Checkmate

DVD, Smallville S9 (Checkmate)

One of those episodes that is a triumph of style over substance, with a story that's unfocused and requires you to keep track of many different elements, and it doesn't really have a grand denouement or explain everything, but it may be that having a few weeks off from the series, I forget how twisting its narrative often is. Very much a throwing of characters together without it appearing to be all that planned out, but I quite enjoyed this ramshackle (in narrative terms), runaround, even if it did rush about like a Mad Hatter, featuring Green Arrow, Tess as a secret agent, Clark in full black coat action, Chloe kidnapped (kidnapped, on this series, no way!), and the Martian Manhunter, Detective John Jones. So it should be no surprise they didn't squeeze in Lois or the Kandorians as well. As it is, they dash through the story madly, when they could easily have allowed it time to flow naturally over several episodes. But no, we have to rush to get through it, discover Checkmate's Bond-like HQ, and as a consequence it appears more over-directed than usual. Checkmate, or Suicide Squad are back in, though I'm still unclear what's what: is Checkmate the name of the mission, and SS the name of the group Agent Waller, the White Queen, was pulling together? With Suicide Squad in current genre consciousness thanks to an approaching film, I already know a little about it, that it's a government sanctioned and controlled organisation that rounds up villains to go up against even worse villains, only in this case it's any super-powered people.

I'm not sure how well Waller achieved her aims in the episode, as it was her plan to get Watchtower, Clark and the minions (the JLA members are all mentioned by name even though we never ever see them these days!), to be a part of it. Might have been simpler to ask them. And what's the point exactly? Get a group together to take on aliens because she's found some alien blood? We know the Kandorians are around, but so what? A lot of the episode seems to be spent with us waiting for characters to catch up with what we already know, which isn't great storytelling, to say the least. If I sound like I'm talking myself out of the enjoying the episode, I'm not, but it did strike me as typically weak logic and an approach to building a story that was really only setting up the cool sequences and character interplay that kept it worthwhile. It's good to see all these people doing their stuff, particularly Martian Manhunter, though as we were reminded of his true appearance thanks to the 'story so far…' bit at the beginning, it would have been nice to have him in that guise again. He gets to show off some powers, such as reading people's minds and wiping said minds, although I'd be surprised if Waller's intel on the identities of Green Arrow, etc, were only in her head - we didn't see him wiping computer files or burning notebooks.

If we're looking at inconsistency, and it's hard not to, the sequence where Green Arrow's lured into protecting Tess, cunningly disguised in a black hairdo (Tess, not Green Arrow!), whom you wonder how he couldn't have recognised since her face is the same (but you can take it that the darkness is 'screen darkness' and in reality it could have been much darker), and then she and her men fail to remove all his gadgets and stuff, allowing him to escape. Taken all together it's a pleasingly impressive visual sequence or two, but while the hyper real Bourne-like opening sequence and inexplicably dramatic slow motion to emphasise Tess' moves (kicking the car door back into the goon's face which smashes through the window was especially impressive), it mainly draws attention to the style and even takes you out of it as we're not used to some martial arts, crazy 'Matrix' action in the series - usually when things go slow-mo it's purely to celebrate Clark's abilities. But though odd and over the top, it was still pretty enjoyable, with Arrow's escape from the van by blowing the door off and sliding along on it, a highlight. The best visuals of the episode undoubtedly go to Clark's saving of Chloe - blackmailed in a clever way (though not clever enough - better not to have held her in the same castle, or don't they know about Clark's super-hearing?), he still manages to burst in when the power goes down and emergency lighting flickers on and off. In the moments of light we see his actions captured in still pieces and it really felt like watching a comic in 3D! I wouldn't want to see it all the time, but as a visual treat it was excellent.

I love it when they do simple things to demonstrate Clark's power, too, such as when he's talking to Chloe at Watchtower as they watch Jones at the site of Arrow's kidnapping (they do love their abandoned railway tracks set, don't they!), then he whips away and before Chloe's had time to fully realise, he's on the CCTV they were just looking at! Simple, but very effective. A bit like Clark sometimes… There are other things which you have to take for granted, such as Tess somehow knowing the Green Arrow would see what was happening and follow her when she wanted to kidnap him, and it is a little hard to stomach that Tess was a government agent all this time, just waiting to be reactivated, as she's always seemed to be for herself, or Lex. I liked that she showed some concern or the ghost of a memory flitted across her face when it was suggested she's more loyal to someone else, as it told me that she still has that loyalty to Lex. Subtlety has never been a strong suit of the series, and it may be I'm reading too much into it and she was actually thinking of Clark or something more recent, but it could be read in multiple ways.

One big development I didn't even realise was of that magnitude, was when Tess realises Oliver is Green Arrow. I just assumed she had known long ago and that it hadn't mattered! That's what comes of watching things slowly - in reality I could dash through a season in a couple of weeks if I watched an episode or two every day, but I always preferred to savour and digest things, so I suppose I do it anachronistically. It gave us some fun moments between them, such as her throwing things at him, but, like Oliver, I never trust what she says so you never know if she means what she's doing or not. It's a bit like the line Jones has at the end, about things not always being black or white, and she's definitely proved her greyness over the couple of seasons she's been with us. Jones' hint that he's working for some other interest or power besides Clark and the good guys, Waller, Tess and the bad guys, and the Kandorians, certainly sparks some interest, though not speculation because I know almost nothing about any of the comics characters. Maybe he's working for Jor-El? Who knows, at this stage?

On the whole I liked the episode and was impressed by the effects work, gratified by some good character scenes, such as Clark apologising to Chloe and the air being cleared with their talk of Chloe going Big Brother and Clark keeping her sidelined, so maybe the big story I suspected of Chloe's descent won't happen after all. It did cross my mind that she could die in this episode, knowing she didn't come back for the final season, but it didn't happen this time. Not that the real Chloe is still alive anyway, the version I liked was transmogrified after the early three, four or five seasons into someone quite different. The new player in the game does leave me wondering and, while I concede it's usually good to go back to the series after some time away and that that can make me feel more generous to it, I couldn't deny its positives.

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