Smallville 7×18: Apocalypse

Original U.S. Air Date: May 1, 2008

Cut for spoilers:

I’m not going to pick at the logistics of how Brainiac used Kara to time (& space) travel back to before Krypton exploded, because the show doesn’t even attempt to give an explanation of how that works. They literally don’t provide an explanation. All we know is that the magical wand that is the Fortress can send Clark back to Krypton at any point in time, an ability that Computo Jor-El never told Clark about before, and which they’re never going to use again, because…trying to change history always makes things worse. And Kara should listen to Clark when he says they can’t try again not because he’s a passive lump who was going to let himself be erased from existence, but because he’s wise in the ways of time travel. I’m so glad Clark’s in charge, he always knows the right thing to do *snark*

Jor-El’s “it’s a wonderful life” imaginary AU completely fails to convince me that Clark’s presence is at all necessary or even beneficial. Oops! All it convinces me of is the writers Jor-El’s shockingly poor opinion of Kara and, um, grasp on logic.

It’s unfortunate that this episode took place after Kara’s introduction, because the writers just cannot think up a convincing situation that would require more than one super being at once, so they always have to disable one or the other. This being Clark’s story, they make Kara appear to be stupid and useless, unable to see through Lex and Brainiac’s machinations until the last minute, and then too blinded by loyalty to her lover* “brother” to superspeed out of the way of an oncoming krypto-bullet. Having her found by the Luthors and raised to be like one of them would have been a fun twist, but it became apparent that Kara isn’t actually “evil” just misguided. I would have preferred evil. But that doesn’t really work on Smallville because Kara landed on Earth when she was already a teenager with a well-formed personality. IMO the Kara we saw at the beginning of this season was far too strong-willed to ever accept Lionel’s controlling nature and turn into Lex’s loyal puppy, so I couldn’t buy that at all.

(*I was loving “Linda” right up until the point where she stopped acting badass and started acting like Matrix around Lex. Baaad flashbacks.)

Believable character motivation was a huge problem with this episode. Instead of giving us an alternate world in which the characters’ paths diverged in intriguing yet believable ways due to the premise of Clark never existing, the writers used the episode to portray certain characters the way they should behave (Lois being the prime example). The episode pretty much forgoes any attempt at a logical extrapolation of the premise in order to focus on fan-pleasing riffs from the comicverse.

So, how dumb is Clark anyway? He petulantly declares that the world would be a better place if he never existed (and is in fact sitting around waiting for that to happen…!), and then he wakes up in the barn to a strange kid telling him that he’s Clark Kent, and he has to be hit over the head with the cluebat multiple times before he gets what’s happened.

In this world, Lana is offscreen living a life full of art, love, and wealth (one hopes she’s happily married, given the kind of relationships we’ve seen on this show!). That definitely sounds better than anything this show has offered her. She actually got to finish university, and in France like she always wanted (I’m still wanting for that explanation for why she dropped out after one year, along with everyone else on this show). Of course she’s not in the episode because Kristin Kreuk was (is still?) off filming Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li in Thailand at the time this episode was shot. I can’t blame her at all for choosing to do that instead of coming back in March with the rest of the crew after the strike. Way better idea than coming back for more crappy treatment of her character on this show. Knowing the reason for the character’s absence makes it a bit easier to ignore the whole girlfriend-in-a-tortured-waking-coma thing, which I am trying really, really hard to do.

I don’t know why Clark always has to go to the Planet to search their archives: doesn’t he have a net connection at home? No Chloe, so Jimmy substitutes. Speaking of Jimmy, it was neat seeing him dressed like his Silver Age counterpart, but otherwise he’s pretty much the same. I don’t know why Chloe would have broken up with him if Clark hadn’t been around to mess things up between them. In this world Chloe is unconnected to anything “super” due to Clark’s absence: she was still on the school paper and talks the same as ever, but she’s engaged to a Metropolis cop, which would be unthinkable for the anti-authoritarian hacker we know and love.

Lois is a real reporter! Well, editor. Even though she clearly was not headed in that direction long before she met Clark. And she totally falls in love with him when she runs in to him (she calls him the clumsy one) even though that’s totally NOT how Lois Lane would react. But we don’t care because this is the closest thing to the real Lois Lane we’ll ever get on Smallville.

I really enjoyed Lois as a competent, professional, (hard-drinking!) journalist investigating a government conspiracy involving non-existent WMDs, er, “missiles”. Clark disguising himself in a suit and glasses was fun and makes me even more annoyed that the show doesn’t go there, because rowrr! Tom Welling is smoking HOT! I can only imagine how they’d increase their audience if they gave us this Lois Lane and Clark Kent working at the Planet together. They could still keep Lana around and in Clark’s life as love interest, and maybe even give her a real job and a purpose in life (I can dream!)

My favorite scenes were between Lois and Clark, starting with him rescuing Lois from the Eviiiil Government and doing the classic damsel in the strongman’s arms. Lois’ conclusion that Clark is an android just cracked me up =) Clark’s expression when he catches her trying to peep on him is hilarious: he’s been in enough “accidental nudity” situations with Lois to be justifiably suspicious =) I love the fact that Lois once again “creates” Superman, this time by giving him his Clark Kent disguise. The big black-rimmed glasses! Pushing them up his nose ala Chris Reeves! So much squee there.

I guess after building the “Ace of Clubs” set for last week’s episode “Sleeper”, they need to reuse it =) It’s built on the Oliver Queen apartment set, isn’t it? The glass patio doors look the same. I love that they brought Sheriff Adams back =) “Get back to Smallville before I lose my ladylike charm and arrest your hide”. LOL.

More and more I find myself terrified at the thought of this Clark Kent becoming Superman. With the way he roughs up his friends the moment he doesn’t get his way, and bodily tosses around anyone who gets in his way without any thought about injuring or killing them, I’m with Lex Luthor: the big dumb alien is a serious threat to humanity. Unlike every other (non-evil) version of Superman, this incarnation uses brute force to intimidate people into co-operating with him instead of relying on his smarts to fool people or get the information he needs. That’s not the Clark Kent/Superman I fangirl.

Lex as president bent on rebuilding humanity with him as its leader was delicious, if a bit predictable by this point. Sadly, a power-mad Lex Luthor who threatens to “never waver on terrorism” just isn’t as chilling as it would have been pre-Bush. And what was up with the one black glove? Yeah it looks all fascist and evil, but I kept waiting for the dramatic reveal of what had happened to his hand, and it never came. EDIT: After viewing the Lex vid Paranoid Android I understand the glove is purely symbolicly. Moving the governmental HQ to Smallville and turning the Luthor mansion into the Whitehouse made me laugh. Looks like they didn’t have enough budget to build a Whitehouse lookalike set.

Kara as Linda Danvers, scary government official in sharp suit and updo was cool. I just wish she’d actually had some agency and ambition of her own and not just been Lex’s well-heeled guard dog. What the hell is up with her just standing there as Lex shoots Clark twice, and then turns what is obviously a kryptonite bullet on her?! After an auspicious introduction in which she appeared to be a force to be reckoned with, she actually didn’t get to do a god damn thing to save herself or anyone else. She tells Clark that she was sent to kill him, something pulled from the comics for no good reason, but gives up almost immediately. Despite learning that Lex is in league with Brainiac, she still sticks by him. It’s like Lana in Season 6 all over again. Kara has no real motivations of her own, her only desire is to serve the man she loves/idolizes. The show barely bothers to give them a reason for this incomprehensible loyalty to their men: they’re women, that’s just how they are.

This show seems incapable of seeing women outside of stereotypical gendered contexts. We’re reminded yet again that no woman, not even a super woman, is ever truly safe from male violence, particularly sexualized/reproductive violence. After being shot, Kara is dragged away and threatened with the fate of becoming breeding stock for the Master Kryptonian race, just like Lana and Lara were in “Zod” and “Blue”. Ugh. “Together they will repopulate the planet” is a disgusting, cowardly euphemism that makes me see red every time it’s used in sci-fi. I want to mail the writers a copy of We Who Are About To… and force them to read it until they get how misogynistic that trope is.

When Kara tells Clark back in the real world that she’ll always been there for him, it’s hard not to remember her loyalty to Lex in the AU and think of the high price that devotion exacts of so many women on Smallville. Clark doesn’t actually have any male friends, since Pete – the show’s only black character – but he’s very good at attracting women who are willing to bend their lives around him. The men in Clark’s life are powerful, older father figures who seek to fulfill their own ambitions through him. He competes with men, but women serve him.

So, is Kara now infected with Brainiac or what? I assume he downloaded himself somehow just before she crushed him with that humongous rock. That was really cool. I loved seeing her stab Brainiac in the back and heft that huge piece of crystal or whatever that was. So I was just a wee bit ticked when they ended the episode with her collapsing to the ground and looking terrified. Enough tormenting women already! Kara especially deserves a break after the numerous times she’s been captured/manipulated/depowered/mind-wiped this season. I really wanted to see what happened after she flew off with Brainiac, but the show keeps avoiding giving us solo Kara stories. It’s very frustrating.

It sounds like I didn’t enjoy this episode very much, but I really did enjoy quite a few bits of it, as long as I ignored the glaring plot holes and problems with characterization. Smallville delivers on the visuals and fan-pleasing moments, and not so much on the overall story, as usual.