Persona

DVD, Smallville S7 (Persona)

It's funny, just as I sat down to watch this I was thinking we were due a good episode by now and along comes perhaps the most ideas-filled or satisfying happenings of the season. All the plots go somewhere and are beyond the soapy, boring girlfriend/boyfriend downs that often plague the series, instead becoming about the deep connection of Clark and Lana and where it leads them both. But even the sometimes hard to take Kryptonian stuff, so often bandied about like so much Kryptonite, hits home thanks to the reappearance of James Marsters as an ailing Brainiac (and there was me thinking the goo had turned into Bizarro this time), by the end of the episode made more powerful than ever before when he takes the mind of the Kryptonian scientist Dax-Ur by force (with the help of Borg nodules, it seems!). "What?" I hear you cry. "Another of Clark's race is on the planet?" And I was remarking last time how many of them keep popping up. Incredibly I didn't hate this further retconning of who could be on Earth - even this was done well.

Dax-Ur is one of Clark's people from a hundred years ago, and not only that, he created the Brain Interactive Construct in the first place! Not only that, but he's chosen to live as a human with a family, his powers taken by the blue Kryptonite bracelet he wears. It must be noted how bulky the thing was and that his wife must have noticed it, not to mention anyone else if he ever wore short sleeves. He could have explained it away as a deeply sentimental family heirloom of some kind, but carrying a sizeable rock around on your wrist maybe wasn't the best way to keep attention away from you! He was a good character, his steely eyes betraying his extraterrestrial origins. It does undermine Clark in a small way that there was this guy living in America (don't they all! - since Clark gets 'beamed up' by the Kryptonian shield, which I'd completely forgotten about, he could have gone anywhere in the world, but no, it had to be the USA), as Clark has become less special to the fate of humanity with all these other members of his race showing up. This time the writers actually 'hung a lantern on it,' as they say - Chloe pointing out how weird it is that so many of them come to Earth, so the audience doesn't start coming to that conclusion for themselves.

Chloe's pretty good in this story, helpfully noticing Clark is not himself. Let's 'face' it, it's happened enough times by now that everyone should immediately be alerted. But whether Lana chose to ignore the change in Clark or honestly didn't realise (she must be a clone, surely!), she admits, to her and Clark's dismay, that it was false clone Clark (or Bizarro, as he doesn't get named), whom she really loved. It doesn't stop her from slamming the blue rock into his hand, overloading him to destruction so he explodes, but the distrust and mutual lack of joy returns like a cloud between real Clark and Lana. This time we hear a little about Bizarro, that he was an experiment that went wrong, and that he escaped Clark's 'martian friend' to return to Earth. Even that he 'feels' for Lana, as though Clark's inner workings have been replicated. But you don't quite feel sorry for him when she does the right thing and destroys him (at Green Arrows clock tower which is becoming an almost regular location again - could this mean a return of the archer soon?).

Another surprise is that, in a roundabout way you do once again feel sympathy for Lex. It's hard to believe, but these are the kind of strings that used to be so regularly and perfectly plucked in the early days of the series before everything went off the rails, and it's a throwback to those days (even down to Lionel walking into the mansion and Lex standing above him on the balcony - a classic shot) - the depths Lex fell to, to recreate his own dead brother, the disgust with which Lionel thrusts himself away from his son, and the crying barbs of judgement called down from the mouth of Gabriel, puts Lex back into the shadow of dismay. It doesn't last long, not even to the end of the episode as we see a stooge shoot dead Gabriel, the image of Julian Luthor, and that, as expected, it was ordered by Lex: the implication that Lex organised it is pretty strong, though it's part of a montage where the hit man reports by phone and Lex reads the message, so, though it could be twisted around and turn out that Lionel was behind it, the impression is very strong.

Why would Lionel want his new son killed? Maybe because he knows he's a clone, maybe because he fears he'll become a pawn of Lex. But really he had little motive, and the modern, clean face of Lionel makes it unlikely. Lex' screams into the night as the rain pours down on him could have been anger if someone else had made the hit happen, but most likely shows his grief and inner torment at what he's become. Either way I was surprised to feel the loss of Julian. Not because I felt he was a great character, but because with this episode, and his acceptance by Lionel he became a highly compelling one and I wanted to see where his new friendship with Lionel would go. But the compact nature of what happens in this episode worked neatly and I doubt if it will be continued well in succeeding episodes so perhaps it was all for the best.

One thing I loved was that no one was surprised by Bizarro. I should say, those in authority weren't surprised. Jor-El instantly knows he isn't the real Clark. Incidentally, why was Clark's punishment to be locked in a pillar of ice for a few weeks? It seems an odd payment for his disobedience: he gets grounded?! And how long did the voice of Jor-El intend to keep him there? The other person who sees right through Bizarro is Brainiac, making him and Bizarro seem so much higher than the lowly humans around them. They're going about their own business in a world of humans, and even though Brainiac is hanging out in the 'suicide slums' as it's called, among the homeless and tough, he knows exactly what's going on and uses the situation to his advantage. If Brainiac is used as well in future I can't wait to see where his story goes.

I would have liked to have seen Gabriel Grant continue. I suppose he could always be cloned again, but would it have the same impact? I doubt it. I would have liked to have got to know Dax-Ur. What was his century of life on Earth like? Did he have more than one family in that time? Could his human son turn out to be partially Kryptonian like in 'Superman Returns'? But although there were these questions, and the fact that I wanted to know more in the first place meant the story was working, they didn't detract from the drama coming off the screen. Chloe, possibly in danger, then testing and trusting the real Clark again; Lana, potentially in great danger with this 'evil' Clark, yet he proves he really has no wish to hurt her, quite the opposite, but she still makes the right choice, even though it may be too late to mend the realisation thrown on the real Clark; Gabriel, boldly taking steps to own his own life, connecting with the man that could be a Father to him; and Lex, driven to jealousy, his 'care' (shipping him off to the London Times) turned on its head in unthinking, cold action. It all worked because the story wasn't bogged down with Lois or Jimmy and the soapy romantic stories they usually have. It had bite, and though it's not one of the greats of the series, it's the best this season has had to offer so far.

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