Hero

DVD, Smallville S7 (Hero)

How wonderful to return in some small way to the glory days of the series, even if for only one episode! That's initially how I felt in the lovely old-style teaser (with a band whom, though I didn't recognise, not being into music, I had heard the music before), full of colour, neatly connecting the most recent season, Kara and Jimmy's story, with the old series when Pete Ross was Clark's best friend. But then I remembered that they didn't part amicably, that Season 3 was where the series all went wrong, that Pete left under a cloud and never looked back, and though this is a reunion, it's not a happy one because this is the same jealous Pete, the one that felt he was in Clark's shadow, who'd been destroyed by the strain of keeping his friend's secret and envious of Chloe's great fondness for Clark. It's that Pete who returns. I so wanted him to have an arc in which he goes from hero to zero over the course of the episode, realising that it's not as easy as he thought for Clark, and there being a meeting of minds and a renewing of friendship, so I was pleased that that's exactly what happened.

I had known Pete would return for an episode and even that he got some kind of power, though I hadn't expected it this season. The Mr. Fantastic effects sold the action while not being used too frequently. They used it less than I even expected and I had the impression that Pete would go off with his power intact to live his own life. But his power came from Kryptonite-infected chewing gum, so once the stock ran out, it would have been over anyway. Where did the green ooze come from (I was half expecting to follow it down a sewer and see the birth of the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles!), and why was Pete so happy to chew on such brain-addling stuff? At the time he didn't know it was infected, and then once he was powered up, he didn't care. They got in some nice scenes with Pete and Clark playing basketball as they did of old, and he even mentions that he wonders how Clark's Dad would have reacted to a Luthor hanging out in his house.

That's by far the most interesting facet of the episode - Pete's perspective on all that's going on up to date in the series. When he left, Lionel was still the sworn enemy (and Pete's not going to forget that he was the cause of his family's misery, harking all the way back to the pilot episode and reminding us that at one time characters had real backstories and motives for their actions!), Lex was an underling, Chloe was 'infatuated' with Clark (as Lex, I think, says), and only he, Pete, knew Clark's destructive secret. Now he stumbles into a world in which we see Clark, Lana and Lionel sat around the Kent family kitchen discussing the deepest secrets and Chloe on the bottom rung of her career ladder at the Daily Planet. It must have been reeled his mind. Really, they didn't even need to fill up the space with a story about Pete getting a power because it would have been just as engrossing to see him return to Smallville and react to all the changes that had occurred. As it is, we don't get quite enough of his reactions, though in typical Pete style he sums things up briefly and breezes over them. But we know now that he's not as carefree as he used to seem.

I do hope that Pete returns to the series, and I would have loved him to have become a recurring character. I don't know what Sam Jones III went on to do in his acting career, but I hope he had more success than his character did. It made me speculate on where Pete would have been now if he had stayed on in the series. In some ways the friendly atmosphere of a group of friends solving stuff together and hanging out through life's (and teenager) trials, has returned with Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Clark and Lana, and Chloe (maybe even Kara when she snaps out of her dangerous association with Lex), not all together, but sometimes. They don't all know the big secret, but many do and there are other secrets now. How great the series could be if Pete joined those people and they were all working together against Lex, not backbiting and partner-swapping, but getting along and making a fun series. But in 'Smallville' happy times rarely last for long, so even adding Pete, and the old Pete at that, at ease with Clark's situation, would be twisted into a mess before too long.

The writer's just get bored with certain things and move on. In this episode they tire of Jimmy and Kara, but there is more at work here than lazy writing as another big development has its moment: Jimmy hears of Chloe's secret. How did he get out of Lex' office at the Daily Planet without raising suspicion, I'd like to know? For that's where he hears the news after spying Pete in the act of sending a virus through Lex' network to protect Chloe, Lex believing all data of the Planet belongs to him. For one, it's incredible that the great hacker, Chloe Sullivan couldn't rig her computer up to be bypassed by such monitoring, and for another, why did Pete need to plant the virus direct to Lex' computer? Anyway, it leads to Lex threatening Pete with the knowledge of Chloe's secret so that he goes off to retrieve Kara's bracelet, hidden in Lionel's vault, which he hasn't told even Clark about, and Clark must stop Pete. It wouldn't have been appropriate to have a proper fight scene between Pete the stretch-man and his former best friend, but they could have done better than him grabbing some Kryptonite out of the vault and slapping it on Clark's chest. He even had the cheek to claim he was protecting him!

One scene we did not see, leaving a story point unresolved (now there's a rarity on this series, not!), was Lionel coming in and getting the rock away from Clark. Leaving aside the fact that he keeps a box of Kryptonite in his vault (protection against Clark's forced entry?), Clark doesn't have time for words about why he kept Kara's bracelet hidden and never told him it had been found. I await that scene… Was that the same safe as way back in Season 2? It's likely, but I can't remember if Pete got into the building in that one where the Luthor building is held up by 'terrorists' hired by Lex to get something out of… the vault. If he was, it would have been fun for him to make some 'smart' comment about it.

Jimmy makes a 'smart' comment when he finally learns to call meteor freaks biologically enhanced individuals, though I'd forgotten that he knew she was one of them after healing his finger a few episodes back, in 'Gemini.' He even quizzes Clark about if he had an infected friend, wouldn't he want to help that friend live in public when Clark shows reticence in letting Pete have media attention that will reveal him to the world. In Jimmy's mind it's a step towards Chloe being able to live without secret. But then, Pete's powers were finite and not unique - presumably anyone who chewed that batch of gum would exhibit go-go gadget limbs (as I think Chloe described it). Far from running from Chloe after this latest experience it brings them back together. Before I remembered that he already knew her secret I wondered if he wanted her story as a way to make his name, but I didn't think he'd be that heartless. Does he think she shrank from him because of shame over her 'illness' and wants to reassure her he isn't disgusted with her? Either way, the real reveal is that now we know Lex knows her secret, too. And if he knows Chloe and Pete are both infected people it's no longer any kind of 'stretch' (oops), for him to tie Clark into that.

Lex is playing his usual games and working on Kara's trust could be the ultimate key to Clark. He's succeeding if her request to stay at the mansion is anything to go by.  But he's not above allowing his henchman to torture Pete. Not a very good idea if he'd still had his stretchy ability! Clark is there to save the day again, by whipping past and knocking both men flying. And just like the old episodes, Lex is knocked unconscious: surprise! I like that he goes into some of the history, such as when the signs appeared on the barn or Lana's tattoo, which links to other seasons, but it's a wonder that Clark just lets her spend so much time with Lex. I suppose it's her life and he can't control her, but you'd think we'd have more scenes of him reiterating how dangerous Lex is and why she shouldn't trust him - there's plenty of past evidence and stories to tell about him. But we don't have scenes between Clark and Kara which does make that side of the story a little hard to accept.

A bit like the new mystery which is introduced over Lex' family crest and the stars that are described on it just happening to have last been in alignment in 1989, which was when the original meteor shower hit, I think. I didn't get the significance of Lex gazing at the stained glass window until they spelt it out at the end. How are they going to tie that in? It didn't grab me, but, as Clark told Pete in summing up the last three years since he left: 'it all just kinda happened.' And that really does sum up the series. They have their plotted arcs and surprises, but for the most part it feels like a jumble, thrown together. A mess that sometimes pulls together and works, like this one, but more than anything this reminded me of the good times the series had had in its early days and I want more like that. Best of season? So far, I'd say so.

***