Superman on Television

Smallville: Episode Reviews

Season 8 - Episode 14: "Requiem"

Reviews:

Requiem

Reviewed by: Douglas Trumble

So Girl Power and Superman are making earthquakes on the Kent Farm while Oliver is getting himself blown up in an attempt to take over LuthorCorp. Only a well placed table and the fact he's the only one in the room in the title credits saves Oliver's life. Some back and forth ensues between Girl Power, Superman, Watchtower, and Green Arrow which leads the leading cast to Smallville's version of the Toyman.

Toyman, it turns out, is working for Lex. Girl Power, Watchtower, and Superman head out to track down the Toyman's current residence while Green Arrow stays shirtless in bed healing from the big boom. Girl Power and Superman find clues at the Toy Man's lair that leads them to believe a bomb might be at the Daily Planet. Girl Power rushes to the Planet to search for the bomb while Superman, despite being the one who knows the building better and being the one who can see through walls, heads off to find Watchtower and get her help tracking a hidden camera they found. Watchtower finds a way to track where Lex is and Superman rushes off to join Girl Power in her search for the bomb.

Green Arrow escapes death by clapping monkey and also rushes out leaving the Toyman tied up in his place. (Thankfully not shirtless like he was). Superman arrives at the Daily Planet to help Girl Power who cannot find the bomb anywhere. Superman takes 3.24 seconds using his superhearing to find it on the roof sitting out in the open where even a blind person could have found it. It turns out the bomb is filled with Kryptonite and only Girl Power's super suit's ability to absorb Kryptonite can save the day. (Because having her throwing it into the stratosphere is not really an option I guess.) She sucks up the radiation becoming deadly to Superman... Superman goes off to kill Lex only to find out the Green Arrow beat him to it.

The episode ends with Lex dead, Girl Power leaving town because she is irradiated and deadly to Superman, Watchtower still not with her critically injured husband, and the Green Arrow actually wearing a shirt while he convinces Watchtower to cover up his murder.

This week was actually a little better than last week surprisingly enough. There were a couple of moments where I felt some hope and actually enjoyed what was going on so I cannot say it was a total waste of time like last week. Still I cannot call it a "good" episode either based on the fact it was not a standalone episode and major parts of it were based on a bad story to begin with.

But let me break it down a little more than that. As always I might jump around a bit but here are my thoughts.

First of all Smallville's version of the Toyman was spot on. I mean it. The actor, the motives, the way he did things. Everything was right on the money. They really did a good job bringing this villain from the comic books to life on the show. (Okay he did look a lot like Control Freak from the Teen Titan's cartoon but that's okay. The characters are similar). The Killer Monkey bomb delivered to Oliver was great. You can never go wrong with killer symbol clapping monkeys. Those things are really scary (and I really mean that). I even liked how he was working for Lex. That makes sense. Lex would seek out the likes of the Toyman for these kinds of things. Not only does he have someone doing his dirty work while he is laid up, it also gives him someone to pin everything on if things go bad. Very Lex like. I hope we see the Toyman again. I just wish they left Lex in the background more but I'll get to that more later.

The other good moment was Clark on the plane with Chloe. I'll ignore the fact they are still using an airplane as Oliver's office. That is just so stupid I am not even going to go there anymore. But Clark's speech to Chloe about killing was so right on and so Superman that I had to enjoy it. Tom Welling delivers those hero moments very well and I know it couldn't have come at a better time. I needed to see Superman in this Clark again. Last week he was nowhere to be found and I admit it, I was wondering if he was gone for good. In that scene I could see he is still in there somewhere and that was a great relief to me.

Sure at the end, after Lex made Lana go all radioactive, Clark might have had a laps but I think it's safe to say he wouldn't have actually gone through with it. Superman can get ticked off once in a while and go after someone. We just have to know he won't go all the way and that speech to Chloe is what tells us this Superman will not.

I also found it really great how Clark found the bomb. Girl Power Lana was searching the building for some time and Clark shows up and finds it in seconds without even leaving the room they are in. I guess it was nice to a see moment during this story where Lana wasn't the top superhero in the DCU. Superman took Girl Power to school and it was about time. I also have to admit I was impressed that Clark put the safety of people in Metropolis over his love for Lana when he told her to soak up the bomb. Sure I think maybe trying some other way to get rid of the bomb like throwing it into space might have been a better choice of action but the good thing about the scene to me was the fact Girl Power hesitated and Superman didn't. He might whine about it later but at that moment saving people came first and that was good to see.

Green Arrow as a killer? Having him conspire with Chloe to cover it up? Oddly enough this didn't bother me all that much. I can understand how fans of Green Arrow would be bothered but I am not a die hard Green Arrow fan so I consider myself flexible. Heck he might have killed in the comics before so this might not be anything new to him. I don't know. My exposure to him is really only through Smallville, Justice League Unlimited, and the occasional comic where he and Superman appeared together. I like the character, don't get me wrong, but I am not exactly wearing Green Arrow Pajamas... (well ok I might if I could find a pair in my size but you get my point).

Anyway, I liked this twist because it sets Clark apart from Oliver. Green Arrow crossed a line. Clark wouldn't cross that line. Simple as that. Sure Clark was going to tear that truck up and might even manhandled Lex a bit but we all know he wouldn't have actually killed him. It also helps that Green Arrow's motives were not evil. They actually did make sense so it's not like the Arrow's crossing of the line was too far across where the character can't be redeemed in the future. So that is why I liked it. Or maybe I should say why I didn't hate it. Plus we all know Lex isn't really dead. Oliver thinks he killed him right now but we know he'll be back. Either on the show or sometime in this Superman's future. That should be obvious.

I didn't really like the stand in for Lex bit. I understand the actor is not available to them anymore and Lex was an important part to the story so they needed to do the stand in thing to have him there but I also think it might have been better to find another way to tell the story.

Why? Because I don't think that should have been Lex's grand finale on the show. Maybe we will see him again. I don't know but we've spent years with Michael Rosenbaum's Lex Luthor and I don't want a smoldering truck to be the final send off for that character. Leave him in the background pulling strings. The glances now and then using a body double and the discovery of hidden cameras are fine but they shouldn't have brought him into it this far just to have him taken out again like that.

The rest of my opinions really relate to Girl Power Lana and her story. It is just bad over all. My complaints from the last few episodes since Lana's return are still valid after this one. I saw nothing this week to change my mind.

Her growth to a DCU superhero is forced. The fact that she is still a superhero and still out there with powers also bothers me. I just do not think this character deserves that kind of send off. If any of the main characters is going to come out of this show as a DCU superhero than it should have been Chloe. She is the character that earned it. They never showed us why Lana was so great and why Lana deserved to be a Superhero. Sure they "told" us more than once but that never matched what they actually showed us. What I saw was a stuck up, deceptive, manipulative witch who's opinion of herself was way above and beyond what the reality they showed us was. That is usually okay. Characters like that can work in a story. The problem was everyone else on the show shared Lana's delusion of her grandeur and that is what killed this story. It was just hard to watch. Period. And even harder to watch her ride off into the sunset as a Superhero like that.

I also have to say I think given the reality of the situation that they gave up on trying to cure her too quickly to be believable. "Hey Clark. This one doctor says I can't be cured so I guess we're done. No I am not going to ask the billionaire blonde guy we work with sometimes to maybe, you know, hire some people to do some research and get a second opinion. I am just going to leave town now forever. Bye bye."

Still as a fan of the show and someone who is interested in seeing the rest of this season and hopefully next season I have to say that is okay. Why? Because Lord knows I do not want this story to drag out any further than it already did. Maybe they did give it up too soon to be believable but I am just glad it's over. Good or bad it is done. Lana's story has ended and I really highly doubt they will ever come back to it (hopefully).

It was cool how Clark fought the Kryptonite to kiss her though. I have to say that even if I didn't like the story. At least our Superman wasn't going to let it end without a fight.

But you know...It is time to move on. Get passed the negative from the past couple of weeks and get back to our regularly scheduled show about Superman which actually has him acting like Superman... you know like the first 5-10 episodes of this season? Let's move on to that.

This week gets a 2.5 out of 5 for me. I'll give it middle ground points for the great version of Toyman, Clark actually acting like Superman at moments, and the one point the wife makes me give for Justin Hartley shirtless but I can't rate it any higher than that.

Nowhere to go but up up and away from here. Come on Smallville. Time to get back on track. Bring on Lois. Bring on the Daily Planet. Bring on Superman. I am ready.

Doug



Requiem

Reviewed by: Neal Bailey

MAIN POINTS:

  • Lex Luthor blew up.
  • Lana has super powers.
  • Her powers absorb Kryptonite, so she can't be near Clark.
  • Toyman appears and is defeated.
  • Lana Lana Lana Lana Lana.

    REVIEW:

    In two shows, Smallville has systematically destroyed all of the goodwill and fun of this season, a season that was on a course to be as good as season three, my personal favorite, barring some massive screwup or series of bad shows.

    Such as this one.

    Another Lana-focal episode, another episode where Clark is wishy washy and ineffective in the face of her brilliance.

    But that's par for the course. Beyond that, it's ALSO got the added benefit of turning the Toyman from a semi-innocent who's misled into a petty thug murderer, the Smallville WRONG treatment of a given character if I've ever seen one.

    They also manage to turn Ollie into an unrepentant murderer, and imply that Chloe is one as well. So it's not good enough to f___ up Superman, now they're going to drag Green Arrow into the hole with him.

    As a resolution for the Lana storyline, it's abysmal. She's left a sympathetic character who did no wrong despite systematically self-destructing for years. She's left with the powers of Superman despite no moral compass to guide them by. They could have spent the last episode A) going over what Lana's character is, was, and will be before she leaves, or B) Put her in leather and give her the power of Superman randomly and forever, leaving her in no position to become her comic book counterpart.

    Guess which path Smallville took?

    Here's a question I have for you guys. Of the characters that have left this show, how many have done it in the way you'd like them to have?

    Jensen Ackles: No resolution. HIT BY A ROCK.

    Whitney: Killed off-camera after leaving rather arbitrarily with no closure, never mentioned again.

    Lionel: Thrown out of a window for a plot device in a lightswitch kill by Lex, rather than the culmination we desired.

    Martha: A senator? Really?

    Lex: Blown up after learning Clark's secret. IE, before Superman appears, Lex is dead and knows his secret before he's even worn glasses.

    Lana: Has Superman's powers, is made of Kryptonite, and DOES NOT stay in Smallville, while Clark DOES.

    To say nothing of the tens of villains and side-heroes who are nothing like their counterparts in spirit or action.

    And you're telling me, honestly, those who keep shaming me when I suggest that Tom will not rip open his shirt and fly, that you think he WILL? That you think that by the end of this show he'll have even bought glasses?

    Think again. Mark me.

    At any rate, let's blow-by-blow this pile.

    Toyman looks like a cross between the Blues Traveller guy and Hurley. He sounds like Jason Alexander. Color me confused. The acting was good, the problem was, the character was written without any depth whatsoever. He's just a dude who builds things, who went crazy, and started putting bombs in Teddy Bears. Sounds like the Toyman, I know, but then, the Toyman as a character is generally a benign entity, like the Prankster. He doesn't kill. His goal is to show people that toys have been abandoned by kids, and that that sucks. He's an anachronism, not a terrorist.

    Smallville makes him, to wit, a bit of a hero figure, but unwittingly. Ollie steals his patents. It's made clear. And Ollie doesn't object. He's like, "Yeah, dude, he started bringing stuffed animals in, so we just took his money. Screw that guy!" So you're sitting there thinking, "Yeah, get Ollie!" when you should be thinking that the Toyman must be stopped.

    Well, save that whole killing the whole Luthor Board. Why is the Toyman working for Luthor? Never really revealed. Does Luthor give Toyman toys? Does Luthor promise Toyman anything discernable? It's never covered.

    What is certain is that this was simply an attempt to capitalize on a character many people love, and that people who love that character will not find it in this guy, unless they like the Toyman that murdered Adam Grant. And I admit, I do, but then, even that version isn't serviced here. The closest we get is a monkey bomb. That's... okay, that has some merit. But only because of the monkey default love, not because that screams Toyman.

    I just dig monkeys.

    But even the MONKEY BOMB gets screwed up, because he says, "AT 53 CHIMES, YOU WILL ASPLODE!" And then, of course, what does the listener do? Listens to the chimes. And there are at least 70, and 53 before Ollie says, "That's 28!" which indicates an astonishingly poor grasp of mathematics and, more importantly, bad TV.

    Luthor kills the entire board because, uh, they're moving against Tess? I thought Lex wasn't working with Tess?

    Then, in a SURPRISE MOVE, IE Lex could not know it would happen, Ollie steps in and has bought the company. But a bomb is miraculously already there.

    Why would Toyman use the balls on strings? You got me. Seems out of character.

    The board scene in its entirety is rather stilted. It's a bunch of unconvincing actors arguing over business choices that would have been made many months previous. Beyond that, the Prometheus suit was supposed to be a secret, was it not? They put the WHOLE FORTUNE into it? That many billions, with little to no security or... you know what? To hell with it. I don't even care to think about it. Why would I? They didn't. Complete, total apathy, which is the antithesis of what a show should be inspiring.

    Ollie's entrance was also cringe-worthy. That sentence-completion burst in that Smallville does at times where you think, god, what a d___, he could have come in at any time, he just did that to be rude.

    Lana wants to go on patrol with Clark, showing how equal they are again. Equality being one character earns the right to patrol through years and years of earning responsibility, another gets power like a lightswitch and all of a sudden deserves the same responsibility and trust, and will pout of she doesn't get such.

    Ha-ha. They had sex and broke the bed. Ha-ha. Whee. So funny. I won't go into the whole sex before marriage argument. I did that two years ago, and I don't deserve hate mail for their rotten job at understanding what a character should be. If you're still reading, you've probably heard it already.

    Clark insta-trusts Lana after she lied about a million things and went missing for months to no apparent end other than seeking power. Out of character, and dumb as Clark.

    AND AGAIN WITH THE SQUEAKY METROPOLIS SHOES!

    Oliver survives because he was behind the table, despite not being behind the table and despite all of the people near him being killed. Uh, yeah. A little too much coincidence there mating with convenience.

    Clark and Lana appear at the crime scene, AS COPS ARE THERE, tamper with evidence, and no one stops them, questions them, or has any clue how they blurred in. This is the scene of a homicide that decimated the fictional equivalent of Microsoft, and you're telling me no one's securing the scene? B___s__t.

    Oliver lays on a hospital bed, and when they ask him about how he is, he says, "Nothing a dry martini can't cure." This holds two disturbing connotations for the characterization of the show. One, it indicates that Ollie really is a playboy, when he's as much of a playboy as Bruce Wayne is. Because it suits his vigilantism. So it's out of character. But beyond that, it indicates (and the rest of the episode thereby supports) that he's still drinking his way to feeling better and wanting to kill Lex Luthor for Lionel's crimes.

    Problem being, THIS PLOTLINE WAS ALREADY FULLY RESOLVED AND IT SUCKED THE FIRST TIME.

    The Toyman makes a kryptobomb. Why? Well, because there's Kryptonite in everything. Lame device, yet again.

    Queen industry tech is used behind the bomb, which is never really explained, beyond that Toyman worked for Queen. But the thing is, now he works for Lex. Why would he be using Queen tech barring some frame-up attempt, which never made its way in?

    Here begins the SECRETS and LIES of the episode, which are all utterly despicable. Lana hides that Ollie tried to kill Lex arbitrarily. Chloe hides that she's working for Ollie. Ollie hides that he wants to kill Lex, despite the fact that Clark already knows and they RESOLVED THAT F___ING PLOT!

    All demure, soap opera crap that holds no adult appeal to anyone with common sense. Male, female, it doesn't matter. People who admire people who hold arbitrary secrets when it holds no palpable benefit for any involved BURN me. I hate them, and they're not entertainment.

    I was gonna write up every single time Toyman did something WAY out of character and try and make an 80s sitcom about it. You know, like, "Winslow kills fifteen people in cold blood in a non-toy related manner." (tv jingle) THAT'S SO TOYMAN!

    Winslow handcuffs Ollie to the bed shirtless. THAT'S SO TOYMAN!

    Winslow gets mad over patents that have nothing to do with toys. THAT'S SO TOYMAN!

    I was gonna put a lot of effort into it, and make something funny, but Smallville has honestly tapped my will to live, and I don't want to give the show that effort, that regard. I'm just... this is so utterly disappointing on every level.

    Toyman plans to blow up the Daily Planet, despite there being no toy related reason to, no vengeance on Ollie, no real point. THAT'S SO TOYMAN!

    Okay, maybe I'll do a little.

    AND AGAIN WITH THE SQUEAKY QUEEN PLANE! That sounds like the title of a Sex in the City episode. One would assume. I've never seen the show. Or it could be a weekend with Freddie Mercury before he died...

    Clark can see through walls and hear gnat poop as it squidges out, and yet there is a scene, swear to Rao, where he walks in the house when Lana is standing three feet from him and he neither sees nor hears her, and says, "Lana? Lana?"

    More necklace obsession. I swear, Clark should put his back to Lana. She can stare at pictures of her parents while petting her horse and Clark can fondle that necklace while watching the video of Lana leaving. You put a video of that on youtube, and the shippers would wet themselves with happiness so great and deep that this episode and its precursor need not even be filmed, because it all panders to this garbage aesthetic.

    It's not that I don't understand a memento of a relationship being something that drives people to be melancholy. The problem here lies in the fact that the relationship that they mourn NEVER EXISTED. It was always inconsistent on a constant basis, never in concrete, always something that varied by the week. One minute Lana loved him, the next she hated him, seemingly arbitrarily and for the sake of getting her naked or putting him in an awkward position. I see THAT when I see the necklace. It reminds me of a show's potential squandered, not all those great times I miss.

    Beyond that, look at the context. Lana didn't know he had the thing when he arrives, meaning she searched his damned house when he wasn't around to find the thing. She's SNOOPING IN HIS HOUSE. TWOO WUV! As Spaceballs put it.

    People seem to labor under the delusion that this is okay, because this is just how things turned out for these people, as if they aren't fictional characters fully controlled by the writers. Writers who could have chosen to spend this episode with Lana and Clark perhaps lamenting the people who have died because of and to protect their relationship over time. The way that we would react, in their shoes. Instead, they emo kid it, staring at a necklace and talking about being there for each other 4evar while they're walking out the door.

    Worked great for me too when I was 12. Stopped at about age 13.

    Luthor apparently designed the suit to, uh, absorb kryptonite. So that Luthor becomes a walking weapon that can kill Superman, one would assume.

    I can just imagine that. I'm Lex Luthor, sitting in my room staring at the fire. The scientist comes in. "So, you asked me for your idea, Mr. Ratner? Er, I mean, Mr. Luthor?"

    "Yeah, Emil! It's great. Listen to this. We're gonna make me a suit!"

    "Great! With like, rockets and guns?"

    "No! No no no! It's gonna be a suit... that isn't a suit. It's just my SKIN! But I'm in a suit! I'll be invulnerable!"

    "Wouldn't that be an aura!"

    "No! It's a SKIN SUIT! Don't you get it?"

    "Like Buffalo Bill? Would you ___ me Buffalo Bill?"

    "No! Like, a super-suit! And get this, there's a kicker!"

    "Do tell, Mr. Luth-er."

    "It ABSORBS Kryptonite!"

    "Meteor rock, you mean?"

    "Er, yeah!"

    "Why would you want your suit to radiate Kryptonite?"

    "NEVER MIND!"

    "It's because that kid who thinks he has a secret that everyone knows has superpowers, you want to whack him, don't you. Kevin? Clark?"

    "KILLING KILLING KILLING!"

    "Yeah. Clark. Okay. Well, all due respect Lex (and awesome vocal device, I must say), why don't you just, you know, lure him somewhere and then just put the f______g rock on his chest and shoot him in the face?"

    "I WANT A SUIT!"

    "Yeah, okay, but do you know how much more complex a skin-suit that absorbs Kryptonite would be rather than just holding out a rock, which you can hold in your hand? I mean, for Christ's sake, I made you a ring! Just wear the ring, you don't even have to hold it!"

    "No! You don't get it! There's an offhand chance Lana might blackmail me and put on the suit herself... and then... and THEN, she will never be able to hold Clark again! At least, not without a lead suit and providing there's nothing in this universe that can nullify Kryptonite's powers."

    "Sir! Look! That camera in Kent's house. He's holding that nullified Kryptonite necklace."

    "BALLS! Call Schott! We must escalate our plans!"

    "That's so Toyman, sir!" (Jingle)

    Toyman breaks into the hospital and attacks Ollie, who then taunts him. It's supposed to be, I imagine, Ollie taunting him to get him to act impulsively and gain the upper hand. It just comes across as Ollie being a dink.

    Which is further enforced when Ollie leaves a delusional, multiple murdering psychopath lightly tied to a bed with no real explanation, ripe to murder that poor, kind, hot nurse. What a d__k! What would have happened had Chloe not arrived?

    But then she's conked out, because there's SLEEPING GAS in the balloons. Why? Well, why not? It just had absolutely no bearing on the reason he came to the hospital, so naturally he prepared that contingency and a smiley-faced rebreather. And it all happens in the time that any idiot could hold their breath and walk out the door. The balloon bursts don't alert anyone on the outside, and Toyman escapes THROUGH THE DOOR THAT HAS BEEN OPEN THE WHOLE TIME THROUGH THE ASSAULT, SCREAMING, AND BALLOONS. Christ.

    Clark and Lana find out that there's a Daily Planet bomb. They immediately defuse it, because they know it to be the heroic thing to do.

    No wait, they don't. Clark goes to talk with Chloe about where Lex is, because that's more important than a BUILDING FULL OF PEOPLE. And he leaves Lana, who has never gone crazy when unsupervised with power (he said in disgust) to find the bomb.

    The bomb that GLOWS BRIGHT GREEN and is ON THE ROOF, where it would not destroy the building, only damage the top floors.

    Chloe's response: "Call me crazy, Clark, but isn't there a bomb?"

    Completely ignored by Clark, who insists on finding Lex with that "TEN MINUTES" warning that seems out of the blue, ridiculous, an excuse to try desperately to ratchet up tension that just isn't there.

    Clark then FINDS where Lex is, the reason he's not combing the Daily Planet looking for the bomb, the reason he's wasted this precious time, and instead of going to Lex, which he has thereby declared as his reason for not going to the Daily Planet, he GOES TO THE DAILY PLANET. IE he wasted time for something he was going to wait to do until the Daily Planet was safe anyway.

    He finds the bomb in less than ten seconds, whereas Lana has searched and searched and can't find it, despite it being in plain sight.

    HOW Schott had time to do this in the time he was in the hospital and then escaped is also way beyond my logic. That's So Toyman.

    So they go to the roof, and THERE is the bomb! It's made of Kryptonite! And the only way to stop it is for LANA TO ABSORB IT! Oh noes! They won't be able to be close to each other evar again! Nevar evar! I mean-

    (crunching noises, wind)

    Clark stands next to the bomb, which he's wrapped in lead that he's taken from a local scrapyard at superspeed. "Alley oop!" He tosses it into space. "Let's go break another bed, Lana!"

    But see, that would require the writers realizing that they're writing SUPERMAN, a character that has POWERS. I know they've forgotten that, but hey.

    So get this. GET THIS. Lana absorbs the kryptonite, but it's a kryptonite ENHANCED bomb. IE, it's still armed. And they don't disarm it. It's still armed when Clark leaves. Seriously. It'll just be a smaller explosion.

    Lex's plan, as related by the stand-in (who was actually quite good, I was surprised), is that he's going to take away everything that matters to Clark. And, to wit, in this story he does. Because in this story, Clark and Lana cannot exist without physical contact.

    Do you understand how unmitigated the shallowness of that concept that is? It says, "Lana and Clark's love is so timeless, so ethereal, so wonderful and continuing and unending, that if they can't touch each other, the relationship is OVAR!"

    Here's the deal. Let's say I loved someone. Not, you know, liked having sex with them. I LOVED them. And they got an awful, festering, boiling skin disease that made their breasts deflate, made them smell of a septic wound, and meant that I had to stay fifteen feet from them at all times or die.

    If we were really in love, I'd set up an intercom and two video cameras and NOTHING WOULD CHANGE. I'd just, you know, take care of myself. I can't get any more specific than that, but you know what I'm implying.

    THAT is LOVE.

    Lana, predictably, decides that if they can't touch, she has to leave. Clark, notably, fights this notion and injures himself walking up to her, proving, in what's supposed to be a sympathy moment for LANA, what we already know, that Clark is the victim here, the one who's fought the losing battle for something he believed in.

    THAT is tragic, not Lana's sadness. I took glee in her crying, because she did it to herself. She took the powers. She sought them. Nothing is made of this. They are apart because of HER ACTIONS, and yet it's portrayed as a tragedy that shouldn't have befallen her. CLARK has my sympathy, but he also has my condemnation, because he's stupid enough to have fallen for this for so long.

    Beyond that, why not go to Jor-El, who knows how to make Kryptonite negated, and ask him to negate it?

    LET IT END.

    But not before the whole "CLARK MIGHT KILL!" dilemma comes up again. Just three episodes ago, CLARK NEVER KILLS, AND WOULD NEVER! was Lana's mantra. Here, she thinks he would, he thinks he would, and likely would have HAD OLLIE NOT.

    So yeah, Ollie's a murderer. Not much to say about that, beyond the fact that the character is totally irredeemable now. I'm at a loss as to exactly how he found Lex's truck, but hey.

    I'm guessing it'll be excused because Lex will still be alive somehow. But it's not excused. He, in full cognizance, decided to murder a human being. He's nothing to me now. No hero, never, ever again.

    And Chloe might be too. Even better. Sigh.

    I went from excitement about this show to hoping this is the last season in two episodes. Congrats, guys.

    I gave 0 of 5 for Lex's resolution because he was a character I cared about. But I never cared about Lana, they never accomplished that. So I don't need resolution. I just need her gone. And she is.

    Good riddance, and may that character never appear in any medium again. What an awful, abysmal waste of time and life.

    1 of 5.

    LETTERS:

    Mark L. wrote:

    Simply put, "Power" was the WORST EPISODE ever created, of any show that has ever existed. Can this show do any less?

    I've seen worse. I once watched an episode of Friends.

    Donald Tidmore wrote:

    I watched the Requiem episode last night, and it made me sick at times.

    Only at times?

    There was just way too much garbage thrown at the viewer. Since when can a human being supposedly absorb liquid kryptonite, without them turning solid green- and staying that color? They have just forgotten all about Jimmy Olsen, whose wife is NOT staying by his hospital bed. No follow-up whatsoever on the Fortress situation. Is Doomsday staying Doomsday permanently, or can he change back into the human being - which is indicated in a way by some of the hints about future episodes you see on the Kryptonsite.com site's spoilers page. And if Brainiac was destroyed, does Jor-El return to being in control of his Fortress. I was hoping that you might have some knowledge about this stuff. At any rate, at the rate the Smallville directors/producers are ruining the season, I now doubt strongly that we will get a season 9 from the CW. Oh yeah, and "superhuman" Lana Lang in both "Power" and "Requiem" was 100% unbelievable.

    Why would she have super-speed for example? Thanks for getting your reviews of each Smallville episode posted online so fast. Donald

    I have some knowledge. It won't help. :)

    As I have always said, though, don't count on how good the show is as a litmus. They will go until the money runs out or Welling leaves. Mark me. It's still the top show on the network.

    Jules Brice wrote:

    Hey, Neal.

    I have lapsed into passive/aggressively watching the show without commenting at all, just thinking about seeing how monumentally they were screwing it up, and then, this.

    I had a flashback to Season four, and that was not nearly as bad as this.

    I mean, then we had "Lana Lang (vampire) bites Clark Kent (dressed as Zorro) in the neck and takes his powers"; here we have "Lana Lang (I'm gonna go with power-hungry stupid oaf) improbably puts on a nanite suit after training to be invincible (really?, it's... ahhh... never mind, head hurts) to be Clark's equal (and get jiggy with it, oww, head hurts more)".

    Yeah. It was absolutely atrocious.

    The show has gone from jumping the shark to flame baiting us, the audience, in order to maintain ratings and give it publicity. Good or bad, they'll take anything. Trolls.

    I sincerely hope this iteration of Lana Lang is put down, once and for all.

    I would keep going in that vein, but it's pointless and time-consuming.

    I hope everythin turns out OK.

    I always do, too, but am disappointed.

    Jules

    Thomas wrote:

    Hey I was reading the KO Count and noticed that Jason and Alicia were listed as not having been mentioned for four seasons. I know how much you hate the whole Clana thing, but in "Mortal" when Clark and Lana are talking about having sex, they both mention they're virgins and both mention by name, Alicia and Jason. So at least they were mentioned.

    I think I covered that in the review. In the KO count, I mean any mention of substance. Like, "I miss my father. He meant this and this to me." (goes on for a few minutes, and has relevance to the story, etc) But for Clark to say, "Mom is in Washington or she'd be here right now!" is not, to me, a formal recognition of the character in any meaningful sense, so it doesn't count for me. Saying that she never had sex with Jason means nothing about the character's impact in her life, it's just a statement of fact, like, "My parents are dead." As a statement as opposed to, say, the funeral scene in the first episode, which is an acknowledgement.

    Good question, though.

    And I was wondering what you thought of "Requiem" in regards to Lex "dying?" Do you think he's actually dead?

    No. He can't be, bluntly.

    I mean it wouldn't be the first time that Smallville killed off a character thats alive in the comics but this is LEX LUTHOR: the arch-enemy of Superman.

    Not so, actually. Morgan Edge. And others. But I don't want to look it up.

    He can't be dead before Clark is even Superman! I think he cloned himself and that his clone is gonna come back and become Lex Luthor, he just won't have any memory of Clark's secret. He can't be gone forever.

    That sounds like the direction they'd take, yep.

    Thanks

    Thank you!

    Don't forget to check out the updated KO Count.

    Catch you all in a month or so!

    Neal



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