Spoilers, but it doesn’t matter, because the episode was ass.
Smallville Official Site
The Time: Thursdays, 8:00 PM, The CW
The Show:
Having
grown up in Smallville under the protective eye of Jonathan and Martha
Kent, Clark Kent, the future Superman, is finally setting out into the
world to pursue his destiny. Ever wary of protecting his
secret, Clark nonetheless secretly uses his Kryptonian superpowers to
help people and save lives. He’s now colleagues with Lois
Lane at the Daily Planet and still friends with Chloe Sullivan, his
childhood pal who knows his secret. Lex Luthor has
mysteriously vanished after destroying the Fortress and learning his
secret. Lex’s hand-picked successor, Tess Mercer, is
nevertheless a dangerous individual who is obsessed with learning Lex’s
fate and the secret he was pursuing. And a dangerous enemy,
in the form of paramedic Davis Bloom is growing ever a bigger threat.
The Stars:
• Tom Welling – Clark Kent
• Allison Mack – Chloe Sullivan
• Erica Durance – Lois Lane
• Aaron Ashmore – Jimmy Olsen
• Justin Hartley – Oliver Queen / Green Arrow
• Cassidy Freeman – Tess Mercer
• Sam Witwer – Davis Bloom
The Episode: “Doomsday”
The day of reckoning has come for Clark, Davis, Chloe and company as the looming threat of Doomsday can no longer be contained. Clark is told by an ally that his encounter with the Beast will result in his destruction, but Clark won’t run from his destiny, whatever that might be. Meanwhile, most of the Justice league reunites to help stop the monster, even if they have to do it without Clark. Tess and Lois have a little tussle of their own as Tess is looking for the Kryptonian orb that houses Candor, and a new threat emerges even as an old friend doesn’t survive the encounter with Doomsday.
The Lowdown:
I sat down to watch this episode with anticipation, stoked about the first live action depiction of one of Superman’s most storied battles in what promised to be a great episode. With appearances by Justice League, Cosmic Boy from The Legion of Superheroes, I was anxiously anticipating one hell of a fight. What I got was bewilderment, disappointment – no dejection – and outright shock at the most mind-numbingly stupid season finale I’d ever seen. I had to watch it again, hoping that I didn’t see what I thought I saw. But I did see what I hoped I thought I didn’t saw. Utter retardation and a cop out of super proportions.
Several things happening this episode. Long and short of it is is that Clark is still looking for Davis and Chloe, as is the Justice League: Green Arrow, Black Canary and Impulse (returning guest stars Alaina Kalanj and Kyle Gallner). Clark enlists help from Cosmic Boy (also returning guest star Ryan Kennedy), who gives Clark another League time travel ring so Clark can send Doomsday to the future so the League can fight him on Clark’s behalf. Cosmic Bioy also tells Clark that he will die if he confronts Doomsday. But Clark won’t run from his destiny and plans to use the black kryptonite to split Davis and Doomsday and then handle Doomsday by sealing him in a deep shaft that’s been drilled into the earth at a Luthorcorp geothermal plant.
Jimmy, now working for Oliver, is helping the JLA also, in hopes of helping find estranged wife, Chloe. Meanwhile, the Kryptonian orb that brought down the fortress last year, which Tess has had in her possession and which also seems to house Candor, has disappeared in violent fahsion from Tess’ vault. Tess thinks Lois is responsible after she catches her snooping in her office. And Davis’ and Chloe’s relationship on the run is degenerating as Doomsday is little by little clawing his way out, even in Chloe’s calming presence.
That’s the set up. Here are the ass reamings that follow. Clark and Oliver are still at odds, and he wants Canary’s and Impulse’s help, but not Arrow’s to handle Doomsday. But Canary, Arrow and Impule waylay Clark with a kryptonite dart because they plan to kill Davis because Clark won’t. They track down Chloe and Davis and subdue them – offscreen mind you – and Jimmy had tracked down Chloe’s location and comes upon the still incapacitated Clark. There he discovers that Clark is the Red-Blue Blur. Clark tells Jimmy to give Chloe the wedding present he had planned to and then goes off to find the JLA and Davis and Chloe. In another location, Davis tells Chloe that the JLA as to kill him because her calming influence isn’t working on him anymore. He starts to hulk out, but before the League can do anything, Chloe hits him with El Krypto Negro and succeeds in splitting Davis from Doomsday.
Meanwhile, Tess and Lois have a mini smackdown when Tess confronts Lois about stealing the orb, of which Lois has no knowledge. In yet another disappointing fight, Lois knocks out Tess, finds Clark’s Legion ring and disappears when it activates. Clark tracks down an unconscious Davis and finds JLA totaled by the Beast, who has departed to commit mayhem and general carnage. Clark goes to confront him. So finally, finally, after an entire season of waiting, the Clark / Doomsday match is on…and over in less than 30 seconds. A couple of gut busting punches to the ribs, a Doomsday slobberknocker to Clark through a building, a super leap by Clark and Doomsday to the geothermal plant, cue giant explosion, and cut to commercial. Eight months wait for that. Yippee?
Back with Jimmy, Chloe and Davis, who are in a clock watch tower that Jimmy was going to give to Chloe for their home as a wedding present, the happy couple reconcile, until Davis, who reveals himself to be a homicidal maniac even without the beast inside him, kills Jimmy by impaling him with a pipe and then is in turn impaled and killed by a dying Jimmy. Epilogue finds Clark, who survived the encounter with Doomsday, who is now sealed inside the earth (we assume, it’s not like we actually saw it happen at all, but whatever), telling Chloe that he had put humanity on a pedestal and not taken into account the dark side of humans and thus Jimmy died. So he deduces that it’s his human side, not his Kryptonian side, which is keeping him from being the hero he could be. So he’s cutting himself off from everyone he knows and leaves. And Tess sees the arrival of someone from the orb, a bald someone who brings a glowing giant Kryptonian Z-looking symbol. See you in the fall.
Okay, the obvious elephant in the room is that this was a clusterfudge of an episode, that looked like it suffered from a lack of budget as a key scene or two was glossed over, and the titanic battle between Clark and Doomsday wasn’t even as long as the opening credits. There was also more rehashing of the Clark / Oliver tension that was played out three episodes ago. Question: How did Clark summon Cosmic Boy when he destroyed the only means of communication he had, the Legion ring? Why have Cosmic Boy appear at all when he’s only in one scene?
Also, the Lois / Tess fight was beyond pointless. Tess was looking for the orb, which never went anywhere. And why not show how it was busted out of the vault? Where the hell did Jimmy get the scratch to rent the space in the clock tower? The only thing even remotely enjoyable was Jimmy dying. I’ve made no attempts to hide that the character is outdated and uninteresting IMO. But I was so bummed by the sheer badness (and not the good kind of badness) of this episode that I couldn’t even enjoy that. And according to Chloe, the JLA has bugged out for parts unknown. Why? And why hear about it in five-second exposition? And why is it that Chloe was meeting Jimmy’s family for the first time at his funeral? Were they not invited to their wedding? Was this episode crafted by the janitors at the Smallville production offices during the Writers’ Strike last year? It’s shockingly inept.
As for the season, I’ve been checking out old reviews and the latter half of the season was pretty much awful. I’ve been watching the show from the start and I thought at the beginning of the season it had been doing okay – not great but okay – considering the departure of Michael Rosenbaum and show runners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, especially without the Lana and Lex baggage weighing the show down. But then Lana came back and it was pretty much downhill from there. It couldn’t have been an easy prospect to stretch out a Doomsday arc out to an entire season, but the payoff of it was so badly mishandled that it’s virtually sucked any mild enthusiasm I’d managed to maintain for the show after eight seasons. This season finale was the purest form of ass: lazy writing, bad payoffs and cut corners. In retrospect, a ninth season probably isn’t good news after all.
Season: 5.0 out of 10