his hidden agenda but like everybody else the dry "I'm protecting you all speech" is his natural defense before zipping off.
Meanwhile in a prison truck, Green Arrow is contacted by Amanda Waller who tells him she wants him and the other heroes to work with Checkmate to combat an approaching alien invasion. Oliver manages to escape the situation with...a lockpick. Wow, it's great to know that this super-secret organization is at its fullest capability. They know the abilities and secret code names of the Justice League, can slip evidence out of a room directly under the nose of Lois Lane but checking an unconscious prisoner for anything that could lead them to freedom? That's not their department.
After Tess gets berated by Waller for letting Arrow escape (lady, if you can't teach her Government Abduction 101, I'd say your textbooks are to blame), Oliver returns to the Watchtower to assure Chloe and Clark that he's alright, while making it an uncomfortable romantic moment that Clark is in the middle of. Clark jets off when he thinks John might have gone rogue and killed a Checkmate agent. That's what you gotta love when Clark and plot convenience horribly collide. He didn't seem to have a problem back in Season 6 after John burned his frickin' hand through the flesh of an alien wrestler back in "Static" but when a man that so much as talked to John turns up dead and has no concrete evidence, he goes into judge and jury mode.
While Clark has blurred away, Ollie and Chloe are busy with the argument over his choice of costume material, which apparently resemble tights. Wow, it's been like four years and now you're drawing that card? Anyway, Ollie decides to go to the bizillionth LuthorCorp fundraiser where he and Tess battle sarcasm and innuendo, before letting a line slip out that he heard during his abduction at the beginning of the episode.
This is what I believed to be a clear reference to the film Batman Returns where Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne were able to deduce each other's alter egos through banter they'd heard each other say in costume. The difference is, it's implied that Ollie saw Tess' face before he was knocked unconscious and knew directly after repeating the line that he had spilled the beans. Which means he was either being pretty sloppy or his words jumped ahead of his instincts. Tess realizes that Arrow and Ollie are one in the same and begins to throw priceless items at his head like an ex-wife realizing her husband is guilty of infidelity. Clark comes in short of the line "Cool it you two!" and takes Tess to the edge of a building to interrogate her.
Yes, Superman is pulling a Batman; using the intimidating suggestion that he's about to drop her like an egg. Now I'll go with the idea that maybe Clark gets to be a bit stronger and less darker as the times roll on and that he was very well only lying to get her to talk. But nonetheless, this still makes him look like a THUG! Well the tactic appears to work when Tess tells Clark that Checkmate wasn't after Ollie at all, but rather someone called "Watchtower". After a brief cut of Chloe kidnapped by a group of Checkmate agents, Tess tells Oliver that Clark and "Watchtower" are in trouble, which sends him into action.
On the subject of kidnappees too uptight with their morals to tell their teams valuable information, John Jones has broken into the Checkmate headquarters to find the alien blood sample Lois had sent to Waller in an earlier episode. Waller tells him that she needs it to prepare for the alien war, while Jones says it doesn't belong to her. Of course, Waller has a trick up her sleeve and surrounds John with fire, knowing it to be his alien weakness.
Wow, you mean just by watching him and using your keen detective work, you were able to realize his phobia against flames? That's pretty impressive Checkmate. Or so it would be, if you hadn't already demonstrated you can't figure out a superhero has a LOCKPICK up their sleeve!
Not to worry though, because Jones doesn't stay behind the pillars of fire very long, using his shapeshifting to transform into Waller, steal some of her memories and/or thoughts and bolt out with the blood sample.
Clark meanwhile has also broken into Checkmate to find Chloe, where he is told by Waller that if he gives his loyalty to the organization and gives her the location of all the League members, she won't paint the black and white room with Chloe's brain matter. Luckily the headquarters lose power and Clark is able to find Chloe in a very creative and interesting use of still motions for the action sequence that closely resemble comic book panels. Clark and Chloe escape.
Tess confronts Oliver and tells her that for betraying Checkmate by giving Watchtower the code to their power grid, she's likely on their hit list. She decides to head underground and asks Ollie for help, which he denies because he can't trust her anymore. He also adds that if she comes near any of his friends again, he will expose everything about her.
Yeah, because it's not like she has anything she can expose about YOU, right?
Clark and John are then seen at the Kent Farm where he wants to know who Jones is working for, which he of course doesn't reveal. All he alludes to is, "there are some people who don't see the world as black and white." As much as I wish he was referring to one Gotham billionaire, I know it's only wishful thinking as DC Comics still denies the rights of Batman for Smallville's creative use.
The episode finishes with Waller finding Checkmate has been broken into...AGAIN! How easy is it to break into this so-called top secret organization?! When she enters her office, her chess board has been cleared with only a single piece in its place. Waller angrily realizes that a new game has started.
CRITICAL COMMENTS
Phil Morris and Pam Grier as their respective characters of Martian Manhunter and Amanda Waller demonstrate strong presences in this episode. The main cast is also able to show their characters in new light, showing a recurring sense of mistrust among even their own team members.
The direction is awesome, with creative methods to the action. Writing was almost to the same level, but had it's moments where it could have used a little more drive.
RATING: 7/10
The Checkmate Organization makes it's second move against the Justice League:
The episode "Checkmate" begins with Amanda Waller, the head of the secret organization, contacting Tess Mercer to get back to her duties as "The White Knight" in order to bring down Green Arrow and take him in. She uses a secret passageway in the Daily Planet office to slip down into the streets wearing a disguise. Yes, I am aware this is a reference to the Adam West Batman TV Series. At least in this incarnation, the fact that she had a dufflebag with her explains her ability to appear in a costume next scene. A very complicated and perhaps painful method of changing her attire, but more believable than simply sliding down a pole and leaving the audience to assume a thousand pairs of robotic hands are responsible for your choice of wardrobe.
After staging a brawl with other Checkmate agents, Arrow is captured with Tess ending the intro with the official Mercer's So Awesome It Kills You Liner: "Checkmate."
Of course Ollie's disappearance has startled Chloe and Clark (particularly the latter as anyone to know the meaning of "Chlollie" can guess) who decide to investigate. The only thing is, one of the League's members is actually at the crime scene without contacting Watchtower. Phil Morris returns as John Johnes/Martian Manhunter to pick up evidence about Checkmate, while warning Clark not to interfere. Of course he's as vague as possible to his hidden agenda but like everybody else the dry "I'm protecting you all speech" is his natural defense before zipping off.
Meanwhile in a prison truck, Green Arrow is contacted by Amanda Waller who tells him she wants him and the other heroes to work with Checkmate to combat an approaching alien invasion. Oliver manages to escape the situation with...a lockpick. Wow, it's great to know that this super-secret organization is at its fullest capability. They know the abilities and secret code names of the Justice League, can slip evidence out of a room directly under the nose of Lois Lane but checking an unconscious prisoner for anything that could lead them to freedom? That's not their department.
After Tess gets berated by Waller for letting Arrow escape (lady, if you can't teach her Government Abduction 101, I'd say your textbooks are to blame), Oliver returns to the Watchtower to assure Chloe and Clark that he's alright, while making it an uncomfortable romantic moment that Clark is in the middle of. Clark jets off when he thinks John might have gone rogue and killed a Checkmate agent. That's what you gotta love when Clark and plot convenience horribly collide. He didn't seem to have a problem back in Season 6 after John burned his frickin' hand through the flesh of an alien wrestler back in "Static" but when a man that so much as talked to John turns up dead and has no concrete evidence, he goes into judge and jury mode.
While Clark has blurred away, Ollie and Chloe are busy with the argument over his choice of costume material, which apparently resemble tights. Wow, it's been like four years and now you're drawing that card? Anyway, Ollie decides to go to the bizillionth LuthorCorp fundraiser where he and Tess battle sarcasm and innuendo, before letting a line slip out that he heard during his abduction at the beginning of the episode.
This is what I believed to be a clear reference to the film Batman Returns where Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne were able to deduce each other's alter egos through banter they'd heard each other say in costume. The difference is, it's implied that Ollie saw Tess' face before he was knocked unconscious and knew directly after repeating the line that he had spilled the beans. Which means he was either being pretty sloppy or his words jumped ahead of his instincts. Tess realizes that Arrow and Ollie are one in the same and begins to throw priceless items at his head like an ex-wife realizing her husband is guilty of infidelity. Clark comes in short of the line "Cool it you two!" and takes Tess to the edge of a building to interrogate her.
Yes, Superman is pulling a Batman; using the intimidating suggestion that he's about to drop her like an egg. Now I'll go with the idea that maybe Clark gets to be a bit stronger and less darker as the times roll on and that he was very well only lying to get her to talk. But nonetheless, this still makes him look like a THUG! Well the tactic appears to work when Tess tells Clark that Checkmate wasn't after Ollie at all, but rather someone called "Watchtower". After a brief cut of Chloe kidnapped by a group of Checkmate agents, Tess tells Oliver that Clark and "Watchtower" are in trouble, which sends him into action.
On the subject of kidnappees too uptight with their morals to tell their teams valuable information, John Jones has broken into the Checkmate headquarters to find the alien blood sample Lois had sent to Waller in an earlier episode. Waller tells him that she needs it to prepare for the alien war, while Jones says it doesn't belong to her. Of course, Waller has a trick up her sleeve and surrounds John with fire, knowing it to be his alien weakness.
Wow, you mean just by watching him and using your keen detective work, you were able to realize his phobia against flames? That's pretty impressive Checkmate. Or so it would be, if you hadn't already demonstrated you can't figure out a superhero has a LOCKPICK up their sleeve!
Not to worry though, because Jones doesn't stay behind the pillars of fire very long, using his shapeshifting to transform into Waller, steal some of her memories and/or thoughts and bolt out with the blood sample.
Clark meanwhile has also broken into Checkmate to find Chloe, where he is told by Waller that if he gives his loyalty to the organization and gives her the location of all the League members, she won't paint the black and white room with Chloe's brain matter. Luckily the headquarters lose power and Clark is able to find Chloe in a very creative and interesting use of still motions for the action sequence that closely resemble comic book panels. Clark and Chloe escape.
Tess confronts Oliver and tells her that for betraying Checkmate by giving Watchtower the code to their power grid, she's likely on their hit list. She decides to head underground and asks Ollie for help, which he denies because he can't trust her anymore. He also adds that if she comes near any of his friends again, he will expose everything about her.
Yeah, because it's not like she has anything she can expose about YOU, right?
Clark and John are then seen at the Kent Farm where he wants to know who Jones is working for, which he of course doesn't reveal. All he alludes to is, "there are some people who don't see the world as black and white." As much as I wish he was referring to one Gotham billionaire, I know it's only wishful thinking as DC Comics still denies the rights of Batman for Smallville's creative use.
The episode finishes with Waller finding Checkmate has been broken into...AGAIN! How easy is it to break into this so-called top secret organization?! When she enters her office, her chess board has been cleared with only a single piece in its place. Waller angrily realizes that a new game has started.
CRITICAL COMMENTS
Phil Morris and Pam Grier as their respective characters of Martian Manhunter and Amanda Waller demonstrate strong presences in this episode. The main cast is also able to show their characters in new light, showing a recurring sense of mistrust among even their own team members.
The direction is awesome, with creative methods to the action. Writing was almost to the same level, but had it's moments where it could have used a little more drive.
RATING: 7/10
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