Smallville Season 4, Disc 6 (Part 2)
I was trying to explain to smash23 what attracts me to Smallville, and it got me thinking. The obvious answer is it's pretty and I'm attracted to shiny things. Lighting and color design, yum. But every once in awhile I remember other things the show does well, and I think giving the main characters consient arcs is one of them. It's probably an advantage that Clark and Lex, especially, have a known trajectory. This show is about how they get there, but on the way, there are certain themes that can either be developed well or squandered. Destiny is one. Can you fight predestination? How much do your parents determine who you're going to be, and how much can you yourself control? Nature or nurture? It's always there with Clark and the Kents and Jor-El, with Lex and Lionel, and this season even with Lana and the Thoreau curse.
4.22 Commencement, a.k.a. Is Rusty gonna hafta choke a bitch?
OMG y'all, I am in SERIOUS MOURNING for the Kent Farmhouse.
But to sum up: Isobel Thoreau fulfills her destiny of killing bitter old French Gertrude's family line and gets poor Lana in trouble-with-a-capital-T. Lana's helicopter crashes and she finds a ship in a crater, and boy is it a big one! It's like the daddy of Clark's baby ship. And it looked like it was opening. Martha, Jonathan, and Jason are in a tense situation at home when a huge meteor crashes right through the house. Lionel is in an element-induced coma with Kryptonian symbols running behind his eyeballs. Lex and Chloe witness something happening in the caves, but it's not clear to them that it's Clark. Clark grabs the stone and is transported to an icy polar region. Smallville is flattened and smoking like a Luthor factory. And who knows *where* Shelby is!
Other thoughts:
1. The "farewell" conversation between Lois and Clark in the loft would have gotten me so drunk, so FAST if I had been playing my drinking game. One of my rules is take a drink every time a character makes an obvious reference to the well-known later Superman mythos. (Most visual references don't count, because that would be every time red and blue appear together, and you would die.) Like, say Chloe is talking about Clark becoming a businessman when he grows up, and somebody says they can't picture Clark "flying and wearing a suit." See? And this conversation was all, (approximately) "What about journalism, Lois?" "Kill me first. Even if I could spell, I'd probably end up sitting across the desk from the most bumbling reporter on the masthead."
2. An apocalypse at graduation. You know, I'm can't be annoyed that there are so many plot thefts parallels between this show and Buffy. They're both about superheroes in small-town high schools. The number of compelling things you can do with that premise has to have some limits, so they're bound to overlap. It's kind of cozy and familiar to be reminded of Buffy.
3. Sometimes I want to give Dead, Disembodied A.I. Jor-El a good hard smack.
4. I know this is a show about a boy with supernatural powers and you have to enter with your disbelief somewhat suspended. But within that universe the most common supernatural things have been given explanations that kind of work, in their way. I found this season that certain things having to do with those damn stones just didn't quite work; I felt like my willingness to suspend disbelief was being exploited. Witchcraft? Blood calling blood or whatever? Sigh. I know it's not logical to accept say, Clark's heat-beam eyes but not mystical objects, but that was just how I felt.
On the other hand, I try to break it down. The stones are sent to earth for Kal-El (or somebody from Krypton?) to find, then hidden and protected by three wise ancient civilizations which may or may not have alien ties. If humans with their inevitable greed ever use the stones, starting on the path to famine, war, and their planet's ultimate destruction, a big bad ship in outer space will be magically alerted and will come destroy the humans before they have a chance to do it themselves. Is that about right?
That brings me back to something I think I mentioned in a previous post, and I'm re-evaluating a little: I can accept the Lana/Thoreau/Teague storyline as 1) an illustration of the dangers of humans + the elements, 2) a catalyst for Clark's involvement with the elements, and 3) an opportunity to involve Lana Lang in the Superman mythology and turn the tables a bit in Clark and Lana's relationship.
5. One of my favorite lines: "You know, for a woman without a heart, Genevieve Teague sure did have a lot of blood." Ha! Well delivered by John Glover. (Speaking of. He was the insufferable assistant president in Scrooged! I just realized.)
1.
2.
1, 2 Who would have ever thought we'd have a season ending with a deadly girlfight between Lana Lang and Dr. Freaking Quinn? Awesome.
3.
4.
5.
3, 4 I think Jason was very remiss not telling his mother what Isobel is capable of when Lana is threatened. Bye, Genevieve. It was very nice to know your extreme evilness.
5 I suppose this means the curse is conveniently broken in the season finale and Lana is back to being a Real Girl.
6.
7.
6 Clark's dream, weirdly lit as we know all dreams are, includes a dog and being barefoot. ::floves::
7 Oh, no. They are not going *there*.
8.
9.
8, 9 Mmmm. It's so very MacBeth! (I guess this episode takes place no more than a few hours after the last one, since Lex showed up at Lana's place on Genevieve's heels, still all disheveled and poker-burned from being tortured in the Teague cabin. Luthor accused Lex of always letting the "damsel" lead him into the mouth of the dragon, and I can't argue.)
10.
11.
10 I love that when the Kents have a bowl of apples, they're cheerful green. When Lex has one, they're dark red. To match the BLOOD. (I also noticed Lana has both red and green apples.)
11 This isn't going to end well. Superpowered stone, murder weapon, Smallville writers...
12.
13.
12 Sunflowers! Take a drink. (And toast the Kent Farmhouse one last time.)
13 Bunny slippers and cowgirl pajamas! Lois's food jammies were cute, but I lurve the cowgirl ones.
14.
15.
14 Everybody's going to miss Lois, including Clark, he just doesn't know it because of all the bickering UST he's been afflicted with.
15 I liked this satellite-watching, Adbuster-reading guy a lot during his 10 seconds on screen. I hope he gets to come back sometime.
16.
17.
18.
16, 17, 18 Lana ties Clark's tie, because of course he's clueless. However, see how far askew he adjusted his tie? He *wanted* Lois to come fix it for him. How coy!
19.
20.
21.
19 Aw, Smallville has their graduation ceremony outdoors like my high school does. Ours was on the football field instead of the grounds in frony of the school, but either way, it's nice.
20, 21 ::sniff:: I'm so proud of these kids. In the immortal words of Daniel Osborne,
OZ: Guys. Take a moment to deal with this. We survived.
BUFFY: It was a hell of a battle.
OZ: Not that battle. High school.
Oh, like you don't think about that every time there's a graduation ceremony on TV.
22.
23.
22 The Kents and Lois are proud, too. Aw.
23 At my graduation, a dachshund got loose on the field and went scampering around wildly excited, licking graduates. Clark's year, warning sirens went off and the army rolled onto the field to evacuate the town! I like mine better.
24.
25.
24 In the panic, with (their part of the) world probably about to end and all those emotional weeks of gentler hinting coming to a head, Chloe goes a little nuts with the space alien innuendo. Smallville must have some kind of celestial bullseye on it! "I mean, lightning does not strike twice in the same place without some kind of lightning rod. Right? I just wonder what that is." Heh.
25 Dear Mom and Dad, you know how I was talking about staying in Smallville after graduation? Well, I really meant it. P.S. Am I handsome, or what?
26.
27.
26, 27 They *so* went there. Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!
28.
29.
28, 29 One last chance to trust each other before EVERYTHING CHANGES!
30.
31.
30 So I'm still wondering, who brought the stones to earth in the first place? Were the ancient learned cultures on earth aliens, or influenced by them? How is it all connected to Clark if he came here thousands of years after? Why didn't Dead A.I. Jor-El tell Clark the consequences before? Bastardo! And come on, literally getting blood on one of the stones summons this ship/meteor shower from space? Finally, can we stop with the Messiah thing?
31 The scene where they're packing up the truck is so very Joad. I was just waiting for Ma Kent to insist on going back in to make sure everything was clean and tidy before they left the house to be demolished.
32.
33.
32, 33 Clark telling his parents goodbye killed me, Jonathan's classic cheesy pronouncements aside. ("All the years we raised you were for this moment, make us proud." "If we have faith in our son then we can't let that faith waver now." Heh. God love him.) There's Martha standing there clutching Clark's yellow baby blanket, and he tells them he has to stay even though it could kill him, and she's all, "NO! You're MY son!"
34.
35.
34, 35 And after the decision's made, she doesn't say a word because she knows (as I imagine) she'll cry if she talks, and that's not what Clark needs right now. Tom Welling had some good emotion going under his boy-of-steel exterior, too, I thought.
36.
37.
38.
39.
36 "Lana, is this blood?" Clark, remember all those times you wouldn't tell me shit, you just asked me to trust you? Well I've earned some capital in this campaign, and now I intend to cash it. (Lana somehow knows the stones are meant for Clark. It's funny how everybody close to him *knows* something is different about him. They just have to. Except for Lois, who may be protected from suspicion for years by her habit of underestimating Clark.)
37, 38, 39 Gratuitous Lana pictures.
40.
41.
40, 41 One of the most tense moments of the episode for me was when I thought Jason was going to shoot Shelby. Not Shelby!
42.
43.
42 BWAAAAAA.
43 I love the Creamed Corn/Meteor Capital sign so much. All that was needed to make the season complete? A meteor crashing through the Meteor Capital sign. Alas, they missed the boat. It can't be that they thought it would have been too cheesy.
44.
45.
44 Check this out - unless I'm mistaken, Chloe has a stuffed toy cow... with heads at both ends. Priceless. Of course she does. She takes the Wall of Wierd to bed with her! (And it's like the Pushmepullyou from Doctor Doolittle!)
45 "Before you leave this earth, Dad, I want you to know: you did create the son you always wanted." Dude.
46.
47.
46 Heee!
47 Can I say? I *love* Jason as a psycho mama's boy. His boringness is completely gone.
48.
49.
48, 49 And I love Lex when he's getting kind of psychotic about Lana. Or dealing with Lana at all, really. I've been liking Lex/Lana since he taught her self-defence. Man, that was hot.
50.
51.
50 How come Lex is collecting all the Kryptonite-loaded guardian objects? Hmm.
51 Chloe may be intensely curious--and stubborn about needing Clark to tell her his secret himself--but she did a good job protecting him from Lex at the end of this episode. Committed violence on Clark's behalf and everything.
52.
53.
52 Oh, please let this be the last time we see that stupid countdown clock.
53 Oh no, you did NOT point that shotgun at Jonathan and Martha Kent. Is Rusty gonna hafta choke a bitch?
54.
55.
54 Oh. Crap.
55 Crap crap crap.
56.
57.
58.
59.
56, 57, 58 Cheesy, maybe, but very visually effective. It's so... Superman. I have to admit, I love it.
59 The FX budget for this episode must have been huge. That helicopter flying through the meteorites was awesome.
60.
60 Look how pretty!
61.
62.
61, 62 So Lex and Chloe are both in the caves, but Chloe bashes Lex's head against the wall (heh) and all they see is a shape against the light.
63.
64.
63, 64 I did not understand what happened to Lionel because he had the stone on him. I'm assuming they'll eventually explain. These stones are so much more trouble than they're worth. ::rolls eyes::
65.
66.
65, 66 Lois is sad. Smallville is toast.
67.
68.
67, 68 Lana is screwed. But screwed is better than dead.
69.
70.
69, 70 And on the bright side, there's nothing like a meteor disaster and a strange ship to make you forget about the grisly murder you just committed. It's all about perspective.
71.
71 This kid cannot win. You save Earth and everybody you love, and as thanks you wake up in...Antarctica?
72.
73.
72, 73 Aaaaugh! Oh wait. I have the next season waiting for me on tape.
4.22 Commencement, a.k.a. Is Rusty gonna hafta choke a bitch?
OMG y'all, I am in SERIOUS MOURNING for the Kent Farmhouse.
But to sum up: Isobel Thoreau fulfills her destiny of killing bitter old French Gertrude's family line and gets poor Lana in trouble-with-a-capital-T. Lana's helicopter crashes and she finds a ship in a crater, and boy is it a big one! It's like the daddy of Clark's baby ship. And it looked like it was opening. Martha, Jonathan, and Jason are in a tense situation at home when a huge meteor crashes right through the house. Lionel is in an element-induced coma with Kryptonian symbols running behind his eyeballs. Lex and Chloe witness something happening in the caves, but it's not clear to them that it's Clark. Clark grabs the stone and is transported to an icy polar region. Smallville is flattened and smoking like a Luthor factory. And who knows *where* Shelby is!
Other thoughts:
1. The "farewell" conversation between Lois and Clark in the loft would have gotten me so drunk, so FAST if I had been playing my drinking game. One of my rules is take a drink every time a character makes an obvious reference to the well-known later Superman mythos. (Most visual references don't count, because that would be every time red and blue appear together, and you would die.) Like, say Chloe is talking about Clark becoming a businessman when he grows up, and somebody says they can't picture Clark "flying and wearing a suit." See? And this conversation was all, (approximately) "What about journalism, Lois?" "Kill me first. Even if I could spell, I'd probably end up sitting across the desk from the most bumbling reporter on the masthead."
2. An apocalypse at graduation. You know, I'm can't be annoyed that there are so many plot thefts parallels between this show and Buffy. They're both about superheroes in small-town high schools. The number of compelling things you can do with that premise has to have some limits, so they're bound to overlap. It's kind of cozy and familiar to be reminded of Buffy.
3. Sometimes I want to give Dead, Disembodied A.I. Jor-El a good hard smack.
4. I know this is a show about a boy with supernatural powers and you have to enter with your disbelief somewhat suspended. But within that universe the most common supernatural things have been given explanations that kind of work, in their way. I found this season that certain things having to do with those damn stones just didn't quite work; I felt like my willingness to suspend disbelief was being exploited. Witchcraft? Blood calling blood or whatever? Sigh. I know it's not logical to accept say, Clark's heat-beam eyes but not mystical objects, but that was just how I felt.
On the other hand, I try to break it down. The stones are sent to earth for Kal-El (or somebody from Krypton?) to find, then hidden and protected by three wise ancient civilizations which may or may not have alien ties. If humans with their inevitable greed ever use the stones, starting on the path to famine, war, and their planet's ultimate destruction, a big bad ship in outer space will be magically alerted and will come destroy the humans before they have a chance to do it themselves. Is that about right?
That brings me back to something I think I mentioned in a previous post, and I'm re-evaluating a little: I can accept the Lana/Thoreau/Teague storyline as 1) an illustration of the dangers of humans + the elements, 2) a catalyst for Clark's involvement with the elements, and 3) an opportunity to involve Lana Lang in the Superman mythology and turn the tables a bit in Clark and Lana's relationship.
5. One of my favorite lines: "You know, for a woman without a heart, Genevieve Teague sure did have a lot of blood." Ha! Well delivered by John Glover. (Speaking of. He was the insufferable assistant president in Scrooged! I just realized.)
1.
2.
1, 2 Who would have ever thought we'd have a season ending with a deadly girlfight between Lana Lang and Dr. Freaking Quinn? Awesome.
3.
4.
5.
3, 4 I think Jason was very remiss not telling his mother what Isobel is capable of when Lana is threatened. Bye, Genevieve. It was very nice to know your extreme evilness.
5 I suppose this means the curse is conveniently broken in the season finale and Lana is back to being a Real Girl.
6.
7.
6 Clark's dream, weirdly lit as we know all dreams are, includes a dog and being barefoot. ::floves::
7 Oh, no. They are not going *there*.
8.
9.
8, 9 Mmmm. It's so very MacBeth! (I guess this episode takes place no more than a few hours after the last one, since Lex showed up at Lana's place on Genevieve's heels, still all disheveled and poker-burned from being tortured in the Teague cabin. Luthor accused Lex of always letting the "damsel" lead him into the mouth of the dragon, and I can't argue.)
10.
11.
10 I love that when the Kents have a bowl of apples, they're cheerful green. When Lex has one, they're dark red. To match the BLOOD. (I also noticed Lana has both red and green apples.)
11 This isn't going to end well. Superpowered stone, murder weapon, Smallville writers...
12.
13.
12 Sunflowers! Take a drink. (And toast the Kent Farmhouse one last time.)
13 Bunny slippers and cowgirl pajamas! Lois's food jammies were cute, but I lurve the cowgirl ones.
14.
15.
14 Everybody's going to miss Lois, including Clark, he just doesn't know it because of all the bickering UST he's been afflicted with.
15 I liked this satellite-watching, Adbuster-reading guy a lot during his 10 seconds on screen. I hope he gets to come back sometime.
16.
17.
18.
16, 17, 18 Lana ties Clark's tie, because of course he's clueless. However, see how far askew he adjusted his tie? He *wanted* Lois to come fix it for him. How coy!
19.
20.
21.
19 Aw, Smallville has their graduation ceremony outdoors like my high school does. Ours was on the football field instead of the grounds in frony of the school, but either way, it's nice.
20, 21 ::sniff:: I'm so proud of these kids. In the immortal words of Daniel Osborne,
OZ: Guys. Take a moment to deal with this. We survived.
BUFFY: It was a hell of a battle.
OZ: Not that battle. High school.
Oh, like you don't think about that every time there's a graduation ceremony on TV.
22.
23.
22 The Kents and Lois are proud, too. Aw.
23 At my graduation, a dachshund got loose on the field and went scampering around wildly excited, licking graduates. Clark's year, warning sirens went off and the army rolled onto the field to evacuate the town! I like mine better.
24.
25.
24 In the panic, with (their part of the) world probably about to end and all those emotional weeks of gentler hinting coming to a head, Chloe goes a little nuts with the space alien innuendo. Smallville must have some kind of celestial bullseye on it! "I mean, lightning does not strike twice in the same place without some kind of lightning rod. Right? I just wonder what that is." Heh.
25 Dear Mom and Dad, you know how I was talking about staying in Smallville after graduation? Well, I really meant it. P.S. Am I handsome, or what?
26.
27.
26, 27 They *so* went there. Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!
28.
29.
28, 29 One last chance to trust each other before EVERYTHING CHANGES!
30.
31.
30 So I'm still wondering, who brought the stones to earth in the first place? Were the ancient learned cultures on earth aliens, or influenced by them? How is it all connected to Clark if he came here thousands of years after? Why didn't Dead A.I. Jor-El tell Clark the consequences before? Bastardo! And come on, literally getting blood on one of the stones summons this ship/meteor shower from space? Finally, can we stop with the Messiah thing?
31 The scene where they're packing up the truck is so very Joad. I was just waiting for Ma Kent to insist on going back in to make sure everything was clean and tidy before they left the house to be demolished.
32.
33.
32, 33 Clark telling his parents goodbye killed me, Jonathan's classic cheesy pronouncements aside. ("All the years we raised you were for this moment, make us proud." "If we have faith in our son then we can't let that faith waver now." Heh. God love him.) There's Martha standing there clutching Clark's yellow baby blanket, and he tells them he has to stay even though it could kill him, and she's all, "NO! You're MY son!"
34.
35.
34, 35 And after the decision's made, she doesn't say a word because she knows (as I imagine) she'll cry if she talks, and that's not what Clark needs right now. Tom Welling had some good emotion going under his boy-of-steel exterior, too, I thought.
36.
37.
38.
39.
36 "Lana, is this blood?" Clark, remember all those times you wouldn't tell me shit, you just asked me to trust you? Well I've earned some capital in this campaign, and now I intend to cash it. (Lana somehow knows the stones are meant for Clark. It's funny how everybody close to him *knows* something is different about him. They just have to. Except for Lois, who may be protected from suspicion for years by her habit of underestimating Clark.)
37, 38, 39 Gratuitous Lana pictures.
40.
41.
40, 41 One of the most tense moments of the episode for me was when I thought Jason was going to shoot Shelby. Not Shelby!
42.
43.
42 BWAAAAAA.
43 I love the Creamed Corn/Meteor Capital sign so much. All that was needed to make the season complete? A meteor crashing through the Meteor Capital sign. Alas, they missed the boat. It can't be that they thought it would have been too cheesy.
44.
45.
44 Check this out - unless I'm mistaken, Chloe has a stuffed toy cow... with heads at both ends. Priceless. Of course she does. She takes the Wall of Wierd to bed with her! (And it's like the Pushmepullyou from Doctor Doolittle!)
45 "Before you leave this earth, Dad, I want you to know: you did create the son you always wanted." Dude.
46.
47.
46 Heee!
47 Can I say? I *love* Jason as a psycho mama's boy. His boringness is completely gone.
48.
49.
48, 49 And I love Lex when he's getting kind of psychotic about Lana. Or dealing with Lana at all, really. I've been liking Lex/Lana since he taught her self-defence. Man, that was hot.
50.
51.
50 How come Lex is collecting all the Kryptonite-loaded guardian objects? Hmm.
51 Chloe may be intensely curious--and stubborn about needing Clark to tell her his secret himself--but she did a good job protecting him from Lex at the end of this episode. Committed violence on Clark's behalf and everything.
52.
53.
52 Oh, please let this be the last time we see that stupid countdown clock.
53 Oh no, you did NOT point that shotgun at Jonathan and Martha Kent. Is Rusty gonna hafta choke a bitch?
54.
55.
54 Oh. Crap.
55 Crap crap crap.
56.
57.
58.
59.
56, 57, 58 Cheesy, maybe, but very visually effective. It's so... Superman. I have to admit, I love it.
59 The FX budget for this episode must have been huge. That helicopter flying through the meteorites was awesome.
60.
60 Look how pretty!
61.
62.
61, 62 So Lex and Chloe are both in the caves, but Chloe bashes Lex's head against the wall (heh) and all they see is a shape against the light.
63.
64.
63, 64 I did not understand what happened to Lionel because he had the stone on him. I'm assuming they'll eventually explain. These stones are so much more trouble than they're worth. ::rolls eyes::
65.
66.
65, 66 Lois is sad. Smallville is toast.
67.
68.
67, 68 Lana is screwed. But screwed is better than dead.
69.
70.
69, 70 And on the bright side, there's nothing like a meteor disaster and a strange ship to make you forget about the grisly murder you just committed. It's all about perspective.
71.
71 This kid cannot win. You save Earth and everybody you love, and as thanks you wake up in...Antarctica?
72.
73.
72, 73 Aaaaugh! Oh wait. I have the next season waiting for me on tape.