My review of Smallville's "Finale"
Spoilers for "Finale", Smallville 10x21 and 10x22:
OKAY I EAT CROW.
That was beautiful. Really, really beautiful. My issue with baby!Queen (image-heavy post) is a drop in the bucket compared to the wonderful, beautiful, iconic everything else that was this episode.
There needed to be a small child reading Superman comics for whom these heroes are real and true and present in their life. A child for whom Superman and Green Arrow and Black Canary and Martian Manhunter are larger-than-life figures that they can look up to and believe in. And if there was going to be a small child, then it might as well have been Ollie and Chloe's kid instead of a random one.
Everything else was just perfect, and I think I'm even starting to reconcile myself to Tess dying because, well, she belongs to the half of the story that's a tragedy. Being a Luthor doomed her to walk through the valley of the shadow while other characters got far more of the light, but like Granny Goodness said--even in that darkness Tess clung to the light. "You know I'm actually saving you." "From what?" "From turning into me." "It's too late. Clark already did that." And with her dying breath, she protected Clark. She went out a hero and I love her for that. The League will honour that sacrifice. She was one of their own.
(destina makes a compelling argument for why Lex had to lose his memories. I can understand why Lex fans are upset, but it is thematically fitting that Clark embraces his past and Lex loses his.)
Clark and Lois were utterly transcendent, together and apart. When I watched Superman Returns, I felt it was good and fitting that Superman and Lois didn't end up together, and I'm not exactly eager to see how the next movie might try to bring them together. In Superman Returns, it seemed right that Lois had moved on--still believing in Superman as a hero, yes, but choosing instead to make a life with Richard White and give her special son a Jonathan Kent.
But here? In Smallville? The narrative practically SHOUTED, in every scene, in every line of dialogue, through their emotional journeys as they wrestled with legitimate doubts and lizard-brain fears, that this Clark Kent and this Lois Lane were destined to be together, forever. I love that they walked down the aisle together, companions.
Martha and Jonathan were incredible. I remember, when I first watched the Smallville pilot, lo these many moons ago, that I was really pissed off that Martha wasn't with Jonathan to tell Clark about his origins. I felt it was sexist that this important moment in Clark's life would be confined to father and son. Well, it's been ten years now and it still bothers me a little, but it was also... inevitable. Because Jor-El is so central to Superman's story--especially in the Christopher Reeve movies--that Jonathan Kent had to be the counterweight. Mothers still have their place in the Superman story, but they'll never match the narrative power of the father/son story--Superman Returns demonstrated that clearly enough.
Where was I going with this... Oh, right. Jonathan and Jor-El. I thought it was pretty hinky that Clark was selling the farm and that, in the penultimate episode, he actually turned off the Fortress. Um, no. That's not how it works. SV veers from canon now and then (*cough*baby!Queen*cough*) but no way did they spend ten years making a show called Smallville only to have Clark's transformation into Superman be grounded on his belief that he had to bury his past. The Kent farm wasn't going anywhere, and neither was the Fortress.
Smallville, first and foremost, was an origin story. Origin stories tell us about where we come from. How we came to be. Who has journeyed with us along the way.
"Finale" wasn't perfect, but it was pretty damn close. There were so many fantastic moments.
98% squee has been achieved. :D
Oh, Smallville. I wasn't even around for most of this zany ride, but I was here for your beginning and I was here for your end--and I'm buying the DVDs. *g* Ten years. Thank you.
ETA: Just a comment on something I've seen in other people's reviews, which is that people were afraid Chloe was going to die because she was the token original character. I have to admit, I never really had that fear. Maybe I did, years ago, but certainly not since I began my Smallville re-watch.
Chloe wasn't going to die because she's not an original character.
She's Lana Lang.
And Lana Lang does not die.
(Chlois theorists, put that in your pipe and smoke it.)
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OKAY I EAT CROW.
That was beautiful. Really, really beautiful. My issue with baby!Queen (image-heavy post) is a drop in the bucket compared to the wonderful, beautiful, iconic everything else that was this episode.
There needed to be a small child reading Superman comics for whom these heroes are real and true and present in their life. A child for whom Superman and Green Arrow and Black Canary and Martian Manhunter are larger-than-life figures that they can look up to and believe in. And if there was going to be a small child, then it might as well have been Ollie and Chloe's kid instead of a random one.
Everything else was just perfect, and I think I'm even starting to reconcile myself to Tess dying because, well, she belongs to the half of the story that's a tragedy. Being a Luthor doomed her to walk through the valley of the shadow while other characters got far more of the light, but like Granny Goodness said--even in that darkness Tess clung to the light. "You know I'm actually saving you." "From what?" "From turning into me." "It's too late. Clark already did that." And with her dying breath, she protected Clark. She went out a hero and I love her for that. The League will honour that sacrifice. She was one of their own.
(destina makes a compelling argument for why Lex had to lose his memories. I can understand why Lex fans are upset, but it is thematically fitting that Clark embraces his past and Lex loses his.)
Clark and Lois were utterly transcendent, together and apart. When I watched Superman Returns, I felt it was good and fitting that Superman and Lois didn't end up together, and I'm not exactly eager to see how the next movie might try to bring them together. In Superman Returns, it seemed right that Lois had moved on--still believing in Superman as a hero, yes, but choosing instead to make a life with Richard White and give her special son a Jonathan Kent.
But here? In Smallville? The narrative practically SHOUTED, in every scene, in every line of dialogue, through their emotional journeys as they wrestled with legitimate doubts and lizard-brain fears, that this Clark Kent and this Lois Lane were destined to be together, forever. I love that they walked down the aisle together, companions.
Martha and Jonathan were incredible. I remember, when I first watched the Smallville pilot, lo these many moons ago, that I was really pissed off that Martha wasn't with Jonathan to tell Clark about his origins. I felt it was sexist that this important moment in Clark's life would be confined to father and son. Well, it's been ten years now and it still bothers me a little, but it was also... inevitable. Because Jor-El is so central to Superman's story--especially in the Christopher Reeve movies--that Jonathan Kent had to be the counterweight. Mothers still have their place in the Superman story, but they'll never match the narrative power of the father/son story--Superman Returns demonstrated that clearly enough.
Where was I going with this... Oh, right. Jonathan and Jor-El. I thought it was pretty hinky that Clark was selling the farm and that, in the penultimate episode, he actually turned off the Fortress. Um, no. That's not how it works. SV veers from canon now and then (*cough*baby!Queen*cough*) but no way did they spend ten years making a show called Smallville only to have Clark's transformation into Superman be grounded on his belief that he had to bury his past. The Kent farm wasn't going anywhere, and neither was the Fortress.
Smallville, first and foremost, was an origin story. Origin stories tell us about where we come from. How we came to be. Who has journeyed with us along the way.
"Finale" wasn't perfect, but it was pretty damn close. There were so many fantastic moments.
- Martha reading Clark the riot act about selling the farm, making Jonathan real again for her son.
- Clark in the graveyard, talking to his father's tomb. Jonathan talking to Clark, unheard. Ollie opening up to Clark about his own losses, and Clark drawing even further away.
- Lionel and his twisted idea of family, the abuse that wrought a man like Lex Luthor. Also, the incest/sexual violence. Not just Lionel bad-touching Tess, but Lex stabbing her. That was her womb, wasn't it.
- Clark and Lex in the ruins of the mansion, the two of them, great and terrible. "And I'll always be there to stop you. Always." "You're the light, Clark." The intimate hand on the shoulder. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you, Lex."
- LOIS LANE, INTREPID REPORTER. I'm totally cool with her knocking out that woman with a three-hole punch. Hee!
- The flashbacks to Clark's "trials", and Jor-El and Jonathan coming together (after all this time) to send Clark forth into the world, his own man.
- Clark donning the suit, soaring up through the Fortress and into the sky, saving Lois and Air Force One (because it has to be Air Force One, guys!) and pressing his hand against the glass where her hand is, a mirror of their hands pressed against the opposite sides of their front door.
- "Miss Lane?" "Mr. President." ♥♥♥
- Then Superman, flying over the people of Metropolis, a red and blue blur! Pushing the darkness away and giving them hope. And, yeah, my Clark/Ollie shipper heart kind of loved Ollie's "Come on, Clark. You can do this." Not to mention that smile. ♥
- SUPERMAN + EARTH = OTP
- Okay, yeah, the kid is adorable. And given that this is a superhero comics story, yeah, we needed a child to say, "Read it again, please!" And the Chloe I loved, still love, is there--telling the story. Our narrator to the end.
- Perry White! Great Caesar's ghost! Ahahaha! This is especially funny because I'm re-reading Quiver (Kevin Smith's re-launch of Green Arrow) and the line that Superman utters upon seeing Oliver Queen, very much alive? "Great Caesar's ghost!" Clark then proceeds to give Ollie a BIG BEAR HUG that might, possibly, have cracked a rib. (Or maybe Ollie's just a wuss.)
- Aaron Ashmore, bless you. I still don't buy the other Jimmy thing, but I'm glad you're here to see the end.
- "Yes, Miss Lane." "That's so hot." Ahahaha! *ships them forever* Oh, my God. THEY'RE STILL NOT MARRIED. *SHIPS THEM MOAR* And then, yes, yes, a bomb in an elevator uptown! Of course there is.
- And they go to work.
- SUPERMAN!!!!!!!!!
98% squee has been achieved. :D
Oh, Smallville. I wasn't even around for most of this zany ride, but I was here for your beginning and I was here for your end--and I'm buying the DVDs. *g* Ten years. Thank you.
ETA: Just a comment on something I've seen in other people's reviews, which is that people were afraid Chloe was going to die because she was the token original character. I have to admit, I never really had that fear. Maybe I did, years ago, but certainly not since I began my Smallville re-watch.
Chloe wasn't going to die because she's not an original character.
She's Lana Lang.
And Lana Lang does not die.
(Chlois theorists, put that in your pipe and smoke it.)
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comment(s)