Beast

DVD, Smallville S8 (Beast)

It doesn't begin well, with everyone lying to each other and pulling the wool over each other's eyes in order to help save someone else or themselves - even we, the audience are lied to with an 'it was all a dream' opening in which Chloe's called down to the basement by her resident monster, with romantic intentions. It didn't make the episode better or worse, it just made me think it should have been called 'Lies.' What's to say? Each character we see (Lois and Tess are excluded this time), have their agendas and there's a lot of bad feeling. Not always, as seen in Oliver's generosity to Jimmy, eventually giving him the money he needs to fix his car, but as a permanent job, not a handout. Jimmy's looking worse the wear for his drug habit, so let's hope he works out better than Oliver's last recruit, Chloe, who ends the episode saving Davis from Clark and going on the run! It was one thing to keep him in the basement (not that Davis was above leaving it!), but quite another to prevent Clark sending him to The Phantom Zone, a helpful get-out clause for any problem too big for him to handle. Except Chloe disagrees that such a 'living hell' would be preferable to Oliver's urging to kill the beast. So Clark's moaned at, betrayed, and pushed around from every angle (fortunately, Jimmy gets knocked out before Clark can charge in and stop Queen from being strangled - right after the pair are kidnapped! Well, it wouldn't be 'Smallville' without people being knocked out and kidnapped, right?), not even getting the satisfying battle of right against might, or might against wrong, or… whatever.

I'm sure Tess will be glad his destiny has been sidetracked, not! No, there's no smackdown between Clark and Doomsday, whom we don't even see, since Davis is kept under the angry limit by Chloe (sounds a bit like 'The Incredible Hulk'), and it would have been odd three episodes from the end to have a climactic battle between the two. Somehow Clark carries Davis all the way to the Fortress - wouldn't the guy struggle a little, or did he just lie back and let the breeze ruffle his hair, waiting to see where Clark took him? Yes, there are the usual bare patches of logic, but the point is, Clark's just about to send him away, and possibly be pushed into the Zone as well, when Chloe appears brandishing the good old octagonal ship's key, zapping her and Davis away. It's always been about saving Clark, so was she still trying to prevent their inevitable fight, was she backing up her belief that Clark's absence from the world would be a bad thing, knowing Davis would be sure to take him to the Zone, or is she starting to give a fig about Davis ("Tall, dark and Doomsday" as Oliver says in one of several good lines he gets). I suspect she's still going to stab him in the back if it helps Clark, and that could be the final, irrevocable impetus to unleash the beast, with no going back.

What else happens? Apart from heavy-handed soap stuff, with Oliver angry at Clark for not killing Davis, angry at Chloe for protecting a mass murderer; Jimmy angry at Oliver for refusing his request for money, angry at Davis for all he's done; Clark angry at Chloe for sending him on a wild goose chase to Alaska, and then for going on the run with a dangerous creature… You get the picture, it's very angry. Maybe it's the effect Doomsday has on people? Incidentally, I'm not sure when it started being called 'Doomsday,' as, although we all know what it is, I don't remember the moment they found out its monicker, yet Clark definitely uses it here. Any other points of interest? Clark smashing through the Talon's basement doors to save Oliver was good, as was his frustration vented on an ugly pink filing cabinet, which crumples in a Spock-like display of anger (speaking of Spock, Oliver talks about 'the needs of the Cornfield Killer, as opposed to the needs of everyone else,' which is a reference to Spock's death scene in 'Star Trek II' - they do love their pop culture references. I almost wrote 'Spock culture' there). Oh yes, and I recognised the doc, Emil, whom Chloe goes to in what appeared to be Oliver's organisation, who was played by Alessandro Juliani, now familiar to me as the guy in charge of operations on 'Battlestar Galactica,' following Sam Witwer over to this series. Were we supposed to know him? Why would Chloe tell him about Oliver apparently killing Lex if they're part of the same organisation?

As you can see, I'm grasping at straws in regards of what to say, since the story was pretty straightforward. Chloe harbours Davis, Davis convinces her (or she convinces him), to run away, Clark almost gets him, they escape, Jimmy's in a bad way, so Olly helps him. It's not a bad episode, really it's not, there's not a lot to complain about, and it's slightly tense when Davis has both Oliver and Jimmy at his mercy. I'd have liked to have seen Green Arrow, in all his technological glory challenge Davis, to see how well he'd do, just as I'd like them to get to it and have Clark be the contender, but I suspect if and when we do get one, it will be the usual style of throwing people across a room to smash into something (as his and Davis' scuffle consisted of here), rather than anything you can be impressed with. I also kind of wished Jimmy had been awake when Clark saved them, so he could show some initiative and do it without the boy realising, as he used to be forced into in the old days when no one knew about his secret abilities. That old magic left, for the most part, long ago, but I still remember that time he came in, beat up the baddie, pushed a sofa across the floor, left, then came running back in as if he'd just arrived. Such mastery and guile is what I miss. Apart from that, it was fine.

**