Shield

DVD, Smallville S10 (Shield)

A puzzling one, full of myriad themes and ideas, none of which is explored in detail, the story hopping around like a mad bunny, introducing characters, continuing arcs, and assorted oddities, including the occasional revelation, such as the group of crime fighters that kidnapped Oliver being the Suicide Squad (now a lot more famous for the film based on them, though I highly doubt we'll be seeing The Joker in this series!). It's one of those that piles on information and forces you to either keep track of everything or settle back and allow it all to wash over you. I don't have that luxury, forced to pay attention to make some sense of it for this review, and in a way it's probably a more pleasurable way to watch, since instead of being bored and confused with all these different characters, organisations and developments, I seek to understand them, and that's coming from a disadvantaged place of non-comic knowledge - it seems as ever, that they prefer to play to those in the know, and to the rest, like me, Deadshot, Suicide Squad and Cat Grant are just names they may have heard.

Let's start with Cat, a replacement partner for Clark at the Daily Planet, summed up in her description of how she bakes her cookies: twice the sugar. In other words, homespun, traditional, yet also excessive. She talks ten to the dozen, assumes those around her are just like her, despite her radically marshmallow pink surroundings. Yet she's not a marshmallow, nor even that sweet, with the tragedy of a broken joint parenting problem of falling out with her boyfriend and having to change her name to protect her identity and that of her young son. Ironic that she has more in common with the masked vigilantes she professes to be disgusted by, and even more ironic that one of them, Clark, saves her from a speeding bullet. She's not initially likeable for her instant rubbishing of Lois, and Clark's masked friends, but she grows on you through the episode. Not just when she spills her personal story to Clark, but when she bravely pulls out every gadget she can to defy Green Arrow when he visits the apartment above The Talon in Smallville where Clark put her for safety after it seemed she was the target of some crazy. She literally pulls everything out, each device easily defeated by Oliver, but you admire her pluck, even though it was misdirected and misguided.

One thing that isn't misguided is the bullet of a guy called Deadshot that looks like he just walked off the set of a Western, cowboy hat, boots, high-tech gun… His special bullet with the name of its intended victim takes out Cat's car, but it was actually a ruse to test Clark so the Suicide Squad could eventually lure him to save Cat by stopping a bullet which imprinted something into his skin whereby they can track him? Is that it? That's the impression I got, the same thing done to Hawkman in Africa where Clark had asked him to keep an eye on Lois while she works for the invisible Perry White on the story of some tomb being discovered, but which is actually just an excuse to have Michael Shanks return to his 'Stargate SG-1' roots as the archeologist and give her a history lesson - I half expected Jaffa warriors to come charging in with staff weapons at any moment! This is where the episode moves into the more soppy side of the soap… I mean series… Hawkman and Lois share a kinship in terms of their affection for an important person, and there is the faintest whiff of a good theme in there about whether Lois should clear out of Clark's way so he can fulfil his 'destiny' (which is basically what Lana Lang decided, if I remember correctly), while Hawkman suggests Clark needs her to fulfil it.

There's more mush when we learn from Oliver's investigations into those who kidnapped him, then traded Chloe for him, that she took a cyanide pill to escape their clutches, but he also finds she had an antidote, and Tess helped her erase every digital trace of herself, so she's planned to completely disappear. It's a bit of a strange way to write a character out, and I don't understand why they had Allison Mack in the credits of the opening episode, then she's entirely gone from this one, no credit, no appearance. I doubt this will be the last time we see her, since this is the final season, but it shows that my hearsay proved correct about her leaving the series in Season 10. My theory about them bringing back familiar faces is borne out with Michael Shanks returning, and he's a likeable character, though no Pa Kent. It tickles my anticipation meter to see who else they get back, even if it's just for one-episode wonders, though this Suicide Squad looks to be the main villain of the season, presumably. We still haven't seen anything of the black mass at the end of the first episode and I sense things could get more difficult to follow as the season progresses at this rate! Checkmate is name-checked, though I'm not sure if they're actively involved in anything or not.

Things take some illogical turns - for Cat, Clark telling her to stay at the apartment where she'll be safe wouldn't be that reassuring considering 'big bad' Green Arrow had already paid her a visit there, but the fact she goes on the run from Deadshot through a busy coach station instead of staying around all the people where he wouldn't have dared shoot her, was a daft idea (but I can graciously accept that perhaps she wasn't thinking straight while in fear). I suppose there was some ingenuity to the Squad's method of tagging Clark by using her as bait, but a bit of a long shot at the same time. And I didn't understand whether the final image of Clark standing impressively atop a building with the American flag flying behind him and a big 'S' on a new red leather jacket was meant to signify a change in attitude? He and Oliver had been talking about 'changing their fate' or something, rather than letting their secret identities be held captive, so does this mean he'll no longer protect his secret? All because he and Olly have both lost their girlfriends by Lois and Chloe's own choice? If there was one thing I'd like them to do it's to make things a mite clearer - just give us people's names, it's not like it's going to make the series any sillier at this point! I could understand that attitude at first, because they weren't trying to be a comic book or tie themselves closely to established lore, but for seasons and seasons they've introduced other heroes and villains and now isn't the time to be avoiding true identities, just as Clark and Oliver appear to be advocating.

It's hard to judge episodes that are so heavily serialised because although they were made to be watched in chunks rather than the modern phenomenon of 'binge-watching,' they are a serial, not self-contained stories, though you could say that Cat's mini-arc, going from a silly, fluffy annoyance to someone with a little depth and character, as well as a simple enmity of vigilantes to seeing some parallel with her own life, was this week's episode - it is, after all, where the title comes from, Clark her shield of protection, but due to the nature of the series, at least at this point (and one reason I preferred the first two seasons), they don't have the space or inclination to delve deeply into a given theme. Even with a forty-minute episode it's tough to get below the surface, but when you're cramming so much in already it barely even nicks that surface and that's a shame. But it's not the series' style and you either accept that or don't watch it. At least it always gives me plenty to write about, even if it typically doesn't give me much to think about, beyond the amount of details thrown at me.

**