Conspiracy

DVD, Smallville S9 (Conspiracy)

A weird shift in loyalties, or apparent shift, is what runs through this instalment: the Kandorians Clark helped make new lives as humans aren't happy about the 'tower of doom' being destroyed, though Clark won't admit that it was he who did it, so you can see that that bit of crucial information could return to bite him in future. Their loyalty is still to Zod because he's apparently been a charismatic and heroic leader (when it suited his purpose, which is power), but Zod comes around to rapprochement with Clark since being saved by him with a drop of his own blood after the maniac that was catching and sawing up Kandorians, knowing they were aliens, shoots him. Lois gets brownie points for trying to help Zod (who she thinks is an FBI agent), but Clark saves his life. As I expected, Zod then regains his powers, as how else was it going to come down to Clark versus Zod by end of season if he was either unable to restore his people's powers, or restored all their powers, overwhelming Clark. Predictable that it would be just him, though I didn't predict it. But now Zod has the upper hand ('you will believe a man can fly'), with Clark in the dark about his treacherous core. I suppose all the stuff about how great Zod's been to his followers was meant to sow seeds of doubt in Clark's mind so he'd be able to accept that Zod was now a changed man, an ally in their quest to conform and merge with society, but the writing wasn't strong enough to make that feel real.

Dr. Chisum, the guy carrying out butchery on Kandorians so he can provide irrefutable proof of alien life (which makes sense how?), wasn't the greatest villain and reminded me of countless forgettable freaks-of-the-week that didn't really have a character except for being driven slightly insane by either Kryptonite or some other source - in this case some of the Kandorians (the 'good' ones, too, that Clark had helped!), decided to carry out experiments on humans for no discernible reason, bringing Chisum back to life and mucking about with his brain. He, of course, had sent multiple letters to the Daily Planet asking them to accept his findings, which were filed in a box of whacko, filled with bundles of just such letters - why would a newspaper even keep them? They'd realistically just chuck them away as soon as read, but it's a point of the story that Zod has to find them so he can track down Chisum's lair. But the story is full of holes like that: the tower's destruction is considered a freak accident by the authorities, but how could they think that when Clark was hundreds of metres away blasting it with heat vision? Surely that much heat would have melted the debris and not even a normal fire would heat up rubble to such an extent! There's also Zod's claim that he came and cleaned up the evidence of the girl's disappearance so the police wouldn't be informed, but leaves a massive graffitied Kryptonian symbol that Chisum had sprayed, at the site! Not to mention that it's not the best example to show someone treating someone's wound by dripping their own blood on to it!

Okay, so these aren't so much narrative holes as common sense being ignored or maybe even nitpicking, to an extent (except for the letters, they wouldn't keep the letters…), but it was hardly the most inspiring episode of this season's saga. One point of interest was that Chloe is found to be embezzling money from LuthorCorp, which Tess finds out and puts Oliver on the case, who finds out that she's only 'borrowing' it to create a cargo crate full of Kryptonite weapons as insurance against the Kandorians. Nice idea, but it shows how far Chloe has fallen that she's willing to steal so much and secretly create a cache of weapons, but not only that, she's tracking every one she made fake IDs for, continuing her descent into a surveillance fiend of Lex Luthor proportions! Worse, it's all because she's  not able to accept trust in Clark as their only solution, so she's really diving down deep this season.

It was fitting that Chisum ends up electrocuting himself when his saw cuts through a power cable, but it would have been so much better if they'd had the saw crunch into Clark and fall apart, but they often miss such obvious opportunities for impressive visuals like that these days, instead the closeup of the drop of blood had to suffice. It was nice that Lois gives Zod a good impression of humanity's compassion, even though he's far too evil to ever really care, but at least he's less likely to just snuff her out (not that the series would ever allow that!). Lois just sort of bumbles around, gets kidnapped at gunpoint, fights the kidnapper, gets knocked out, all the usual cliches, with the only interesting moment happening at the end when the spot of blood she saved from the scene gets taken by The Wall, the chess piece-loving organisation from a few episodes ago. Whether it was intentional, or they stole it from her, I wasn't entirely sure, though they probably did, since they left a pawn in its place as a sign. The only other thing worthy of mention is that Zod goes undercover at the Daily Planet, using a pair of glasses as his disguise - just who would ever think that such a thing would be an effective cover…?Another Kandorian episode, another disappointing melange of plot bits. There's still time to fit in some good episodes, though…

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