The Preface
In October of 2001 I was a nerdy 10 year old boy anxiously awaiting the premiere of Smallville, a show about Superman before he became Superman; a show about Clark Kent, an ordinary boy with incredible super powers. Since then, I have watched Smallville on a weekly basis, never missing a single episode.
Smallville has had its share of, well; let’s call them “misses” over the years. At many times the writing and story lines have made me cringe in embarrassment. But whatever the reason, I’ve stuck with it until the very end. This is my review of the finale.
Before I begin, I have to warn everyone who hasn’t seen it yet that this review will contain SPOILERS. If you haven’t watched it yet, you should probably stop reading now. Unless you’re that kid who likes sneaking a peak at your presents the day before Christmas (don’t be that kid, he’s lame).
I went into the finale with hopeful optimism. The promos featuring the return of Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor and hinting at Clark finally donning his cape fed my anticipation immensely. I’ll say for the record right now that I came out satisfied. No, I was not blown away and no it did not meet my expectations, but it was just good enough. Essentially the usual feeling after a Smallville episode.
The Wedding
The first half of the episode spent way too much time on the wedding, or more so, once again trying to make the wedding happen. At the last moment, both Clark and Lois decided at one point or another that their marriage might actually just hold Clark back from his destiny. Yawn. We’ve been developing these characters and their thoughts on this subject for a long time, this is not the time to flip flop. Of course, in the end, they both realized they are meant to be together.
The wedding, once it finally happens, is interrupted when an Omega-symboled-Oliver tries to slip a gold kryptonite wedding ring on Clark’s finger, although his plan is thwarted by Chloe who also treats us to a hilarious slow-motion “nooo!”.
Clark and Oliver then duke it out, and Oliver is eventually cured of his darkness through one of Clark’s classic boy scout monologues we have all come to love. Fair enough, I guess. Despite the whole “once the darkness gets in it doesn’t get out” spiel Clark just gave Oliver a few episodes ago.
The Return of Darkseid and Lex There’s not much time to rest though, as Darkseid is sending a giant flaming planet towards Earth, something most astronomers somehow missed until it is basically about to smash into us. Most people seem unbothered by this though, continuing their work at the Daily Planet or simply gazing up at it in the middle of the street.
At the same time, Lionel kidnaps Tess and takes her beneath the Luthor mansion, where he reveals that Lex, despite having been blown up a few seasons ago has managed to rebuild himself with clone parts and now only needs a heart (makes total sense).
Lionel has decided that it needs to be Tess’ heart that is put into Lex. Is she a matching blood type? Who knows. But of course, Tess being herself, escapes shooting Lionel on the way out.
Lionel then proceeds to crawl into Lex’s ‘top secret’ hide out (behind a book case opened by a giant red button that nobody could really miss), where he is greeted by Darkseid, who rips out Lionel’s heart and puts it into Lex, possessing Lionel’s body in the process.
Lex, despite just having a major heart transplant, then has a little pow-wow with Clark above ground, where he explains their destiny together. For the record, I will say it was really nice having Michael Rosenbaum back. His bald cap looked fine, especially for the amount of scenes he was in. On top of jumping right back into character, he also throws in some of the nights best lines: “turns out Dad had a change of heart,” fantastic. Clark then leaves Lex, as there happens to be a giant planet about to slam into Earth, in case anyone forgot.
Lex soon has another confrontation with Tess at his old office, where he stabs her to death. I think we all saw that coming a mile away, Tess had to go before the show ended, I’m fine with it. But before she dies she happens to rub some super secret goo on Lex’s face, which, oh yes, deletes all of his memories.
Really, Smallville? The memory erase route? I understand the pickle you were in, but really? Shame on you guys. A pretty blatant cop-out.
Elsewhere, zombie-bizzaro-Darkseid-Lionel confronts Clark at the barn. After being thrown around for a little bit (because, come on, it wouldn’t be a true Smallville episode without Superman getting his ass kicked), Clark has a mid-air epiphany with Jor-El, where we are “treated” to a nice long recap to the past 10 seasons. I would have been totally fine with this if it had been about 30 seconds shorter.
After it, Clark suddenly realizes he can fly, and after a few seconds of awkwardly floating through the air, he zooms right through Lionel, defeating Darkseid. The “big fight” was, in classic Smallville fashion, a bit of a let down, especially considering Oliver also defeats 3 of Darkseid’s most dangerous villains by shooting each of them with some special arrows at the same time. Fair enough, Smallville; I’ve come to expect this from you. I was prepared.
The Superman Clark then runs off to the Fortress of Solitude (as, remember, there IS still a giant planet plummeting into Earth), where zombie-Jonathan greets him with some kind words and the iconic suit. After some gibber jabber Clark flys off with the suit in hand, breaking through the roof of the fortress (probably because he puts on the suit at the same time, very impressive Clark, but focus on flying to avoid damages).
He then flys off to save Air Force One, which of course, Lois managed to get on. The amount of things Lois manages to pull of is so ridiculous and unrealistic, but this is Smallville, and she’s been doing it for about 5 seasons, so I won’t even comment on the irrationality.
So anyway, Clark, or well, I guess Superman at this point, saves the plane (a nice nod to the movies) and Lois, before pushing the giant planet away into space and curing all of Darkseid’s minions of their darkness. Quite a busy day for the guy who has spent most of the last 10 years losing his powers or flailing around on the floor with some kryptonite.
This is one of my biggest problems with the episode, not only do we never hear the name “Superman” said out loud, we also never really see Tom Welling in all his Superman glory. We get a couple close shots of his pretty face, and a bunch of far away shots that were probably CGI, but no money shots. After all these years, I wanted the money shot. I deserved the money shot.
So that’s it really, fast-forward 7 years and Clark and Lois are apparently still not married (what?), Lex Luthor is running for President, and Jimmy Olsen’s little brother grew up to look identical to him and now also has his old job. Not creepy at all. We do get a nice shot of Clark ripping open his shirt to reveal the Superman symbol at the end.
Like I said, I was satisfied with the finale. It had just enough to make keep me from being pissed, but fell short from what it could have been. In a perfect world I would have loved for Lex to be the bigger villain (Darkseid was wasted this season) and have a larger role, and also for the rest of the Justice League to make an appearance banding together to save the day. I know, the show wasn’t about the Justice League and the actors would have been tough to wrangle, but I’m talking about a perfect world here.
I guess in the end, I’m disappointed the most that Pete didn’t make a return. That probably would have fixed everything.
All-in-all, I’d like to thank Smallville for, at the very least, providing me with a show that kept my interest enough to tune in every week for the past 10 years. It was a fun ride no matter what happened in the end, and I wouldn’t take it back for anything. What were your thoughts? Please feel free to leave them in the comments below.