A Case of the.... Smallville - Episode 10-14

“I won’t even bother with the Chinese, because then I’d just sound racist.”

Other than a sassy but very likable Lois Lane, who else could get away with such a line?

So this episode of Smallville finally tackled that classic Superman/Clark Kent issue of how somebody could quite openly go out saving the world, without any facial disguise whatsoever, while plastering his actual picture on the front page of the Daily Planet – and nobody seems to notice the similarities. This was a delicate matter to bring attention to. Smallville tends to take a light hearted approach to these sorts of issues, but it’s also a crucial facet of the Superman story. The audience needs to believe the resolution – and they need to buy into it enough that they’ll accept it for the remainder of the series.

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Overall, I was happy with how it was handled. They hit it head on, with Lois bringing up the obvious point that the Blur is becoming a global phenomenon and there’s only so much all of them can do to protect his identity – especially when his staff photo is featured on each of his bylines, many of which are about the Blur. They also had one of the crime scene investigators touch upon the fact that Clark not only bears more than a striking resemblance to the Blur, but he also gets to many of the crime scenes before they do. They did a perfect job of establishing that Clark must do SOMETHING in order to protect his identity – and it must be done soon.

The next part was figuring out how he would go about doing this. One thing that disappoints me is that Clark didn’t bring up the fact that Lois’ propose disguise – adding a hood and sunglasses to his costume – was an exact match for Oliver’s Green Arrow outfit. And while I’m glad Clark acknowledged the fact that he won’t be able to see at night with sunglasses on, they haven’t quite explained how Oliver can.

And last week I commended Clark’s speech to Martha, really giving a distinct identity to “Clark Kent,” making the act of “hiding” himself somewhat cheap after growing to care for the character over the past decade. But mark Clark up for two rousing speeches in a row, as he did a wonderful job of explaining why “Clark Kent” needs to be the disguise. In order for the Blur to be a beacon of hope, he can’t be hidden behind a mask. It’s counterproductive to the positive message. And as he said, “Clark Kent” is just a name, there’s no reason why he can’t be himself as the Blur.

And while they didn’t quite go as far as to say that they’re still JUST glasses and that people should still be able to recognize him, they did go to the trouble of acknowledging that the disguise would only work if people would find it impossible to believe that Clark could possibly be a superhero.

Also, did the “Mr. and Mrs. Jones” dinner scene make anybody else think that we were watching Date Night? And I understand that Chloe has special kick ass abilities in the Matrix, but in real life she’s still just a little girl who has shown no fighting abilities whatsoever. Exactly how was she able to take on and overcome numerous federal agents at the same time? Lois could get away with that. MAYBE even Lana. But nothing has been established with Chloe.

Overall, though, it was nice to get back into the Darkseid portion of this season’s arc. The Vigilante Registration Act story has seemingly been resolved, and with rumors that Michael Rosenbaum won’t be returning at all this season (I hope this is a red herring), the Luthor story is at risk of ending in a disappointing manner. That places a fair amount on the Darkseid story to deliver, and while it’s been very entertaining thus far, it’s also been pretty slow. I enjoyed what we saw with Desaad, and I hope we move forward with this plot. I also hope we don’t have to wait until the final episodes to actually see and hear Darkseid. Again, you can’t hold off until the last episodes for all of these big moments. You risk spreading yourselves too thin.

While I wasn’t particularly surprised by the ending – that Oliver had been marked by the darkness – I thought it was a really cool scene. Since the end of the 8th season, I believe, Oliver has been a significantly dark and twisted character (I’m not entirely familiar with the actual comic book Green Arrow character, but he actually reminds me a lot of the morally ambiguous Batman). With Darkseid’s arrival being prefaced with this darkness story, Oliver is the ideal character to fall prey to these urges.