Power

DVD, Smallville S8 (Power)

I've finally worked it out: Lana is mad. She's insane, probably driven to it by her time at the Luthor Mansion, her various mind-altering experiences with all kinds of phenomena taking her over, and just being around Clark Kent. But now she's taken the biscuit, or more precisely the special super-soldier technology Lex had going on a while back. She's burned off a layer of skin all over her body, and had a new one grafted on to give her superhuman powers. So she can save the world. Really? Is that what being around Clark all these years has made her realise? That the only way to make a difference is to have special powers and the ability to fight people? It's sad, but I think this must be the new low point of the season, it's got no solid ground, instead going back to the old habit of throwing stuff at the wall and hoping something will stick, without any sense of story or purpose, just cranking out another episode. People rush around doing stuff that is meaningless, they say ridiculous things, and there are no consequences. As Lana says about Lex, though, credit where credit is due: I was initially interested in her involvement in the mysterious experiment by old 'favourite' Dr. Groll. What was going to happen to her, would this procedure work, what would it do to her? Well, it made her practically Supergirl, so that's that. Get rid of Clark and watch the adventures of Lana Lang, The Orange Blur…

I will say this for Allison Mack, on directing duties, just as Tom Welling had been previously, she does the work confidently with lots of nice transitions between present day and flashbacks to seven months ago, and onward, when Lana left Clark a recording explaining her absence. There was nothing wrong with the directing, but even the best Director in the world couldn't save such a badly written 'story' as this. We learn that Lana didn't make the sob story tape for Clark of her own volition, it was under duress, but it was okay because she escaped Mercer's goons and sought out a master to learn the ways of the force. (She could take on two or three specially trained Luthor agents and still needed more training?). Yeah, well, a retired teacher who just happened to toughen up Green Berets, and is happy pootling around in a grimy workshop waiting for the time when his redemption draws near (in the form of little girl lost, Lana). He then teaches her to push herself further than she could before by taking ice baths and holding scalding chimney pots, all because Lana tells him that by helping her he'll be helping the world. Oh well, in that case I'll definitely help you! She wasn't ready for power before, but now she deems that she is ready mentally, physically, emotionally… What he should have done is got her committed, but instead he's happy to help, even going so far as to join her cause!

He 'infiltrates' LuthorCorp by getting a job there. How? Just asks, I suppose, or maybe a vacancy came up that he just happened to be suited for. Or maybe he used Lana's tactic and told Mercer (or whomever hired him), that if she hired him she'd be helping the world. Unlike other times, Mercer didn't thoroughly vet him and find out what sort of man he was. So he was able to filch intel for Lana, rather than getting her the help she needed, encouraging her delusion. Dr. Groll agrees with the logic she propounds, too, that letting Lex have the Prometheus suit would be terrible for the world, whereas, Lana is the perfect candidate, presumably being so pure of heart, and good, and kind. Or was it just that she felt she was now mentally, physically, emotionally ready. Why did he not tell her to leave him alone and stop interfering? Scientific curiosity? He so badly wanted to see his invention (which hadn't even been tested on rodents yet), come to fruition he was willing to test it on a lunatic? Lana even seems crazy when she talks to Mercer, creepily calm as she convinces her to follow the path of good. What, everyone should get a special suit so they can battle the forces of the world? Logic has never been a strong point on the series, but people just accept what Lana says, she just gets what she wants, and it all ends smoochily, back into the Clark/Lana spiral of doom. Will it ever end? Even Kristin Kreuk leaving the series hasn't prevented this from rearing its ugly head again. It's just a question of what will cause the break up this time. How exciting…

There's also the amazing fact that Lana recovers instantly from the devastating full-body, untried, untested procedure, even though Tess shoots the sensitive scientific equipment she's supposedly depending on, able to immediately smash through the glass wall at superspeed. Add to all this awful 'narrative' a heavily continuity-led story all about old technology (Project Ares; Prometheus) and those involved in developing them (Dr. Groll), as well as a needlessly gruesome scene in which Tess kicks her rival until she's got blood all over her face (that's got to be some kicking!), having just belted him with a statue, and he's presumably dead (something tells me Oliver and Clark wouldn't approve, even if he was about to shoot her), and you also have an uncomfortable watch as well as a stupid one. We didn't really care that much why Lana went missing, certainly not enough to make a whole episode showing the precarious jumps in logic and narrative that got her to where she ends up by the final minutes of this one! It hurts even more after the good episode we got with 'Bulletproof.' And I have no idea what's going on with Jimmy, Lois and Queen, it's almost as if they've been written out of the show they've been gone so long.

**

Bulletproof

DVD, Smallville S8 (Bulletproof)

Aside from the soppy and wrongheaded ending where Clark expresses his wish that it was he and Lana together again, as they stand in the Talon coffee shop (I think that's what it was called, it's been so long…), which concluded the episode on a worryingly backwards-looking note, this story was a nice surprise with some genuinely strong character moments. Ironically they were generally from the guest cast, specifically the cop who's gotten in too deep with some corrupt fellow law enforcers who see vigilantism as the only way to get what they want, whether that's vengeance on outsiders like Detective Jones, who do a good job, but keep themselves to themselves and don't belong, or summary 'justice' for those that killed their brother cop. Clark and the Green Arrow (acknowledging their lack of success in cooperation for once!), pull the guy back from the brink where he'd become confused with it 'all turned around' in his head. Together they offer redemption ('ask yourself why you put the uniform on in the first place?'), and it is a success. It was much more 'no flights, no tights' (unless you count the cop's little kid dressed as the Red-Blue Blur or Robin Hood!), than the previous episode which actually referenced this former edict, being a much more realistic take on Metropolis, or at least, the life experienced by its police officers and protectors.

There weren't easy ways out, Clark didn't just rush in and push everyone's lights out as he could have done (and partly did), it was left up to the one good cop to make the right decision and falter in his descent into evil that the others had embraced. It had a strong theme of justice versus revenge, and the ability of those in authority to keep sharp, yet not be ruled by their emotions, as well as the human reaction to 'capes' (as he called them), coming out of the darkness and doing their own crime-fighting, ostensibly getting in the cops' way and taking all the credit, aspects that made it akin to the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy: seeing how the police on the ground work, regular fellows who have all the paperwork to do but not the luxury of special powers, superior technology, or the choice of long, boring shifts. Maybe that's why this was elevated above the standard loose affair of the series, and the simpleminded, messy screen violence that tends to take the place of story and character. If only this approach were taken on a regular basis the series could become good again. To its detriment I was thinking this was going to be the usual type of episode we tend to get, as minutes rolled by without any strong story actually beginning, just scenes of people talking about stuff (like Chloe bringing up the old Clark/Lana triangle and inserting Lois at the third point - please, we don't need to go there again, in fact we didn't need to go there the first half dozen times!), but once Clark started breaking the law (impersonating a police officer, calling himself 'Joe Fordman' in what I assume is a reference to Whitney!), it got a whole lot more interesting.

I was actually thinking a series based on Detective Jones (as he calls himself while on Earth), might have worked quite well, although Phil Morris doesn't have a great deal to do, being only in the teaser and the end cap, but he's a good actor, and an alien having infiltrated the Metropolis PD as a member is a good concept. Unfortunately it's something that hadn't been used up to this point, as usual left to hang, so that I'd completely forgotten what he was doing, but it provides all three of the heroes (Clark, Oliver and Jones), with the reminder that pride, which makes them stand alone, can also make them fall, another theme that could be applied. Two themes in one episode? Wow, and that wasn't all that worked. On a simpler level there was a good fight between Tess Mercer (returning, after having been absent from the recent Doomsday stuff), and Lana, the two meeting for the first time. The flimsy-looking Isis Foundation offices, full as it is of glass and other breakables proved the ideal place for a martial arts face-off between the two dames, and thanks to the episode reminding us of Mercer's Luthor-like desire to spar in the Mansion, the idea of her and Lana having a barney had already crossed my mind before she showed up at Isis, so I was pleased that it happened. It wasn't 'The Matrix' (what is?), but compared to the usual style of punching people ten metres into a wall that we see most often, it was nicely detailed and fluid action.

More than the fight though, was the revelation that Tess knows Lex is alive and has been protecting him, though how long she's known and whether she's been to see him was not revealed. It was a great twist to discover that Tess had actually been used as a pawn, literally being his eyes and ears to see what's going on via her optic nerve (wonder if 'Marvel Agents of SHIELD' got the idea from here?). Will we see Michael Rosenbaum return to the series this season? I doubt it, but it's certainly given credence to a resurgence in Lex' involvement with the series, as I kind of expected, eventually. What's just as interesting is Tess' reaction, talking to herself in the mirror so Lex can see her speaking, and admitting how she'd trusted him, and now doesn't. Even going as far as proposing a merger of some kind with her former acquaintance Oliver Queen. Whether her power-mad tendencies will turn her into a villain for her own aggrandisement, or whether she can truly be trusted against Lex is something to see as the season winds down. Sadly, I don't have any optimism that the kind of real drama and interest successfully implemented in this episode will be sustained as the good episodes are few and far between. Still, all this and a 'Peanuts' reference (The Great Pumpkin), means this one does little wrong!

***