Smallville Charade Review

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