By John Keegan
Visit Critical Myth for an archive of John's TV Review archives, with more than 1100 entries.
The previous episode left “Smallville” with quite a few plot threads to resolve. First and foremost, Clark was once again punished for disobeying Jor-El’s wishes. One could have easily assumed (given the past several seasons) that the punishment would be incurred by Clark’s loved ones in a relatively direct fashion. Kara was left in the middle of nowhere with no memory of her true identity, and Gabriel Grant was apparently revealed to be Julian Luthor.
Initially, this episode seemed to ignore each and every question asked by “Blue”, focusing instead on a tedious plot involving Lois and Chloe. Thankfully, the writers had something far more interesting in mind. Lois and her ordeal with Adrian led into revelations about Gabriel and his true nature. Gabriel is actually a clone, created by Lex, and only the latest and most successful iteration from Project: Gemini.
Not only does that resolve the apparent continuity issues regarding Julian and his fate, it reinforces much of what was already established in terms of Lex’s psychological issues. Given the technology at his disposal, why wouldn’t Lex try to create a brother of his own? This is especially true given many of the elements of Project: 33.1, which also involved cloning.
More importantly, this may give the writers some inspiration for the future when it comes to Gabriel and his role on the show. With Lex in charge of the Daily Planet, where will Gabriel fit into that new status quo? Gabriel also ended the affair with Lois, which brings that disappointing plot thread to a close. I’ve been generally unhappy with Gabriel since his introduction, but this is a promising direction to take with the character.
Amidst the drama at the Daily Planet, Clark seems to return with new focus. Instead of pushing Lana to end her crusade against Lex, he offers to throw his complete support behind the effort. He takes particular interest in Project: Scion, previously revealed to be the study of a small portion of Brainiac. Before long, it’s quite clear that Clark is not himself, and it’s just a matter of waiting for the inevitable reveal.
Sure enough, Clark is actually Bizarro, who is presumably on a mission to restore Brainiac and wreak havoc. In a nice touch, Bizarro is also doing quite a bit to undermine Clark’s world, particularly in terms of his already-troubled relationship with Lana. Depending on how long Bizarro sticks around, Lana could be right back to her vendetta, complete with a new list of justifications. Lana’s dark side has been the one redeeming quality for the character this season, and if this continues in the direction it seems to be heading, that character shading should remain.
The general Christmas theme was basically disposable, beyond the connection to the Chloe/Jimmy dynamic, which was a nice progression of that subplot. In fact, the entire episode could have taken place on any day of the calendar with little or no change to the script. That makes sense, because the current state of the plot doesn’t quite allow for holiday sentiment. Instead, the writers focused on the right elements, and the episode is stronger as a result. |
