Instinct

DVD, Smallville S8 (Instinct)

There's a theme of nostalgia running through this James L. Conway (of Trek fame), directed episode as if they woke up and suddenly realised the series had changed almost beyond recognition and thought they ought to remind us where it had all come from. All that is just a catalyst to look at Clark's dawning loneliness now that Lana's gone forever, couched in a story hiding it under a visit from a super-powered alien woman from the planet Almerac because they couldn't just say Clark and Lois are both lonely, could they? That would be too simple, and too much to ask and there has to be some kind of story to fill out that sentiment. But I liked seeing the Talon and the Kent farm that I had imagined was now abandoned since Clark works in Metropolis, but there he is with the dog(who feeds it?), getting Lana's old necklace out of a drawer and facing the fact that the farm is all empty - must be quite a commute to work every day, or it would be if he couldn't super-speed! It's become easy to forget that Clark has special powers since the series has become so much more concerned with matters of the heart or mind that, though we usually get to see him use his skills they're not the main draw they once were, he seems to have no trouble fitting into ordinary life, the struggle which was always one of the defining and most fascinating aspects of the series.

It's handy that in his moment of thinking about Lana it just so happens that Tess Mercer gets an old scientist colleague of Lex' (Dr. Groll, who was in it from at least Season 6), to activate the blue crystal found at the site where Lex disappeared, sending out a beacon which attracts Maxima, Queen of Almerac to our fair globe. She happens to be looking for a mate to take back home, so I suppose she must have been perusing the skies when this beacon flashed out and teleported over at a moment's notice! If she knew that much about Kryptonian men you'd think she'd know that practically all the survivors ended up on Earth and made an earlier visit! I was glad she wasn't just another of these Kryptonians, a dead race who are always popping up very much alive, even if it was a bit super-sci-fi to introduce other planets of super-powerful beings, though I suspect this is all from the comics rather than something original to this series. It's another nail in the coffin of Clark being special on Earth if that coffin hadn't already long been nailed up, buried and rotted deep in the soil! He's just one of many aliens, but that disappointment was over long ago.

A bit like Chloe's own disappointment in Clark not being her boyfriend which is another nostalgic reference from back in Season 2 when Clark was ill and she read him this love letter as he lay unconscious ('Fever'). That's really what this is all about: not the love letter, but laying to rest all the old combinations that were going around, Chloe glad to be able to call Clark her Best Friend Forever, something she'll share with him alone, though she's going to marry Jimmy. Good that Davis and Oliver don't appear to add their love woes to the mix as what was here was quite enough, especially when accompanied by far too much closeup smooching. The nostalgia I liked, that stuff I didn't. When you look at the episode as a whole it's pretty much another one treading water, that if you love the characters and the locations and the series you'll lap up, but if you've grown jaded you're waiting for something to happen that actually means something. I suppose the object of it all is to show that Lois and Clark are the 'soul mates' of the series, even though they're being slow to realise it, so this was a totally super-soap episode.

There's minor intrigue from the blue crystal being stolen from Mercer by the end and no one knowing who took it, just a mysterious red 'X' signing off a message from the thief. I continue to wonder why Mercer is so singleminded about locating Lex since she must know he'd just discard her if he returned, but perhaps, like many ladies before her she thinks that if she's loyal to him he'll love her or something, but she's in an incredibly powerful position and the best she can come up with is a mission to find the guy who would take the power back off her? Maybe she's as curious in what he found out, not just interested in him? Maybe we'll never know as I have no idea if Lex Luthor ever made a return appearance. The episode wasn't terrible, and had the interest of a supposed meteor freak on the loose and various parties trying to track her down, but Jimmy was a complete idiot taking the advice of the barkeep who suggests he should make Chloe jealous to make her care more! At least there was a bit more honesty going on between characters, but there wasn't anything to impress in the story.

I couldn't believe Lois Lane would survive an impact from her car being flung high into the sky to come smashing down onto two others when Maxima attacks after telling her she has a bond with Clark and so must be destroyed as her rival for his affections, so it must have been a fluke, the vehicle landing just so on those other parked cars to cushion the impact, those seat belts Kryptonian in quality! The other problem with the narrative was that though Clark gets rid of Maxima so easily by pressing her bracelet, she could surely teleport back at any moment she chose. She wouldn't have much reason except for revenge at being turned down, but she looks the vengeful sort - I hope she doesn't become a recurring character because she was a typical 2D comic book villain. One last thing is that Clark has worked out that the blue crystal will still contain the computer that is Jor-El (I'm not sure they've ever made that clear before), and that if they can get it back he could cure Chloe of her Brainiac super-encyclopedia infection, but do they really want to do that? She was incredibly useful this time in telling Clark all about who this mystery alien woman was and how to defeat her, so maybe they should keep that kind of information around? Just a suggestion…

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