Lana: "I am moving on."Chloe: "Really? Because it seems to me that you're not just playing with fire, you're stepping into a raging inferno."
And now Lana is a superhero. Lana Lang. Is a superhero.
You know what? I'm a sincere believer in being positive. When I review a show, it's usually because I love it and I want to talk about it and share the love. I'm not much for the snark, the nitpicking, the hypercritical ripping-an-episode-to-shreds fanfest. If I can't say anything positive, why review a show at all?
I've continued reviewing Smallville, even after my two favorite characters left. And now I'm starting to wonder if I made the wrong choice. Because they're NOT GIVING ME WHAT I WANT.
What do I want? I want to watch Clark become an adult and gradually find his way into his future role. I want him to fall in love with Lois. Some Justice League action would be nice. And the Davis Bloome/Doomsday arc has promise. This was how I pictured season eight. But no.
I'm sorry, but this is nuts. A perfectly healthy, stunningly beautiful, and supposedly sane woman submits herself to molecular transfusion transdermal evisceration, whatever that is, or in other words, Nazi-like experiments on her skin, and she pretends to be a Navy SEAL having the nerve to freeze and burn herself... for what? Not that I care, but what does Lana really want? To not be a victim any more? After years of being targeted by meteor freaks, I get that. To take revenge on Lex for what he did to her and to stop him from hurting anyone else? Okay, I get that, too.
But this whole thing with the Prometheus suit felt like... okay, I'll pick a nicer "p" word. Power envy. Lana doesn't want to love Clark; she wants to be Clark. If they were doing it with a better character and a better actress, it could work. But not with Lana Lang.
I have been hanging on to Smallville this season, but I might not for much longer. I did not sign up to see Lana Lang become a superhero. I did not hang on to see Clark go back to Lana. Please tell me they have a reasonable destination in mind.
Because I've pretty much had it.
Bits and pieces:
— Minions all over the place. Lex's minions, Tess's minions, Tess rather gorily killing Lex's minion and her own. (Blood everywhere at the Daily Planet. I don't fancy spending the next month getting minion out of the carpet.) Even Lana has minions now.
— Many mentions of Lex, as they've been doing for awhile now. It's not enough.
— Prometheus suit. Invulnerability. But what about broken bones? Or pneumonia?
— This episode was directed by Allison Mack. She did just fine. Not her fault that I didn't like this episode.
— Tess: "Lana Lang was born to be a martyr." Give me hope, why don't you.
I again apologize for being so negative. If you liked this episode, could you tell me why?
Billie
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Billie Doux had a love-hate relationship with Smallville, which is why some of her reviews are briefer than they should be.
Damn, why did they have to bring her back?
ReplyDeletePete Ross said it way back in season 3: "The whole yo-yo thing with you and Lana? It's gotta stop." Tragically it's still just as true five years later.
Still, I'm not ready to give up on Smallville yet, mainly because a still don't believe the writers are serious about making the Clark-Lana thing a major theme yet again. What I think (hope) they are trying to do is to create better send-off for Lana, so that she can go away as her own person instead of a sobbing victim of circumstance. I think that was actually the point (or one of the points) of this episode - everyone thought Lana was trying to take revenge on Lex, but in reality she doesn't give a damn about him any more and the whole thing was about her becoming a superhero. And now she is a superhero and she can go save the whales or fight North Korean communists or do some other heroic thing that requires her to be far away from Smallville. At least I really, really, hope so.
Though I gotta admit, the moment she emerged from that chamber, all flame-y, to catch Tess's bullet was pretty cool. I think I could have a lot less problems with Lana Lang - the superhero than I have with Lana Lang - the tragically boring love interest.
Sigh. Will they never let her go? comicbook Lana was cool and even got to be a superhero as Insect Queen..but Kreuk is not like her.
ReplyDeleteAnna
I was pretty disappointed when Michael Rosenbaum left, but I figured that loss of talent was evened out by the departure of Kristin Kreuk, whom really couldn't act herself out of a paper bag.
ReplyDeleteI can only hope this is a part of a 3-episode arc that results in the death - the final, definitive, no-resurrections-allowed, gory, graphic death - of Lana Lang.
My hope is that they just brought Lana back so they could hype her new movie, and not because they meant to change the story line.
ReplyDeleteIf so, they can retcon this stupidity and go back to the season 8 story line, which was actually going fairly well by smallville standards.
I just watched this and unfortunately I did not like it one bit.
ReplyDeleteI thought that Lana was going to kill Tess which would have made for a better storyline: Clark having to stop evil Lana (but hey didn't we do this 2 weeks ago with Chloe?)
Thud! That's the sound of one of my favourite shows hitting the ground after a massive jump. As Jimmy Buffet would say, "fins to the left, fins to the right." What were they thinking?
ReplyDeleteGreat point about Lana wanting to be Clark, not love him. Says more about her than it does about him that she can only see them as equals if she has powers as well.
Snore...
Billy, I didn't like this one either. In fact, I think it's made me give up on Smallville entirely. There were times during season 8 when I was starting to think it might go somewhere, but bringing Lana back just seems like a huge step back.
ReplyDeleteFor a moment, I actually thought they were going to bring back Lex in Lana's body. That would have been an interesting idea, at least, though I can't imagine Kristin Kreuk carrying it off.
magritte, in retrospect, I wonder if someone in charge back then was in love with Kristin Kreuk. It's really the only explanation.
ReplyDeleteIt was funny hearing Carter Bowfry address Clark as "son." I thought we were all done with that when Lionel died.
ReplyDeleteLMAO!!!! That has to be one of the (unintentionally) funniest fake-outs I've ever seen. The zoom-out from Lana's lame Dear John tape to show guys aiming guns at her. I'm still wheezing just typing this. I have to give them props for the audacity of that. It's a classic.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I did love that superspeed moment between them. Lana's smile was RADIANT. I definitely strongly disagree with the notion that her acting's weak... I think it's solid. I also did find her joy at becoming hero partners with Clark pretty sweet. I wish Clark didn't immediately put a damper on it by calling it a dream. It's all freaking ridiculous but I do somehow still have curiosity on how they'd actually work togethuh