Sacrifice

DVD, Smallville S9 (Sacrifice)

The kind of episode that's fun to write about, but not so enjoyable to watch, both because of its stupid inconsistencies, annoying irritations and ridiculous developments! We haven't had one that's been so chock full of idiocy for a while, and generally has been a lot less in evidence this season, but at the same time it's pretty stylish and barrels along, most of the time (aside from weird cultish Kryptonian rituals involving putting a flower in a bowl of water to mark pregnancy…). It's a shame that this is Justin Hartley's debut as ideas man and writer, not content to play Oliver Queen he wants in on the narrative control, but then a lot of actors do, though it's usually through the directing line. It should come as no surprise then, that his character, Queen, comes up against Zod, and in the episode is the only one to best him! Is it an actor's thing that they must give themselves something special? It was ludicrous that Zod, the powered-up version who has all the abilities of Clark, and more, inexplicably being able to fly when Clark never can, was unable to sidestep an arrow which would be slower than a speeding bullet! We can put it down to arrogance that he assumed it wouldn't hurt him, and it is a good moment of triumph when he suddenly collapses, the arrow revealed to harbour the green venom of Kryptonite juice inside it. It's a victory for Green Arrow, though again, how could he possibly have survived a battering ram punch to the chest from Zod that sent him into the opposite wall, and just be concerned about some scratches to his back?

It's not just Green Arrow that survives against the odds, the Queen of Checkmate, Agent Waller, gets thrown several metres to smash her head into a car windscreen, again by Zod, cracking the windscreen in the process. Yet we see her shortly after, walking around as if nothing had happened and it's perfectly ordinary for a woman of her age to experience a heavy collision - she has a small cut to the forehead, and a worried nurse looks on, and that's the extent of evidence of having been in such a fight, then she's dashing down a corridor fleeing from Zod moments later! It's laughable, even if you assume it was a few hours later. Maybe I'm being too hard on the episode to single it out, the series has often played very loosely with reality, people are always being flung around with little damage to show for it, or recuperation required, but it's just that she's clearly advanced in years. Queen could have armour plating or some shock absorbing material underneath his outfit that lessened the frontal blow somewhat, but she was just wearing an ordinary suit.

It also seemed especially violent this time, as if they hadn't had enough shock value in the last few episodes and chose to cram it all into this: you get the closeup of a dead body that Zod's burned half the face off, Chloe digs into Tess' back with a scalpel to remove the Checkmate bug crawling around in there, and later electrocutes her, then brings her back by stabbing adrenaline or some other drug right into her heart, not to mention the bloody mess of guards Zod leaves strewn in the corridor at Checkmate HQ. I don't mind a bit of nastiness in the series to shock, but it didn't feel in keeping with the rest of the story, or maybe, as I said, I've become used to less shock value than they've usually gone for this season. We also see Zod strangle Faora to death, before stupidly realising she was carrying his child by the remains of some flower she was holding, and that she's clutching her belly, then he goes on to lie that humans caused her death to cement his followers, including her sister, to his side, so it even ends in an annoyingly unjust way. Clearly they had to reset the enmity between Clark and the Kandorians, or humanity and the Kandorians, so there can be a big battle at the end of the season, a lacklustre taste of which we got when Clark flings him into the side of a building to stop him murdering Waller. Is that what we have to look forward to: Zod and Clark throwing each other into walls?

If you feel hard done by in the fighting stakes then we do get another of the series' favourite tropes with a girl fight, this time (again), between Tess, who's sneaked her way into Watchtower, and Chloe. The episode, as can often happen, started promisingly, with Chloe going about her daily business of saving the world from itself as she heads up to her secret base like some kind of superhero without any powers (except that one about coming back to life, or healing people, but I think they established she wouldn't be able to do that again, or at least there'd be serious consequences), like Bruce Wayne heading to the Batcave. Then it turns into 'Civil Defence' from 'DS9' where the computer causes a lockdown because Tess got in with the bug inside her, and Checkmate hunt out all the files on the Kandorians. I was hoping there was going to be more to it than Tess and Chloe locked in Watchtower, and actually that came and went pretty quickly, though she had to make a 'sacrifice' by removing the computer's cooling system in order to blast their way out before the air ran down. Firstly, what's the point of a lockdown system that locks in the owner of it, even apart from Chloe saying she was supposed to be nowhere near it if someone did break in? Secondly, this high tech security system let Tess in posing as Chloe because of some device she had, but didn't then get suspicious when the real Chloe arrived? How intelligent is this system supposed to be, and yet it hasn't even got the facility to warn Chloe that she had already logged into the building?

It was also convenient that Clark happens to be saying that Watchtower needs to not fall into enemy hands because of the weapon it is, but none of this has been apparent before. The computer has never really been shown to be a self-operating creation, but now it's suddenly got a personality, welcoming Chloe and she talks to it, and it's all very 'Star Trek,' but there's been no introduction to the concept before, Watchtower was always Chloe and her amazing technical dream web. In truth, this was all going through my mind, but it then became apparent that this wasn't what the story was about, in fact it's almost irrelevant, except that it gives Chloe and Tess a moment to have a heart to heart, before they show up at the Smallville Medical Centre to make a 'heartrending' decision. Something tells me security would be tighter at that place than we ever see, so many things have gone wrong there, and yet they break into some cupboard, get the requisite drug syringe, waltz into a room to use the shock treatment, and no one notices them, not one. The staff must be imbeciles! But not only that, they don't even glance at men running round with guns (Tess' former goon, Campbell, with an eye patch over one of his glasses, now working for Checkmate). In the grand tradition of 'Smallville,' it's all such a glorious mess, ping-ponging between various stories to camouflage the silliness. It almost works, because it is pacy and looks good, but there's very little reality in it and nothing much develops, we just go back to where we were at the start of the season with Clark versus Zod and his Kandorians.

Watchtower being a threat doesn't come to fruition, except for the fact the Kandorians' whereabouts become government property and they all get rounded up for execution, saved by Clark, then still join Zod anyway. Clark's still blindly talking about resolving things peacefully right up until the end where he appeals to Faora's sister, there's no Lois because this is all way over her head, and I'm not sure where it leaves Chloe and Tess, one of whom loses all her files and the Watchtower system (because she's never heard of backing things up, apparently, and because they had to take out that one coolant tank in order to escape the locked room, and that caused the computer to implode, or something), and the other who is in debt since Chloe brings her back after electrocuting her to destroy the Checkmate bug (had they been watching 'Mission: Impossible III' by any chance?), against her better judgement. Chloe threatens Tess that next time she won't save her if she hinders her or her friends, or whatever, and quite rightly, Tess says she'll have to trust her then. All a bit barmy and reminds me of the bad old days of Lana getting het up, then being forgiving, getting powers, losing powers, the long cycle of awfulness that many seasons went through. Granted, this time we've seen the potential destruction that would happen if Clark and Zod went to war, and the season was all about avoiding that if at all possible, but we also knew that it would happen anyway, or something similar, and the idea of integrating the Kandorians was just a stall. It could easily have been played out in a two hour film rather than being dragged across a season.

**