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Superman & Lois: The Best of Smallville

"This town is my Kryptonite. I hate it."

It was quite literally old home week for Clark, as Smallville celebrated its annual Harvest Fest.

They're doing something interesting with Smallville on this show. It's supposed to be this beautiful small town where everyone cares about everyone else, but clearly, it's not. I mean, the Harvest Fest sounded wonderful. Everyone coming together and donating, helping those in need, big party, lots of great food. And then the Community Center burned down. And then Morgan Edge took over the Harvest Fest, too.

A series of flashbacks to Clark's youth added heft to his memories of his mother and the good old days. Michele Scarabelli returned as Martha Kent, who unselfishly encouraged sixteen-year-old Clark to leave home and find his destiny. I had wondered if we were going to get flashbacks to teenage Clark, and these were pretty good. I especially liked young Clark donning a ski mask and a black hoodie to fight crime. Anyone remember the Red Blue Blur?

I should add that while I don't tend to write much about the action scenes, so far they've all been terrific. Tyler Hoechlin looks amazing and is totally convincing as Big Blue, and is also believable as a completely normal husband and father with too soft parenting skills and way geeky enthusiasm for his old home town. And Superman is acquiring an impressive new string of local threats.

Let's start with the unfortunate Derek Powell, for whom death was not the end. He was resurrected, or rather, some Kryptonian who knows Kal-El was resurrected, and Leslie Larr used an evil furnace-like MRI to do it. In the end, Derek killed himself with his own heat vision – I think, I'm not completely sure what happened there. My son Daniel, who knows a lot more comic book lore than I do, mentioned a Kryptonian genetic library. Morgan Edge is resurrecting Kryptonians. Is it just to acquire superminions, or is Morgan Edge a Kryptonian trying to bring back his friends?

Couldn't help but notice that Derek's uncontrollable manifestation of heat vision was exactly what happened to Jordan. Can't be a coincidence. Why heat vision? Why not any other of Clark's superpowers?



Captain Luthor, a.k.a. Marcus Bridgewater, is a lot more interesting than Morgan Edge. This week, they dropped a huge plot bomb: that on his own world, Bridgewater was married to Lois Lane. This opens up the possibility that Bridgewater is actually a good guy, in spite of his trying to take down Superman with a bazooka. Crisis on Infinite Earths strikes again, huh?

And here is the teen angst section of my review.

I'm enjoying this show, but it's not blowing me away yet. Lois and Clark are terrific, no complaints. Maybe it's the teen element that bothers me. Despite the fact that the boys are perfectly cast and are doing a great job, all the high school angst makes me impatient.

There were a couple of nice moments between the twins before everything went to hell. Sarah asked Jordan on a date and Jon accepted it on Jordan's behalf in a very sweet way. But then Jon's girlfriend Eliza, still in Metropolis, dumped Jon by phone, spurring him to start acting out. He ruined Jordan's first date ever, drank from a flask with some of the town's more notable teenage jerks, and yelled at his parents. Jon wants to go back to Metropolis and live with a friend and if he were the eighteen he looked, instead of the fourteen he's supposed to be on this show, that might even make sense. Clark let that go without consulting with Lois first. Oops.

Sarah Cushing followed that up by telling Jordan that she just wanted to be friends, after all. She keeps hinting that things at home are a long way from peachy keen. What was going on in that scene where Kyle was singing to her in Spanish? It should have been a gentle father/daughter moment, but that wasn't the vibe at all.

Bits:

— The "sunrise on the farm" opening scene felt like a Cheerios commercial.

— I liked that Clark was creating an office for Lois by getting rid of his mom's stuff. Keepsakes are fine, memories are good, but she's Lois Lane. She needs an office.

— Plus, Martha Kent now has a remembrance bench. That was nice. But did Morgan Edge pay for it?



— Why did Clark give that empty box to Jonathan? Were they going for some symbolism there? (As in, Martha gave Clark that red crystal and his freedom, while Clark gave Jonathan nothing?)

— Chrissy is endangering herself way too much, trying to be Lois. WWLLD?

— Kyle noticed the frost in the burned community center. I'm sure there will be repercussions.

— Chocolate bacon on a stick. That's just wrong.

— Cliffhanger. Tag was beating up on Jordan. What's up with Tag? Is he resurrected? Or is there something else going on?

— The next episode won't air until May 18. Apparently, this wasn't the original plan. Elizabeth Tulloch tweeted:



— Is anyone out there interested in reviewing Superman & Lois for us when it returns? May is going to be a problem for me with other commitments. Apply here!

Quotes:

Lois: "Think of it as Smallville's version of Burning Man."
Jonathan: "Minus the fires and the BO, I hope."

Clark: "First breakups are rough. I pretty much crawled into an REO Speedwagon rabbit hole."
Jordan: "Speedwagon?"
Clark: "Never mind."

Lois: "Lex Luthor. The only human being worse than Morgan Edge."
Are we gonna see him? And will he be Jon Cryer? He'd have to be since this is one big happy universe now, right?

Superman: "What did she do to you?"
Derek: "She resurrected me, Kal-El. You're not alone anymore."

Lois: "Softy."
Clark: "I know."

Clark: "And now we're at the point where our own kids are talking about leaving home. Feels like they were just born." Was that an in-joke? Because they were indeed born last season. Or Jonathan was.

Another good episode. What did you guys think?

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

3 comments:

  1. "Lois: "Lex Luthor. The only human being worse than Morgan Edge."
    Are we gonna see him? And will he be Jon Cryer? He'd have to be since this is one big happy universe now, right?"

    Well, no. since Morgan Edge isn't Adrian Pasdar

    ReplyDelete
  2. Point. And I would absolutely be more into this Morgan Edge thing if it were Adrian Pasdar.

    But that was before Crisis. Things have changed. Maybe Morgan Edge is just different now. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. After Crisis, the Arrow/Flash Earth and the Supergirl/Superman Earth have been merged, but it has been shown that there still is a multiverse, so there can be multiple versions of both Lex Luthor and Morgan Edge

    ReplyDelete

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