Smallville 9.15 "Conspiracy"

[emeraldstag]

The last Smallville before they go on a five week hiatus leading to the final run of S9 episodes, and I found myself entering the episode with a little hesitancy after the up and down roller coaster that was "Persuasion".

• Tess. I haven't been a fan of her character all season, now she's scrambling around with her precious sun tower destroyed and determined to get Oliver back, trying to find out what he's up to. I thought they were all friendly since they agreed to merge LexCorp last season and let her run things. It's one of many character portrayals that seem to have been turned upside down this season. She felt like a a villain in over her head in this episode and that makes me sad.
• Chloe. We're back to barely having any screentime but the more heinous offense is apparently they've pushed the Chlollie to overdrive where now Oliver showing up can be interpreted as a possible lead up to a "booty call". To go from bow holding to that, wow. I had a feeling they were going to push those two together and now I'm just resigned to it. So basically Oliver has now been with every female currently on Smallville. The one thing I did finally like about Chloe was the kryptonite weapons bunker/backup plan she's been creating. While I don't like that she's kept it a secret, I do like how she doesn't like relying on Clark (because of his naivete) especially after last season and the whole Doomsday Disaster (although she had a part in that too now that I think about it).
• Zod. That ending was totally predictable and I called it once Clark drove that Krypto-nail into his hand. His blood would save Zod and kickstart Zod's abilities. And the previews for the final run of episodes starting in April seem to also lead to the inevitability of Zod doing the same for the rest of the Kandorians. Outside of the predictability (along with Lois getting KO'd so Clark could save the day - the head damage that girl has) I did enjoy Callum Blue's performance yet again. And he was right. Clark can't save Zod, his initial distrust ruined any chance of it.

And now there is almost a parallel between the ending to start this break as the one in "Disciple" where Clark and Zod seem to form a partnership yet again. Unlike in Disciple where it seemed like Zod was the genuine one with Clark holding back cards, now the shoe is on the other foot and Clark is the genuine one while Zod has his powers secreted away. With the revelation that other Kandorians were doing less than good things behind Zod's back, it certainly seems like Zod was perhaps the truest Kandorian, and Clark's refusal to believe in that has now put things in flux with a collision not far away. We'll see, there are very few Smallville season finales that I've liked so I'm just going with the flow. It'll be a long five weeks.