Smallville is causing deep thinky thoughts
There's so much meta I want to (and hopefully will soon) write, especially about the alarmingly overt parallels to McCarthyism in regards to the season 10 and the Vigilante Registration Act, and then there's my Anti-Fanboy manifesto in defense of Superman and Lois Lane. There's also a vid I've already started plotting and gathering clips for that went from being just a fun poke at the political climate and using Smallville as a frame of reference, to being an ACTUAL poke at the political climate and using Smallville as a reference.
Oh, don't be fooled. Smallville snuck up and got deep on yo' ass.
But to be fair, even when fandom outright started spewing venom on certain aspects of Smallville in the second half of season 8, the show nevertheless had started planting the seeds for everything that's going on this season as early as Identity and went a bit further in Infamous (which is really a sequel to Identity whether you want to believe it or not). It continued more explicitly in Absolute Justice, which is the DIRECT PREQUEL to everything that's going on with the VRA. No, the idea of the VRA isn't new, especially not in the superhero genre, but it's kind of refreshing that the Smallville writers are using the subject matter (whether you believe they're doing it the right way or the wrong way or whatever) to show why an ALIEN (see my future thoughts on xenophobia) hero like Superman feels he should step into the light for the public and yet maintain a private/secret life for himself (see also my future thoughts on the power of public opinion).
But seriously, after watching these McCarthy documentaries, it's kind of hilariously awesome to me that as far as parallels go, Gen. Slade = McCarthy and Lois Lane/The Daily Planet = Edward R. Murrow.