Lois: "It's like dating a god. Or Bono."Yes, it was another recycled plot. Your basic Children of the Corn and/or variation of Shirley Jackson's Lottery has been done so many times that it's outright painful. But as always, it's the execution that counts, and as far as that goes, it wasn't too bad. And that's mostly because of Lois.
It's no secret that I like Erica Durance's Lois a lot, and I've been happy that her character is finally getting the screen time she deserves. I got a charge in the opener, when she and Clark were actually talking about Krypton and about him being an alien, because we've been waiting a long time for that discussion.
The lunatic blue Kryptonite villagers sort of worked, too. The actors were good (the mother was terrific as a supercreepy god in Supernatural's exceptionally gory and moving Christmas episode). The sacrificial tree thingy reminded me of season two of True Blood. And Clark getting burned like that shocked me, just a bit. I also liked Lois just going with the god stuff. It was fun that Clark got to be a god-like alien right in front of Lois for a change.
And sex! We almost never get sex on Smallville, so that was a surprise. I was pleased that they didn't come up with yet another artificial plot device to keep Lois and Clark from sleeping together. After what happened with Lana, it just wouldn't have been believable.
Finally, fast-growing Lex junior is reaching that age when an evil clone starts to act out. Tess's resolution to give him all the love he needed in order to avert his evil impulses didn't last very long. Mini-clone Lex has even started shaving his head and obsessing about Superman already. Let me repeat that if this isn't culminating in a guest shot by Michael Rosenbaum, I'm not on board.
Not my favorite sort of episode, but better than expected. Two out of four villainous little Amish girls,
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.
My trouble with seasons 9 & 10 is that for someone who wasn't really interested in the films and the comics Lois is basically an inferior and more annoying version of Chloe. It's not that I don't like her, I just preferred her as a supporting character (seasons 5 & 6).
ReplyDeleteI agree with Anonymous, I love Chloe and don't mind Lois. I just don't want them to replace Chloe with Lois, it feel like I'm getting ripped off. Chloe has a lot of history with Clark, and I absolutely loved her finding out about his real parentage. Lois just feels like a let down. On the other hand, anybody is better than Lana. Anybody.
ReplyDeleteAgreed.
ReplyDeleteWell in the first place Chloe was made as a character to act as a precursor to Lois, given that you couldn't have Lois in the story right from the beginning, so I'm not at all surprised that she's taken over somewhat. But you can't really say she's replacing Chloe, I mean, Chloe shifted from her old journalist persona to her super-hacker Watchtower persona pretty long ago. I don't see why it's being brought up now.
ReplyDeleteMore interesting was Lex Junior's story this time, way more than Clark's storyline. While normally it'd be a bad bad episode the Lex parts were what really advanced the story. But like so many have said, if it all ends without Michael Rosenbaum playing adult Lex, it's utterly pointless.
(Given his growth rate though he'll probably hit Lex's age in 3-4 more episodes max...wonder how that'll turn out)
I gave up on Smallville around season 2 or 3 and started watching again after accidentally catching the end of "Isis" and thinking I really liked this take on Lois and wanted ot see more. In other words, my view lacks the context of seeing how Chloe evolved and where Lois came from, but I have to say, from my "fresh" point of view, I don't see that much resemblance between the two characters.
ReplyDeleteTo me, Chloe is a lot more like the Lois from "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman". Without necessarily being selfish, Chloe the Reporter has always struck me as more self oriented than Lois now, by which I mean her pluckiness was motivated by ambition whereas Lois' drive is motivated by a more general principle to achieve (probably instilled by her father).
This, I find, is reflected in the way the characters relate to Clark. Chloe was in love with shy farmboy Clark, whereas Lois seems to really dig Clark the Altruistic Savior of the People (i.e. Superman).
Of course, I missed, like, six seasons, so I imagine I might be missing quite a bit of context.
Anyway, I've really been enjoying these past episodes. Happy you started reviewing again right around the same time, Billie!
We've seen this also in Supernatural in the episode titled "Scarecrow" where a supposed sweet and neighborly community sacrifice couples to a mythical God to ensure bountiful harvests the next season. This plot has been used in countless other sci-fi/horror shows. X-Files used this "kindly villages with a dark side" plot a couple of times throughout the course of the series. GenderBender in season 1 carried similar themes, and Our Town in season 2 had cannibalism to retain the eternal youth. Sliders had the god awful Paradise Lost, where the ageless community ate worm shit to stay young and offered sacrifices to their benefactor to provide them with more shit/slime to eat. This one was much like the others and probably the best of the lot, because of Erica Durance.
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