Smallville 7×10: Persona

Original (U.S.) Air Date: January 31, 2008

Spoilers ahoy!

- The episode opens with what appears to be a lovely scene of Lana and Clark in bed after sex. Yay! (I’m not really a shipper of any particular pairing, I just like seeing characters I like being happy.) Of course, this being Smallville, we know that all is not well. Watching this, it struck me again how sex on Smallville almost always occurs under negative conditions. I’ve been watching a lot of vids lately, and it’s remarkable how many scenes there are with characters flirting or acting sexually while under the influence of Red K (which is associated with “bad” behavior) or possessed by someone evil (e.g. Lionel). Sex on this show is mostly (if not entirely) reserved for “bad” characters or is portrayed as being irresponsible and somehow “wrong” and leading to heartache. That’s a pretty disturbing, unhealthy way to portray sexuality. And it’s not very fun!

So while this scene finally gives us the kind of moment we’d like to see a lot more of, it’s tainted by the fact that Lana just slept with a monster. We’ll have to wait for the vidders to take this scene and reinterpret it in a positive light. I expect to see a lot of vids using this footage :-)

- [ETA] I’ve been mostly ignoring Lana’s constant cooking for Clark, which I have never ONCE seen him reciprocate (I don’t remember ever seeing him or Jonathan cook for that matter), but when Lana tried to placate Bizarro!Clark’s desire to go to Paris by offering to cook them a nice dinner, I threw up a little in my mouth. If Lana were knowing for enjoying cooking it would make a little more sense that she’s suddenly doing all this cooking for them since she moved in, but that’s not the case (and even if she did love it, Clark should be doing *something* instead of always coming down after Lana’s got up early to start). It’s like the writers just assumed that hey, she’s female, she’s living with a man, ergo she would automatically WANT to do all the cooking! And Clark doesn’t even acknowledge this time-consuming effort she makes which is really presumptive on his part.

- I’m disappointed they got rid of Grant so soon. Watching Grant travel up the elevator to meet his father, I found myself sympathizing with him for the first time. We’ve never before seen Grant vulnerable, or really seen anything from his POV. I liked it. It humanizes him and shows that he could be more than just a reflection of Lex’s issues. Sad the writers didn’t see his potential.

- I confess to not being very interested in either Brainiac or Dax-Ur. Are there any Krytonians who weren’t scientists? His introduction does help explain how Kryptonians seem to know so much about the effects of various forms of kryptonite: Dax-Ur studied the effects of the yellow sun on Kryptonian minerals.

- Bizarro’s mention of Martian Manhunter imprisoning him made me realize that I miss Phil Morris as John Jones. He fills the role of advisor and imparter of Krytonian knowledge to Clark far better than either a dead/evil Jor-El or Lionel. It’s become even clearer this season that Lionel has long since outlived his usefulness. He just doesn’t work as Clark’s surrogate father: it throws me out of the scene every time I see Clark going to him for advice. Martian Manhunter is a more logical choice for this role because he was actually on Krypton. He also brings a new perspective, and he’s a much needed character of colour which the show is sorely lacking. Now, I have mixed feelings on that point because Martian Manhunter is the ultimate Other: not just a mysterious (exotic) alien, but an outsider even to Kryptonians. The way he’s been used makes him a bit of a Magical Negro too. His character definitely needs more fleshing out; I hope we get to see more of him.

- I like how Tom Welling lowers his voice as Bizarro!Clark. Sexy :-)

- More Fortress scenes, yay! It’s weird that the Fortress/Jor-El immediately recognized what Bizarro was (as did Brainiac, strangely), but didn’t react in any way when Zor-El of all people showed up in “Blue”. Is it because Bizarro verbally activated Jor-El ? I seem to remember the program recognizing Chloe as an outsider when she was first transported there. Some kind of defense mechanism should have kicked in when Zor-El starting messing with the cyrstals.

Bizarro’s defiance of Jor-El was enjoyable to watch (“What are you going to do, lecture me to death?”). I hate that damn program! ;-) It reinforced what I’ve wondered for a long time: why doesn’t Clark just destroy the damn Fortress, after all the grief Jor-El’s caused him? It’s too dangerous to keep around. Jor-El can control time, bring Clark back to life, switch his powers on and off at will, and imprison him against his will, but he’s strangely powerless against Bizarro: he has to free Clark to stop him. If Bizarro hadn’t shown up, would he have kept Clark imprisoned indefinitely? Just another sign that Clark needs to find a way to dismantle the fortress.

The resolution of the Bizarro storyline was a bit disappointing. I could actually see Lana making the choice to go off with Bizarro instead of destroying him with blue K. It would have been a heck of a more interesting story development. I wish they’d had the courage to explore that, instead of getting rid of both him and Julian so easily. I’m really disturbed that the show had Lana kill Clark’s doppleganger for him. It seems like a cheat to avoid having Clark killing someone who has shown a capacity for rehabilitation. Bizarro is no longer a simple case of a heartless, murderous monster who must be executed for the greater good. To have Clark do so would have made him a coldblooded killer; forcing the task onto Lana to spare the hero was despicable.

And now we’re back to the “Clark can’t emotionally commit to Lana” nonsense. What season are we in again? I’m currently watching Season 5 on DVD and had just watched ‘Reckoning’, which ends with Lana breaking up with Clark because he changes his mind about telling her his secret. Then I watched this episode, and it was like everything that’s gone on since never happened! It’s like the writers forgot that Clark and Lana are together this season, that Lana knows Clark’s secret and therefore they cannot use that excuse to keep them apart anymore. Which was the reason for the Lana storyline: it was a new way to strain their relationship (and rather an interesting one). All that character development went “poof” just like that. Doing this renders Lana’s story a bit moot. Like what happened with her story in Season 4 with the stones: in the end it was all about Clark. Everything that happens to Lana seems to be for its effect on him, not because she’s a character in her own right.

- I don’t buy that Lex is so desperate to have a brother that only he can enjoy, that he would have him killed the moment Lionel makes him the “favourite son”. Buh-wha? The writers still have not learned that you have to earn character development, you can’t just have your characters make sudden, startling choices like that. If having Lex kill the proto-Julian clone in the previous episode was supposed to be build-up to this, it failed miserably due to the long break between episodes. I don’t think either murder is a logical progression for the character. He damn well better have an emotional breakdown in the next episode, because I don’t believe he’s hardened enough yet to just repress it.

- The episode ends by reinforcing the parallels between Clark and Lex: both murdered their “brothers” by proxy, both are estranged from their loved ones. No happy endings for these characters.

- One more episode before Kara’s back. I’m getting impatient! As I surmised, she’s lost her powers along with her memory, and now she’s working as a waitress in a diner. I have some thoughts on that but will wait to see how it plays out. It will be interesting to see how the story compares to the way similar plots were handled in Buffy (“Anne”) and Stargate SG-1 (“Memento Mori”, with Vala Mal Doran). There are episode stills here. Unfortunately I can’t download the trailer or watch any videos on the CW site because I’m not in the U.S. =( Anyone know an alternative source for these (more reliable/better quality than YouTube)?

ETA: I just found the Smallville promo vids on SVFan.com